Lina didn’t know what had just happened, nor did she have the strength to think about it. Her mind was fogged and heavy, her body trembling, but one thought burned through the haze: she had survived. Somehow, she had escaped certain death. That single truth lit a fragile spark in her chest, the hope that she could still see Vierna again.

  And then, she heard it again.

  “Lina…”

  It was soft, sweet, intoxicating, just like before. The same voice that once chased away her nightmares. The same voice she had longed for. The sound of it filled her ears like warm light flooding into a frozen heart.

  Her lips trembled, curving into a weak, delirious smile. She wanted to run toward it, to the one who had always saved her. And she thought she saw her: Vierna, holding a lantern that blazed like a miniature sun amid the black woods. Its glow pierced the storm, golden and divine, wrapping around her like an embrace.

  For a fleeting moment, Lina felt no pain. No exhaustion. Only peace. Maybe this was it. Maybe Vierna had come to take her home. Or maybe, finally, the gods had opened their eyes and sent mercy in the form of her beloved.

  She wanted to move, to run, to fall into that light, to feel Vierna’s hand on her cheek and her lips on her forehead. But her legs refused. They shook and locked beneath her, her wounded muscles betraying her will. She could only sit there beside Axel, unmoving, as if the earth itself had claimed her feet.

  Then she saw it.

  A hand, clutching the trunk of a tree.

  Then another.

  And another.

  More and more, until the forest itself seemed to crawl with arms.

  And finally, it emerged.

  The cruel joke of reality

  The creature dragged itself into the clearing, its body an abomination of limbs, arms sprouting where legs should be, torsos fused together, bones bending the wrong way. Its head was stitched with iron threads across the eyes, and yet its gaze still found her. From its palms gaped mouths, wet and glistening, that whispered in the same honeyed tone as Vierna’s voice. The same creature that almost had her back then.

  “Lina…”

  The word slipped through those mouths, soft as silk, each syllable vibrating with warmth and longing. It was wrong, so wrong, and yet the sweetness of it tugged at her heart, beckoning her closer like a lover’s promise.

  From the lantern that hung on its many arms poured the same golden light she had mistaken for salvation. Now she saw it clearly. The lantern’s glow came not from flame, but from some mass of meat or something she couldn’t comprehend.

  Its central mouth, carved from ear to ear, opened in a grin too wide, too unatural. A barbed tongue slid out, dragging across its lips with a wet, obscene sound. The air filled with the stench of iron and rot.

  Lina’s stomach lurched. Her throat clenched, dry and raw, but she had nothing left to vomit.

  She should have been enthralled, drawn to that voice like a moth to fire, but the pain in her body kept her tethered. Her legs bled, her hands trembled, and every pulse of Grace inside her burned like acid.

  And now she understood. The mana beasts before hadn’t fled because of divine mercy. They had fled because something far worse had arrived.

  In a way, she thought she had already accepted her death, because there was literally nothing else to do. And she was at peace with that. But the gods weren’t satisfied, not even a bit. They gave her a sliver of hope, a thread to pull herself from the bottom of the abyss back to life, only to place a predator at the end of that thread.

  “Ahaha… HAHAHA… HAHAHA! Well, at least it’ll use my arm as its body instead of letting it go to waste, huh?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She laughed bitterly at the skies, at the gods who had thrown her into some kind of macabre tragedy where a child torn apart by countless twisted-limbed mana beasts wasn’t enough. Instead, she would be devoured by a stitched-eyed monster with a thousand hands, each likely taken from its victims as trophies or functional limbs. Her voice was drowned by the raging storm and mocking thunder in the distance. It was a defiance that fell on the deaf ears of the gods and perhaps even of the beast still searching for her.

  It moved slowly but surely toward her, never changing direction even slightly. If she stayed where she was, it would eventually find her. It kept groping blindly around, its stitch eyed face turning this way and that.

  She wanted to shout at it, to mock it one last time and let it eat her. At that point, she believed there was no hope.

