Blood pooled through his uniform.
Dark. Heavy. Suffocating.
His bones felt like shrapnel, his body crumbling to dust.
A sharp wheeze tore from his throat—each breath a dagger, curling tighter with every ragged gasp.
He should have listened. He should have retreated. But he hadn't, and now he was drowning in his own blood—spluttering like the naive child he'd been. You're not a soldier. This isn't a playground. This is war.
A sharp thump.
The stretcher swallowed him.
A whimper escaped before he could stop it—thin, broken, raw from hours of screaming.
The soldiers carried him, silent. Unmoved.
He wasn't one of them. Never was. Never would be.
The sticky warmth of blood pressed him, the wet cloth of countless bodies that had rested in the same fibre that carried corpses. Corpses like him.
"How could you do this?"
Lord Violette's snarl cut through the tent like steel on bone.
A sharp crack—brick split under his fist.
"I told you—keep him off the front line!"
The officer—the same one Marsh had begged—looked down.
A demon with layered, fractured eyes. Filled with pity.
Marshal choked on his breath.
This was his fault.
His failure.
"We had no choice, my lord." Said the officer. "The archdemons are falling faster than we can replace them. We're running out of options."
"Running out of options?" The Lord's voice crackled with Voltite, steam hissing between his fangs. "Tell me, Captain—when is sending a child to die ever an option?"
The line reverberated like a slap, and the room fell silent—abit from Marsh's moans, his muffled cries unable to stop. He just wanted to die, not to feel it anymore—the silence of his breath was a blight to his ears. Shame burned through him, a curse in his blood. Each rush of it swirled something deep inside—a hunger, a craving, just like the thing that had tried to eat him.
But worse was the stare-down between demons—the conflict caused by him. The tall Durg officer looked down at the Valkar Lord, the bulky exoskeleton soldier shadowing over the king of hell. Lord Violette stood no chance without powers, relying solely on brute strength and armour. The Lord might have been a ruler, an overpowered Demon Lord, and a testament to raw power and authority. But the officer was a bone-snapping warrior, born and bred.
However, not flinching a micro hair, Lord Violette's tail lashed the ground, the air around him hissing with heat.
"We have come so far as demons. Gone are the days we hunted each other like rats." His breath hissed steam, his calm facade sparking within his fangs, "Look at our cities. Look at our children, free from the chains of hierarchy." He pointed at Marshal, sucking up a fragile breath. "Look at him. My daughter is his age. Do you have children, Captain? Nieces? Nephews? Would you send them to die like this? Would you let the hordes eat your loved ones? Would you let hell fall?"
The Officers shifted in their ranks, and the aged demons knew brute force was not why the Lord rose to power. They all knew why they were here and not with the evacuating masses. It was the same reason Marsh was here, Why anyone followed their king.
The tent flaps ripped open.
A shadow moved—calm, deliberate.
Silver hair, pulled into a no-nonsense bun.
Rosalind.
"You can't go in!" a guard protested, but the woman shoved him aside with a single, calculated boot. Her case of tools clinked in her hand, and her dangerous, cold eyes swept over the room like an ice-filled machine gun. Rosalind was barely in her two-hundreds, young, yet her eyes darkened with a burden Marsh could never understand.
Feeling the same blizzard ooze from her, her hand full of scalpels and dangerous cocktails. All eyes flung away, and the officers attempted to avoid her direct gaze. She may have been a child compared to some officers, a harmless healer at the outset, but her reputation was enough to frighten even the grown demons.
"R—" asked the Lord, his lips fumbling what to say.
She cleared her throat. "My brother?" she said, cold and smooth.
Lord Violette stepped, "Rosa, maybe now's not the time-"
Honing her gaze and ignoring the king, Rosalind slung her tools and rushed to Marsh's side. Her analytical sight investigated him, her scrutiny, her judgment said without words. He was her weak younger brother, a weight on her shoulders, useless and stupid. She had told him more than once. But did he listen?
