I tilted my head back, staring at the vaulted stone ceiling, searching for something above the rot—a slit of sky, a god, a single sign of mercy.
There was nothing.
Only stone.
Only the smell of death.
Salvatore crouched beside the mangled corpse, its jaw hanging by a strip of sinew, its head lolling sideways like it still wanted to scream. Without hesitation, he pressed two fingers into the hollow where an eye had once been and dug.
The eyeball came loose with a wet pop—slick, veined, wiggling on a thread of nerve. He held it up toward the torchlight, studying it like a man appraising a coin.
My body recoiled. Bile scorched the back of my throat.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I rasped.
“Look.” His voice was steady, frighteningly calm. He turned his hand toward me, the orb gleaming in his palm like something sacred and obscene. His eyes locked onto mine. “I won’t do this alone. It’s vile, yes—but look around you.”
I didn’t want to. But I did.
Bodies. Dozens. Piled like offerings. Flesh collapsing into rot. Flies crawling in and out of mouths. Bones jutting through skin. The pit had become a grave that refused to close.
Salvatore’s voice cut through the buzzing.
“Do you see them?” he asked. “They died because they were too proud. Too human to do what it takes. And now they’re nothing. Meat for worms. Bones for flies. You want to join them? After everything we’ve suffered—after everything we’ve endured—you’d rather die pretending you’re better?”
He tossed the eyeball once, caught it, then closed his fist around it.
“I’ll make it easy.”
Before I could move, before I could speak, he shoved it between his teeth and bit down.
The crunch broke the silence. A soft shell giving way, fluids spurting. He chewed, his face twisting, but he didn’t spit it out.
I gagged until my ribs ached, bile burning my throat, yet my eyes—gods help me—my eyes wouldn’t turn away. They stayed on him as he swallowed what had once been a man.
Then it grew worse.
He groped for a jagged stone, set it against the corpse’s chest, and drove it down. Skin tore. Ribs cracked. The sound echoed through the pit like branches snapping under water.
Salvatore fell to his knees, digging into the body with both hands, tearing meat loose, gnawing like a starving animal. The noises—wet, ripping, sucking—scraped at my skull until I thought I’d go mad.
Blood streaked his face, smeared across his mouth. His eyes glinted red in the torchlight when he looked up at me, half man, half beast.
“This is survival!” he barked, spitting flecks of flesh. “We must do this!”
I pressed my back to the wall, shaking my head until my neck screamed. The others clung to the stone around me, battered shapes still breathing, their eyes tracking every movement.
“No…” My voice cracked. “I can’t, Salvatore. I can’t.”
He lifted a strip of flesh, sinew dangling, and shook it at me like a challenge. Blood ran down his wrist in slow ropes, pooling at his feet.
“You think I want this?” he rasped. “You think I enjoy this?” His breath came in shudders. “I’d rather rot here with you than become this—but I’m not ready to die. Are you?”
For a moment—just a heartbeat—I saw the boy he had been. The one who’d once fought beside me, shoulder to shoulder, bleeding for the same cause. That ember still lived inside him, faded but burning. But it was burning him away.
“We’re not monsters, Salvatore!” My voice splintered, desperate. I pressed my palms to my ears, as if I could shut out the sound of him devouring. “We’re still human. We don’t have to?—”
His roar split the air.
