Chương 57: What Remains When You’re Hungry

Zayn stayed in front of the corpse. The word corpse should have been enough. A corpse was something closed. A value gone dark. A danger ended. An object to be searched, moved, used, or avoided depending on the smell, the risk, and the time available. But this time, the corpse stayed too warm. The creature lay on its side, its neck opened by his short blade. Its ribcage no longer moved.

Its yellow eye had frozen in a stupid, almost surprised expression, as if even it had not expected to die in such a mediocre way at the bottom of a forgotten fissure. The system had already answered. [Soul Strength absorbed: +1] Current Soul Strength: 43 It was over. It should have been over. Zayn took a step back. His ankle protested. His thigh too. His side sent up a deep pain that almost cut off his breath. He put a hand against the wall to stay standing. The hunger, however, did not retreat.

It stayed in front of the body. With him. The creature's blood ran slowly into the hollows of the stone. Too-dark red, almost black in places. A sharp smell rose from the wound, a mixture of burnt iron, bile, and something heavier that irritated his throat. Not food. No. Not even close. It was toxic. He knew it without needing a mage, a healer, or a neat College sign saying: do not consume creatures of the depths, even in cases of advanced bad temper. His body knew it. His mind knew it.

His stomach, meanwhile, was no longer very interested in expert advice. Zayn closed his eyes.

"No." His voice was low. Almost calm. He opened his eyes again. The body was still there. Ridiculous. He had said no. The world could at least have made the option disappear out of respect for the minimal moral effort. Nothing disappeared. He moved three steps away, sat against a wall, and pulled out a black ration. He stared at it for a long time. Moldy. Hard. Filthy. But human. Well, more or less. He broke off a tiny piece and brought it to his mouth. His fingers were shaking enough to drop crumbs onto his tunic.

He chewed. His stomach clenched immediately. Not total refusal. A warning. He swallowed anyway. The mouthful sat in his throat like a stone. One second passed. Then two. He almost thought it might stay down. Optimistic mistake. His stomach flipped brutally. Zayn bent to the side and vomited the ration, the water, the bile—everything his body could still find to reject through sheer administrative creativity. When the spasms stopped, he remained folded in half, one hand clenched against the stone.

The black ration was on the floor. Useless. Wasted. He looked at what was left in his hand. Still a little. Not enough. Maybe too damaged now to stay inside him.

"Very good," he breathed.

"Even human food has decided to vote against me. Splendid coalition." He laughed. A weak, broken sound. Then he stopped because laughing pulled at his ribs. He took one drop of water. Not a sip. A drop. His body kept it. Small victory. Humiliating. He stayed seated until the nausea eased. The dead creature was cooling a few steps away. He avoided looking at it. For a while. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Then his gaze returned. Not willingly.

Like a needle returning north. The dark flesh beneath the open skin. The muscles still wet. The heat slowly escaping. The certainty that it was dangerous. The certainty that he had almost nothing left. He thought of Elias. Bad moment. Elias would probably have looked for another option. He would have held out longer. He would have found a way to turn even hunger into proof of dignity, which was almost insulting to the rest of humanity. Zayn clenched his teeth.

"Of course." His voice was lower now.

"Natural hero would probably die with clean hands. And everyone would cry beautifully." He looked at his own hands. Dirty. Shaking. Covered in cuts, dried blood, black dust.

"I don't have that kind of narrative budget." He forced himself to stand. One step toward the exit of the chamber. Then another. He had to leave. Find something else. Water. Human remains. Underground roots. Anything that was not this thing. He reached the entrance of the fissure. His leg buckled. He caught himself against the wall. The passage ahead of him was black, narrow, silent. Behind him, the corpse did not move. Ahead, no value. No sign. No promise. Only more stone. More walking. More hunger.

Zayn stood at the threshold. For a long time. Then he came back. Not quickly. Not like someone making a decision. Like someone who had lost an argument against his own body and still refused to sign the report. He knelt beside the creature. The smell made him immediately want to vomit again. He pressed the blade to the flesh. His hand stopped. He did not pray. He did not ask anyone for forgiveness. He did not search for an elegant sentence to turn the moment into clean tragedy.

He thought only: If I die here for refusing this, no one will even know I had a limit. The thought was ugly. Perfect. He cut. The flesh resisted more than expected. Fibrous. Dense. Too dark. When the blade went in, a thick liquid welled around the edge. Zayn turned his head aside, breathed through his mouth, then tore off a piece small enough to swallow. He held it between two fingers. The thing hung there, black, wet, still almost warm. Everything in him recoiled. Except the hunger.

He brought the piece to his mouth. Stopped. His whole body was trembling now. Not from pure fear. From revulsion. From exhaustion. From instinct. Even the lowest part of him seemed to understand there was a difference between killing something and letting it enter him. He closed his eyes. Then put the flesh in his mouth. The taste hit him like a blow. Burnt metal. Rancid blood. Bitterness. An acidic heat that spread immediately across his tongue, against his palate, down his throat before he had even swallowed.

His body tried to reject it. Zayn clamped a hand over his mouth. No. Not now. He chewed once. The texture was horrible. He chewed again. Tears came to his eyes without permission. Not emotional. Physical. His whole body was screaming that this was not food. He swallowed. The flesh went down. For one second, nothing. Then the burning began. In his throat first. Then in his stomach. As if the piece were trying to climb back up while clawing the inside of him. Zayn doubled over. A rasp escaped him. He wanted to vomit.

