The Gore #5 – Curse of Oath - 1685 - The small room was heavy with the bitter smoke of burning opium, curling like a ghost in the flickering candlelight. A boy, barely twelve, sat slouched against the cracked plaster wall, eyes glazed and distant as the drug took hold. His fingers shook as he lifted the pipe again, chasing the fleeting calm the poison promised. Outside, the city murmured under the weight of the desert night. Inside, harsh footsteps echoed from the kitchen. His mother’s face was drawn tight with worry and rage — a storm forged by years of hardship and broken hopes. She saw the boy lost to the smoke, fading before her eyes. “Enough,” she snapped, voice rough and low. “This ends tonight.” Her hand closed around a heavy pan, and she struck. The boy flinched, but she did not stop. The blows were desperate, raw — not with hatred, but with a broken kind of love twisted by despair. When silence finally fell, the boy lay still. The mother’s chest heaved, tears burning in her eyes as the weight of what she'd done crushed her. Days later, the guards came. Her wild eyes met theirs, haunted and hollow, as they took her away to the city’s dungeons — a punishment for a moment born of pain and loss. The dungeon was a cavernous tomb beneath the city, buried deep within the ancient stones of Cairo’s forgotten underbelly. Its air hung thick and foul, a suffocating blend of dampness, rot, and the iron tang of old blood long dried into the cracked floors. Every breath felt heavy, as if inhaling the weight of centuries of suffering pressed down by the cold, unyielding stone walls. Narrow shafts of dim torchlight barely pierced the oppressive darkness, flickering weakly against the rough-hewn walls. The flames sputtered and guttered, casting monstrous shadows that writhed like restless ghosts, twisting into grim shapes that seemed to leer and reach from the darkness itself. The torchlight revealed nothing but endless rows of rusted iron bars, behind which lay broken bodies and shattered souls. The floors were slick with grime, mixed with the ever-present puddles of stagnant water that dripped relentlessly from unseen cracks in the ceiling. Each droplet echoed sharply, a cruel reminder of the silence, broken only by the faintest of sounds—chains dragging, muffled sobs, and the low, ragged breaths of those trapped within. In one corner, rats scurried, their eyes gleaming like tiny coals in the dark, feasting on scraps discarded without care. Their sharp claws scratched against stone, a constant, maddening noise that grated on nerves already stretched thin by hunger and despair. The prisoners themselves were shadows, gaunt and hollow-eyed, their skin pale or mottled with bruises and sores from the cruel torments inflicted to break both body and spirit. Some whispered prayers to gods long abandoned or cursed with bitter blasphemy; others sat in silence, rocking back and forth like broken things. Their chains rattled with the slightest movement, biting into wrists and ankles raw from the ceaseless wear. The air was so thick that it seemed to cling to the skin, making every movement sluggish, every heartbeat a reminder of the slow suffocation of hope. The scent of sweat, fear, and decay hung like a shroud over the entire place, an invisible fog that suffocated the will to live. Occasionally, the heavy iron door at the far end creaked open, releasing a brief rush of fresher air—tainted with the scent of burning oil and the faint echo of distant voices. Guards in worn leather armor would trudge in, their faces hardened and indifferent, their steps echoing like ominous drumbeats. Their presence meant punishment, interrogation, or worse. A cry might break the silence—a sudden, sharp sound of pain that echoed and then was swallowed by the darkness once more. The walls, slick with moisture, bore the scars of countless desperate attempts to escape—scratches and gouges etched deep into the stone, fading testimonies to broken dreams and shattered wills. Ancient symbols, half-erased by time, seemed to watch silently, as if the very dungeon itself were a living entity feeding on despair. Time held no meaning here. Days blurred into nights, nights into endless voids of suffering. The prisoners counted moments by the drip of water, the flicker of torch flames, or the changing shadows on the walls—small anchors in a sea of eternal torment. And yet, beneath the crushing weight of darkness and misery, faint flickers of rebellion stirred—quiet murmurs of defiance that dared to rise above the howling void. For even in the depths of this hellish pit, the human spirit clung stubbornly to a fragile thread of hope, fragile but unbroken. The cold dungeon swallowed her whole, darkness clutching at her skin like a thousand damn claws. She knelt on the rough stone floor, wrists chafed raw from unforgiving chains. Around her, the walls wept with centuries of sorrow, and the air was thick with the bloody stench of rot and broken souls. The guards circled like vultures, eyes burning with cruel fire. One stepped forward, spitting out every word with venom. “You miserable Daguro, think you’re clever, don’t you? Hell, you’re nothing but a stinking Wrefo with no place in this damn hellhole.” She raised her gaze, defiant despite the