Chapter 6: The Second Offering

Chapter 6: The Second Offering

The gnawing hunger was a constant companion now, a hollow ache that no food could touch. Liam had stopped trying to eat normal meals, subsisting on toast and water, anything to avoid the repulsive flavors his new palate forced upon him. He spent his nights bathed in the cold blue light of his laptop screen, scrolling through Arthur Finch’s digital ghost, Kheper’s Nest. He wasn’t just reading anymore; he was dissecting, searching for a weapon, a weakness, a single crack in the prison of his new reality.

He’d read the final, terrifying entry—“It’s hatching”—a hundred times. But his desperation drove him deeper, into the rambling, esoteric posts from the months before Finch’s disappearance. They were filled with astrological charts, translations of obscure hieroglyphs, and frantic, paranoid theories. It was mostly madness. But buried in a long, self-pitying post about his academic exile, Liam found it. A single, cryptic line that seemed completely out of place:

“They cast me out, but they do not see the kingdom I build. My final preparations rest where I do, beneath the silent gaze of Nephthys, where the board groans under the weight of my failure.”

The name snagged in Liam’s mind. Nephthys. He typed it into a search engine. Egyptian goddess of mourning, death, and protection of the dead. Often depicted at the head of the sarcophagus. Where I do… the head of the sarcophagus… the bed.

The board groans.

A jolt, electric and terrifying, shot through him. He knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that Finch wasn't speaking in metaphors. He was giving directions. A chill traced its way down his spine, cold and sharp. He had to go back. Back to the house on Broke Neck Ridge.

The drive up the winding road felt different this time. The first time, he’d been an ignorant kid earning a summer paycheck. Now, he was a pilgrim returning to a cursed shrine. The unnatural silence of the woods pressed in on the car, and the house, when it came into view, looked like a skull bleached by the sun, its windows vacant eyes.

He parked where Uncle Joe had parked, the crunch of gravel the only sound. In the back of his pickup, beneath a greasy tarp, was a small toolbox. He grabbed a crowbar, its cold, heavy steel a pathetic comfort. The front door was locked, a new deadbolt installed by the bank. Liam circled the house, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The air was still thick with that same oppressive quality, the “weird iron” his uncle had spoken of, and the scarab in his pocket pulsed with a low, insistent warmth, as if it were excited to be home.

He found a window at the back of the house, its latch already loose from when he and Joe had manhandled it open to air the place out. He wedged the tip of the crowbar into the gap and leaned into it. The wood splintered with a sound like a gunshot, echoing in the dead quiet. He froze, listening, but there was nothing to hear. He slid the window open and hoisted himself through, landing in a crouch on the dusty floor of the kitchen.

The house was an empty, echoing shell, but the feeling of presence was stronger than ever. The dust motes danced in the slanted afternoon light like disembodied spirits. He walked through the barren rooms, his footsteps loud on the old floorboards, the crowbar held in front of him like a useless talisman. He was heading for the master bedroom.

The room was at the end of the hall, just as he remembered. The oppressive aura was thickest here, a suffocating blanket that made his skin crawl. The afternoon sun cast a long, lonely rectangle of light across the floor, illuminating the deep indentations in the carpet where a large bed had once stood for decades. Where I do… beneath the silent gaze of Nephthys. The head of the bed.

He walked to the far wall and dropped to his knees. He ran his hands over the floorboards, pressing down, listening. Most were solid. But then, his weight shifted, and one of them gave a low, mournful groan. The board groans under the weight of my failure.

His breath hitched. Using the flattened end of the crowbar, he forced it into the seam and pried. The old nails shrieked in protest, a high, metallic wail that set his teeth on edge. The board splintered but finally gave way, popping loose with a loud crack.

Beneath it was a small, dark hollow carved out of the subfloor. And nestled inside, insulated by rotting cloth, was a small, unassuming box. It was about the size of a shoebox, but it was made of a dull, grey metal that seemed to absorb the light. Lead. A container for something dangerous.

With trembling hands, Liam lifted it out. It was heavier than it looked. He expected to find a grimoire bound in human skin, or perhaps some arcane weapon designed to destroy the entity. He was desperate for a sign that Arthur Finch had fought back, that there was a way to win this. He fumbled with the simple latch, his fingers clumsy with a mixture of hope and dread. He lifted the heavy lid.

The smell hit him first. Not the stench of decay, but a dry, aromatic scent of brittle herbs, mixed with the sharp tang of ozone. His eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the box. There were no books. No weapons.

Instead, the box was lined with faded velvet, upon which lay a collection of strange objects. There were bundles of dried, blackish herbs tied with twine. There were three small, crudely carved amulets that looked like they were made of bone. And in the center, resting on its own bed of velvet, was a single, withered human finger.

It was yellowed and desiccated, the skin pulled taut over the bone, the nail a sickly, horny brown. A simple, thin gold band was still wrapped around its base.

Liam stared, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. This wasn't a cache of weapons. This was an altar. A collection of offerings.

As that thought solidified, the scarab in his pocket, which had been pulsing with a steady warmth, suddenly became intensely hot. A sharp, searing pain shot through his leg, as if he’d been branded. He gasped, dropping the lid of the box with a dull thud. The heat was unbearable, but it wasn't just heat. It was a conduit.

A wave of understanding, alien and invasive, washed over him. It wasn't a voice or an image, but a raw, primal emotion that flooded his senses from the entity tethered to him. It was a feeling of deep, ancient satisfaction. Of hunger sated. Of a pleasing sacrifice.

The awful, soul-crushing truth crashed down on him, re-contextualizing everything. The herbs, the amulets, the finger. Finch’s “Ritual of Symbiotic Containment” wasn't an attempt to form a partnership. It was an act of appeasement. He hadn’t been trying to control the entity. He wasn't trying to destroy it.

He was feeding it.

The gnawing hunger in Liam’s own gut, his grotesque cravings for soil and rust—it wasn't his body preparing a nest. It was the entity demanding to be fed. Finch had been its keeper, its servant, desperately trying to satisfy its needs with these pathetic offerings to keep it dormant, to stop it from… hatching.

Liam staggered back, his mind reeling. He had been looking for Arthur Finch’s last stand, for the story of his fight against the monster. But there had been no fight. There was only a long, desperate retreat, a series of failed negotiations with an ancient, insatiable hunger. The finger in the box was not a weapon. It was a meal.

The first piece, the jagged leg he had coughed up, wasn't just shrapnel. It was a dinner bell. A signal that the nest was complete and the new keeper was in place. The horrifying realization settled in his bones, cold and heavy as the leaden box. Finch’s offerings had run out. And now, the entity was demanding its next meal. The second offering.

And this time, there was no one left to provide it but him.