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 formed.
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 slammed 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 came the punches.
Brutal. Fast. Unrelenting.
Each one slammed 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 time.
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 became high-pitched, inhuman. His body spasmed beneath mine.
My fingers sank through pulp and fluid until they struck something 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 came.
Someone brave—or desperate—slammed into me from the side.
I was torn off the corpse, slammed 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 me.
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 me.
I elbowed the throat of the one over me. Felt the wind leave him in a choking gasp. He recoiled just enough. Enough for me to shift.
But it wasn't over.
More weight crashed down. More hands grabbed. Someone wrapped around my legs. Someone else pinned an arm. Another grabbed at my throat, trying to choke the fight out of me.
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 someone's side.
There was a crunch.
A rib, maybe two. The man howled and rolled off, clutching his side.
That gave me 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—smearing 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 came in from the side. I ducked the swing and came 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 somewhere behind my ear, breath heaving in sharp gasps.
But they backed up. A few steps.
Then the shots came.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Three flashes. Loud. Blinding in the chaos.
Something 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 me and I didn't drop. The way I pulled lead from my own body like it was splinters.
They couldn't let me rest. Not even for a breath.
The shooter shouted something—a broken bark, panicked—but it worked.
Three of them surged forward with swords. Not posturing. Not hesitating.
They came swinging.
Steel caught flesh.
One blade cut through my side. Another slashed across my chest, shallow but angry. The third came 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 came 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 me to drop. Expecting the blood to finally claim me.
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 slammed into me, again and again. One sliced into my shoulder. Another dug into the back of my thigh.
Pain blossomed. 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 me as fast as they could break me.
And he saw that.
Saw the madness of it. The horror.
His face twisted into something 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.