In Blackest Night

[Shang Tsung]

Even after slamming the window shut, Shang could still hear the scream of the air raid siren.

With a scowl, the sorcerer backed away from the window. Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he turned to see that the paint was beginning to peel away from the wall. Stripes and chunks of paint tore off, floated up, and faded into nothing. The siren grew louder as the air itself seemed to grow heavier. Beneath the sorcerer, the tiles cracked apart and withered to ash, leaving behind a floor comprised of rusted iron grates. All around him, the walls likewise eroded, revealing partially rusted sheets of corrugated iron and weathered frames.

That’s not all rust…

Blood. As the paint and tile peeled away, it revealed what seemed to be old blood stains along many portions of the walls, ceiling, and floor. Somewhere in the distance, Shang heard what sounded like nails screeching against a chalkboard.

The fuck is going on? Turning around, the sorcerer noticed that the glass in the window was gone, but in its place, there were thick iron bars. Outside, he could see nothing through the fog, which now looked more like ash-laden smog. Making his way to the door, he threw it open and immediately fell back two paces as his Tarkaten blades slid out of his forearms. Although nothing moved to maul him, he kept the weapons readied. Something had gone terribly wrong with the world, and he wasn’t about to suffer the same fate as the Spartan.

Entering the hallway, Shang noted that it looked just like the room he’d departed. The colors were gone, with the exception of rust and assorted bloodstains. Everything else was drab grays and shades of black. Somewhere in the distance, the sorcerer heard what sounded like… crying? It was a soft, echoing whimper that had a vaguely human ring to it. A small part of him wanted to succumb to the morbid curiosity, but he hadn’t survived for a millennium by giving into his more human nature. Oh no, he wasn’t going to follow the sound of a crying woman just moments after the world had degraded into some sort of hellish, rusted nightmare.

“I’m Shang Tsung.” He assured himself as he turned back toward what had once been the central room of the Sanitarium. With some luck, he could just climb down to the first level and make his way out through the front door. Unfortunately for him, he found himself staring at a repaired floor (albeit one that was a metal grate). Even more unsettling, the first floor seemed to be gone. Squatting down, Shang squinted and saw that the space below him dropped down to what was probably the basement of the Sanitarium. His eyes detected a slight flickering in the shadows below, but the lighting was too poor to see all the way down there.

Damn it, what is going on? Standing back up, Shang realized that the sound of screeching steel was drawing close—too close. The sorcerer retreated back into the near darkness of his former location and turned his attention down the hallway as he detected the resounding thud of heavy feet hitting the metal floors. Before pulling his head back through the doorway and gently shutting it, he caught site of what had once probably been a man. In the handful of seconds he had to glance at the figure, he saw hulking behemoth wearing a bloody leather apron. It seemed to be human, but he couldn’t confirm that because its head seemed to be encased within a triangular steel pyramid that drooped down its chest. Based on the screeching sound that followed it and its lumbering movement, it had to be dragging something, but he didn’t want to risk detection.

Shang held his breath as the man made his way passed his room. When the sound started to drift off into the other direction, the sorcerer cracked the door open and slipped back into the hallway.