The monster slowly wobbled on its many appendages towards Akira, the boy watched, his eyes fixated on the larva, not letting it leave his silver gaze as he readied the new weapon that was part of the corpse of a predator who had been devoured a long time ago.

  He gulped, this was the first time Akira had ever faced a foe, not to mention it was kill or be killed situation.

  The larva monster snarled, its jagged fangs glistening with a yellow glistening saliva, reflecting the dim light with a sinister sheen. It surged forward, propelled by a primal hunger, and Akira instinctively took a step back.

  “Come on.” He muttered, half to himself and half to the creature, his voice quavering with a mixture of bravado and terror. “You want a piece of me?”

  The beast lunged, its body undulating like a grotesque wave, and Akira’s instincts kicked in.

  He sidestepped, well… It was more like throwing himself to the side, but his action narrowly avoiding the monstrous bulk as it crashed into the ground behind him, sending a spray of stones cascading into the darkness.

  The ground shook beneath him, a tremor of chaos that echoed the turmoil within his soul.

  “Stay focused.” He chided himself, adrenaline coursing through his veins like fire.

  With a growl that reverberated through the stillness, Akira lunged towards the monster and twisting his whole upper body as he swung the mantis claw with all his might, aiming for the creature’s side.

  The serrated edges cut through the air, slicing into the larva’s flesh with a sickening squelch.

  A visceral rush surged through him as he felt the impact, his confidence briefly igniting like a flickering flame against the shadows of despair.

  The larva screeched, its piercing cry cutting through the darkness like a banshee’s wail.

  “DON’T CRY NOW! THIS IS JUST THE START!”

  Akira started using the serrated edge of the limb as a saw to cut deeper and deeper into the monster.

  With a lot of struggle Akira sawed away at the still-alive monster, wails of pain and despair like a child begging for mercy, grotesque screeches and many more nightmarish sounds were all playing as if it was a cacophony of chaos, a few moments later his limbs simply couldn’t move from the fatigue.

  It all turned quiet.

  The silence that followed the monster’s death was suffocating, a heavy, oppressive void that pressed in on him from all sides.

  He felt his knees begin to buckle, the weight of what he’d just done crashing down on him like the rocks that had imprisoned him moments before.

  Every muscle in his body screamed in protest, raw and battered, his strength depleted.

  His gaze drifted down to the twitching remains of his foe, its segmented body shuddering in its final throes.

  The once-beautiful, dark blue flesh was marred with a deep, ragged gash, a wound that he had carved himself, the yellow blood overflowed from the monster’s body.

  “I… did it…?” Akira murmured weakly as if he doubted his own words, his voice little more than a whisper that vanished into the darkness.

  But despite what he initially thought, victory felt hollow. There was no triumph in this grisly scene, no satisfaction in the act of killing. Just a raw, visceral emptiness that gnawed at his insides.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  A killer and the one who was killed

  Akira stood motionless, the serrated mantis claw still in his trembling hands, slick with the yellow liquid of his fallen foe. His breath was ragged, each inhale laced with exhaustion, each exhale tinged with disbelief.

  The larva’s body lay twisted in a grotesque heap before him, its last violent spasms now reduced to sickening twitches. Akira’s eyes were locked on the gash he’d carved, the torn flesh seeping its life essence into the stone. The reality of what he had just done gnawed at his mind, chewing through the fragile threads of his sanity.

  “No, there’s no time, I have to figure out where the hell I am.” The faint crimson glow from the corpse of the hanging mantis monster made Akira’s gaze attracted to it. “But first. What is that?”

  The boy went to the monster’s tomb, he let the claw he was dragging along fall down on the stone ground next to his feet.

  He grabbed onto the other claw that was still attached to the monster, making sure to grab the serrated edge carefully so as to not hurt himself on it, and started tugging.

  Tug after tug after tug, it felt as if he had repeated the same action for hours, however the cocoon did not give out despite his best effort, until a sudden crack could be heard howling through the dark.

  Akira staggered back just in time before the cocoon and the corpse inside it collapsed onto the ground. “Finally.” Akira said weakly.

  Forcing himself to move, he bent down, reaching for the serrated claw he had used moments before for his first blood.

  His fingers, slick with grime, fumbled against the weapon’s cold surface.

  He wasn’t sure if it was fatigue or the sheer terror that still clung to him like a second skin, but everything felt distant… disconnected, as though his body and mind were no longer aligned.

  The clang of the claw dragging across the stone floor as he lifted it reverberated through the cavern, echoing the quiet horror that lingered in the air.

  A grim chuckle escaped his lips, bitter and hollow. Is that what it takes to survive? He thought back to the battle with the larva monster, the savage desperation that had overtaken him.

  The way he had hacked at the creature without hesitation, consumed by the need to live. The wretched noises it made as he tore it apart still echoed in his ears.

  He never imagined he would have to go to such lengths to survive, and yet here he stood, weapon in hand, the stench of death and blood clinging to his skin like a brand.

  And he was still alive.

  Each step towards the fallen cocoon felt like a battle.

  His legs screamed in protest, the fatigue that had settled into his bones dragging him down with each movement. His breathing came in ragged gasps, his chest tight, but he pushed forward.

  “Move, dumbass.” The mantra pounded in his skull.

  Every step felt treacherous.

  As he drew closer to the crimson light, the faint illumination revealed something strange, an almost round crystal embedded deep within the mantis’s chest, its steady light crimson glow was eye-catching in the darkness.

  The crystal itself was around the size of a horse’s heart and had a round shape, though it also held a few imperfections.

  Using the grotesque giant claw of the mantis monster as a sort of shovel, he moved aside the broken cocoon fragments and the dry remnants of the once ferocious beast revealing the crystal in its full beauty.

  Again, using the severed claw as a makeshift crutch, Akira leaned forward, his breath rugged and uneven, eyes transfixed on the crimson crystal nestled within the twisted remains of the mantis’s ancient corpse.

  He stretched his thin, grime-encrusted fingers towards the sphere, his touch tentative, almost reverent. Despite its size, much larger than his palm, it felt unnervingly light, as if it held no substance despite its ominous glow.

  Lifting it closer to his face, he scrutinized every imperfection, the uneven edges that disrupted its smooth surface, the tiny bumps that caught the dim light, and the dark veins that seemed to pulse faintly beneath its ruby hue.

  It seemed like an anomaly, a fragile creation of some twisted force, holding secrets he dared not imagine. He turned it over in his hands, the cool surface biting into his skin. What is this thing? He thought, uncertainty swirling in his mind like a storm.

  “Well, it's the only light I have, so for now I guess I’ll keep it.” He murmured, the whisper of his voice swallowed by the oppressive silence.

  With a heavy sigh, he glanced behind himself at the corpse of the larva monster sprawled on the cruel ground.

  Its once massive form now lay deflated and broken, its segmented body split wide open from his desperate assault. The creature’s flesh glistened slickly in the dim glow of the crystal, a mix of dark blue hide and thick yellow blood pooling around it.

  For a moment, he only stared.

  His wide, hollow eyes mirrored a mixture of horror and something far darker, a flicker of a hunger not just for food but for survival, primal and unforgiving.

  The smell of death was thick, saturating the air with rot and bitterness. His stomach churned, gnawing at him, the emptiness a cruel reminder of his mortality.

  A low growl rose from his belly, loud in the stillness.

  “Shit...” He cursed under his breath, hating the sound of his own hunger. It wasn’t just a reminder of his weakness, it was a command, a cruel and merciless demand for sustenance.