Chapter 3
I can't die.
I can't die.
I CAN'T DIE.
Felix ran like a madman through the suffocating darkness. His bare feet slapped against the wet, uneven ground in a frantic, uneven rhythm. He slammed into hard stone walls again and again, too blind to avoid them, too terrified to slow down.
Behind him, the demon baby's laughter echoed—high-pitched, cruel, and far too fast for something that looked like a child.
Every time Felix swung blindly with his stone, the creature danced just out of reach, toying with him like a cat playing with a broken bird.
"Fool," it cooed, its small face twisting with malicious glee. "At this rate, I won't even need to break a sweat."
It patted its bloated stomach.
"Ohhh… I will finally eat."
Felix kept running like a fool, desperate and careless.
BANG!
He crashed headfirst into a wall. His skull met unyielding stone, and his body went limp, collapsing to the floor like a sack of broken bones.
Blood gushed from his forehead, spraying hot and wet across the dark earth.
"Ha!" the demon baby laughed, its tiny voice dripping with pride and satisfaction.
Felix twitched violently on the ground. Once. Twice. His body jerked like a dying insect.
The bandy-legged creature stopped its chase. With grotesque, almost affectionate care, it stabbed its own fingers into its belly button and pulled.
A long, wet umbilical cord slithered out—unnaturally alive, moving like a serpent with a mind of its own.
It slid across the floor and wrapped tightly around Felix's neck.
Then it began to lift him in a slow, deliberate hanging.
"Something's off," the demon muttered, tilting its head curiously.
It raised Felix's limp body higher into the air.
"My food… I will enjoy you very well. I promise."
The baby demon spoke with mock humility, its gentle tone only making the cruelty sharper.
Then, with blinding speed, it stabbed its claws into Felix's lower torso.
BANG!
"Huh?!"
The baby's eyes widened in shock.
Unknown to the demon, Felix had never let go of the stone.
The searing pain in his gut jolted him back to consciousness. In that razor-thin moment between life and death, a desperate decision ignited inside him.
He swung with everything he had left.
The stone connected with a sickening crack.
The demon baby fell like a broken doll. For all its speed, its body was still as fragile as a ten-year-old child's—fast, but brittle.
Cough! Cough!
Blood sprayed from the hole in Felix's torso with every cough. The pain was maddening, white-hot and unbearable.
Felix. Gather yourself.
He slapped his own face hard, trying to shove the agony out of his mind, forcing himself to stop coughing.
Driven by pure desperation, he snatched up the bloodied stone again. Summoning every last ounce of strength, he crawled toward the small silhouette.
He raised the stone high with one hand while the other strangled the demon.
"I've had ENOUGH!"
His voice was cold, trembling with fear—but beneath it lay something new. Something raw and fierce that hadn't been there before.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
He lost count. Four times. Five. Maybe more.
He bashed the creature's skull until nothing remained but wet, crimson paste.
Only then did Felix collapse to the floor, chest heaving, lungs burning, heart threatening to burst from his ribs.
His stomach growled again—sharp and demanding.
Still clutching the wound in his torso, he dragged himself forward, eyes barely making out the path ahead.
He glanced back at the ruined corpse of the demon baby.
A wave of disgust and guilt washed over him.
"I will not abandon my humanity," he whispered hoarsely.
He turned away and kept walking.
Pain became his constant companion.
He wandered through the tunnels, encountering oversized insects and creepers lurking in the dark. Whenever his eyes caught sight of them, he ate—raw, bitter, and barely enough to keep the hunger at bay.
It wasn't much.
But it kept him alive.
Eventually, dizziness overwhelmed him, and he passed out in a dark corner.
In his dreams, a man dressed in pure white stood before him. His figure was perfect, ethereal, covered by a flowing white veil that made him look almost divine.
The man stretched his hand toward Felix, yet even as he moved, his face remained hidden in shadow.
Felix reached back—
—and woke up to the feeling of something pulling hard on his leg. The horn on its head gave the creature away instantly.
Then darkness swallowed him once more.
Days later.
His eyes fluttered open to dim light and the rough texture of a cave ceiling.
A demonic beauty was looming over him.
Felix flinched violently, trying to scramble away.
Sharp pain exploded through his body like a tidal wave.
Argh!
"Don't move too much, human," the woman said calmly. Her voice was neither kind nor cruel. "Your wounds will open again."
Felix's trembling hand moved to his stomach.
Stitches?
On his palm faint trace of herbs lingered.