Tanglefoot Marsh: Sinking Mire of Dread and Decay
Beyond the tangled treeline, where the ground turns soft and the air hangs heavy with rot, the marsh begins. The water is dark, unmoving, thick with tangled reeds that grasp at careless steps. Trees rise from the murk, their skeletal limbs draped in veils of moss, their roots buried in stagnant pools that swallow sound. The mist never truly lifts, curling around the land like a living thing, muffling all but the distant croak of unseen creatures.
The deeper one ventures, the more the land resists. Footsteps sink into the mire, swallowed without a trace. The air carries an unnatural hush, as if waiting, listening. Some say the marsh remembers every soul lost to its depths. Others claim it does not simply claim the dead—it keeps them. Either way, those who enter rarely leave without something watching their back.
"That wasn’t the wind." The words barely rise above the thick, humid air. "Then what moved the water?" A ripple spreads outward, slow, deliberate, from nowhere. The trees creak, the moss sways—but no breeze stirs. The swamp is awake.
She pressed her hand to his chest, skin soft, smile perfect. "I’ve waited so long for you."
His breath hitched. Her fingers curled. And then the illusion blinked—long claws, a stench of rot. He tried to step back. She didn’t let him.
"You always say that," she crooned. Then she sank her teeth in.
A drowning land, a sinking fate—few enter, fewer return.