Dragon Age Origins: I Am Cousland

Chapter 23: The Dead Trenches

Silence crept down the corridors and eerie whispers surrounded us, I looked around the walls weren't made entirely out of stone, it was meaty and fleshy, my stomach flipped and I felt bile rise in my throat. My heart felt like it was going to bust out of my chest, it was as if something was building to a climax.

"First day they come and catch everyone." A gravelly female voice echoed around us, seeming to come from all sides as if someone or something was in the walls. 

"Hello? Leliana called out, unsheathing her daggers and looking around carefully.

"This is madness!" Morrigan grumbled, glaring over at me with her staff at the ready. 

We walked slowly down the hall, the floor was now becoming fleshy and every step we took the ground squished underneath our feet. I shivered and looked over at Alistair who was looking at the floor carefully.

"This can't mean anything good," Alistair joked weakly, looking around him and studying. 

"Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat." The voice called out again, I looked over at Cullen who was looking around nervously for someone, just like the rest of us.

I shivered and wrapped my hand around my daggers and we progressed forwards, moving silently.

"Third day, the men are all gnawed on against," She whispered in a monotone voice, unchanging from the rest of the eerie poetry. 

"Fourth day, we wait and fear our fate." The voice became louder, "Fifth day, they return and it's another girls turn." She said, I glanced over at Alistair.

"Darkspawn want girls?" I asked, Alistair shuddered and shook his head quickly as if not wanting to think of what I was asking. 

"Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams." Her voice cracked with either fear or sadness, I couldn't tell which emotion.

"Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew." The recitation became quicker.

"Eighth day, we hated as she was violated." As we listened darkspawn jumped out of what seemed like the ground, swinging quickly. I grabbed my bow and loosed an arrow into the chest of an emissary that was attacking from a distance and threw my daggers into the leg on a hurlock, earning a scream as it fell and pulled the dagger from it's thigh. 

My eyes widened as the monster charged at me, even after a dagger through the leg. I jabbed one of my arrows into it's eye and my other dagger into it's chest quickly. The others had dispatched the genlocks and were watching the hurlock I stabbed plop against the ground, I quickly grabbed my dagger and jogged down the corridor, we went through a door which opened into tunnels of meaty and bloody walls, sacs of the flesh were dotting the walls, I gagged again, it was getting worse. 

"Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin." The voice said sadly and painfully. we walked through another door which opened into a large room, "Now she does feast, as she's become the beast." She said softly, we walked slowly down steps and in the corner a deformed dwarven woman was bent over the fleshy ground, picking at it and twitching.

She stood up slowly when she was aware of our presence, turning around, twitching with her head turned to the side staring at us. 

"What is this? Someone new? Impossible." She struggled and looked down at the ground, holding her arm. "Feeding time brings only kin and clan, I am cruel to myself, you are a dream of strangers faces and open doors." She said, her eyebrows knitting together. 

I looked over at Alistair, "Is this darkspawn corruption? It looks... different." I said slowly, studying the woman who was still standing there, twitching.