The Cursed Extra

Chapter 168: [3.41] I Tried

"This wasn’t a warrior’s death. This was just butchery. This was just meat being prepared for consumption."

***

The sound tore from his throat without conscious decision.

A raw animal noise that held all his rage. All his desperation. All his love for a sister who deserved better than this world had given her.

It wasn’t a battle cry so much as a declaration.

A refusal.

Let the universe laugh. He would give it something to remember either way.

His knuckles whitened around the broken spear shaft. The weathered wood slick with sweat and blood beneath his calloused fingers. He could feel the memory of every hour he’d spent training with this weapon. Every morning his father had woken him before dawn to practice forms. Every evening he’d stayed late at the academy’s training grounds while the noble students retired to their comfortable quarters.

He charged.

Covered the distance in three desperate strides. The stone floor was slippery with moss and ancient moisture. Each footfall a gamble between traction and disaster. His boot caught on an uneven flagstone and he nearly went down. Caught himself at the last moment through pure stubbornness.

The broken spear shaft was raised like a club above his head. His arm screamed in protest at the motion. His lungs burned with stale, subterranean air that tasted of rot and old magic.

He ignored all of it.

The transformed creature didn’t even bother to block.

It watched him come with ancient eyes that held millennia of contempt for his kind. Eyes that had seen a thousand desperate charges like this one. Eyes that knew exactly how this story ended.

Because it always ended the same way.

It moved with a speed that defied its new bulk. Sidestepped his attack as if he were a child swinging at shadows. The broken shaft whistled through empty air where the creature’s head had been a heartbeat ago.

Rhys’s momentum carried him forward. Off-balance. Exposed.

The creature was simply gone from where he’d aimed.

And somehow already behind him.

Before Rhys could adjust, before he could even begin to turn, clawed fingers wrapped around his wrist like iron shackles.

The pressure was immediate and crushing.

He felt his bones grind together. The joints screaming in protest. Tendons threatening to snap like overtightened bowstrings.

The grip was not meant to restrain.

It was meant to demonstrate absolute control. To show him exactly how powerless he truly was.

"Pathetic," the creature rumbled. Its voice now a bass note that seemed to vibrate through the stone itself. Dust rained from the tunnel ceiling. "You fight-struggle like insect-prey. You die-end like insect-prey."

It brought its other hand down.

Not on his head where a quick death might wait.

On his injured shoulder.

The creature knew exactly where he was weakest. Of course it did. It probably fed on pain and could smell old wounds the way a shark could smell blood in water.

The claws punched through muscle and scraped against bone.

Pain exploded through his body like liquid fire.

Each heartbeat sent fresh waves of agony cascading through him. His vision swam with black spots and crimson haze as warm blood soaked through his already tattered uniform.

Rhys screamed.

The sound tore from his lungs without his permission. Raw and animal and shameful. He had promised himself he wouldn’t scream. He had promised himself he would face death with dignity, like his grandfather, like his father would have.

Instead he screamed like a frightened child.

His voice cracked and broke against the tunnel walls.

His fingers went numb.

The broken spear shaft, the last piece of his father’s legacy, clattered to the stone floor. It lay there in a spreading pool of his own blood. Abandoned and useless. Just another piece of trash in an ancient tunnel full of the same.

He was completely disarmed now.

Crippled.

Held in an unbreakable grip by something that had shed any pretense of being merely goblin, merely mortal, merely anything that could be fought or reasoned with or survived.

The creature lifted him effortlessly.

Brought him face-to-face with eyes that burned like coals fresh from a forge.

Up close, he could see that those eyes held something worse than hunger or cruelty.

They held boredom.

This was routine for the creature.

This was Tuesday.

Its breath was the stench of old graves and rotting meat. Washing over him in waves that made his stomach churn and his gorge rise.

When it spoke, the words seemed to bypass his ears entirely. Vibrated directly through his skull and into the soft tissue of his brain.

"Now... you will scream for me. Long-time scream. Pretty-song scream. I make-craft your pain into art-beauty."

Rhys watched the creature’s jaw unhinge further.

Revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth that glistened with saliva. The inside of its mouth was black as a moonless night. A void that promised nothing but suffering.

He saw the claws on its free hand extend like switchblades.

Each one designed for tearing rather than cutting. For extending pain rather than ending it.

This wasn’t going to be quick.

This thing fed on suffering, and it intended to savor every moment of his.

He thought of Elara.

Pale and thin in their cottage. Counting the days until his return. She would keep counting. She would keep watching the road. She would keep believing, long after anyone else had given up hope.

Because that was who she was.

He thought of his father.

Who would never know what had happened to his son or the spear that had protected three generations of Blackwoods. The old man would blame himself. He would spend his remaining years wondering what he could have done differently.

He thought of every promise he’d made and would never be able to keep.

Every future that was bleeding out on this tunnel floor along with his body.

This wasn’t a warrior’s death.

This was just butchery.

This was just meat being prepared for consumption.

Rhys closed his eyes.

Braced for agony that would make his shoulder wound feel like a gentle caress.

The creature’s grip shifted. Positioned him for maximum access to vulnerable flesh. Tilted his head to expose his throat. Turned his body to give those claws a clear path to his stomach.

He heard the whistle of claws descending.

The sound of air parting before killing edges.

So this is it.

I’m sorry, Elara.

I’m sorry, Father.

I tried.