Chương 52: Hunger Begins to Speak

Zayn turned his back on the grate. Not immediately. He stayed there first, in the rising corridor, two meters from the sky, his hand still resting on the cold bars. Outside, the wind passed. Not much. Just enough to bring him something that did not belong to the depths: the smell of dry grass, wet stone, open air. The kind of absurd detail capable of making a prison crueler than a wall without windows. He could have screamed. Hit the bars again. Cursed the dead or living humans who had sealed this exit.

Made grand promises to people who were not there. He did none of it. Because screaming used water. The thought was so pathetic it made him laugh once. A short, hoarse sound.

"So this is my new greatness. Optimizing saliva." No one answered. Even the weaver stayed silent. Zayn finally stepped back. One step. Then another. The pale light from outside faded behind him. With every meter, he moved farther from the sky, and with every meter his body seemed to understand that he was returning to the dark voluntarily. No. Not voluntarily. For lack of options. Important difference. He went back down the natural corridor more slowly than he had climbed it. His cracked lamp was fading.

The red glow had lost stability, pulsing at times like a sick heart. His flank had started bleeding again from the effort against the grate. His forearm, wrapped in beast hide, stank. His mouth still held the metallic taste of murky water and dried blood. At the junction beneath the stone door, he stopped. He still had: a little water left, a piece of black bread that had become almost symbolic, two blades, a rope, a Cinders plaque, chalk, and a rather impressive quantity of pain, enough to open a shop.

His soul strength was 36. Thirty-six. More than at the beginning. Not enough to break a grate. Not enough to climb back up. Not enough to kill whatever ruled the depths. So not enough. He took a tiny sip. Too tiny to satisfy. Enough to survive. Then he started walking again, not toward the grate, not toward the old marks, but toward a passage he had deliberately avoided earlier: the one where several weak values moved around wetter air. 8 10 7 Beasts. Maybe water. Maybe leftovers.

Maybe just a very efficient way to die lower down. But the choice between starving carefully and dying faster while trying something was not really a choice. The tunnel spiraled downward gently. The red veins in the stone became rarer, replaced by dark dampness that clung to the walls. The farther he went, the more the smell changed. Mold. Earth. Old flesh. Then something more interesting. Rotten grain. Zayn stopped. He inhaled despite himself. Hunger answered before reason did.

His stomach clenched so hard he had to put a hand against the wall. Not yet. Do not run toward the smell of food in a hole filled with things that imitate voices and use corpses as doors. Rule eleven, probably. He pulled out the chalk, but his hand was shaking too much to write properly. So he simply muttered,"Rule eleven. If it smells like food, the food is probably armed." He went forward anyway. The tunnel opened into an old storage room. Human, this time. Not recent.

An old relay depot, forgotten beneath a partial collapse. Crates torn open. Canvas sacks chewed through. Barrels overturned. Rusted tools. Dead lanterns. A skeleton sitting against a crate, helmet still on its skull, as if it had decided to die while keeping inventory. Zayn looked around. Nearby values. 8 on the left, behind the sacks. 10 on the ceiling. 7 under a crate. Three beasts. No human value. No visible weaver. The depot was a pantry. Which meant a trap. The only question was: for whom?

He picked up a stone and threw it toward the farthest crate. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The 7 jumped first. Small, lean, nervous. It shot out from beneath the crate like an arrow and rushed toward the sound. The 10 did not move. Smarter. That one first. Zayn pulled a half-empty moldy sack toward himself. The fabric tore. Gray dust spilled out, making him cough dryly. Overhead, clinging to the ceiling, the 10 turned its head slightly.

It looked like a bat without wings, all fingers and stretched skin, with a jaw far too large. Zayn scraped the floor with his blade. The 7 came back toward the sound. The 8 came out too. The 10, though, waited until the other two had gotten closer. Then it dropped on them. Not on Zayn. On its own competitors. Good. The depot had a hierarchy. The 10 bit the 8 at the nape. The 7 backed away too late. For three seconds, the beasts fought each other in a tangle of claws and shrieks.

