The demon ripped another chunk of my skull out.
And this time?
He didn't just tear it for spite.
No.
He made a fucking show of it.
He dug the jagged piece into my brain like a child plunging a broken spoon into a melting bowl of ice cream. Sloppy. Excited. Messy.
He scooped.
He scooped my brain like it was some kind of delicacy.
And then—
he shoved the chunk, brain and all, into his mouth.
I heard it.
The crunch.
The fucking crunch.
He didn't just eat it—he savored it.
Let the blood dribble down his chin. Let the marrow smear across his twisted lips. His good eye rolled back in ecstasy like he was tasting something divine.
And he smiled.
That wide, broken smile—the kind only monsters wear when they think no one's watching.
He slurped it.
Each time, he slurped up the wet mess like a glutton, like some feral beast at the end of a feast.
Every time he scooped me, I lost control.
I could feel it—
My thoughts stuttering.
My limbs twitching, seizing.
Reality blurring at the edges like a bad dream.
My body became a sack of broken bones and shredded flesh, flopping helplessly under his grip.
And then—
The blood would work.
It would drag me back.
Screaming.
Knitting my skull together again with frantic desperation.
Restitching my brain, cell by agonizing cell.
It was like waking up drowning—
Gasping, kicking, dying—
Only to be dragged back under before I could even breathe.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
Each time I came back, I remembered it.
All of it.
The chewing.
The crunching.
The slurping.
The fucking joy on his face.
And every time I healed, I got to wake up inside the memory of being devoured.
How fun.
But he wasn't done.
Of course not.
He wanted more.
He tore off my leg.
Ripped it from the socket like a butcher pulling apart a bird.
The pop of bone.
The snap of tendon.
The scream of muscle.
He held it up, triumphant, dripping blood like a goddamned trophy.
And then—
He dipped it.
Dipped it in my brain matter like it was fucking caviar.
Spread it. Slathered it. Smeared it along the meat.
And he bit down.
Tore into it with sharp, jagged teeth that split skin and snapped bone like dry twigs.
I watched him eat my leg.
Chewing thoughtfully, almost politely, like he was tasting the notes of some fine vintage wine.
And I?
I lay there.
A ruined, spasming wreck.
Feeling every goddamn second of it.
The blood worked overtime.
It sewed me back together again—
Pulled the leg back into place, regrew muscle, rewove sinew, reshaped bone.
But I could feel it now.
Deep inside.
The blood was thinning.
The well was running dry.
Every heal was slower.
Every repair came with a heavier price.
I could almost hear it—
The blood whispering, struggling, cursing under its breath.
Not much left.
Maybe a few more tears.
Maybe a few more deaths.
And then—
Nothing.
I knew it.
The blood knew it.
Maybe even the demon knew it.
That's why he was eating me alive.
Not to kill me.
No.
To empty me.
To watch the last, desperate miracle inside me bleed out molecule by molecule.
To make me mortal again.
Breakable again.
Defeatable again.
And then?
Then he'd tear me apart properly.
When I was just meat and bone and silence.
Or maybe he just liked my brain taste. Maybe brain was just the cannibal special.
I clenched my fists.
Or tried to.
My fingers barely responded—stiff, sluggish, ghostly.
The blood was keeping me alive.
But barely.
Like a candle guttering in a hurricane.
Still—
I laughed.
Or maybe it was a gurgle.
Maybe it was just the last cough of a dying thing too stupid to lie down.
But it felt like laughter.
Because if this bastard thought I was going to beg—
If he thought I was going to cry—
If he thought I was going to surrender—
He hadn't learned a goddamn thing.
He could eat me piece by piece.
He could turn my ribs into toothpicks and my skull into a soup bowl.
I would not break.
Not before he did.
I locked eyes with him—
That one, furious, glimmering eye he had left.
And I smiled.
A smile full of broken teeth and split lips.
A smile carved out of spite.
A smile that said:
"You're still not enough."
Because I still had a promise to keep.
Even if it meant dragging myself through the wreckage of my own body to do it.