Dense fatigue gnawed at his body, while unrelenting vigilance and tension filed away at his mind with a metal rasp, slowly but surely wearing him down.
Licking his parched lips, Danan unconsciously eased the pressure on the assault rifle’s trigger. He opened his rucksack, pulled out a jelly pack, and sipped its contents through a tube.
He wasn’t hungry, nor was he thirsty. Yet, wandering through the dimly lit darkness of these ruins, he began to question whether he was alive or dead. The sound of his hard boot soles striking the ground felt like an auditory hallucination, and he mistook everything he saw for an illusion.
He craved proof of life. He needed undeniable evidence that his heartbeat marked his existence, that the heat of blood coursing through his veins affirmed his survival. He wanted to believe he wasn’t dead yet, that he was still alive…
Exhaling roughly, Danan focused on his heart and sensed the stirrings of something foreign within. He realized it was resonating throughout his entire body.
Lumina’s worm… The insect Eve had implanted in Danan whispered vile chirps in the young man’s ear, boasting that the girl held his heart—his life—in her grasp. It told him resistance was futile, that surrender was in his best interest, that pointless struggles should cease. Over and over, it etched its existence into Danan’s being.
A specter of death clung to him, embracing and refusing to let go. He couldn’t shake it off or kill it. Lumina, lurking within his flesh, writhed incessantly, urging him to submit, fusing and eroding every fragment of his cells.
He felt on the verge of madness. Perhaps succumbing to insanity would be easier. If he sank into the sea of madness, letting himself drift without meaningless resistance, he wouldn’t have to think anymore. But Danan himself refused to allow it. He couldn’t forgive himself for taking the easy way out.
The more his head was pressed down, the more his body and mind were bound, the stronger his defiance and rebellious spirit grew. His resolve to reject injustice and absurdity intensified. Like a wounded beast driven into a corner, the young man, tormented by the pain Lumina inflicted, continued to walk through the dark passage.
“Danan.”
“…”
“Hey, are you listening? You look awful.”
“…”
“It’s okay to rest a bit. In your current state—”
“What about my current state? Shut up, Eve.”
“…What’s with that tone? Let me make this clear: I can see right through your endurance act. I know your biometric responses like the back of my hand.”
Unable to hold back, Danan leaned against the wall, coughing. Eve, arms crossed, sighed as she fixed her gaze on him.
“It seems Lumina’s compatibility phase is advancing. Resisting the pain it inflicts with a fatigued body isn’t normal, Danan. I’ll say it again… rest. I’ll keep watch.”
“…Not necessary.”
“What? Want me to spell it out? You’re a liability, Danan. Stubbornly pushing forward like some fool’s march—even a fool wouldn’t do that. Danan, this pointless—”
“Shut up…!”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“…”
“I know you’re in a position to order me around. After all, you hold my heart… my life… in your hands…! But don’t think that means you can stop me or control me…! I won’t let you—or anyone else—kill me! How I use my life… is my decision alone!”
A splitting headache assaulted him, as if his brain were being hammered directly or his skull pried open while fully conscious. Swallowing the rising bile, Danan brushed away the worms crawling across his vision and gripped the handle of a round steel door at the passage’s end.
The rusted, unyielding handle refused to budge with human strength alone. Only by using the mechanical arm’s power did it finally turn. The door creaked open with a shrill, grating metallic sound, revealing a cramped passage lit sparsely by emergency lights.
“…”
The stench of rust-tainted sewage and decay assaulted his nostrils. Slippery sludge coated the floor, and cockroaches, swarming over melted flesh, spread their wings in unison, flooding Danan’s vision with a wave of black as they burst from the passage.
If the undercity was hell, this place was its frontier or beyond. The ruins were a path to the abyss. No matter where they headed or what they aimed for, there was no escape from the depths. Their line of death always clung to their backs, eyeing their lives with predatory intent.
“…Let’s go.”
“What? Through here? You’re joking, right?”
“Have I ever joked? This is the closest route to the undercity without passing through the main gate.”
“…This is the worst.”
“Is it?”
Stepping into the rusty water and advancing into the darkness, Danan moved forward, with Eve reluctantly following. They gripped the metal pipes stretching tightly across the narrow space to steady themselves.
“Hey.”
“…”
“Are we really on the right path? You’re not just wandering aimlessly, are you?”
“…A long time ago.”
“A long time ago?”
“When I was still a kid, my old man brought me through here. The route we’re taking now is just one of the back paths connecting the ruins to the tower.”
“Back paths…”
Then what about the main paths— Before Eve could finish, a man’s corpse, its lower half melted, fell from the ceiling and sank into the reddish-brown sewage.
“Watch above. People fall.”
“Wait… why are people—”
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t know? That’s weird, isn’t it? You don’t find it strange that people are falling?”
“No need to care.”
Stunned, Eve pulled the writhing upper half of the man from the water. When his face came into view, she froze.
Faceless. That word fit perfectly. His eyes were gouged out, his ears and nose shaved off, and his mouth, sewn shut with wire, spewed copious amounts of blood. The toxins of the ruins were already beginning to rot him.
“What is this?”
“Don’t know.”
“There’s no way you don’t know! This… this isn’t something humans do! Danan, this place—”
“Eve.”
The young man’s gaze pierced the frantic girl. He pointed upward, then tapped his ear lightly.
“Don’t raise your voice. They’ll notice.”
“They?”
“The lunatics of the flesh crucible. My guess is, up there, they’re holding some frenzied orgy. That guy… probably a follower of some new cult. Check his upper body. There should be a tattoo somewhere.”
Lifting the tattered rags of the dying man, Eve found a tattoo on his back—a brain entwined with machinery. Overwhelmed with disgust as the man tried to cling to her leg, she severed his head with her silver wings and silently moved closer to Danan.
“What’s wrong?”
“…Nothing.”
“…This guy.”
“…”
“This guy was lucky.”
“Lucky how—?”
“He didn’t suffer more than necessary. The pain of rotting was minimal, and he wasn’t devoured alive by worms or sewer rats. That’s why I said he was lucky. Eve, from my experience, everyone who falls here dies in agony… suffering until their very last moment.”
Pointing to a skeletal corpse leaning against a pipe, missing an arm, and comparing it to the man Eve had beheaded, Danan heard a scream echo through the passage. “Probably… that guy was saved. In his final moment,” he muttered.
“…Are you saying death is salvation?”
“Interpret it however you want. If death is salvation, you could say everyone’s saved. But reality’s different. Death doesn’t grant salvation; it’s the despair forced upon you at the end. How many people in this world are satisfied with dying? Do you think anyone hopes for death, wishes for it from the start? To live… to survive is what humans are about.”
As if speaking to himself, Danan firmly rejected death. A few steps later, he spotted a narrow, cylindrical elevator. Letting out a suppressed breath, he traced the blood-caked control panel with his finger.
“…Dying is easy. Point a gun at your temple, pull the trigger, and you’re dead. Slit your throat with a knife, don’t stop the bleeding, and you’ll die eventually. But… living is hard. What does it mean to be alive? How do you feel that you’re truly living…? Right, Eve?”
With that, Danan slipped into the elevator, lit by a flickering bulb, and beckoned the girl to follow.