Zayn used exactly those three seconds. He crossed the depot, grabbed a rusted spear lying near the skeleton, drove it toward the pile of fighting bodies, and pinned the 10 against a crate. It screamed. The other two fled. Zayn threw himself on the largest one before it could rip the spear loose, plunged his dagger into its chest, then put all his weight behind it. The beast struck his wounded shoulder. Pain blasted his vision white. He clenched his teeth and twisted the blade. The body went rigid.

[Soul strength absorbed: +1] Warmth entered, faint but distinct. Current soul strength: 37 Zayn stayed bent over the corpse. Thirty-seven. Another step. Always another step. The 8 had vanished. The 7, wounded, limped toward the back of the depot. He could have chased it. He looked at the crates. No. Priorities. He searched. The first sacks were useless. Grain turned into gray paste. Black flour. Damp salt in useless blocks. One crate held chewed strips of cloth. Another, tools.

A third one finally gave under his blade and revealed several wax-wrapped packets. Zayn felt his heart quicken. He opened the first. Ration biscuits. Black at the edges. Hard. Partly moldy. But still recognizable. He stared at the packet. Hunger spoke louder than caution. He tore off a piece and almost brought it to his mouth. Then he stopped. No. He looked around, took a crumb of ration, and tossed it to the wounded 7 still crawling near the wall. The small beast sniffed it. Then ate. Zayn waited. One second. Ten.

Thirty. The beast did not die. It even resumed biting the piece more eagerly. Enough. Not safe. Enough. He ate. The ration tasted like a damp cellar, an old boot, and regret compacted into matter. His stomach protested at the first bite, but hunger crushed disgust. He chewed slowly, forced himself not to swallow too fast, then took a second piece. Mistake. His stomach clenched almost immediately. Not in a deadly way. In an offended way. He leaned against a crate.

"All right. Message received. Human military cooking remains a weapon even after abandonment." He stored the remaining packets in his satchel. Not much. But enough to last. Maybe. The 7 had finished its piece now. It was looking at Zayn. Not aggressive. Hesitant. It limped, its muzzle covered in crumbs and filth. Zayn stared back. It had eaten before him. It had served as a test. It could serve again. He tossed it a second ration fragment, smaller, near the entrance. The beast approached it. Good.

It could be moved. He smiled without joy.

"Congratulations. You've just been hired as a poison detector. Salary: crumbs. Benefits: uncertain." The beast did not seem to appreciate the honor. It ate anyway. Zayn kept searching. At the back of the depot, behind the seated skeleton, he found a small sealed metal flask. Inside was not water. A strong liquor. Very strong. He smelled it, coughed, then immediately closed it again. Drinking that now would be stupid.

Using it to disinfect a wound, start a fire, clean a blade, or make a flammable creature regret its life? Much better. He kept it. The skeleton, on the other hand, had little left to offer. A dull knife. An unreadable identification plate. Three buttons. Zayn took the knife. Not the buttons. Even he had limits. Then he circled the depot to check for marks. No red ones. No blue ones. But on the back wall, behind some crates, a human inscription had been carved very low.

DAY 4 — NO MORE LIGHT DAY 5 — IT SPEAKS WITH MAREN'S VOICE DAY 6 — WE ATE THE BLACK RATIONS DAY 7 — DO NOT LET THE DEAD SPEAK TOO LONG Zayn stood there a moment. Day 7. So you could last at least seven days down here. Or die while counting them, which was a nuance. He ran a finger over the letters. The black rations. He looked at the packets in his satchel. Very reassuring. Absolutely not disturbing. He would almost have preferred not being able to read. A sound echoed at the entrance to the depot.

The 8 had come back. Not alone. Another value behind it. 18 Heavier. Zayn let out a breath through his nose. Food attracted everything. Of course. He stepped back behind a row of crates, holding the dagger in one hand and the dull knife in the other. The wounded 7, his very temporary employee, lifted its head toward the entrance. The 8 entered first. Then the 18. That one was not a simple crack-beast. It had a low, massive body, almost eyeless, with a vertical mouth in the middle of its skull.

