Tingling pain roused Russell. Cold, he emerged from a sticky cocoon like a hatching larva. He'd awoken in damp darkness, encased in a foul-smelling substance that reminded him of stomach bile.

He felt disjointed, his mind separated from his body, but somehow still in control of his limbs. His hands smacked on cold stone, an uneven and rounded floor. Though the residue that held him captive was sticky, it broke into brittle dust.

Russ looked about. He crouched in a crude tunnel, hewn out by some unknown means. Ambient notes floated on the wind, strange noises haunting his ears, coming from outside and above the tunnel.

Where was he?

He scratched his chin trying to remember. Short beard stubble covered his face. He didn't have a beard. He seemed to recall having just shaved his chin clean. Yes. He'd gotten his mustache trimmed too, by a barber. Mr. McCrory's barber.

How long had he been encased in that cocoon? Must have been at least a few days, maybe more, given his facial hair growth.

How had he even gotten here? Where was here?

His mind struggled to remember, as the stench like infection and puss assaulted his nose.

Russ rubbed his eyes until he saw flashing stars inside his mind, trying hard to remember. He'd taken an uneventful trip up to the arctic north. It was his first assignment with his new employer, the Red Prince tycoon. Then they had rounded up a team of soldiers for something. No, not soldiers. Trappers. Mercenaries.

They were hunting a beast. No, an alien. A tendrilled feline creature. Images of a maw opening wide full of massive fangs chomping down on him flooded his mind. He reeled back, swatting his arms as if that would drive the nightmare memory away.

Then it all came back to him. The dive into the canyon. Revisiting the place he almost got eaten alive. The dogs offered as sacrificial bait. The beast emerging. The tracer planted, allowing them to follow until they found that cursed city.

The city.

Carcosa.

The name echoed in his head, unbidden, like another being spoke into his mind.

At the thought of the long dead city, Russ clutched his chest. The cold hollow metal reverberated as his knuckles struck it.

In Carcosa.

That was where he was. Somewhere beneath the city. He didn't know how or why he knew. He just knew.

Lost Carcosa.

And he had not wanted to find it. In fact, he remembered warning Sujin, on the verge of pleading with his new employer that they needed to leave, to flee. But the Red Prince had been intent on laying claim to the discovery. Russ had seen it in his eyes, heard the wonder in his voice, like a fly drawn to a charged light trap.

Trapped. Russ was trapped now because of Sujin's selfish, childish ambition to make everything his. He had no ship, no speeder, and no one. His breathing thickened, the air becoming harder to draw. Panic set in.

He backed into a rounded wall, crashing into more of the sticky substance.

He broke the fragile shell of another cocoon. A body tucked into the fetal position slid out onto the stone floor. It was Mr. Sujin McCrory, his employer. Russ almost didn't recognize him under the film of phlegm that covered his body, not to mention the fact that his hair was noticeably longer. His skin had turned a sickly yellow, as if covered in jaundice. Even through his clothing, Russ could see lumps protruding from the man's back and neck. One of his hands curled up, the whole arm contorted in an awkward angle. The hand itself appeared shrunken and mangled.

Unexplained revulsion gripped Russ. He backed away, eyes dancing between the tainted man on the floor, and the numerous other sacks of sticky substance affixed to the walls of the dark place, all around him.

Russ ran his hands over his neck and his back as far as he could reach, practically clawing himself. No foreign lumps to be found. And his skin appeared its normal color, as much as he could tell in the dim light that emanated from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

He stepped close to the man again, but could not muster up the courage to touch him. Was Sujin living or dead? Or something in between? Russ shuddered.

Why didn't his own body look like Sujin's?

Only one way to find out.

He moved down the tunnel to the next sack on the wall. Each was the same. This one was as good as any other. He drew his revolver and flipped it around so that he held the barrel, wielding it like a hammer. With a quick thrust he hammered the sticky sack. The cocoon shattered, and another body slipped out, sinking to the floor, a mercenary wrapped in the fetal position as well. All of the ailments that plagued Sujin's body showed upon the mercenary too, minus the mangled hand.

Why then did his own skin not reflect the sickly change that theirs did?

He clutched a fist to his chest, feeling the cool metal.

Russ was part machine now. A cyborg. Much of his upper half had been replaced by mechanical substitutes.

Curious, he dug through the translucent layer of phlegm covering the merc, ripped open the man's vest and shirt, inspecting his bare torso. A blackened lesion marred his chest, just above where his heart would be, inside his chest cavity. Dark blue veins webbed over yellow skin. Russ used the barrel of his gun to prod the spot. His gun caught on something. With careful precision he reached in and pulled out a barb with his fingertips. A scowl twisted his face as he checked the razor-edged thorn. Inspection revealed it had pierced through the body armor vest and the shirt too, before sinking into the merc's chest.

A groan behind him caused him to spin around, guns raised, heart pounding in his ice cold chest.

Sujin was trying to claw out of the phlegm and climb to his feet. A terrified gaze haunted the man's glowing amber eyes. He stood and fell, as if walking caused him great pain. All the while his groaning grew louder, escalating into a squeal of agony and despair. He writhed on the floor, and his back wriggled beneath his clothing, beneath the skin.

Russ stood frozen in place, unsure if he should run or try to help the man. The thing that had been Sujin crawled towards him on hands and knees, further damaging the once hand-tailored clothing. Its back contorted, until it let out a long howl. Tentacles exploded from the back and neck.

Russ opened fire out of pure reflex, showering the atrocity before him with gun blast after gun blast. With each fire, he backpedaled, almost running in reverse.

The Sujin that was not Sujin fell forward in a stumbling lunge, breaking open more cocoons in the process, setting the warped bodies inside free.

Russ himself backed into another sack, recoiled from it, and accidentally shattered yet another.

All around him bodies groaned on the floor as they underwent an abominable metamorphosis. He didn't have enough ammunition to blast them all.

Then without waiting to see if he killed any of the things, he spun on his heels and ran uphill, out of the tunnel, to try and lose the monsters in the sprawling city.