As for Seyfe, on the other hand, there was nothing he could find that resembled food—nothing even close. The rest of the crate was a graveyard of ruined supplies: shattered nutrient packs reeking of rot, water pouches punctured and long dried out, metal tins warped beyond recognition. Everything edible had either melted, spoiled, or fused into a grotesque mess of chemical-soaked waste.
He sat back on his heels, letting out a long, weary sigh. His stomach coiled with hunger, gnawing at itself. It had been nearly two days since he'd eaten anything that could be considered a meal—some dried root husks and bitter moss scraped from the walls of the outer ruin. Barely enough to keep moving.
Now, watching the infant peacefully feed, soothed by the faint warmth of that salvaged mixture, Seyfe felt a strange knot twist in his chest. Relief, sure. But also envy. And guilt.
He wiped a hand across his mouth, catching the dryness at the corners. "Lucky you, huh?" he muttered under his breath, offering the baby a tired smirk. "Didn't think I'd end up starving just so some tiny squaller could eat instead."
Still, as much as he ached, Seyfe didn't dare touch the rest of the baby's food. Not even a finger's worth. He'd made that call the moment he heard the first cry pierce the night. Whether it was instinct, madness, or something dangerously close to compassion—he didn't know. Maybe all three.
He leaned back against the broken crate, the cracked metal cool against his spine, and looked up at the fractured sky.
"No point in dying now," he murmured. "One crate made it through… maybe there's another."
His eyes drifted to the horizon—always shifting, always unnatural. But somewhere out there, another drop might have survived. And if not, well... he'd tear through the ruins until he found something. He had to.
To no avail, Seyfe's eyes drifted hopelessly over the sand once more—until they stopped.
His breath hitched in his throat.
There, just a few meters away, slumped in a twisted heap of flesh and rusted metal, was the grotesque creature he'd barely survived. Its decaying mass lay in quiet ruin, but—
"Wait… no. I'm not that mad, right?" Seyfe muttered, blinking rapidly.
The creature… it was moving.
Barely, subtly. A twitch. A slow convulsion rippling through its exposed muscles. One of its half-melted limbs jerked, spasming. And worse—its eye, that singular real one he'd rammed his fist into, was still open.
Still watching.
"No... no, no," he said, backing up, his pulse beginning to race. "I killed you. You're done. You're dead!"
The thing didn't lunge. Didn't roar. It simply twitched, like something still caught between death and the laws of this realm—something refusing to obey the rules of the natural world.
Seyfe swallowed hard, instinct screaming at him to grab the baby and run. But his body was sore, trembling. His mind, frayed.
He didn't know what was worse: the possibility that the creature wasn't dead—or the terrifying thought that this place had the power to reanimate things that should never rise again.
The child stirred softly in his arms.
"Right," Seyfe whispered, eyes still locked on the twitching corpse. "No time for ghosts. Gotta move. Gotta get out before this freak decides round two sounds fun."
He adjusted his grip on the baby, rising slowly, keeping his back to the horizon, and never breaking eye contact with the creature until he was several steps away.
But then—The hunger.
It roared louder than the wind, louder than the chaos that had just passed. It wasn't just the ache of an empty stomach anymore. It was primal. Gnawing. Like a voice whispering inside his skull, not his own.
Seyfe's legs trembled, not from exhaustion this time, but from temptation. The baby lay in the crate now, peacefully finishing the last traces of its salvaged meal, eyes drowsy with comfort. A moment of calm… and yet, Seyfe couldn't feel it.
His gaze slowly turned back to the creature's corpse.
The metal glinted faintly beneath the twilight sky, but it was the exposed meat—blackened, warped, grotesque—that held his attention. It twitched again. Almost like it was… still fresh.
He didn't know when his feet started moving.
He barely remembered placing the baby down with shaky hands, muttering under his breath, "Just rest… I'll be back…"
One slow step after another, Seyfe approached the monster. Madness—or something darker—whispered reason into him. Meat is meat. You've eaten worse to survive. Haven't you?
The stench was unbearable up close, but Seyfe's mind was far gone from disgust. Hunger burned through revulsion.
He dropped to his knees beside the corpse. His fingers hovered just above its steaming flesh. Still warm. Still twitching.
"This is insane," he whispered. "Absolutely insane."
And yet, he reached forward.
A deep breath. A prayer to no one. A sharp shard of metal in hand.
And then—he began to carve.
The first cut was the hardest.
