The thud of Jorin's body hitting the ground still echoed in my skull.I didn't have time to freeze.
Outside the door—shouts. Footsteps.
"They heard that," I whispered, grabbing Seonwoo's arm. "We need to move."
He was pale, still wounded, but he nodded. No more arguments.
I helped him up, our limbs tangled in panic and adrenaline. We stumbled toward the back of the room, where the walls cracked into uneven stone.
"There's got to be a way out," I muttered, eyes scanning.
We found it—a narrow tunnel behind a broken shelving unit, barely visible in the shadows. It reeked of mold and old rot.
The footsteps were closer. Doors slamming open.
No time.
We slipped inside.
The tunnel was damp, the air thick and suffocating. I held the book tight to my chest, its pages trembling faintly—alive, or maybe just reacting to my heartbeat.
We kept moving, deeper and deeper, until the torchlight from behind no longer reached us.
Then we saw it.
The walls widened into a chamber.
Cages.
Rows of them.
Bones and tattered clothes littered the floor like discarded trash. Some corpses were fresh. Others... weren't.
The air was thick with death. But the worst part was the silence—except for the faint groans and rattling from deeper within the cages.
"Are... are they alive?" Seonwoo whispered, his voice barely audible.
I didn't answer immediately. I couldn't. My throat was tight, my chest was tight, and everything in my body screamed at me to run. But I couldn't. Not now. Not after everything I had already seen. I needed to know.
Then, in the furthest cage, movement.
Two figures, barely breathing. One raised their head weakly at the sound of our steps, eyes wide and sunken, the hollow remains of a life once lived.
My stomach twisted, a cold chill crawling down my spine.
A laugh escaped my lips. Not joy. Not madness. Something between vindication and horror.
"I was right," I said, voice hoarse, but it still echoed too loud in the eerie silence. "The book was right."
Behind me, Seonwoo stood silent, staring, his face twisted in disbelief.
"They're not rescuers," I whispered again, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. "They're feeders."
He didn't respond right away. Then, quietly, he said, "They smiled so kindly."
I nodded, my gaze still locked on the remains in the cages. "And now, they're going to feast on us."
Suddenly, the smell hit us—the heavy, rancid odor of burned meat. It wasn't the smell of cooking for comfort or warmth. It was something far darker. It was ritual. Celebration.
I felt a chill run down my spine as realization hit like a bolt of lightning.
"They weren't trying to save us," I said, my voice trembling. "They were saving us for the feast. We're the next meal."
Seonwoo looked horrified. "What are we going to do?"
"I'm not leaving without weapons," I told him, my voice steely as I pushed forward. My mind raced. I could hear the sounds of footsteps approaching in the distance, the air thick with tension. I was trying to think of any way out of this. We needed to fight. We had to.
Seonwoo stiffened, his face pale and drawn. "No. You need to leave. Save yourself."
"Not without you." I shook my head. "I'm not running away like a coward."
"I'm already a liability," he snapped back, trying to push me away as if it would make me run. But I wasn't leaving him behind.
"No," I repeated, more firmly. "I'm not leaving without you. We fight together or we die together."
There was a moment of silence between us, the air thick and charged with emotion. Seonwoo's eyes softened, just for a moment, before he gave a reluctant nod.
I could see in his face that he was still willing to fight. We both were.
"I'll buy you time," he said, his voice filled with grim determination. "You go for weapons. I'll hold them off."
"No," I..., but he was already moving. He stood tall, wounded but burning with resolve. He was the protagonist of the book, after all—even death would hesitate before claiming him.
He bought me time.
I scrambled through the rubble and back corridors, fingers bloody, lungs burning. Every second felt like a minute, every second more precious than the last. My heart raced in my chest, pushing me to move faster, faster.
Then I found it—his blade, clean and cold, hidden in a pile of stolen gear. I didn't hesitate. I grabbed it. It felt heavy in my hands, but I didn't care. I had to save him.
I ran.
When I returned, it was already too late.
They'd caught him again.
Vira, Kael, and Eza stood around him, laughing, muttering about his meat, how it would feed them for days. They were circling him like vultures, their eyes glowing with twisted delight as they dragged him to the ground.
He was still alive—barely—but they were going to cook him alive. I could hear the whispers, the disgusting comments they made about what they planned to do to him.
"His meat will be tender. I bet you can taste it already." Vira's voice was sickeningly sweet, dripping with malice.
My fists clenched around the hilt of the sword. I had no plan, no time to think. I acted on instinct.
Then they shifted.
