I charged.
No warning. No scream. Just the thud of boots and the crack of motion.
I needed the initiative. I needed to break their line before it ford.
The rifle was the threat—long barrel, steady hands. A sniper’s shot in a world with no distance. I saw it in his grip. Too calm. Too ready.
He had to go first.
I slamd into him, shoulder to chest, tackling him hard. We crashed to the deck, wood groaning beneath the weight.
I mounted him instantly—knees pinning arms, fists already rising.
Then ca the punches.
Brutal. Fast. Unrelenting.
Each one slamd into his face—nose first, cheek next, teeth cracking on the third. Blood sprayed from his mouth with a gurgle. He was screaming now, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
Others were closing in—shadows with blades, with trembling hands, with too much hope.
I didn’t have ti.
So I went for the kill.
My fingers found his eye sockets—slippery, wet—and shoved in.
He shrieked.
His hands flailed, clutching at mine, scratching, pulling, but I didn’t stop.
I pushed deeper.
The sockets gave way, the jelly of his eyes bursting around my knuckles with a pair of wet pops.
Still not enough.
I kept going.
His screams beca high-pitched, inhuman. His body spasd beneath mine.
My fingers sank through pulp and fluid until they struck sothing soft—then firm.
His brain.
I gripped.
Not with finesse. With force.
I pulled.
Gray matter squished between my fingers as I tore back. His whole body arched, a last jolt of life firing through every nerve.
And that’s when the tackle ca.
Soone brave—or desperate—slamd into from the side.
I was torn off the corpse, slamd onto the deck hard, ribs protesting the impact.
But I didn’t let go.
Chunks of brain still in my grip.
Blood dripping from both hands.
Punches rained down on .
Clumsy. Heavy. Wild.
Like boys trying to act like killers—full of panic, not purpose. Fists hit bone, not flesh. Cheekbone. Shoulder. Ribs. Pain, yes—but nothing clean. Nothing that would stop .
I elbowed the throat of the one over . Felt the wind leave him in a choking gasp. He recoiled just enough. Enough for to shift.
But it wasn’t over.
More weight crashed down. More hands grabbed. Soone wrapped around my legs. Soone else pinned an arm. Another grabbed at my throat, trying to choke the fight out of .
I twisted under them, shoulder grinding against the deck, grit biting into my back. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move clean. But I pulled my knee up, fought through the resistance, and drove it hard into soone’s side.
There was a crunch.
A rib, maybe two. The man howled and rolled off, clutching his side.
That gave a gap.
The other arm—still locked by a grip—I didn’t pull free. I used what I had.
Brain matter.
Sticky. Warm. Clinging to my hand like guilt. I shoved it into his face—saring it across his mouth, into his eyes. He reeled in disgust, gagging, grip loosening just enough.
I punched him in the throat. Hard. His whole body went stiff and limp at once.
I rolled. Freed now.
And I swung.
Not clean. Not trained. Just raw, brutal shots—into the soft places. Eyes. Nose. Under the chin. A throat here. A groin there.
Every hit had one goal: shut them down.
Another ca in from the side. I ducked the swing and ca up with an uppercut that cracked against his jaw. His teeth snapped together with a wet click and he dropped.
I stood now, barely, blood dripping from sowhere behind my ear, breath heaving in sharp gasps.
But they backed up. A few steps.
Then the shots ca.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Three flashes. Loud. Blinding in the chaos.
Sothing hot tore through my arm—near the shoulder. Another clipped my thigh. A third missed and chipped the wood beside my leg.
The blood trickled down, thick and dark. My arm shook. My leg buckled slightly. But my eyes—my eyes never left them.
And they knew it.
They saw the way I kept walking. The way bullets tore through and I didn’t drop. The way I pulled lead from my own body like it was splinters.
They couldn’t let rest. Not even for a breath.
The shooter shouted sothing—a broken bark, panicked—but it worked.
Three of them surged forward with swords. Not posturing. Not hesitating.
They ca swinging.
Steel caught flesh.
One blade cut through my side. Another slashed across my chest, shallow but angry. The third ca down across my back like an axe. The pain was sharp, white-hot, and real. But I didn’t slow.
My fingers dug deep into my own wounds. Into the ragged holes where bullets still sat like firebrands buried in muscle. I winced—only a little—as I worked fingers under them, gripped, and yanked.
One.
Two.
Each bullet ca out wet, coated in blood that pulsed with its own rhythm. Not the rhythm of death.
The rhythm of refusal.
The last one I held between two fingers.
I turned to the shooter.
Still standing at the rear, gun trembling in his hands. Expecting to drop. Expecting the blood to finally claim .
I smiled.
And I threw it.
The bullet spun through the air—a flash of silver and red—and clinked harmlessly at his feet. But it didn’t need to hit.
He flinched like it was a blade.
That was enough.
While he stared, frozen, his allies kept hacking. Their swords slamd into , again and again. One sliced into my shoulder. Another dug into the back of my thigh.
Pain blossod. But I stood through it.
Because the blood was already working.
Wounds sealed themselves in slow pulses. The deeper cuts took longer, but they closed. Skin knit back together. Muscle pulled tight.
One of them raised his sword high, ready to bring it down again.
I caught it.
Barehanded.
My fingers wrapped around the blade just as it fell.
Steel bit into my palm—sliced through skin, tendon, almost to the bone.
It hurt. God, it hurt.
Blood ran down my wrist, hot and slick.
But I didn’t let go.
I gripped harder. Pulled.
Every desperate tug he made only drove the blade deeper into my hand, shearing more flesh. But it didn’t matter.
Pain didn’t matter.
The blood was healing as fast as they could break .
And he saw that.
Saw the madness of it. The horror.
His face twisted into sothing between rage and terror.
That’s when I struck.
I punched him.
Once in the face.
Then again.
And again.
Each blow cracked bone, shifted skin, sent teeth scattering like seeds. His grip loosened. His body sagged. He let go of the sword without realizing it.
I caught it mid-fall.
His own blade.
Still warm. Still wet.
I turned it in my hand.
And drove it straight into his chest.
Right under the ribs. Hard. Fast. Deep.
I felt it sink past bone, into heart.
His breath hitched. A gasp. Nothing more.
I wasn’t dying today.
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