Ren stabbed the jagged bone down.
Again and again.
Until, the abomination stopped.
THUD
Its body collapsed into the ground. Thrown off by the impact of the fallen mass, Ren hit the ground hard. He laid there, struggling to breathe in and out through the ruin of his body.
"I…did it?" He rasped. "Mom…I did it." He tried to turn his head. "Eva…? Where are you?"
Then the ground rumbled beneath him. The fleshy muck that had once been the creature shifted, bubbled, and twitched, as if trying to remember its original form.
"No…"
SLOSH
Something in the pool of blackened blood began to gather itself.
SLOOSH
Bones pushed upward, snaking together into a ribcage. Flesh followed, stitching itself into a warped, almost-human form. From where its head should have been, a clump of fused faces emerged. And a single, massive, bloodshot eye blinked open. A mockery of the human body.
Ren groaned and forced himself upright onto shaking legs. Blood poured out from the open wound in his abdomen, his insides leaking out. His face was slit open, one eye swollen shut.
Still, he saw it.
His makeshift dagger, a few feet away, barely visible beneath a pool of rotted blood.
Ren limped toward it, clutching his stomach with his remaining arm. Before the abomination could fully awaken, he grabbed the dagger and clenched it tight. The handle was slick with old gore. The rusted blade was chipped—nearly snapped in half. But it was his weapon no less.
Behind him, the abomination shuddered. From its half-formed torso, the child's voice spilled out again, distorted and proud. "Mommy said…m-me could have you…for a t-treat…"
It had reformed enough to stand.
"You should've stayed dead." Ren spoke to the mutation.
He was leaking blood, hunched over, barely upright. But the dagger was still in his hand.
That was enough of a reason for Ren to charge in. Or what passed for a charge.
His body didn't run, it dragged itself forward, a ruin held together by will alone.
The abomination reacted, swinging a malformed limb like a club.
Ren ducked beneath. His fractured ribs screamed as he twisted, piercing the dagger into the monster's leg—if the bloated pillar of flesh could even be called that. The blade sank deep.
A jet of steaming black ichor erupted from the wound. The monster screamed out.
Not one voice—but hundreds. Children, women, men, all sobbed. And beasts howled.
Ren twisted the blade inside and ripped it free.
His strikes grew sloppier. More desperate. He stabbed until the dagger snapped at the hilt.
"You—"
SQUELCH
A stab with the broken handle.
"Don't—"
CRACK
A punch into its center.
"Get—"
GUSH
Fingers clawed into the wound.
"To live—"
RIP
Ren plunged his bare hand into its core and tore. In his fist—something pulsed.
The mutation buckled as its core was ripped free.
The towering mix of flesh dropped to its knees before him, its massive eye blinking sporadically.
"Don't kill me…"
Ren tossed the core aside and drew his fist back.
CRACK
"I'll be good!"
CRACK
"I'll be good!"
The head collapsed under Ren's blows. Flesh caved inward until there was nothing left to strike.
The mutant spasmed. Its flesh peeled off and unraveled. It could no longer hold its shape.
Ren pulled back, panting, kneeling in a pool of gore as the body decomposed in seconds, melting into a putrid sludge that soaked into the shattered chapel stones. And then—
It was gone.
"…Eva?" He wheezed. "Eva…where are you?!"
He was met by silence.
Then—
'Wake up…Wake up, little soul...'
The Mother's voice brushed against his mind.
"What…?" Ren's breath shuddered.
The air went still. A ringing grew behind his ears—faint at first, like glass screeching.
Ren blinked. And the blood was gone. The abomination was gone.
The ribcage. The limbs. The rotted blood.
All of it—gone. The chapel stood intact.
And beside him—
"Ren?!"
Eva was there.
She knelt next to him, hands trembling as she reached toward him.
"Ren?!" She pleaded, blackened tears falling from her sealed eyes. "Ren, can you hear me?! Please…I need you to please say something…"
He blinked through. He was still broken. Still drenched in blood.
But it wasn't a mix of the abomination's and his own no longer.
Now—
It wasn't blackened.
It wasn't inhuman.
It was only his.
Ren looked down at himself. His stomach was torn open. His arm was still gone at the socket.
Every injury remained.
"No…" He whispered, hollow. "No…I killed it. I—I was on top of it, I—"
Eva's voice broke through to him. "You…did this to yourself."
He stared at her in shock. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
"You ran off alone," She said in worry. "I found you here—collapsed on the floor. Covered in your own blood. There's nothing here, Ren. No monster. No Mother. Nothing was here. Nothing..."
Ren shook his head, weak from the injuries. "No…it was real."
He remembered it. The voice. The shape. The faces beneath the skin. The scream as it died.
"I felt it," He whispered. "I saw it."
Eva pressed her hand to his forehead. He flinched—but she didn't pull away from him.
"You were screaming," She said. "You were cutting yourself. Ripping at yourself. Talking to something that wasn't there…Ren, it wasn't real. None of it."
He looked over to the broken dagger. The hilt was soaked with his own blood.
And then, behind Eva, at the chapel entrance—
She appeared.
The Mother's voice slipped into Ren, and for him alone.
'Poor little soul. Did you think grief could be slain with rusted steel?'
Ren gritted his teeth at her voice, staring at her form with anger.
'I am not your enemy, Ren.' Her tone softened—solemn. 'I am inevitability…I am what remains when the fighting ends. You believe defiance makes you free…It only makes you suffer.'
Something warm spilled from Ren's eyes.
Blood? Tears? He couldn't tell.
"Ren?" Eva's voice trembled. "Ren, stay with me…"
'She'll never understand what you've seen. What you've endured…alone.'
"Get—get out of my head!" Ren snarled at the Mother.
'You allowed me…' She replied. 'You allowed me in…the very moment she died.'
Ren froze. His breathing stopped. His eyes wouldn't blink.
'It's her…The Mother.' Eva thought to herself. 'She's after him…'
'You miss her still,' The Mother whispered. 'That's why you couldn't tell the difference.'
"Ren! Ren, stay with me—don't listen to her!" Eva's voice broke through—real.
Her hand squeezed his, and Ren gasped, like surfacing from a nightmare. His eyes snapped to Eva, grounding himself in her presence. When he looked back, The Mother's form was fading.
'She'll never love you the way I do…'
And The Mother was gone.
"I…I think I need to rest," Ren murmured as he sagged back. "It won't be long until—"
Then, Eva felt it beneath her palm.
The heat. The pull throughout Ren's body.
Regeneration had begun.