Skin peeled away. What was underneath made my heart stop. Wet muscle. Claws. Eyes too many and too deep.
They weren't human.
The fire rose in me. I didn't care about fear. I cared about survival.
I didn't think. I acted.
I grabbed a cloth, soaked it in oil from a nearby torch. I lit it and tossed it into the racks of dried meat they kept like trophies. The fire caught fast, crackling through the dry wood and setting the room ablaze.
The monsters screamed, recoiling from the heat, the fire licking at their skin.
Seonwoo caught my gaze, his eyes wide with surprise. "You came back."
"Don't let that go to your head," I muttered as I cut him loose. I didn't have time to savor the moment. We had to move.
He grabbed his sword, wincing in pain but not slowing down.
The room was chaos, flames licking at the walls and the grotesque figures scrambling to avoid the fire. Seonwoo was relentless.
His sword moved like a flash of lightning—quick, sharp, unstoppable.
His strikes were precise, cutting down one of the monsters as it lunged for him.
I moved too, but I wasn't as strong as Seonwoo. I grabbed what I could—knives, a broken spear, whatever was within reach, using them to defend myself.
"What the hell are they?" I shouted, as I ducked under one of their claws, narrowly avoiding the sharp strike.
"They're not human," Seonwoo grunted, cutting through another monster's neck. "And we need to end this now."
But even as we fought, some escaped—hissing, crawling through the cracks in the stone. They were too fast, too feral. We couldn't kill them all.
"I won't let them win," Seonwoo said fiercely, wiping the blood from his face. He charged forward, taking down another of the creatures.
I turned, grabbing a burning log from the fire and tossing it into the shadows where I knew one had crawled. The crackle of burning flesh filled the air.
I didn't care. We couldn't let them win.
We ran.
The flames roared behind us, spreading quickly through the building. We didn't have much time.
Seonwoo's face was covered in blood—his own, the monsters', the heat radiating off the burning walls.
He was still running, still fighting, but exhaustion was creeping in. He had pushed his body to its limit. Even I could see that.
We kept moving, our feet slipping on the blood-slick floors, the sound of our rapid breathing filling the oppressive silence. But we couldn't stop. Not until we were out of here.
Behind us, the monsters were shrieking, retreating into the darkness, their unnatural forms too quick for us to catch. Some had already been consumed by the fire, others still lingered in the shadowed corners, their eyes glowing like embers.
"This way," I called to Seonwoo, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward a narrow passageway at the back of the chamber. It was almost hidden by the wreckage, but it was the only exit we hadn't yet tried.
He followed, stumbling slightly, but determination in his eyes. I could feel his exhaustion, but he didn't complain. He was still the hero of the story, even in this grim reality.
We reached the tunnel's mouth, the opening small enough that only one of us could fit through at a time. I looked back at the inferno behind us, the walls of the fort cracking and collapsing in on themselves. It wouldn't be long before the whole place caved in.
"We're almost there," Seonwoo said, his voice raspy but steady. His gaze never wavered.
I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest. "Stay close. Don't fall behind."
I moved first, pulling myself through the narrow gap. The stone walls scraped against my arms as I slid through, desperate to get away from the fire that seemed to be chasing us.
Seonwoo followed quickly, his sword still clutched in his hand, his every movement deliberate and cautious. We moved as quickly as we could, my body aching with every step, my legs trembling from exhaustion, but I couldn't stop. Not now. Not when freedom was so close.
Finally, the tunnel opened up into a small clearing. We had made it out of the fort. The night air was cool and crisp, the smell of smoke still hanging heavy in the distance, but it was a relief to finally be free.
Seonwoo leaned against the rocks for support, his breath ragged. He glanced at me, his face a mix of relief and something else. "We did it."
I didn't answer right away. I was too focused on the eerie silence surrounding us. The battle had ended, but it felt like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something else to happen. There was a gnawing feeling in my gut, a sense that our journey was far from over.
"We need to keep moving," I said, my voice firm. "We're not safe yet."
Seonwoo nodded, though his exhaustion was evident. He wiped the sweat and blood from his forehead and gripped his sword tighter. "Where do we go now?"
I looked out into the dark, uncertain landscape ahead of us. "Anywhere but here."
He looked at me, the faintest spark of gratitude in his eyes. "I'm glad you're with me."
And in that moment, for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to believe that we might just make it. That we might survive.
The fort was burning behind us, its evil secrets left in the ashes. We couldn't change the past, but we could fight for the future. We would keep moving, keep surviving, no matter what came next.
Together, we walked into the unknown.
And behind us, the fort burned—its secrets reduced to ash.