  She knew Vierna too well; she suspected Vierna was already on her way, trying to save her. The cylindrical object she had carried, the one that constantly emitted a violet trail, would lead her straight here.

  But she believed there was no escape. Sure, Vierna could drag her slowly away from its path, but what if the creature noticed? What if it only pretended not to, savoring her fear and agony until the end?

  If that was true, then she was nothing but a liability, one that could make Vierna die pointlessly while trying to save a corpse already half-buried in the ground. Vierna would fight, of course. But it would be useless. The beast’s mana was so thick it made the air feel like liquid, seeping into her lungs, rotting them from within while choking her throat. And Vierna was in no condition to face it, not with the tea poisoning and everything. So killing herself here was the right thing to do.

  She looked at the beast again. It still moved slowly, searching for her. And now she believed it—believed that it already knew and was simply playing with its food. After all, what could taste better than flesh marinated in desperation, fear, and hatred?

  She raised her hand slowly to her mouth. But when her fingers touched her cheeks, she could feel it—her wound, pulsing under the weight of living. A reminder of where she came from. A desperate, suicidal girl who only tried to use her friend as a novelty while planning her own death. That was who she was. That was all she had left.

  Tears flowed down from her eyes. Each drop created a tiny tic that somehow sounded louder than the storm raging on.

  I’m still the same… I’m still the same useless girl who tried to take advantage of Vierna.

  And the realization—the fact that she had thrown away everything Vierna did for her, all her acceptance, all her love—made her sick. It made her want to scream, to wake herself up to how idiotic and worthless the girl called Lina was.

  Worse, it made her realize what a liar she had been. She told Vierna she would show her what true love was, but when that oath was tested by something as simple as certain death, she gave up. She wanted to leave the debt unpaid. It was as if she had become Vierna’s mom—the one who left her alone, stranded in a barren, colorless world.

  The thought made her stomach churn. Acid burned her throat, but she held it back. She punched herself in the face, realizing just how weak she was, how much of a quitter she was. The searing pain flared across her scarred skin, but she barely felt it compared to the pain in her soul—the one she had only just begun to understand.

  I need to get out of here. I need to fucking stay alive—for Vierna.

  She looked at Axel’s body. His chest still rose and fell in a slow rhythm, but there was no sign of him waking. His skin was pale as snow, his body drenched in both sweat and freezing rain, lying motionless among the black leaves of the Schattwald forest like a painting of sorrow. And yet, despite the pathetic state the boy was in—the boy she had pitied enough to carry this far—she finally recognized her own limits.

  Axel… I’m sorry. But I have no choice. I need to get out of here.

  With renewed resolve—sparked by the burning touch of her ruined skin—she forced herself to move. But while her spirit was willing, her body wasn’t. Her legs refused to obey. So she rolled onto her stomach instead. Using her trembling fingers as claws, she began dragging herself along the ground, hoping she could claw her way to safety.

  Her fingers screamed in agony, rebelling against her mind’s command. The pain from her earlier Grace overuse was already unbearable, and now she forced her whole weight onto her hands. Her knees scraped against the cold, dark soil; every movement felt like her body was being grated apart, her flesh scattered and swallowed by the storm and rain.

  She looked back at the beast. It was still groping around its central body, but even so, it was moving closer and closer.

  Yet the Lina who had once given up was gone. Even if all her nails tore off, even if she lost parts of herself along the way—as long as she was still breathing, she would claw her way out of there.

  It went on and on, a crawl that felt like an endless chase. Every heartbeat screamed against the mud, every breath scraped through her throat like shards. But then—she saw it. The beast was falling behind. It was moving toward Axel now, slower, heavier. For the first time, she thought maybe—just maybe—she could outrun death itself.

  But the thought barely formed before her body rebelled. A sickening pulse twisted in her gut, crawling up her throat. She clamped her jaw shut, shaking, trying to swallow it back.

  Her stomach convulsed again, harder this time, forcing bile up through her clenched teeth.

  “Hrk—ghhhkk—! …BLEEUUAAARGHH!”