Splitting My Own Belly
Shlick...!
"K-Keghhh...!!"
"Kyaaaah!"
I had only decided to close my eyes and plunge the blade in because the excruciating abdominal pain and the psychological shock of having something parasitic inside my stomach had driven me out of my mind, but still...
"Hngh, ugh..."
It hurt like absolute hell.
I'd graduated from crying over being scolded back when I was a kid, and since then, the most I'd ever done was shed a few silent tears when in pain. But lately, I've been crying like a goddamn baby.
"Lady Syaruen! No! Wait! The—the bandages! Bandages!!"
*Cough.*
I wanted to tell them to shut up because they were being too noisy and that I was fine, but the blood gushing from my mouth made that impossible.
Hunching over and stabbing my own stomach in front of a young couple wasn't exactly a great look, but I didn't have a choice.
Don't spirits have some kind of healing ability?
"I'm... f-fine..."
Stabbing myself in the gut in a fit of madness was all well and good, but what came next was the real problem.
How deep did I need to dig? Surely not into my actual organs? I didn't know the first thing about medicine. Slice my belly open? How far? Could I even pull the tentacle out just by slicing it? Would I pass out halfway through?
Already, my hands and feet were trembling, and my vision was losing focus.
*Splutter!!*
"Ugh...!"
My throat was so choked with blood that I couldn't make a sound, so I just hacked up a massive glob of it to clear my airway.
I literally just threw up a ton of blood earlier, and there's still more?
At this rate, am I a vampire instead of a succubus-slime hybrid?
"Hey, you."
Ah, shit. I'm so out of it I can't even remember the boy's name.
"Take this and... *gasp!* *pant...!* Slice... slice my stomach open..."
"What?! But your stomach..."
You'll die if I do that. That's probably what he wanted to say.
"I won't die... damn it... hurry up..."
Slicing my own belly open—actually carving into myself—was psychologically impossible, and it hurt so fucking much that I couldn't even muster any strength in my hands.
The boy gripped the hilt of the sword embedded in my stomach, his hands shaking even worse than mine.
Now that I'd made him do it, I wondered if it was right to force this on a kid, even if he was only a few years younger than me.
"Aaaagh! *Gack!* *Choke...!*"
He barely even nudged the blade sideways, but it already felt like I was going to die.
Ah, Dreyan. Right, that was his name.
Dreyan must have been under immense stress having to carve open someone else's stomach, and when I coughed up blood, he let go of the hilt with a horrified groan.
Needless to say, expecting anything from those two was a lost cause.
*Gurgle, gurgle...*
My ragged, gasping breaths mixed with the blood trying to claw its way up my throat, making a wet, bubbling sound.
It reminded me of gargling water as a kid. How nostalgic.
Actually, now is not the goddamn time for nostalgia.
Pain, anemia, headache, dizziness, nausea, stress, tentacles.
Fuck, I'm the one dying from a stab wound, so why the hell is the tentacle thrashing around even harder?!
"A cloth! A cloth!!"
Someone stuffed a cloth into my mouth as I gasped like an idiot, and the fabric was instantly soaked a deep, wet crimson.
How the hell do soldiers in wars survive getting stabbed, slashed, and disemboweled?
Even with my dulled pain tolerance, this was unbearable.
"Mmmph...!"
My sword was needlessly long. Trying to control the depth so it wouldn't go too deep or too shallow made my hands shake twice as hard.
Next time, I should really carry a dagger just in case...
To think I was using a finely crafted, multi-functional Dwarven blade to perform a DIY C-section on myself.
The pain was so close to making me black out that I tried to distract myself by looking at the other three. They were all pale as ghosts, forced to watch my self-mutilation show.
Eventually, Renia couldn't take it anymore. She covered her mouth, gagged, and bolted in the opposite direction.
Yeah, it is a bit graphic.
*Phew...!!!*
*Clang.*
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to slice just a little wider—just barely enough to squeeze a hand inside.
Honestly, it was a tiny, pathetic slit, barely wide enough for a single hand, but I had to lie to myself that it was enough.
I don't want to do this anymore. It hurts. I'm scared. Stop. Those were the only thoughts looping in my head.
"At least... do this... I can't... do it alone..."
It wasn't like Dreyan knew where the tentacle was either, but I couldn't exactly grope around inside my own stomach when I couldn't even see it.
Even if I did, I'd just be blindly rummaging around. Without knowing its exact position, I'd never get it out.
I collapsed—no, I literally fell backward onto the floor and grabbed Dreyan's hand.
"Pull the tentacle out... *cough*..."
Ah, fuck, the blood.
Speaking while lying down caused the blood to rush backward, completely blocking my throat. I felt like I was going to suffocate to death before I could even die of blood loss or shock.
Look at me, stripped down to my underwear, putting on a pathetic show in front of kids. What a crazy bitch.
I writhed around until I managed to prop myself against the wall. Banging my head back against the stone, I shut my eyes tight and pried open the wound in my stomach.
"I—I see it! I'll pull it out, so please hang in there...!"
"Aaaagh, ugh!!!"
I seriously considered slamming the back of my head against the wall to knock myself out, but that seemed like it would just hurt more, so pass.
Instead, I pressed the back of my head hard against the stone, barely holding onto consciousness.
