Ren stabbed the jagged bone down.
Again
Again
And again
Until—
The monster stopped, collapsing to the ground.
Thrown off by the impact of the fallen creature, Ren rested still on the cold ground, struggling to breathe through the injuries.
"I...did it? Mom...I did it." Ren tried to turn his head. "Eva...where are you?"
Then, the ground pulsed beneath him. Not metaphorically—literally. The fleshy muck that was once the creature shifted, bubbled, then twitched like it was trying to remember its original form.
"No..."
A low gurgle sounded through the surrounding area, wet and disturbing. Something in the pool of blackened blood was pooling itself back together. Bones snaked upward from the ground, sprouting into what resembled a ribcage. Following up, a lump of muscle and nerves connected into a human shape, still grossly distorted but close enough. From its head, a clump of fused faces, an eye—huge, bloodshot—blinked open.
Ren groaned, forcing himself upright onto shaking legs. Blood gushed from his abdomen, his insides slightly leaking out. His ribs jutted out beneath the skin, and his face was unrecognizable, slit open and one eye fully shut.
Still, he saw it, his rusty handmade dagger.
It was a few feet away, barely visible beneath a pool of rotted blood.
He limped over slowly, holding his stomach tight with his only arm left.
Before the monster could fully awaken, he reached for the dagger and clutched it tightly.
The handle was slick with old gore.
The rusted blade was chipped, almost snapped in two.
But it was his.
Behind him, the abomination shivered. From its half-reconstructed torso came the child's voice again, distorted and proud.
"Mommy said…m-me could have you for t-treat…"
It had reformed enough to stand.
Ren turned around, dripping, bent like a cripple—but with his dagger in hand.
"You should've stayed dead."
Ren charged—or what passed for a charge. His body didn't run anymore; it dragged, a patchwork of shredded flesh and sheer will.
The abomination reacted, swinging a malformed limb like a club.
Ren ducked low, his fractured ribs cracking from the torque, and slammed the dagger into the monster's thigh—if that's what the bloated pillar of flesh could be called.
The blade went deep.
A jet of steaming black ichor erupted from the wound.
The monster screamed—an ear-splitting shriek layered with a thousand voices: children, mothers, sobbing men, guttural beasts.
Ren twisted the dagger and yanked the blade back out.
And stabbed again.
Again.
And again.
Each stab was less precise, more emotional.
The blade cracked, but it didn't matter.
He stabbed until the dagger snapped right off at the hilt.
"You—" Stabbing with the hilt.
"Don't—" Punching into its gut.
"Get—" Fingers curling into the wound.
"To live—"
Rip
He tore into it with his bare hand, plunged his fingers deep into its stomach, and ripped sideways. In Ren's hand, a pulsing core of flesh.
Its leg gave out as the core was ripped out.
The once towering monster now knelt before Ren, its bloodshot eye blinking violently.
"Don't kill me…"
Tossing the core to the ground, Ren wound his fist back, his eyes locked on the monster.
Crack
"I'll be good!"
Crack
"I'll be good, Daddy…"
The skull gave way, its head smashed in until there was nothing left.
The creature spasmed violently.
Its flesh peeled off.
Tendons snapped from bone.
Muscles unraveled to the ground.
It could no longer hold its shape, collapsing fully.
But not in a falling motion.
It collapsed fully.
Ren pulled back, panting, kneeling in a pool of gore. The monster's body decomposed in seconds, collapsing into a putrid sludge that soaked into the broken chapel stones.
And then it was gone.
His vision dimmed, and still he stared.
"…Eva?" Ren wheezed. "Eva…where are you?"
Silence
Then—
"Wake up, my child." The Mother spoke softly.
Rens' eyes narrowed, his breathing unstable. "What..."
The air grew still.
A ringing grew behind his ears, faint at first, like a wineglass screaming.
He blinked.
And the blood was gone.
The monster was gone.
The ribcage.
The melted limbs.
The puddle of decay.
It was all gone.
The chapel was still intact.
And beside him, Eva.
She knelt just feet away, hands trembling as she reached out toward him.
"Ren," She whispered, blackened tears slipping down from her closed eyes. "Ren, can you hear me? Please—please say something..."
He blinked again.
He was still broken. Still covered in blood.
But now, it wasn't blackened or inhuman.
No, it was his.
And only his.
Ren looked down at his stomach, ripped wide open. His arm was still gone at the shoulder.
His body was mangled exactly as before.
"No…" Ren whispered, suddenly hollow. "No, I killed it. I…I was on top of it, I…"
Eva's voice broke. "You...did this to yourself."
He stared at her, his mouth moving but no sound coming out.
"You ran off alone," She said softly. "I found you here, collapsed on the floor. Covered in your own blood. There's no creature here, Ren. No monster. Nothing. Just you."
Ren shook his head.
"No...no...it was real."
He remembered it.
The haunting voice.
The mutilated form it took.
The faces under its skin.
The shriek as it died.
"I felt it," Ren whispered. "I saw it."
Eva pressed her hand gently to his forehead. He flinched, but she didn't pull back.
"You were screaming," Eva said. "You were slashing at yourself. Ripping pieces off. Talking to something that wasn't there...Ren, it wasn't real. None of it."
Ren's dagger clattered to the ground beside him.
He didn't remember dropping it.
Didn't remember holding it at all.
He stared down at the blood coating the hilt—his blood.
And then, behind Eva, at the entrance of the chapel—
She appeared.
Mother whispered internally to Ren, and to him alone.
"Poor little soul, did you think grief could be slain with rusted steel?"
Ren gritted his teeth and the sight of her.
"I am not your enemy, Ren." Her tone shifted to something more serious. "I am inevitability. I am...what's left when the fighting ends. You think defiance makes you free. But it only makes you suffer."
Ren felt something warm from his eyes.
Blood?
Tears?
He couldn't tell at this point.
"Ren? Ren, stay with me…"
Eva's voice was distant to him.
"She'll never understand what you've seen. What you've been through...alone."
"Get...get out of my head!" Ren responded with vigor.
"I never entered it, poor child. You opened up to me the moment she died."
Ren stared unblinking at the ghostly form.
"You miss her still...That's why you couldn't tell the difference."
"Ren! Ren, stay with me! Don't...don't listen to her!"
Eva's voice broke through to him, distant but real.
Her hand squeezed his tightly.
Ren gasped loudly, as if waking from a nightmare. His eyes locked onto Eva, calming himself at the sight of her. Now calmed down, Ren turned back to see Mother's form disappearing.
"She'll never love you the way I do..." Mother whispered before vanishing completely.
Moments passed before Ren spoke up.
"I-I think I need to rest for a while..." He said while lying down. "It won't be long until—"
Eva felt it beneath her hand, holding it steady against his wounded abdomen.
Regeneration has begun once again.