Kamcy
I woke up with a long, tired sigh.
Out of habit more than thought, I tried to push myself upright, palms pressing against the cold stone beneath me. The moment my arms applied pressure, my entire world twisted violently. The cave spun. The ceiling lurched sideways. My vision flipped, dragged into a nauseating spiral.
Then I saw it.
My body.
Still pushing itself up.
Upside down.
For a fraction of a second, my mind refused to connect the dots. Then the sensation hit—or rather, the absence of one.
…Oh.
"I had my head severed?"
The thought nded with strange calm, like an observation rather than panic. Gravity cimed me next. My vision dipped sharply as my severed head struck the cave floor with a wet, hollow thud. Stone scraped skin. Blood smeared across my cheek as I rolled once before stopping.
The st thing I saw before everything faded to bck was the monster.
It loomed over my body, elongated limbs anchoring it in pce as its mouth pressed against my chest. That same sickly blue glow fred to life as it began absorbing energy from the corpse—my corpse—drawing it out in shimmering strands like steam being siphoned from hot flesh.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
I woke again.
This time, I didn't make a sound.
I didn't even blink.
The first thing I did was gently—very gently—turn my head sideways.
What I saw nearly broke me.
The monster was sitting at the cave entrance.
Sitting.
Its hands and legs were tucked neatly beneath its grotesque frame, posture eerily simir to a dog waiting patiently for its owner to return. Its massive head was lowered, tilted slightly forward, utterly still. Every part of it radiated concentration, like a predator suppressing instinct in favor of patience.
I stared at it, unsure whether to ugh or cry.
"I can't say I'm not disturbed," I joked silently. "Is this what it feels like to be spawn-camped?"
The creature didn't move.
It seemed to have learned.
It now understood that its prey—me—didn't stay dead. No matter how many times it killed me, I always came back. Worse, I wasn't just surviving anymore. I was wounding it. Exploiting the rain. Ambushing it. Turning its own hunting ground against it.
So now it waited.
Listening.
Every drop of rain crashing against stone. Every echo from the cave. Every shift in air pressure.
Anything.
It would eliminate whatever made a sound 'out of the ordinary ' instantly.
Mentally shrugging, I stayed still. Moving now would be pointless. Instead, I thought.
I thought back to the very first time the monster found me in the cave.
If it couldn't see—then how had it found me in the first pce? There had been water everywhere back then. The waterfall. The damp stone. The constant noise.
The answer hit me almost immediately.
And I felt so stupid I nearly face-palmed.
The monster hadn't known I was there.
It had just been roaming.
I had alerted it.
Me. Being horny. Being distracted. Being an idiot. Grabbing those massive breasts without thinking.
That was the sound.
"That… could have avoided all that trauma," I bemoaned mentally. "Better self-control would've saved me a lot of deaths."
Still, I had to admit—it was a damn good hunting mechanism.
Lure prey into compcency. Let instinct override caution. Punish the mistake instantly.
It reminded me of a carnivorous pnt I'd read about once—one that let insects crawl inside before snapping shut, digesting them slowly while they struggled in vain.
Sighing internally, I shifted my focus to the problem at hand.
How the hell was I getting out of this?
Any movement would attract it. My heartbeat alone was probably masked by the environmental noise—the rain pounding relentlessly outside—but anything more than that?
Instant death.
I thought back to the sensation I'd felt earlier.
That moment.
When it tried to absorb my energy… and failed. Even if only briefly.
I closed my eyes.
Focused inward.
Was this energy like ki? Mana? Something artificial built into this nightmare of a game world? A bancing mechanic meant to stop obscenely overpowered creatures from running rampant?
That made sense.
Without it, the bance would be completely broken.
Then why leave it active when they threw me into this pce?
The answer didn't matter.
What mattered was how to use it.
I slowed my breathing. Tried to calm my heart like characters did in fiction. Meditate. Center myself. Reach inward.
Nothing.
Hours passed.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Frustration built, but the energy wouldn't respond. Whatever that resistance had been earlier—it wasn't something I could activate consciously.
Eventually, I gave up.
And moved to Pn B.
I got up quickly.
Too quickly.
Pain exploded through my chest as cws tore into me, smming me against stone hard enough to rattle bone. I didn't even realize I'd been injured until blood flooded my mouth and I was forced to spit it out, coughing violently.
But I smiled.
The pn was simple.
If I couldn't awaken the energy myself…
I'd let the monster help.
And so began a new cycle.
Death after death.
I made sure—always—to position myself so that when I was killed, my body remained intact. Head attached. Chest exposed. Every time it fed on my energy, I focused on the sensation. On resisting. On forcing awareness.
"Getting dismembered sure isn't fun," I chided myself upon waking one time. "God, I hope I'm not becoming a masochist."
Either way, it was working.
After the eighth death, I smiled faintly.
"Either way, I think I've gotten a good handle on this."
I closed my eyes.
This time, I felt it.
Energy flowed through my body like blood through veins. Warm. Pressurized. Alive.
"So how do I use this—"
My thoughts were cut off.
The monster appeared above me instantly, as if summoned by intention alone. It grabbed me and began absorbing my energy again.
"The hell?" I compined silently. "I didn't even move."
This time, I resisted.
It wasn't enough to stop it—but it bought me time.
An entire minute.
And in that minute, I saw something incredible.
Inside the creature, the energy took form.
An orb.
It pulsed within its insect-like lower half, glowing faintly before sending strands throughout its body—reinforcing muscle, bone, carapace.
That was how it worked.
I tried to replicate it.
Tried to shape my own energy the same way.
It was in vain.
Darkness took me again.
Ms. Moritemi – POV
She stood over the body with practiced calm.
The man y open on her table, stomach split wide as his organs were removed one by one. Her hands moved with surgical precision, lifting tissue, examining structure, setting pieces aside.
"Just like previous subjects," she said aloud, voice clinical. "This one seems unable to undergo any real change except loss of muscle control to the stem parasite."
An assistant scribbled furiously on a notepad.
The door burst open.
Ms. Moritemi turned slowly, annoyance etched into her expression.
"How many times must I tell you people not to disturb me when I'm working?"
The assistant bowed deeply. "Ma—this is important. One of the subjects just achieved awakening."
Silence fell.
Ms. Moritemi stared at him.
"…Are you sure about this?"
He nodded, swallowing hard. "Y-Yes, ma."
"What's the designation?"
Her irritation melted instantly, repced by excitement.
"1004, ma."
Shock flickered across her face.
She had assumed he would succumb to corruption.
"…Take care of this," she ordered sharply, leaving the room immediately.
She rushed through corridors, entered the elevator, scanned her finger, and input 33.
When the doors opened, followed th hallway to a door, before she could announce herself the door opened.
Inside she found Mr. Adeyemi and Ms. Destiny already watching the screen.
Mr. Adeyemi smiled brightly.
"It seems you already found out."
"Yes," she replied, eyes gleaming. "Now tell me—do I have an eye for them or not?" he asked no one in particur wearing a smile.
Onscreen, Kamcy struggled against the monster… before being turned to stone and dying.
"I guess humanity would actually get their saviors after all," Ms. Destiny muttered.
