I don't leave the crevice right away.
I can still feel it out there.
The pressure doesn't vanish when the creature stops thrashing — it lingers, like heat after a fire, like a stare you're not sure has ended. I press my forehead against the cold stone and breathe through clenched teeth, counting again.
One.Two.Three.
— If it's pretending, we're dead.
— Then let's hope it's a bad actor.
— Don't joke.
— I will absolutely joke.
Eventually, the silence settles into something heavier than noise ever was.
No vibrations.No scraping.No movement.
I crawl out.
Slowly. Carefully. Every inch feels like borrowing time I haven't earned.
The mantis lies half-crushed beneath the fallen slab, one scythe shattered completely, the other twitching weakly as if forgetting how to die. Its thorax is split open, pale ichor leaking into the cracks of the stone, steaming faintly where it touches the ash-dusted ground.
It's still alive.
Barely.
— Finish it, he says.
— I know.
— Please, she whispers.
I don't feel triumph.
I feel tired.
I pick up a stone — not the big one, just something heavy enough — and step closer, staying out of reach. The mantis' eyes track me sluggishly, unfocused now, its pressure fading in broken pulses.
I bring the stone down.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Until the pressure is gone.
Gone-gone.
The world exhales.
I stand there for a long moment, chest heaving, blood dripping from my side onto the dust.
— …So, uh. First kill.
— You already crossed that line.
— Yeah. Guess I just… forgot.
I don't take much.
I can't.
The sound will carry. The smell already is.
I cut away strips of meat with shaking hands, my movements fast and ugly, stuffing what I can into a cloth wrap before forcing myself to stop.
Then I see it.
Something wrong.
Embedded deep in the creature's chest cavity, lodged near where its organs knot together, there's a glimmer — faint, irregular, like light caught in broken glass.
I freeze.
— Don't touch it.
— Obviously I'm touching it.
— Ash—
I reach in.
The shard comes free with a soft, wet sound.
It's small. Jagged. Translucent. It doesn't reflect light so much as bend it, refracting colors that don't quite exist. Holding it makes my skin prickle, like my nerves are being quietly counted.
The pressure isn't hostile.
It's… dense.
Heavy in a way mass has nothing to do with.
— That's…
— Yeah. I know.
— It feels like—
— Like something that shouldn't be outside a body.
I close my fingers around it anyway.
For a second — just a second — I swear I feel something brush against my thoughts. Not a voice. Not a memory.
More like a presence acknowledging proximity.
I shove it into my pouch and back away.
No more time.
Already, the land feels… aware again.
I leave without looking back.
That night, hidden deep between stone and shadow, I finally let myself collapse.
The shard is warm through the fabric.
Too warm.
— You did it, she says softly.
— Yeah.— We're still alive.
— Statistically impressive, honestly.
I stare at my reflection in a bent scrap of metal — hollow eyes, blood-caked beard, ash-streaked skin. A man shaped by erosion, not intent.
But alive.
Still moving.
Still choosing.
I close my hand over the pouch.
Whatever that shard is—
It's proof.
Not of hope.
But of continuation.
And in this place, that's enough.
--------
The shard doesn't let me sleep.
Not because it glows.Not because it whispers.
Because it exists.
I lie on my side, staring at the dark, one hand wrapped around the pouch like it might crawl away if I let go.
— Okay. Let's be honest.— This is bad.— This is fantasy.
The word settles strangely well.
I've read enough. Watched enough. Played enough. Lived enough stories secondhand to recognize the shape of things. Worlds like this don't hand out miracles for free, but they do leave breadcrumbs.
Soul shard.
The name clicks immediately, even if no one ever told me.
— You don't know that.— I absolutely do.— You're guessing.— I'm pattern-recognizing.
Shards mean systems. Systems mean rules. And rules mean that this hell, as creative as it is, isn't pure chaos.
Which is… comforting. In a deeply unsettling way.
I turn the shard over inside the pouch with my fingers, careful not to touch it directly again.
— So. Possibilities.— Don't.— No, no. We're doing this.
Option one: power source. Straightforward. Feed it into something, get something out. Strength. Speed. Resistance. The classic menu.
Option two: currency. Souls as value. Which is disgusting, but also extremely on brand for this place.
Option three: growth. Accumulation. Thresholds.
— You're assuming you can even use it.— True.— You might need to eat it.— Absolutely not.— People always eat the glowing thing.— People are idiots.
I exhale, rubbing my face.
There's a weight to the shard that isn't physical. Like it's waiting. Not calling. Just… aware that it's no longer alone.
— This is how it starts, isn't it?— With curiosity.— With rationalization.— With justification.
I know the slope. I know how stories like this go.
First shard is survival.Second is necessity.Third is habit.
And somewhere down the line, the question stops being should I and becomes why wouldn't I.
— Still.— Still?— Still beats dying in the dirt.
Silence.
That's the thing. No voice argues that.
Even the cold one stays quiet.
I tuck the pouch deeper under my ribs, turning away from it like that somehow makes a difference.
— Tomorrow, we test nothing.— Liar.— Tomorrow, we survive. Same as always.— And after?— …We see.
Because now I know something important.
This world isn't just trying to kill me.
It's offering me tools.
And that might be worse.