I felt his hand slip inside my abdomen with sickening clarity. Lilliel stuffed the cloth back into my mouth.
But forcing my mouth shut made it impossible to breathe, so I spat it out before it could even get fully soaked in blood.
"No, you can't spit it out!"
"Can't... breathe..."
I managed to squeeze the words out to Lilliel, my eyes nearly rolling back.
"You can't pass out! Do you hear me?!"
It seemed Lilliel and Dreyan had finally overcome their panic, as they were handling things much better now.
To be fair, slicing my own stomach open right in front of them without any warning was a pretty barbaric thing to do.
"Ah, ack..."
Still, having a hand shoved inside my stomach felt slightly better than getting sliced open.
Probably.
"I got it!"
"Aaaaaaargh!!!"
The tentacle must have been stuck tight to my insides, because the moment he tried to pull it, my entire abdomen felt like it was being wrung like a wet towel.
Unable to bear it, I reached out and snatched the dagger from Dreyan's waist.
"Aaaah!"
"Mmph! *Gasp*...!"
Thud.
God knows what Dreyan was thinking, but he fell backward onto his butt. Because of that, his hand—which had been buried up to his wrist inside my stomach—was ripped out, sending a massive wave of agony through me.
I had stabbed my own leg just to keep myself conscious through the pain, but the sheer agony of his hand being yanked out of my gut did the trick anyway.
Well, regardless, I still had a dagger buried in my thigh now.
I had only stabbed myself because I couldn't handle the pain and needed a distraction, but it actually worked surprisingly well.
"Do it... again... I won't die... so don't worry..."
Whether he was terrified or just overwhelmed, Dreyan began to tear up as he slid his hand back into my stomach.
I was really putting a kid I barely knew through some serious trauma.
From an outsider's perspective, this must have been quite the spectacle.
Stripped to my underwear, a gaping hole in my stomach, vomiting blood, and a tentacle squirming inside me.
*Cough...*
I was starting to get too exhausted to even scream or tense my muscles.
"Aaaaaagh!!"
Like hell I was! It hurt so fucking much!
"The tentacle... I think it's stuck to your insides."
Of course it is. What a pain in the ass.
"Kill... can you kill it...?"
I pulled the dagger out of my thigh and handed it to Dreyan.
"I can't! The hole in your stomach is too small! I have to hold the tentacle with one hand, which means I'd need to slide the blade in with the other, but there's no room!"
Useless, the lot of them.
I wiped away the tears blurring my vision and sliced my stomach further. Since Dreyan's dagger wasn't as sharp as my sword, it hurt even worse.
On top of the pain, my hands had no strength left, so the blade barely cut through the flesh.
*Clang.*
"My sword... use my sword..."
Lilliel hurriedly brought my sword over. I snatched it from her, and in my delirious state, I sliced my belly open with much more ease this time.
"Aaaah! Your organs! Your organs are coming out!"
Do you want to die? Seriously.
Why is pulling out a single tentacle so—ah, fuck, it hurts...
The extreme pain was making me incredibly irritable.
I wasn't even dying from having my stomach sliced wide open like this, so making such a fuss over extracting one tiny tentacle felt a bit dramatic.
*Ugh...*
Lilliel, who had been doing her best to help, finally hit her limit. She gagged, ran to the other side of the room, and threw up.
"At least... the smell of blood... is so strong... I can't smell... the vomit..."
"I got it out!"
I had only said that to ease the tension, but Dreyan, whether he heard me or not, proudly held up the extracted tentacle.
It was limp, about the size of a palm.
Actually, considering that thing had been squirming inside my stomach, it wasn't small at all.
"Now we need to stitch it up! Uh, Renia! Quick, get something!"
I wonder if this is what a C-section without anesthesia feels like.
Probably worse.
"Just trust me... no need... to stitch it... *pant*... just wrap it... with bandages... *hic*..."
I scooped up my spilling organs and stuffed them back inside, using Dreyan's hands to help with the parts I couldn't reach.
"Letting a guy with a girlfriend... *pant, pant*... touch my bare skin... while I'm in my underwear... *gasp, gasp*... is a bit much, isn't it...?"
"What kind of crazy nonsense are you talking about right now?!"
Dreyan shouted, his face contorted in a scowl.
I guess that joke was a bit too inappropriate.
Renia tried to help push my organs back in a few times, but she ended up gagging and retired to the sidelines once again.
Still, the fact that she didn't run away and stayed by my side was impressive enough.
In the end, Dreyan and I managed to stuff everything back in, and he wrapped the bandages tightly around my waist.
Maybe it was because the ordeal was over and the tension was fading, but having him basically hug me to wrap the bandages suddenly felt a bit embarrassing.
"Please, lie down. If you keep sitting up like that, they're going to spill out again."
"Ugh... ah, ah...! Ahhh!"
I let out a trembling, pathetic whine that sounded more like a tantrum than a scream of agony, slowly easing my body down... before propping myself back up against the wall.
Because the moment I tried to lie flat, the blood started rushing back up my throat.
Dreyan stomped on the limp, blood-soaked tentacle to make sure it was dead. I wanted to pass out right then and there... but I had slept too well earlier, so my mind was frustratingly clear.
Neither my body nor my mind would give me a break.
Just let me rest in peace, please...