The Lord gritted his fangs, "I know you're our best doctor, but-"
Rosa pulled out her things. "I need quiet, Edric,"
She had always been like that, blunt. Without a glimpse of refinement, any demoness her age would have. And based on the looks the officers gave her, using the Lord's first name wasn't exactly typical.
Lord Violette shot at the other officers, his disgust scrunching his brows, his tail ready to strangle the armed men.
"We are not done, got it."
They jumped but nodded in silence. Their eyes fixed on Rosa's back, her tail freely swirling as she prepared something—yet another trait she defied. A half succubus and half vampire, with little or no self-awareness, surrounded by demons twice her size.
If he could move, if he was stronger, maybe he could poke their eyes out. Marsh gritted his fangs as Rosa pressed to his skin, or lack thereof. The pain he wanted to forget resurfaced under her fingers. He tried to resist, to hide his sob, but she just dug further, his tears thrashing from his cheeks. He screamed, his broken form. Crumbling before his older sister's tools.
Hurried out, the Officers quickly retreated, and Lord Violette came closer.
"… I tried to keep him off the field."
Like some parent Rosa and Marsh wished to have, the Lord watched them both, his anger, his fury as a king, gone, his sombre piercing stare carving Marsh's skin.
"Plasma mix at thirty-nine percent, core levels ruptured, cracking," Rosa mumbled.
Edric's eyes burned into him.
The truth was unspoken—
Marsh was going to die.
And even Rosa couldn't save him.
"Rosa," Edric said—more begging than asking. His hand squeezed her shoulder. "I'm…"
Rosa finished prodding, a thankful feeling as Marsh eased slightly. But seeing the syringe she pulled out, he stiffened up. The strange device had so many vials and instruments. She looked at him, her cold expression warping, the stutter of lord Violette's hand showing on her face. Her eyes hesitated, her tail curling. Why did she look at him like that? She never looked at him like that. A rising thump kicked Marsh's heart, the slither of Rosalind's mask slipping momentarily. Rosa was strong; Rosa was a demon who never cried.
She pressed her fingers to Marshal's temple, slick with his blood, the touch cold and numb. His nerves fired all at once, pain blinding and unbearable. And yet, he wanted it—wanted to feel something other than the hollow ache of his broken body, wanted to believe her touch could fix him.
She frowned, attempting to keep her face straight, but it was useless. She couldn't hide that face from him, no matter how hard she tried.
"I'm sorry," he wished to say. He wanted to wipe her cheek. It's his fault. He should have listened; he shouldn't have played hero.
"I told you," Rosa said, "Stay where I can watch you."
She lifted her device and replaced her hand with a metal press. The large needle right above his eye. He shook; whatever it was, he didn't want to find out.
He shuffled, but restraints stopped him.
His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Lord Violette reached out, "Rosa, what are you?"
Rosa's frosty blue eyes hardened, every trace of emotion pulled to a single point and crushed.
"I'm making sure demons don't go extinct."
"Wait," Lord Violette said.
She pressed the device. The needle drove into his skull, and Marshal's scream ripped through the tent, raw and rusted, like steel croding flesh. His body convulsed, the restraints searing into his skin as his core thundered next to his lungs. Fire exploded in his veins, his breath igniting inside his throat. Endless, hungry. Dark.
"Stop!" he gasped. "Please—stop!"
But Rosa didn't stop. She couldn't.
Fire. Blistering. Melting.
Pain clawed through his skull, rippling through his bones.
His thoughts splintered—shards of glass, shattered beyond repair.
Something rose in the wreckage.
Something primal.
Something wrong.
Not him.
Couldn't be him.
This isn't the power he wanted.
This isn't what he wanted at all.
His core, his heart, his everything. Each cell, each part of him twisted, a laugh, his laugh, his hunger, his desire, all drenched, soaked and…
"Awake", said Shadow.