#hive corruption

It was just darkness, nothingness, stretching as far as the eye could see save for the little green wire he was precariously balanced upon. As he stared down at the wire, Edix noticed it was on fire. Little green flames licked his feet and up to his ankles but never quite climbing higher, as if they knew it wasn’t their job to engulf him. No, that duty lay waiting for something else, Edix feared, as he examined the flames. They almost reminded him of... of...

He couldn’t quite remember. It was on the tip of his tongue, feeling so close but he just couldn’t find the right word. How infuriating.

The flames suddenly fanned outwards, spreading from the wire across nothingness and zigzagging wildly, rapidly. Carving burning green lines into the darkness, spreading and spreading and burning brighter until sparks flew off and created smaller illustrations. Symbols, lines, all curving and spiraling around Edix until he realised where he stood. A large circle, filled with crisscrossing and overlapping lines - a ritual circle. Then the lines danced vertically in four directions opposite Edix, climbing and climbing until they reached what was presumably the ceiling (or the top of his prison) and met in the center of that surface too. Candles lit themselves, or what Edix assumed to be candles, with the same sickening green that surrounded him.

Now he knew what this reminded him of. It was so obvious, so plain to see that even the dullest Titan could understand it.

The Hive.

But how? How could he possibly be here? How was he not dead? That was a better question, one that filled Edix with worries and doubts and paranoia as a chill zipped down his spine, rooting him to the spot. Fear. It curled in his gut, extending a cold clawed hand upwards into his rib cage and gripping his heart, sharp nails digging in. He was petrified, but at the same time he was... intrigued. The Hive didn’t take prisoners, so was he even as such? Perhaps in human terms he was, but to the Hive he was here with a purpose. They might be merciless murderers, but everything they did was with some form of reason. Somewhere in Edix’s mind the words sword logic made themselves known, but he shoved that away - now wasn’t the time to consider how this played into that logic.

Edix dared move his foot forwards an inch, understanding now that he hadn’t been stood on a thin green wire at all, rather on a floor so black it had looked like a pit. Whispers suddenly picked up around him in a foreign tongue, making the Warlock stand straight and move his foot back into place. They subsided into silence again. Interesting.

The flames flared suddenly, making Edix almost stumble in fright. They grew brighter, and the ones around his feet licked him hungrily and began to climb at last. It had been their job after all, just not yet. They climbed and grew and burned brighter but Edix felt no pain. No, they just crawled up his frame until they reached his mouth. Then it started to hurt as they touched his skin, his robes unscathed but his skin by god did it burn as they climbed up his neck, his jaw, then to his mouth. Then, inside. Oh, how it scalded, how it hurt, wrenching screams from him that were extinguished by the emerald fire that clambered eagerly inside him. Edix could feel them sliding down his throat and settle into his chest, falling to his knees and clasping at the space over his heart. It burned, it burned! A pathetic wheeze left him as he tried to scream again, tears flowing from his eyes as he began to panic. Hands scrabbling at his chest as if to try and claw the fire out manually, chest spasming as he choked before suddenly an intense calm washed over him.

What now? He thought, chest stilling and hands dropping to his sides. Edix’s head tilted back, face raising towards the ceiling as if looking up at a deity. No more pain graced him, all of it numbing as he felt the flames work behind his eyes. It almost tickled. The blue was replaced with the sickening green of the Hive, the sclera flooding green and, with a slick squelch, a luminous green third eye opened on his forehead and blinked slowly at the darkness. Edix remained calm still as the same tickling sensation worked its way down to his hands where not just his nails but the whole of his fingers slowly elongated into claws, the thick hide of the Hive covering them and working up to just a short way past his wrist as if he’d merely dipped his hand in paint.

There was a short, brief searing pain that travelled down his face, making him flinch but only for a second. Three thick lines passed down the soft skin of the Awoken from his eyes to his jaw, travelling further down the neck of his robes and down his body. It felt like silk crawling across his skin. It was all green.

The pain subsided as quickly as it came and Edix closed his eyes. A cool air embraced him as he waited for his blessing to be finished with. From his forehead, just above his temples, steadily grew bony horns that curled backwards at angles. Two great horns, thick and gnarled like a Knight’s, but curling downwards rather than upwards and branching just a little. Sharp teeth grew, making his gums bleed and splitting his jaw wider than it should ever be allowed to go with his physiology. At last, he was complete. A hand emerged from the darkness, and Edix opened his eyes and focused them. His deity, his god, emerged and stroked a massive claw, gently, down his cheek.

“At long last, you are ready. Embrace thy wyrm, embrace thy renewed purpose, little one. You shall be their destruction, their downfall. The marking my son blessed upon you during your brief encounter ensured this day would come. Now go forth, o little Wyrm of Mine, and taint their Light.”

Edix woke with a start, gasping and sweating as he sat up in bed. Tears began to spill from his eyes, a hand going over his mouth to stifle the sobs that left him. That had been the third time this week he’d had a dream like that. It’d felt so real, so visceral. He could still feel the gentle caress of a gargantuan claw down his face, shuddering as Oryx’s touch plagued him for a short while until the phantom sensation faded. Edix hadn’t even been part of the team who took the Taken King down, how could he possibly know the sound of his voice? The feeling of his touch?

It had only been a dream, he reassured himself as he got up and moved around. Just a dream. As he passed the mirror, he glanced at himself to reaffirm he remained unchanged. But as he passed, for a split second, he caught a flash of green in his own eyes and flinched away.