Too late

The Furnace of Desire

The bathroom was rife with the ring's corruption, steam rising in ghostly tendrils that clung to Stefano’s trembling frame, the middle-aged man’s grip on the sink seeking to find an anchor amidst the wild changes, knuckles white against the porcelain. The Osiris ring burned on his finger, a searing pulse that synced with the violet tattoo etched across his lower abdomen—a swirling, living mark that seemed to breathe with every ragged inhale.

His reflection was no longer his own. Gold flecks danced in his eyes, hungry and alien, his skin stretched taut over a jaw that looked carved from obsidian, sharper than the soft old slump he’d worn for years. The ring was sculpting him, peeling away at the man to reveal something else—something that craved, that hunted. He pressed a hand... No a claw, to the tattoo, and it answered with a jolt, like a live wire grounding in his gut.

The temple’s chant roared back, guttural and ancient, a chorus of Anubis-masked priests weaving promises of dominion, pleasure, her, Rebecca.

“Fuck you.”

Stefano snarled at the ring, his voice fraying, raw with defiance. “I’m not your goddamn puppet.” But the words rang hollow, swallowed by the steam. The ring didn’t argue—it pushed.

His tongue rebelled, twisting against his will, spitting fragments of languages long dead—Sanskrit’s lilting cadence, Aramaic’s guttural bite, hieroglyphs that weren’t words but commands. The air thickened, charged with an electric weight that pressed against his chest, making every breath a struggle. The tattoo burned hotter, a furnace under his skin, and his body shuddered, muscles spasming as if something alive were clawing its way free. He could feel it—tendons tightening, bones humming, a primal **** rewriting his flesh, crawling beneath his mortal coil.

“Ankh. Wedja. Seneb,” he chanted, louder now, **** to seize control, to understand the beast waking inside him. The bathroom flickered—the sink morphed into a blood-streaked altar, the steam a sacrificial haze swirling with shadows.

“Ankh. Wedja. Seneb,”

Anubis figures circled, their jackal masks glinting, their chants syncing with his pulse: ****

Conquer.

Breed.

Control.

His knees buckled, vision blurring as power flooded him, a tidal wave of heat that set his nerves ablaze. His skin steamed, sweat hissing as it evaporated, his metabolism a runaway engine. He raked a hand through his hair, and grey strands clung to his palm, curling to ash before his eyes.

“No, no, fuck no,” he gasped, voice cracking, but the ring pulsed, violet light snaking up his arm like veins of fire.

Hieroglyphs etched into his flesh, glowing faintly, and his right arm crumbled—sand spilling to the tiles before reforming, black as midnight, its surface cracking with a smoldering violet glow. His vocal cords scorched, silencing his scream, but his mind howled:

This thing’s killing me.

The ring was a curse, a parasite, and yet it promised salvation, whispering of strength, of conquest, of her. His sweet darling, Rebecca. Her face flashed—emerald eyes, red hair, that teasing smirk—and his gut twisted, shame warring with a hunger that felt like it could swallow the world.

Her voice sliced through the haze, soft but sharp, from the living room, he could sense her worry. “D-dad? You okay in there?” Footsteps, light but deliberate, and Stefano’s heart lurched, a caged animal battering his ribs.

He stumbled from the bathroom, the ring’s whispers now a deafening roar:

She’s yours.

Claim her.