He refused. He dropped to his knees, one hand over his mouth, the other planted in the dust. No. No. Not waste it. Not after crossing that line. Not after choosing it. His stomach clenched. He held on. Again. Again. The burning spread. Bad heat. Immediate fever. His fingers turned cold while his belly seemed full of fire. His vision blurred, despite the darkness. Red points appeared in the black. He tipped onto his side. The dead creature was in front of him. Too close. He reached out. Not to take more. Not yet.

Just to hold onto something. His fingers touched the cooling hide. A laugh rose in his throat, strangled by pain.

"One star," he breathed.

"Terrible service." Then he vomited. He tried to hold it in. Failed. Part of it came back up, black and acidic, mixed with bile. The pain doubled. Zayn stayed on all fours, shaken by spasms, his forehead almost against the stone. He had lost part of it. Not all. He could feel it. Part of it had stayed inside. His body was still fighting it. He wiped his mouth. His fingers were shaking so hard they almost hit his teeth. He looked at the corpse. Then his hand went back to the blade. No. Not yet. His mind said no.

His body too. The hunger, though, said nothing anymore. It waited. Zayn cut a second piece. Smaller. This time, he barely thought. He knew that if he thought too much, he would stop. He put the piece into his mouth. Chewed. Swallowing was worse. Because now he knew. The burning returned faster. His stomach contracted. He lay down on his side, his arms wrapped around his stomach, his teeth clenched so hard his jaw cracked. No system. No message. No reward. Only consequence. He stayed there a long time.

Maybe minutes. Maybe more. The dark began to move. Not really. In his head. The pale veins in the stone seemed to stretch like lines under skin. The creature's carcass breathed even though it no longer breathed. On the ceiling, he thought he saw numbers. 107 Elias. Then 75. Lena. Then 312. Maelor. The numbers leaned over him like judges. He laughed without sound.

"Yes, yes... I know. Very impressive. Very clean. Very high." His voice broke.

"Come down and eat, then." The 312 did not answer. Naturally. Even hallucinated Maelor probably had better things to do than argue with him. He rolled onto his back. Bad idea. The nausea surged again. He got back onto his side just in time. This time, he vomited almost nothing. Good news? Bad? He no longer knew. Maybe his body was no longer rejecting it because it was accepting it. Or because it no longer had enough strength to protest properly. Important medical distinction, probably. There was no healer.

So it did not matter. He crawled back to the wall, leaned against it, and took out the chalk. His fingers refused to obey. He tried to write. The chalk snapped. He started again with the largest piece. On the stone, he wrote: Do not die. He looked at the sentence. Too simple. Not enough. He added beneath it: Even if it gets filthy. Then he laughed.

"Too late." The pain surged all at once. Violent. Not just in his stomach. In his arms. In his jaw. In his bones. Zayn curled in on himself, eyes open on the dark. He felt something crawling under his skin. No. Not crawling. Burning in lines. His body was trying to understand what he had just forced into it and could not find any acceptable category. The flesh was not food. Not for him. Not for a human. It was an assault swallowed whole.

And now his body was fighting it with every stupid weapon it still had: fever, spasms, vomiting, pain, delirium.

"Very well," he murmured between shattered breaths.

"Internal discussion open. Proposal: do not die. Opposition: everything else." He closed his eyes. The chamber vanished. He was in the sanctuary. No. In the alley in Aurelis. The messenger was against the wall, throat open, but speaking with Daera's voice. Price? Zayn tried to answer. His mouth was full of black flesh. He spat it out. The flesh became Lena's thread. He pulled on it. At the end, it was not Lena. It was the dead Weaver, smiling without a voice. Then Elias appeared behind him. Not radiant.

Not accusing. Just there. Holding out a hand. Zayn stared at it. He was still afraid to take it. Even now. Especially now. Because if someone pulled him out of there, they would have to see what he had eaten. He opened his eyes. The chamber returned. The corpse was still there. He had not dreamed that part. Pity. The fever was climbing. He was cold. Then too hot. Then cold again. Time tore. He ate again. He did not remember clearly deciding to. A third piece. Maybe.

Or only the second one returning in his mouth through the delirium. At one point, he bit his own hand to stop himself from screaming. At another, he spoke to the dead creature.

"Bad news," he murmured.

"You lost. Bad news for me too, I think you're winning from the inside." He laughed. Then groaned. Then no longer knew which one he was doing. The flesh stayed down. Not all of it. Enough. His body gradually stopped trying to reject it every second. That was not victory. It was fatigue. A temporary capitulation. Zayn lay down near the wall, unable to move away from the corpse. His hand still searched for the short blade. He found it. Held on to it. Not to kill.

To remind himself he still had an edge between himself and the rest of the world. In the dark, something passed above him. Not a value. Not a voice. A message? No. Not yet. Only a cold pressure, very far away, as if some part of the system had turned its gaze toward this lower chamber and hesitated to name what it was seeing. Zayn tried to laugh. No sound came out. So he stayed there, shaking, burning from the inside, his stomach full of what he should have rejected, his lips blackened by blood and bile.

He unlocked nothing. He understood nothing. He did not grow stronger. Not yet. He only survived the first bite. And down here, at that moment, that was already a form of monstrosity.