Kai sat at the bottom of the pit, slumped against the jagged wall, cold stone pressing into the broken lattice of his frame. His breath hitched through split lips. "Stupid… so stupid," he muttered, each word scraping his throat raw, a cracked litany of self-loathing. The decision to chase the ghoul had landed him here—tortured, discarded, and now sealed inside a tomb shaped like failure. His head throbbed in pulses, his body thrumming with distant alarms he couldn't answer. The pit's darkness curled around him, oppressive and suffocating, the hollow eye sockets of buried skeletons watching in mute judgment.
He dragged himself toward the newest corpse, its glassy eyes locked in death's eternal stare. Guilt gnawed at his insides. Crest's face flickered through his mind—small hands, fragile ribs, curling up alone in that sterile hospital bed. Abandoned. Just like this.
"Sorry," he whispered, voice hoarse as he reached the body. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he tore at the shredded clothes—first the chest, then the legs—ripping stained cloth into strips. "Didn't want this… just need something," he muttered, again and again, like it would cleanse the act. The fabric came away damp and sticky with blood, the stench thick and metallic. He gagged but didn't stop. Survival was a cruel god, and prayer meant taking.
He tucked the cloth strips into his pocket with reverent fingers, as if the corpse could still feel the theft. Another "sorry" passed his lips, quieter this time, barely more than breath. The silence that answered was heavier than stone.
Pain wrapped around him like a second skin. The burn on his chest roared, blistered and raw from the heated tongs. His flayed forearm throbbed in time with his heartbeat, muscle twitching where flesh had been peeled back like bark from a tree. Deep lacerations crisscrossed his shoulder and ribs, tugging with every breath. Blood leaked and dried in layers. His thigh pulsed with dull agony, the blade's work deep enough that the leg quivered with each attempt to move it. The chemical burn from the memory solvent still lingered, snaking through his veins with cold fire, fracturing his thoughts—Neo's voice, Xae's kunai, blood trailing down the hallway—everything jumbled, blurred.
Behind his eyes, the pain in his ear canal pulsed steadily, the metal pick's violation echoing again and again, paired with the bruised imprint around his throat that made swallowing feel like choking. His hands, stripped of nails, bled slowly, the jagged flesh catching on every shift, every breath. The burn across his chest cracked open with each exhale, oozing and exposed. Bruises layered across bruises. His skin was pale, near translucent. Every muscle ached. His body was a battlefield with no victors.
He rubbed dirt into the wounds with shaking hands, a desperate, primal act. It ground into the raw meat of his forearm, into the ragged tear in his thigh. He hissed, but he didn't stop. Grit mixed with blood, forming a sticky paste that offered the illusion of control. The burn on his chest protested violently, the dirt searing into broken blisters. He forced himself to keep going. The cuts on his ribs soaked through the crude wrappings; he pressed the corpse's cloth against them, but it was already too damp to help. His fingers reopened with every press, red leaking anew, but he pushed through it. He had no choice.
He looked down. Somehow, impossibly, the ever-lasting smokes pouch still hung from his ruined hand. It should've been taken. It was supposed to be taken. But he'd held on. Even through the screams. Even when they'd threatened to slice his ears open if he didn't give them up. He'd refused.
He chuckled. Just once. A rasp.
---
They weren't food. They weren't medicine. Just a ritual. Just something his.
Kai pulled the ever-lasting smokes pouch from his belt with trembling fingers. One cigarette slid out, half-smashed, the filter stained faintly red from blood or rot—he couldn't tell. He stared at it for a long moment, then raised it to his lips, unlit. Just the shape, the pressure, the rhythm.
He breathed in.
Nothing came.
No smoke. No heat. No comfort. Just the taste of ash that wasn't there and the ghost of a routine that used to mean he was still in control.
He held the cigarette there anyway. Let it rest between his teeth, cracked lips twitching at the corner. A lie of calm.
His stomach growled—a long, hollow churn that echoed off the pit walls like a question with no answer. It sounded like something dying.
He shut his eyes. Last time I ate…
Forn. A shared meal at the food court. The thought had bled away with everything else.
His body screamed for calories. His veins were syrup. Every limb dragged like stone. But still—he didn't look at the corpse. Not really. Not with intent.
It was just there.
Still. Slumped. Already part of the pit.
His eyes shifted toward it, only for a second. The scent was stronger now. Copper, iron, earth. But it wasn't tempting. It was just loud.
He turned back to the wall, jaw clenched, the unlit cigarette cracking slightly between his teeth. His hands tightened around the pouch like it was a relic.
The skeletons didn't speak. Didn't need to.
Another growl echoed from his gut, deeper this time, lower. The kind of sound that reminded him he was meat, too. That his body didn't care about pride or ritual.
Kai leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cold stone, letting it cool the heat radiating off his burns. The pain kept him sharp. Present. Still him.
"I'm not that far gone," he whispered.
The stone didn't answer.
Then—faint. A hum.
His eyes cracked open, unfocused. Not Velnix. Not the guardian's pulse. This was softer. Mechanical, maybe. No rhythm. Just a vibration in the pit's bones. It brushed the edges of his hearing like static.
Yellow?
Rift residue?
He blinked, dragged himself toward the far wall. His thigh screamed with every inch, the dirt tearing open what little crust had formed over the wound. His forearm left streaks of blood behind. He crawled like something buried trying to resurface.
He reached the wall and squinted. There—etched just above the muck line—scratches. Not language. Not quite. Symbols. Runes?
GRARC?
No. Too deliberate. Too old.
He raised a shaking finger, ran it across the grooves. Cold shock rolled down his spine. Not from pain—but from instinct. Something deeper than fear. These weren't messages. They were warnings.
White Room?
His mind fumbled the thought. The memory solvent still danced under his skin, tangling logic into knots. The harder he tried to read, the more the meaning bled away.
He growled, frustrated, slumping against the wall as the world spun again. Heat flared in his chest wound—cracking skin, oozing beneath the makeshift wrap.
He forced his eyes open.
The corpse hadn't moved.
But it felt closer.
Or maybe he had shifted toward it without realizing.
He turned back, pressing his face into the wall again, willing the hunger away, willing the scent to fade.
His heart thudded slower now. Not from peace—but from depletion. He curled around the cigarette pouch like it mattered. Like it meant he still had something.
The pit echoed.
He still remembered Forn's crooked smile. Still remembered the way food tasted when it was shared.
Although that thought suddenly faded as the drug kicked it.
Kai found it harder and harder to breath let alone think.
However he wanted revenge he wasn't a vengeful person but having the thought of harming a person who did this to him was intoxicating.
And maybe that was enough.
For now.