cold bite in her bones. “Ulkas, that’s what you are—filthy and useless.” A rough hand shoved her roughly to her knees again. “Don’t think your damn tears soften us, you damn Daguro. The King’s mercy doesn’t bleed in this pit, and neither will yours.” Her voice was cracked but fierce. “I did what I had to, you Ulkas.” The guard sneered, stepping closer so his foul breath assaulted her face. “Had to, she says? You’re the damn Wrefo that broke your own boy. Not a mother, just a hell-bent killer. You’ll rot here with the other Daguro and Hankul, and the worms will feast on your bloody soul.” She spat at his boots, the taste bitter but her spirit unbroken. “Better to be a Wrefo than a blind Ulkas like you, choking on your own damn cruelty.” More guards laughed, voices dripping with contempt and scorn. “You think this place is hell? You don’t know hell until you’ve danced with us, you damn Daguro. Chains, blood, pain—we dish it out like holy damn sermons.” “Your son’s blood stains your Wrefo hands forever. This hell will be kinder than your own damn guilt.” Her body ached from the chains, the blows, the endless torment. Yet somewhere deep, a fire flickered—damn stubborn and unyielding as the walls that caged her. The guards barked again, insults flying fast as the cold drip of damn water from the stone. “Get up, you damn Ulkas. No rest for Daguro scum in this hell. Move or we’ll drag you by your Wrefo hair.” She gritted her teeth, aching, broken, but damned if she’d bow to these hellspawn. The dungeon was a pit of endless damnation, a place where hope died slow and quiet. No showers to wash away the dirt and grime, no brushes to tame the rats’ nests of tangled hair. The air hung thick with the stench of sweat, rot, and the sharp bite of despair. Her skin was caked with filth, mixed with dried blood and soil from the damp floor. Each day was a brutal trial — the only food shoved before her was a foul mess of dead worms and earth, barely enough to keep the slow gnaw of hunger at bay. The guards prowled the shadows like hell’s own hounds, their voices dripping venom. “Listen up, you damn Shangu,” one barked, “Eat up, you damn Grouta, before I make you beg like the Rodokon you are.” The insults cut like knives, but she kept her silence, knowing that any word might bring more punishment. The endless hunger, the unbearable filth, and the cruel curses—these were her only companions. Months passed like a nightmare with no dawn. Her body grew weaker, bones pressing against skin stretched tight from starvation. No tears came anymore—only the hollow quiet of a soul trapped deep in hell. When the end finally came, it was as quiet as the dungeon itself—no prayers, no last words, just the fading breath of a woman broken by a world made of damnation, worms, and curses. This was not the last time a mother felt the same, though… July, 1872 - The summer heat did little to ease the gloom inside the cramped London tenement. Eight-year-old Thomas sat trembling in a shadowed corner, a small leather pouch clutched in his thin fingers. The needle, crude and rusted, glinted faintly in the dim light as he hesitated, then pressed it to his arm. The heroin burned through his veins like fire, dulling the ache of hunger and cold. His wide eyes fluttered shut, surrendering to the cruel escape. But when his mother, Mary, came home, the sight set something dark loose inside her. Rage mixed with fear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you damn brat?” she spat, grabbing him roughly by the collar. Thomas barely resisted as she dragged him to the floor, fists raining down with desperate fury. Her blows were fierce, fueled by a lifetime of hardship and shame. “You’re ruining us both,” she snarled between strikes. Neighbors heard the chaos, and soon the authorities were called. The scene they found was grim—Thomas bruised and sobbing, Mary wild-eyed and defiant. At the trial, Mary’s violent act and the boy’s addiction sealed her fate. The judge’s voice was cold and unyielding. “For the safety of your son and the community, you are sentenced to life imprisonment.” Mary’s world crumbled as the gavel fell, the weight of her punishment as harsh as her own hands had been. Mary was thrust into the cold, damp confines of the prison, the heavy iron door slamming shut behind her with a finality that echoed down the stone corridors. The air was thick with the stench of sweat, mold, and despair. Her cell was narrow and bare—rough stone walls, a thin straw mattress on a wooden pallet, and a single iron bucket in the corner for water. Each day was regimented and grueling. The guards allowed only two brushings of teeth—morning and evening—with coarse, shared brushes that did little to mask the sour breath that filled the crowded halls. Showers were a rare luxury, permitted only once a week, and even then, the water was icy cold, barely enough to rinse away the grime and sweat that clung to every inch of her skin. Meals were meager and monotonous: watery gruel, stale bread, and occasionally thin soup that did little to stave off hunger. Cleanliness was a forgotten concept—lice and vermin scuttled freely, and the cold stone floors were often slick with filth. Sleep came fitfully, broken by the distant shouts of other prisoners and the ceaseless clanging of iron chains. Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months. The isolation and squalor gnawed at Mary’s spirit as surely as her sentence chained her body. July, 1892 — The outskirts of a remote village in India, a moonless night. The air hung thick with the stench of burnt resin and wet earth, damp and clinging like a shroud over the cracked dirt road. Lanterns flickered weakly against the brittle wooden walls of the cartel’s hidden compound — a ramshackle maze of huts and tents surrounded by a thicket of thorny bushes and razor wire. Inside the main hut, smoke curled upward in slow, lazy spirals, suffocating the cramped room in a haze that clung to skin and clothes like a damn curse. Around a scarred wooden table, men sat huddled in silence, eyes bloodshot and fingers twitching with restless hunger. A small boy, no older than twelve, knelt on the floor, clutching a crude pipe made of bone and hollow reed. His lips trembled as he raised it to his mouth, inhaling the harsh, bitter smoke — the opium burning deep in his lungs, spreading a sluggish haze through his veins. His eyes glazed over, distant and unseeing, the weight of the poison dragging him beneath the surface of himself. “Damn hell, you’re slow, Wrefo,” barked a thick-voiced man from across the table. His words cut like a whip through the smoky gloom. “You want to crawl or burn alive? Get that pipe moving, or we’ll burn you ourselves.” The boy swallowed hard, coughing and choking, trying to obey the man’s cruel demand. His small hands shook as he passed the pipe to the next in line — a man with scars crisscrossing his neck like a roadmap of damnation. Outside, the low murmur of voices and the occasional sharp crack of a whip echoed through the compound. The cartel’s enforcers prowled the shadows like hell’s own hounds, eyes glinting with merciless hunger for control. A crate of freshly processed heroin sat nearby — pure white powder in small bundles, wrapped in oilskin and stamped with the cartel’s sigil: a serpent coiled around a burning skull. One of the older men spat on the floor. “Damn this cursed life,” he growled. “We’re just slaves to the needle and the King’s greed. Burn in hell if you don’t feed the dragon, you die.” The boy’s mother sat silently in the corner, her face a mask of stone — exhaustion, fear, and bitter regret etched deep into her skin. She dared not speak, dared not cry. The cartel’s wrath was cold and brutal; mercy was a myth in this godforsaken place. As the night stretched on, the haze deepened, the line between pain and pleasure blurred in the burning fire of addiction and despair. The room reeked of sweat and stale smoke, the heavy air thick with tension. Jagged shards of cracked glass glinted on the floor, catching the flicker of a dying candle. A needle, stained rusty-brown, lay on a battered wooden table, next to a small tin of crushed white powder — heroin, pure and deadly. The boy’s hands trembled as he scooped up the powder with a small metal spoon, his eyes glassy but sharp with desperation. A vein on his forearm throbbed beneath thin skin, pulsing like a live wire waiting to be pierced. His breath hitched as he tied a filthy strip of cloth tightly above his elbow, the pressure ballooning his vein like a swollen snake. He pressed the needle’s tip against the skin, cold and sharp, and with a harsh, ragged breath, plunged it in. A sudden sting flared — a hot, burning pain that rippled beneath the surface, dragging sharp fire through his veins. His muscles tensed, fists clenched tight as the venom spread, and then—almost immediately—the agony dissolved into a hollow calm. The world tilted, colors bled and blurred. His vision tunneled, the rough edges of the room melting into a soft haze. A slow, cruel smile cracked his lips — the pain was gone, replaced by a cold, crushing weight that pressed down on his chest, squeezing out all feeling but the desperate need for more. Around him, voices whispered like ghosts, cruel and mocking. The boy’s mind spun, caught in the brutal pull of the drug’s grip — a savage, merciless force dragging him deeper into the abyss. Street lamps flickered weakly, casting long shadows over cracked sidewalks where the wind whispered secrets of lives snuffed out too soon. Somewhere, a distant siren wailed—an echo of a world unraveling piece by piece. In the narrow alleys of the city’s heart, a chill clung to the air. Doors slammed shut hastily; faces blurred behind grimy windows. News traveled like a silent poison—another body found beneath the half-collapsed bridge, skin pale and cold, eyes staring into nothing. Across borders and oceans, the same quiet desperation grew. Cities once vibrant were now ghostly shells, their streets filled with the weight of unseen deaths and unheard cries. Each nation held its own collection of shadows: whispers of vanished neighbors, stories left unfinished. Among the living, fear wasn’t loud—it was a low hum beneath every step, a steady reminder that safety was a brittle illusion. The streets were littered with reminders of the fragile thread between life and oblivion—discarded belongings, wilted flowers, and the faint scent of smoke. But even in this quiet decay, the city pulsed with a strange heartbeat—a