The metal shard in Seyfe's hand sank into the twisted flesh with a sickening squelch, resisting like wet leather. Steam hissed out from beneath the skin, carrying a stench so foul it nearly buckled his knees. But he didn't stop. No… he pressed deeper, carving with trembling, feverish precision.
The meat twitched beneath his blade, as if the creature still felt it. Still knew.
That eye—it watched. Even now, lifeless and dull, it watched.
Seyfe's breath turned to rasps, each more manic than the last. His stomach coiled in anticipation and disgust. His mouth dry. His vision blurring from the heat of desperation.
And then—he took it. A fist-sized hunk, slick with dark ichor, fibers still pulsing faintly like they hadn't realized their body was dead.
He stared at it.
His hands shook. His thoughts screamed.
Don't.You've eaten rats. Moss. Mushrooms that made you see ghosts.But this? This is something else.
Seyfe laughed. A low, broken laugh. It started in his throat and cracked out of him like a dying fire sputtering back to life.
"This isn't cannibalism," he muttered, half to himself, half to the blinking corpse. "It's not human. Not even close. You're… you're just a beast. A glitch. You're not real."
Another chuckle, louder this time.
"Me eating you is no worse than eating a roach," he reasoned, lips twitching, eyes wide and bloodshot. "Just protein. Just survival. You understand, right?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Of course not.
Seyfe opened his mouth and took a bite.
It was warm.It was wrong.It was everything he needed.
The meat tore like sinew soaked in oil. It slid across his tongue like burnt tar, and the taste—Gods, the taste. It was like ash and blood and iron and static all at once, but still—he chewed. He swallowed.
And then, he laughed again.
A hollow, echoing sound that bounced off the ruins, off the sky, off the walls of whatever was left of his sanity. He dropped to his knees beside the corpse, scarfing mouthfuls of meat like a man who had never eaten before.
His hands, smeared in black fluid.His mouth, dripping.His mind, fraying.
"This isn't wrong," he whispered between bites. "This isn't wrong. This isn't wrong. This is survival."
But deep inside, something shifted. Something that couldn't be fed.
And the baby, not far off, began to cry again.
The taste lingered.Even after the meat was gone, after his gut churned with unfamiliar heat, after the last scraps had been gnawed from charred bone—it lingered.
Seyfe sat there, slumped beside the twitchless carcass, staring at his blood-slicked hands. They trembled. Not from hunger anymore. No, the hunger was gone. That was the problem.
He felt… full.
But not satisfied.
Not human.
He brought one hand to his mouth—shaking, twitching—and wiped the black ooze away, but it smeared more than it cleaned. His lips, his tongue, his teeth… they were stained. He could still taste it, like burnt metal and bile sunk into the roots of his tongue.
His eyes drifted to the horizon.Blank.Dead.
And then—A sound.
Wah…Soft. Weak.A cry.
The baby's cry.
Seyfe's head jerked toward the crate like he'd forgotten it was even there.
The child was squirming in the basket, face red, tears streaking down its cheeks. It wasn't just crying—it was screaming. A scream full of need, of life, of innocence.
And something inside Seyfe cracked.
He stood too quickly and stumbled, bile rising in his throat—not from the meat this time, but from shame.
"Oh... no, no, no," he rasped, falling to his knees beside the basket. "I left you… I left you alone."
He reached out, his hand hovering over the baby's face. But it was the same hand that had just feasted on a monster. It was still coated in gore. In death.
He pulled it back.
"Gods… what the hell am I becoming?"
The baby's cries softened as Seyfe leaned in close, whispering shaky nothings, trying to soothe it without touching.
"You're okay… you're okay, I'm here," he whispered. "I didn't forget you. I just… I was just…"
The baby's tiny fingers reached up, brushing his chin, and Seyfe flinched like he'd been struck. But the child didn't recoil. It cooed—just once—and nestled back into the ragged cloth.
Seyfe's heart throbbed.
Tears burned in his eyes.
And for the first time since the shift, since the hunger, since the kill—he felt again.
He wiped his hands clean on the sand, furiously rubbing until his skin burned raw. Then he scooped up the baby, cradling it gently against his chest.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I won't lose myself again. I can't. Not with you here. Not when you still need me."
The sky above groaned—a signal the realm might soon shift again.
Seyfe stood, shaky but determined, the baby bundled close in his arms.
Time to move.Time to survive—but without forgetting what was still human in him.