Its shoulders scraped the crates. Its skin bore dark plates thick as bark. It was sniffing. Not the depot. Him. The blood. The ration. The dead meat. The 7 tried to flee. The 18 crushed it with one paw. The 7 value went out. No message. Zayn glanced at the little smear that had been his poison detector.

"Regrettable breach of contract," he muttered. The 18 turned toward him. Bad. He threw the dull knife at its face. The blade bounced off a bony plate. Very bad. The creature charged. Zayn jumped aside. Too slowly. The beast's shoulder slammed into him and threw him against a crate. The wood exploded. His already aching rib cried out with conviction. He fell, rolled, barely avoided the vertical mouth that bit the ground where his leg had been. He did not have the strength to fight it directly. So he did not.

He grabbed a black ration that had fallen on the floor and threw it behind the creature. It did not turn. Not stupid. He threw the liquor flask against the crate behind it. The metal clanged. The beast turned that time. Not for the ration. For the noise. Zayn used the moment to dive beneath its flank, drive the dagger into the gap between two plates, and pull backward. The blade went in only a little. The beast screamed. Its body crashed down on him. The weight cut off his breath. He almost let go. No.

He grabbed the rusted spear still stuck in the corpse of the 10, tore it halfway free, then shoved it under the belly of the 18 with everything he had left. The metal went in. Not enough. The beast twisted and hurled him against the wall with a swipe. For a second, he saw nothing. Only red. Then the creature came again. Zayn snatched up the fallen liquor flask, opened it with his teeth, and threw the contents directly at the vertical mouth as it opened. The beast took the liquid straight into its throat.

It recoiled, shaken by the burn. Not dead. But disoriented. Zayn grabbed a dead lamp, tore the cracked crystal from his own nearly spent red lamp, and hurled it at the alcohol splashed across the broken crate. A spark. Then flame. Small. Enough. The fire caught the dry wood, licked across the floor, reached the alcohol on the beast's muzzle. The 18 screamed. This time, really screamed.

Zayn threw himself on it while it recoiled, drove the dagger into the burned part of its throat, where the skin had tightened, and forced it in until he felt something give. The creature thrashed. He held on. The flames nearly bit his hand. He pushed harder. Again. Then the beast collapsed. [Soul strength absorbed: +1] Current soul strength: 38 Zayn fell beside the corpse, gasping, hands shaking. Thirty-eight. The depot was burning slowly behind him. Not enough to destroy everything immediately.

Enough to become a problem in under a minute. He forced himself to move. Grabbed the black rations. The rope. The blades. The empty flask. A burning piece of wood, which he smothered against the stone after using it to light an old torch found near the skeleton. Light. Real light. Poor, smoky, foul-smelling. Magnificent. The fire was spreading to the moldy crates. Black smoke climbed toward the ceiling. The small values in the walls were already fleeing. Good. Let them flee. So would he.

He left the depot through the back, where a small tunnel sloped downward toward a clearer sound of water. Not safe. But the fire was reducing his options. After about thirty meters, his stomach turned. Zayn stopped. No. He took three more steps. His body rejected the order. He dropped to his knees and vomited. Black ration. Murky water. Bile. Blood maybe. Pain tore a groan from him. He stayed bent over, one hand against the stone, his body wracked by spasms.

His stomach contracted as if something inside were scratching to get out. Not the time. Really not the time. He vomited again. When it was over, he remained on his knees, breathing in broken bursts, the smoking torch beside him. So the rations were edible. With an extremely generous definition of the word. He laughed. A weak, sick laugh, almost soundless.

"Very well. Culinary note: foul taste, dubious preservation, immediate side effects. One star. Because zero would be rude to the skeleton." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His soul strength had increased. His body, meanwhile, seemed determined to demand a refund. Farther on, the sound of water continued. And behind him, in the depot, the fire was slowly waking something in the walls. Zayn picked up the torch. His legs were shaking. His stomach was burning. Hunger had not gone away.

It had only changed voices. He went on anyway, leaving behind the depot, the smoke, the corpse of the 18 beast, and the simple certainty that down here, even eating could become a kind of battle already lost in advance.