stubborn hope that maybe, just maybe, the dawn would come again. Deep inside a vast, shadowy cave system somewhere in the deserts of Qatar, 1934. The explorers—Dr. Evelyn Hart, a British archaeologist; Major Samuel Kincaid, a tough former soldier; and Faisal Al-Mansur, a local guide and historian—are gathered around a flickering lantern, the only light source in the cavernous darkness. Outside, the desert wind howls faintly. Evelyn: (Examining a weathered wall covered in strange, faded markings) “These inscriptions... they’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Not purely Arabic, not entirely hieroglyphic either. Some sort of fusion. Almost as if the writers were trying to preserve something sacred, but... hurriedly.” Faisal: (Running his fingers gently over the marks) “Yes. My grandfather spoke of these caves. They called them ‘The Whispering Tombs.’ Said they held the secrets of a world lost—before the sands swallowed their cities. No one dared go near for generations.” Kincaid: (Sharpening his knife on a stone, glancing at both) “Secrets and whispers. Sounds like superstition. But superstition usually comes from fear. What exactly are we afraid of down here?” Evelyn: (Frowning) “That’s the question, isn’t it? What happened to the cities outside? The reports we received from the last caravan—they spoke of ghost towns, with entire populations vanished or dead. Disease? War? Something else?” Faisal: “I’ve heard stories passed down. My tribe says it was ‘The Great Silence’—an event where voices, people, and hope vanished overnight. The sky turned strange, the rivers dried up, and death became a constant shadow. Some say it was punishment for forgotten sins.” Kincaid: (Grimly) “Punishment or not, there’s evidence of violence. We found scorched earth near the old trade routes. Rusted weapons, abandoned camps. People must have fought to survive. Or fled.” Evelyn: (Nods) “The inscriptions seem to mention a plague, but they describe it almost like a curse. ‘The Breath of Ulkas,’ they called it. An unseen force that rots the spirit before the body. Could it have been a disease, or something worse?” Faisal: “It’s said the ‘Breath of Ulkas’ was carried by the wind—deadly and relentless. None who inhaled it lived. The elders believed it was the breath of the desert itself, punishing those who disrespected the land.” Kincaid: “Sounds like a good excuse for a natural disaster or an epidemic. But what about the strange artifacts we found—the metal tools coated in a black residue, the strange vials with unknown liquids? This was no ordinary plague.” Evelyn: (Leaning in, voice hushed) “Exactly. Some kind of chemical or biological weapon, maybe. Or an experiment gone wrong. The timing lines up with the stories about secret laboratories in the area—long forgotten now, buried beneath sand and secrecy.” Faisal: (Looking unsettled) “My people never spoke openly about those labs. Only warnings to stay away. ‘Shangu, Grouta, and Rodokon’—words whispered to curse the land and those who trespass. Perhaps they were the names of those weapons, or of those who wielded them.” Kincaid: “Or the names of those damned enough to survive.” Evelyn: (Softly) “If so, they paid a terrible price. Look here.” (She shines the lantern on a faded drawing—figures writhing in agony, eyes hollow, hands clutching their throats.) “This looks like a depiction of the plague’s victims. People convulsing, struggling to breathe... or perhaps fighting off possession.” Faisal: “Possession? You mean spirits?” Evelyn: “Or madness. The writings suggest hallucinations, voices driving people to destruction. Which might explain the sudden, violent deaths.” Kincaid: “I don’t buy spirits, but the mind can be as deadly as any poison. Fear, isolation... they break men faster than bullets.” Faisal: (Sighing deeply) “And what of the mother? The story my grandmother told me was of a woman who lost everything—her son taken by the ‘Breath,’ and in grief, she was beaten and locked away for defiance. She was said to have survived in chains, but only barely.” Evelyn: “We found remains in one chamber—an old woman, bones fractured in many places, signs of starvation and abuse. Could be her. If so, her punishment was as brutal as the plague itself.” Kincaid: (Nods grimly) “It’s a harsh world when grief is met with chains. But who would imprison a grieving mother in the midst of chaos?” Faisal: “The rulers. Or the zealots. Some believed the disease was punishment for sinners, and those who defied their laws were cast aside—left to rot underground, forgotten.” Evelyn: “This place is a tomb, but also a testimony. To fear, cruelty, and despair. But it’s also a warning. We must understand it, or risk repeating the same horrors.” Kincaid: (Looking toward the cave’s dark mouth) “And what do we do when we leave here? Report the truth? Or bury it deeper, like those who came before us?” Faisal: “Truth is a double-edged sword. It can free, or it can destroy. But silence will only make the desert’s breath grow colder.” Evelyn: “Then we tell the story—carefully, honestly. For those who listen, and for those who come after.” (The three sit in silence, shadows flickering as the wind outside grows stronger, the desert waiting silently to swallow their voices once more.)