Under The Skin Black Void Novels & Stories

"They are alive, but they are empty. The Void took everything from them. Their magic, their strength, even their shadows." ​Before Dave could respond, a low, guttural vibration hummed through the ground, vibrating in their very teeth. It was a sound that defied anatomy—a wet, slithering noise that sounded like shifting oil. From the dense mist surrounding the village perimeter, they emerged. ​The Void Stalkers. ​They were horrific to behold—great, towering masses of pitch-black, viscous liquid that seemed to defy gravity. They didn't walk; they surged forward like a living tide of ink, their elongated limbs forming and dissolving with every movement.

The voice from the darkness was a hook in my soul, reeling us forward into the chill. We stepped through the false wall, our single flashlight beam cutting a pathetic swath through the profound black. It fell upon bones. Not neatly stacked, but piled, heaped, a jumbled sea of femurs, skulls, and rib cages that filled a cavernous space from the slimy floor to the shadowed vault of the ceiling decades above. The Ossuary. The collective remains of centuries of Blackwood pack, their final energy a silent, heavy blanket that smothered the air and muted the magic in my blood to a faint, dying whisper.

I moved through and blindly, I collided against someone, my hands laying on her two boobs just in time, preventing a total collision. Sharply, I withdrew my hand and looked up to see a woman who should be in her late 40’s. She had her head scraped, leaving her hairless just like Ruto. She had the tattoo of a dragon on her arm, an art that makes her look rebellious. Jagged, a scar cut on her skin, running from her head, darting through her left eye brow and stopped below her eyes which made me wonder what kind of animal or weapon marked her face at such a delicate area.

"If anything comes out that isn't us, burn it to the ground. Elara... let's go see what your shadow has to say." As they stepped into the pitch-black entrance of the Black-Site, the doors hissed shut behind them, shutting out the wind and light. In the darkness, the clicking ceased. "We are one," a thousand voices whispered from the vents. "We are the Void. We are the Synthesis that failed."

"The Sisters are the echo of every wolf who was ever cast out. These bones are their choir. They don't breathe with lungs; they breathe with the Void." On the Altar of the Unborn, Selene stood like a dark icon. Her skin was the color of polished salt, her silver hair flowing upward as if gravity were a concept she had discarded along with her humanity. In her hand, she held the Void-Heart. It was a horrific, biological thing—a pulsing, black-glass organ that hummed with a low-frequency thrum that I felt in my very teeth.

A third part is trying to remember how to breathe. Worse. My body… it itches. Deep inside. Under the skin. A horrible, crawling dissolution. I look down. My fingers… they’re blurring. Fading at the edges. Tiny motes of darkness, like ash, drift from my skin. Void-energy. Unmaking me from the inside out. The cost of the cage. The sacrificial focus. Bearing the brunt so the Child doesn’t have to bear it all.

Like he was trying to make it easier for me. I looked at him. Really looked at him. His body was already giving up. His skin looked thin, almost like it was clinging to his bones. Dark lines ran under it, moving slowly like something alive inside him. His blood… it wasn’t even normal anymore. It was black, thick, and dead.

It was a heavy, desperate thud. "Elara," Vane’s voice came through the wood, sounding strained. "Open the door. There’s something I didn't tell you about the Void. Something that starts happening after the first hour." Elara looked at her hands. The violet light was gone. In its place, her skin was starting to crack, revealing a hollow, glowing abyss beneath her flesh.

From her empty eye sockets, a black, oily fluid constantly dripped. Her nails, long and black, were bent at a sickening angle, ready to break the neck of the living soul before her. 【Comment 1: It’s her! The Drowned Wraith! Her illusion makes you feel like you’re drowning for real!】 【Comment 2: Just look at her! That bloated skin, the empty eyes… just two black holes! My anxiety is going through the roof!】 【Comment 3: That black ooze is concentrated hatred. Touch it and it’s game over.】 【Comment 4: RIP newbie.】

Everything about her appearance was designed for maximum impact. She was the kind of woman who turned heads just by stepping into a room, the kind whose presence made others sit up straighter. And right now, she had a rough idea, a very rough idea, why she was here. Vanessa removed her sunglasses with a classiness that needed to be studied, revealing her shade of brown Hawthorne eyes. Her assessing gaze flicked from Zander to Kallista. A soft smirk played on her lips, but there was nothing warm about it.