Published at 10th of April 2026 6:59 am

Chapter 1: Mawspawn

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Pain. Something bit again. Teeth sank in and tore free, heat following.

The creature didnt know what attacked it. Something squirmed in the dark, slick and stabbing against its skin. It couldnt see what it was. It couldnt see anything. The world closed in, blind and directionless, pain pressing from every side.

Things moved around it, dragging the creature along. It couldnt tell if it was crawling or being pulled. Limbs scraped across rough stone. Skin peeled off in strips, sticking and tearing as it slid, but the creature didnt cry out. Its throat was too raw and bloody, it had screamed too much already.

Another bite. Deeper this time. The creature lashed out, fingers catching something soft. Without waiting, it started tearing. Wet sounds followed, thick and close. Then something screamed.

The prey fought back, claws scraping its arm, but not for long. The first meal.

Everything was hunger down here. Hunger and hate. No thought. Only claws working, teeth grinding, and the thick scent of blood hanging in the air.

And somehow, after almost half a day, the thing was still alive.

Heat spread through its gut as it ate. The warmth pulsed outward, pushing through its limbs. Alive and urgent. Feed. That was its only instinct.

Pain shot through the creatures skull as the fire in its stomach climbed higher. Flame bloomed behind the eyes. It didnt know what it meant. But sight burned open.

All around, things writhed. Claws, teeth, and slime pressed in tight. A pit of mouths gnawing at each other. Bodies stacked with no space between them. A swarm of creatures just like it.

The ground wasnt stone or dirt. Beneath the mass of limbs and teeth, something soft gave way under its weight. Flesh. Pulsing and warm between its fingers, shifting as the swarm pressed in. They tore deeper. Chewed harder.

The mindless thing didnt know what it was. Just one of billions. Born crawling and starving. Filth among filth. The bottom of Hell.

Imps.

They were a natural function of the Maw, Hell's first layer.

Two feet tall if they stood up straight. They didnt. Most skittered low, spines bent wrong, limbs jerking as they moved. Leathery skin stretched tight over bone. Eyes like dying coals. Teeth like rusted nails jammed into black gums.

They didnt crawl from mothers. Had no fathers. They festered. Birthed from rot, hatred, and the leftover sludge of broken souls. No past or purpose beyond consumption and death.

They fought, fed, and died. That was the cycle. None made it past that. No thoughts or words came. Only screeches and biting.

Filth. Functionally dead. A decayed bloodline.

But none of them cared. They fed and clawed through whatever pressed close, bodies slamming together in the crush.

Odd, though. The imp shouldve already died. Half a day was long enough, yet this one still ate and fought, still bled as bodies piled around it.

The warmth in its gut had started to hurt. It spread past the stomach, pressing up into its chest, coiling tighter with each movement.

Something started to shift. A grinding, twisting pressure worked through its insides, as if it were being chewed from within. Each breath dragged against it. Each heartbeat tightened it further.

The sensation dragged and cut through its gut. Uneven. Jerking. It came in pulses that didnt match its own rhythm.

Biting through the arm of another imp clawing at its face, neither noticed the mound beneath them begin to swell. Skin pulled tight, stretching. Underneath, something churned. A pocket of blood and pus pushed upward, lifting them both. The swarm around them slid off or were forced back, their claws digging in as they pushed against the swelling mass.

Still atop the massive growth, pain ripped through the imp's tail. The other had clamped down and held.

Rage. Pain.

Feed!

The imp leapt onto its attacker just as the boil burst.

A jet of hot filth exploded, coating the pit in pus and steam. The air filled with rot. Imps screamed as their bodies broke down under the heated spray, flesh sloughing off as they dropped.

Then something shifted. The imp didnt have a word for it. Air moved across its skin. The ground was gone. The force of the blast threw it upward, body soaring through the black sky.

The other imp beneath had taken the full brunt, its body dissolving, wet scraps clinging to its claws.

Thrashing and groping at the air, the surviving imp's limbs flailed as its body twisted. But through all this, its mind stayed fixed on feeding, even as it spun.

