Kauro held his knife out at the approaching creatures. It really was hopeless wasn't it? The were screwed from the moment that they used that damned app. They wandered into eldritch territories, ignorant of the grander powers at play and were going to pay the price with blood. The monsters just kept getting closer and closer, and then there was nothing, but white before him. 

Was he dead? He looked around his new strange surroundings, the first thing he did was look up to see if there an end to the borderless white only to see a star filled night sky above him. From his periphery, he noticed that not only the kids with him from earlier were with him, but other poor saps that he did not recognize as well, no doubt attacked by the aberrations of this world. The strangest thing though was not this place's appearance or the people he was pulled in with, but the thing that resided in the void. 

Just like the rest this crap sack world, there was another humanoid creature with them. It was a young girl though with all manner of segments and crevices along her joints just like a marionette and yet had the strange uncanniness of a porcelain doll. Every movement she made was followed by a metallic clicking and jingling, very different from the monsters that they encountered earlier. Nothing about this thing was human though it sure had a sick, macabre sense of humor. It giggled and teased them for the impending doom and yet coyly vague of what it was even talking about. 

And then it mentioned salvation. Of course it was just as vague, but he got the gist though with no warning  an immediate wave of uncontrollable panic and dread washed over him. Fear prompted by that damned doll, but it was not of death, at least on its own. There were worst things than death. Something like that is what an edgy anime character would say and be reiterated by some fourteen year old on the internet. It was another platitude.

Living a pointless life and then dying an equally pointless death, however, was another thing entirely.

Followed was the sensation of something inside trying to get out literally. Kauro could feel something slithering inside him like cold snakes, bulging against his skin trying to escape. Black branches erupted from his back in a never ending flow. Kauro screamed as he felt like his insides were being ripped from the inside to the outside for the world to see. The end of result was a mass of black branches with a strange texture similar to wrought iron floating in the air. The mass then began to move, cracking and twisting to give itself form. 

Kauro watched, exhausted and panting, until what stood behind him was a towering monstrosity, blacker than any darkness and more decrepit and foul. It was a gangling beast with long, branch like limbs and ten abnormally long humanoid fingers though had the feet of a bird. This thing had no real torso except for its visible rib cage made from those branches and the crooked, jagged spine that connected it and its head to the rest of its body. It had wings that on first glance that had feathers, but one could tell that they were not real. They looked like they were carved and welded from metal. The creature had no recognizable facial features save for its raven like beak. 

It slouched and tilted its head downwards to look at the creature, opening its beak to show rows of human teeth and a sharp tongue that slid out and slouched on the side. 

[color=7ea7d8]"How ugly,"[/color] Kauro said smiling at the creature, patting its beak. He did not pretend to understand what it was though he felt a strange connection to it.