I shot.
And blood fell like rain.
Not a drizzle. Not a spray.
A downpour.
A fucking storm.
Thick, heavy drops that slapped the deck with wet, ugly sounds, painting the rotted wood in deeper shades of hell.
I could hear them.
The crowd of coward men in the distance—those roaches that called themselves a crew—clenching their legs, whimpering like beaten dogs.
One even fell to his knees, clutching himself without shame.
Pathetic.
I wiped the blood off my face with the back of my hand, smearing it across my cheek like war paint.
And in front of me, the demon fell.
Dropped to his knees.
Clutching what little was left.
His balls.
His dick.
Whatever scraps of pride he thought he had left.
I laughed.
How could I not?
It was too beautiful not to.
This demon was a man no more.
I laughed loud and raw and ugly, my voice echoing off the battered boards, crashing over the dying giggles still leaking from his broken throat.
And then I walked.
Not towards the demon.
No.
Towards the group of cowards.
The crew that once swaggered with pride, that once laughed at the broken bodies of their victims.
Now?
Now they couldn't even meet my eyes.
Most of them were shielding their groins with trembling hands, stepping back with every step I took forward.
I hoisted the ruined rifle like a king raising his scepter.
Pointed it at them.
"More," I said.
Just that.
One word.
And they scrambled.
They threw pistols at my feet like offerings to a god they feared too much to worship properly.
No rifles. Either they had no more rifles or they didn't understand me.
Cowards.
But fine.
Three pistols I kept, tucked them into the rags and belts hanging from my broken body.
The rest?
I tossed them into the waters.
One by one.
Each splash was a small, petty satisfaction.
They stared at me like I was mad.
And they weren't wrong.
Because I was.
I had crossed that line somewhere between getting my skull fractured and ripping brain matter from a demon's eye.
I was far, far past the point of no return.
And it felt good.
I turned back to the demon, loading one of the pistols with gunpowder and a heavy lead bullet.
Still laughing.
Still riding the high of the chaos we were birthing together.
I wasn't thinking about escape anymore.
Or survival.
Or mercy.
No.
I was thinking about one thing only:
Shooting the bastard in the groin again.
And again.
And again.
I laughed at the thought.
Laughed so hard my ribs ached, my vision blurred, my knees buckled.
It was a fun thought.
Too good not to try.
I poured the gunpowder carefully, feeling the powder coat my fingers. Felt the grain of it. The texture. The weight of the destruction to come.
The pistol was almost ready.
Almost.
And then—
The world went black.
Fingers.
Thick. Unnatural.
Clamping down on my skull.
Lifting me clean off the ground like I weighed nothing.
The pistol slipped from my fingers, clattering to the deck.
I was weightless for a moment.
Dangling in the air like a puppet with snapped strings.
He squeezed.
Hard.
I heard it.
The crack.
The crunch.
The splintering of bone under pressure.
I could feel my skull starting to give—starting to collapse under the force of his grip.
He turned me like a rag doll in his hands, and I saw him.
The demon.
Bleeding from every hole that still held flesh.
Groin dripping.
Face shredded.
Chest heaving.
But smiling.
Still smiling.
Still giggling.
Laughing with a mouth full of broken teeth and blood and spite.
He raised his other hand—and in it?
A chunk of something.
White.
Slick.
Familiar.
He showed it to me like a child showing off a bug he'd ripped the wings from.
It was my skull.
A piece of me.
Ripped clean from the back of my head.
He held it up to my face, giggling madly, so proud, so delighted in the pure savagery of it.
And what did I do?
What else could I do?
I laughed too.
It would've been a crime not to.
How could I not laugh?
In the middle of this madness, in the middle of this bloody, rotting stage we built together—how could I not join the performance?
This was what we were.
Two beasts with too much hate and too little soul left to run.
Two monsters dragging each other into the grave by the teeth.
I laughed.
So hard it hurt.
So hard blood gushed from my mouth in spurts.
So hard that the demon's laugh faltered, just a little.
So hard that my brain vibrated with my laugh.
Because madness recognizes madness.
And maybe, for the first time, he realized I wasn't playing a role.
I wasn't pretending.
I was _gone._
The rational thing I'd been?
Dead.
Buried under the bodies I fell into.
What stood now was something else.
Something broken.
Something beautiful.
And it wasn't going to stop.
No matter how many bones he crushed.
No matter how much blood he spilled.
No matter how many pieces he tore from my living flesh.
I was going to finish this.
With or without a plan.
I was going to kill him.
And I was going to laugh while I did it.