Agony erupted as it crashed into a mound of rising flesh. The impact knocked the air from its lungs. Veins tangled around its limbs, tightening and dragging as it skidded across the bloodied surface.

Silence hit. The constant noise dropped away, leaving a dull pressure in its ears.

Just stillness as it lay there, limbs twitching against the soft ground. Chest heaving. Every part of it burned.

But it was quiet. For the first time since waking.

It didnt last.

The imp sprang to its feet. Its legs shook. Fire tore through its body, but it moved anyway, limping toward the spot it had landed. The smell of fresh blood from ruptured veins filled its nose, twisting its gut.

It dove in.

One claw ripped. The other, broken and useless, hammered down again and again. Teeth sank deep. Warmth crept back into it, easing the strain in its limbs.

It was alone.

The blast had dropped it into a hollow of living flesh, a pocket of stillness walled off from the swarm. Intestines coiled around it, twitching, slick with acid, sealing the space from the chaos beyond.

Nothing pressed in. Nothing reached for it or treated it like meat.

It fed without restraint or contest. Within that defiled hallow, time passed without measure. The broken claw knit itself back together, joining the work. Half-crippled. Alone. Standing atop a growing mound of meat.

The space stayed empty. The Maw shifted around it, but nothing came.

Only hunger.

And hurt.

----

Minutes? Hours? Days? It didnt know. All it knew was the food was gone, and it needed more. The mound of flesh had already rotted past consumption, the surface dry and flaking. Nothing left now but clumps of ash and bone.

The imp raised its gore-covered face, drawing in a long, slow breath. Hot steam curled between its teeth, carrying the stink of decay.

Something had changed.

The warmth. It moved differently now, settled deeper in its gut, no longer just feeding the urge to tear and bite. For the first time, the imp looked around. Its head turned slowly, body held still, eyes tracking instead of twitching.

It looked.

The imp didnt know what that meant. Didnt know how to process what it was doing, or what it was seeing.

The Maw stretched out in all directions, if direction meant anything here. Pits opened and closed. Folds of flesh shifted and sank. Bones jutted out of meat at sharp angles. Foul smoke hissed through splits in the tissue.

Flesh pulsed everywhere. Hair pushed up from the cracks in wet clumps. The sky hung low, black and slick, like oil. Somewhere far off, something exploded. Elsewhere, something screamed, the sound carrying through the air.

The ground shifted under its feet. The movement spread outward, rippling through everything around it. The Mawkept moving, tearing itself apart and rebuilding in the same motion.

This place didnt punish. It processed.

The imp didnt understand any of that. Just that its stomach tightened again. Hunger had returned.

Then...a sound.

It cut through the air. Not a bite. Not the tearing of flesh or a scream of agony. Something else, something new.

Freezing as it came again, the imp's body locked mid-motion, muscles tightening. The noise carried through the ground and into its chest. It stirred something low, and buried.

Curiosity. It had no word for it, but the pull was there. It leaned into the feeling, drawn forward in the same way hunger drove it to feed.

The imp dropped low and began to skitter forward, claws digging into slick flesh. It darted between folds of hanging meat, squeezing through clumps of hair slick with pus that dragged across its skin. Its movement stayed tight and controlled.

Along the way, it passed twitching mounds that pulsed without rhythm. Vents in the ground steamed and hissed, heat brushing against its legs. A wall of meat shivered nearby, covered in open, blinking eyes that tracked nothing.

The creature scrambled up a ridge, its claws slipping. Its grip failed, catching again as it climbed. It slid over the surface of a tumor that screamed as it passed, the sound vibrating through its feet, then it came to a stop.

There.

Another Imp, but different.

It stood more upright, its weight balanced. Arms thicker. Body broader. A crude weapon hung in its grip, bone and rust bound together with tendon.

It wasnt feeding. Its body faced outward, fixed on something ahead. A beast the imp didnt know, but its name surfaced without thought, carried by instinct and fear.

Carrion Hound.

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