The cabin still stank of filth and death.
That same rotten stench clung to the air like it had been carved into the wood itself. Like the room had soaked in every sin committed within its walls and refused to let it go. It crawled into my throat, burrowed into my lungs, but I didn't flinch. I didn't gag. I didn't have the luxury.
There were still two more girls who needed rest. Two more who deserved to be treated as something more than broken things left behind by monsters.
And then I saw her.
Buried beneath the debris—splintered wood, shattered glass, the wreckage of the cannon fire I had unleashed. The wreckage I had caused.
I stepped over the mess and began to clear it. One piece at a time. A jagged plank here. A twisted beam there. Slowly, carefully. I couldn't afford to be reckless now, not with her. Not when the damage was already done.
And then, finally, her face.
Her eyes—barely open, barely alive—moved to meet mine. They didn't blink. They didn't plead. Just… looked. Glassy. Empty. But aware. She was still there. Still inside.
Her mouth was broken. Jaw crooked. Lips torn. Her tongue had been severed. It had bled out long ago. She couldn't scream. She couldn't beg. And maybe even if she could… she wouldn't have.
Because there was nothing left in her to scream with.
Her arms and legs were gone. Not cleanly. Not like surgery. They had been crushed—ripped from her under the weight of rubble, splintered wood and iron pressure collapsing in with no mercy. Blood had dried around the stumps long ago, turning her pale skin into a grotesque canvas of scabbed-over wounds and bruised flesh.
She wasn't just injured—she had been reduced.
Reduced to something barely human, barely alive, barely more than a shattered shell breathing on instinct. She reminded me of a child's toy, broken beyond repair, limbs torn off, voice box cracked, left in the dirt after being played with too rough by hands that never cared in the first place.
And yet… she was still here.
Still breathing.
Still watching me.
There was no fear in her eyes. No trust, either. Only silence. A silence so deep it felt like it came from another world. She didn't tremble. She didn't flinch. She didn't move. Not because she didn't want to—but because she couldn't.
Because everything that made movement possible had been taken from her.
All I could do was kneel beside her and lift her slowly, gently, as if she might fall apart with a single wrong touch.
And maybe she would.
But I would carry her anyway.
Because she had been left in the dark, crushed under my cannon fire, unable to speak, unable to run, unable to ask for help.
So I would be her voice now.
I would carry her from this grave. From this fucking hell.
"Rest," I said, my voice barely a whisper. It was the gentlest thing I'd managed in this whole godforsaken world. Gentle—not because I felt calm, but because she needed it. She deserved it. After everything, she deserved to hear at least one word not soaked in cruelty.
I didn't know if she could understand me. But I hoped she could feel it. Feel that in this ruined world, someone still saw her as human. Not a burden. Not a toy. Not a thing to be broken.
Her eyes—sunken, empty, dulled by a darkness no soul should have to endure—flinched when the light touched them. Just the sun. But to her, it must've felt like a blade. The demon had kept her in the dark so long that daylight wasn't comfort. It was a shock. Her pupils struggled to adjust, twitching against the light. And then—for a breath, for just a flicker—her gaze lit up.
Hope.
Hope that maybe, just maybe, the nightmare had cracked.
She moved. Or tried to.
And then I saw the shift in her expression. The change. Her eyes darted down toward limbs that weren't there. A realization like a slow, silent death. Her jaw clenched. Her torso strained.
And the light inside her flickered out again.
Her eyes collapsed into despair, hollow and unblinking. A depth of anguish I didn't know how to reach, didn't know how to heal. The kind of pain that exists after the screaming stops. After the begging. After the breaking.
And I—I could do nothing.
Once again, fate had put me in front of suffering I couldn't undo. Once again, I was powerless. A passenger in a world that delighted in crushing the innocent.
Her torso trembled. Not from cold. Not from weakness.
From grief.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Her tongue was gone. Her voice stolen. But her silence was louder than any scream. She cried with what little strength she had. A dry river of sorrow. Eyes that had run out of tears still found a way to speak.
I heard her.
Not in words. Not in sound. But in the silence between heartbeats.
She didn't want to go on.
And how could I blame her?
She had survived when most would've begged for death. She had endured, silent and alone, in a prison of flesh. Not because she was weak—but because something inside her refused to let go.
That kind of strength… that kind of endurance… it demands respect.
I carried her carefully, holding what was left of her close. Not like something broken. Not like something dying.
But like someone sacred.
I laid her beside the others. Gently. Reverently. As if I was placing her into something better than a grave. As if I could offer a fraction of the peace the world had denied her.
She had lived through hell and survived long enough to see one human face that didn't look at her like a thing.
That meant something.
I sighed. Not because I was tired. But because I couldn't stop fate. I couldn't take away her pain. I couldn't give her what she truly deserved.
But I could give her this.
Respect.
Stillness.
And peace.
For now—she could rest.
She was my second personal kill in this world.