The wind was gone. No fire. No screams. Just the low creak of his boots against scorched stone and a soundless weight pressing in on all sides. Doomslayer stood motionless beneath the dome of a massive cavern, lit only by flickers of green fire embedded in the walls like dying stars. The air smelled of sulfur and something older—eggshell rot and ancient blood.

The nest spanned for what felt like miles, carved into the mountain’s roots. Towering obsidian pillars rose between grotesque weavings of bone and black sinew, and in every pocket of space... eggs. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Each one as tall as the Slayer himself, their cracked, veined shells pulsing faintly with demonic life.

No adults. Not a trace. No claw marks in the dust, no distant screeches echoing through the hollow tunnels. Just silence—and eggs. Some shifted slightly, as if the things inside could feel him. Smell him.

He tightened his grip on the shotgun.

Crunch.

He paused.

He looked down—beneath his boot, a small, broken eggshell. Not hatched. Shattered from the outside. And it was cold.

He stepped back.

Crunch.

Another. Not just broken. Crushed. He scanned the floor—bits of crushed eggs littered the ground like bones beneath a butcher’s table. The Slayer raised his gaze slowly.

A wall of eggs pulsed ahead of him... then went still. As if holding their breath.

And deeper in the nest, from the black, a sound. Low, wet... like breath through torn lungs.

The Slayer didn’t move. Not out of fear, but instinct.

This place wasn't abandoned.

It was watching.