The creature stepped closer, shadows writhing around it as if alive. Two glowing eyes locked onto me, unblinking, hungry. It didn't rush. Instead, it tilted its head, studying me like a curious predator.
Then it smiled. Rows of jagged teeth gleamed, blood caked at their roots.
I forced myself upright despite the pain raging through my body. My arm dangled uselessly at my side. The bleeding had slowed, but where my hands had once been, nothing. Empty. Handless. I could see pale bone jutting from my torn wrists.
Above, the faint clanging of chains echoed in the air. My hands, still clenched into fists, hung there, swaying from the links, a grotesque reminder.
I glanced down. The dark water at my feet reflected a broken thing, skin shredded, clothes in tatters, one eye bloodshot and red from the impact.
When I looked back at the monster, my breath caught. It was massive, its form woven from thousands of writhing tentacles. Dozens of smaller eyes blinked across its body, but its chest held two great, slitted crimson eyes that stared into me. Its form didn't glow—it drank the light around it, swallowing it whole. And still, that mouth curved in a terrible smile.
A shiver burrowed into my bones. I stepped back until my spine pressed against cold stone. My eyes darted for an escape route, none. The wall behind me stretched endlessly upward. The red fog rolling through the Chasm made the air heavy, suffocating. It was exactly like the Hell the Cavelar scholars described to us slaves.
I glanced at the wall again. Ancient carvings sprawled across its surface, patterns that twisted and shifted when I wasn't looking directly at them. Illusion? Hallucination? No. The pain in my body was too sharp for dreams.
The monster's movement pulled my gaze back. It advanced slowly, a wicked laugh rumbling from deep within its mass. When it stopped before me, its mouth began to widen, jagged teeth stretching, breath foul enough to burn my nose.
It meant to swallow me whole.
I could almost feel its thoughts pressing against mine, mocking, curious. What can a boy without hands possibly do? Fight?
My vision swayed, my breath caught in my chest. For a moment, the world blurred, and my life unraveled in flashes before my eyes.
I remembered the stench of the slave pens, the chains that bit into my skin long before I knew what freedom smelled like. I remembered being a boy, small and fragile, tugging on my mother's sleeve and whispering, Why do we live like this? She never answered, she only looked at me with cold and detached eyes, maybe she couldn't.
And now, staring at the monster in front of me, I wondered if this was where all those unanswered questions led.
Is this how it ends?
No.
NO!
'I refuse to die here without accomplishing something! You, every single one of you who made me suffer, will die! I'd rather give my soul to a devil than lie here broken while you live in peace! I'll tear you all out from the very root!'
The words burned in my skull, feeding the fire in my chest. My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. My ruined arm throbbed with every heartbeat, but pain didn't matter anymore. My fear vanished, replaced by madness.
"GRAAAAA!"
The roar tore out of me, raw and violent, shaking my ribs. I charged straight into the monster's gaping maw, the humid stench of rot choking me as my feet splashed on the slick muscle of its tongue.
I lifted what was left of my right arm, no hand, no fingers, only the ragged length from wrist to elbow, with a shard of my bone jutting out like a jagged spear.
I drove it forward with all my weight.
"SHRRIIEEKK!" The monster's scream rattled my skull, but I didn't stop. Each thrust was an explosion of agony in my arm, white-hot lightning racing through my nerves, but I kept stabbing, again and again, until the bone ground against something hard inside.
"Ssshhhnk! Shrrkkk! Krrhhkk!" The wet, tearing sounds filled the air. Hot blood erupted over my face, blinding me, coating my chest.
It tried to shake me out, its throat muscles clamping down, but I hooked my left hand into its flesh and held on. My stump rose and fell, the jagged edge sawing through muscle, cartilage, and anything else in its way.
I bit into its flesh, ripping a chunk free, spitting out the coppery filth before ramming my bone upward again, my boot slamming into its tongue to keep it pinned.
Every movement was painful. Every heartbeat was a reminder that my body was breaking. But I didn't stop.
Live. Die. Live. Die. The words thundered in my head like war drums.
I twisted my arm, felt something vital tear, and the creature's body spasmed violently. I roared again, shoving myself deeper into the fight, drowning in blood, in heat, in hate.
Then the creature fell with a thud
Minutes later, its eye twitched, bulged, and exploded with black blood. An arm suddenly rose, the skin torn, muscle twitching, and its jagged bone raised upward, and the arm was hung onto the eyelid. From there, Silas comes out, bathed in gore and the black blood of the monster.
"GRRAAAA!"
Silas shouted victoriously. He didn't care if another shows up; he will kill them all without mercy.
After a while, he fell from exhaustion, his body convulsed. His head hurt like it had been hit by a hammer. suddenly, he heard something.
[Compatible host found.]
He became alert as he heard the voice of a man, a woman, a young boy, and a girl combined. He tried to stand up, but he fell. He gritted his teeth and crawled to the nearest wall so his back would not be defenseless.
He looks around to find the source of the voice, but he cannot find it.
[Compatible host found.]
The voice pressed into his skull again, like a man, a woman, a boy, a girl. each tone sync, making his skin crawl.
[Analyzing…]
A cold ripple surged through his body, like icy water forcing its way into his veins. His vision blurred. The black blood on his skin shifted, almost crawling, seeping toward the open wounds on his arm and side.
[Host: Silas.]
The way it spoke his name felt wrong, too intimate, too deep, as if it had been carved into the marrow of his bones.
[You are dying. Your organs are failing. Muscle degradation is severe. Neural activity is unstable.]
Silas's breathing grew heavier, each inhale laced with a shudder. "What the hell are you?"
[What I am called doesn't matter. You have two paths before you.]
The tone sharpened. No warmth, no comfort, only inevitability.
[One: Become one with the System. Accept my integration. Your strength will grow beyond flesh, beyond pain, beyond death. You will hunt as predator, never as prey.]
The air felt thicker. His pulse hammered against his temples.
[Two: Refuse. Die here. Your body will decay among corpses. I will find another host. And they will take what could have been yours.]
His jaw tightened. "You're threatening me."
[No. I am offering you truth. This world is false. The alien race Cavelar is the reason you are weak and became slaves; they are the false rulers of this world. Choose.]
A deep hum began in his skull, vibrating through his teeth.
[Time until death without integration: Thirty seconds.]
His eyes widened. "Tch—"
The numbers ticked down in his head.
[Twenty-eight… Twenty-seven…]
He could feel his body getting colder, his strength bleeding away. Images flickered in his mind, his parents' faces who made him suffer, their laughter, their sneers. His breathing turned into a low growl. The Cavelar who treated them like cattle.
[Fourteen… Thirteen…]
The voice lowered, almost like a whisper in his ear.
[Accept… and I will give you the power to tear the world apart.]
His teeth ground together as the seconds kept falling.
[Four… Three…]
Silas's eyes narrowed. "Then… do it."
[Integration initiated.]
The hum erupted into a piercing tone as his body convulsed, black blood surging over his skin like living armor. His vision snapped to darkness, and somewhere in that endless black, he swore he saw eyes, too many to count, watching him.