The Faint Hunger
The sounds from the two atop the rubble vanished. There had been something like hymns blanketing the battlefield—a noise that hadn't stopped once since the war began. It cut off all at once, in an instant. Not like someone had turned it off. More like something above had been severed clean.
──Drip.
The demons' screams had already faded long before. Almost none were left alive. That's why this silence rang out so sharply now. Goosebumps prickled from my scalp to my toes. The absence of sound felt alien, invasive.
It wasn't the ground shaking—it was the sky. The sky itself wasn't really falling, but pressure bore down from above. I looked up. Far, far overhead, light and darkness gnawed at each other. Light coiled into the darkness. Rings of light stretched long, dragged into the center of a massive vortex. Black hunger swirled around it. Even from this distance, I felt the Gluttony's ravenous void and a revolting, oily stench I'd never smelled before.
They weren't clashing. They were devouring each other. Converging to a single point.
For a split second, the sky's center twitched—tiny, almost imperceptibly. A quiet vibration.
We're dead.
Instinct hit first. This battlefield was just collateral from a single strike decided up there. We were prime rubble candidates below it.
A video from my past life flashed in my mind. One I'd left playing idly after a part-time shift—a documentary clip. A city swallowed by white flash. Silence for a moment, then the belated shockwave and heat. A small nuke.
What was about to burst above felt like a nightmare modeled on that. No camera this time—just flesh about to burn in the light.
The air fled first. My heart pounded wildly. My ribs ached with sharp stabs inside.
No place to run. This wasn't our battlefield.
I searched for El. My body moved before my eyes. The hot presence beside me, shallow rapid breaths that never quite broke. It was El.
I lunged, grabbing her shoulder. “......Rak?”
Before she could turn, I yanked her into my arms. “Cover your eyes and ears with your hands right now. Keep your mouth open wide, making an 'ahh' sound.”
I knew my body wouldn't meaningfully block that shock, but it felt like the least I could do. All I could do was protect El.
Bones, muscles, organs, skin—all squeezed like wringing a rag. Bones across my body shattered finely, then hardened like steel. Flesh and blood clung like armor. Hoping to block even a fraction of what was coming from above.
The light fell.
Eyelids shut, but it burned into my eyes. Not color—vision itself erased in a flash.
Then pressure slammed down. Air compressed from above, held, then exploded outward.
──────────────BOOOOOM!!!!!
Sound arrived late. A roar climbing my spine. Eardrums tearing mixed with surroundings shattering.
I pulled everything inside me higher once more. The wall behind us collapsed entirely. Not a few rocks falling—decades of layers unraveling at once. The whole wall crashed down like a weapon onto me and El.
Before impact hit my back, reinforced bones and muscles screamed first. Spine cracking, then forced back together by another surge. Pain like sparks flying.
El's breath hitched short against my chest, then resumed. Confirming that, nothing else mattered.
Heat arrived late. Not burning skin—erasing the boundary between flesh and bone. White light and black shadows flashed behind eyelids. Smells vanished entirely. Nose burned clean off, probably.
Then nothing.
The smell of life returned first. Blood, burning flesh, rotting guts, molten metal. Familiar stenches stabbed my nose in order.
Pain followed properly, delayed.
──I opened my eyes. No sky above. Crushed stone and dirt ceiling blocked it.
I inhaled once, then coughed. “Kuh!... Kek!” Sand, blood, bone dust scraped down my throat.
Tried moving arms. Left numb. Right pinned under heavy something.
Still, somewhere inside, signals kept saying still alive.
Minimal surge. Ribs cracked back into rough position.
Face-down, checked if El lived. She did. Buried between my arm and chest. Half under me, half under rubble.
“......El.” Voice barely worked.
“......El.” Thumb wiped dust from her eyelids.
Moments later, her lashes trembled faintly. “......Rak?” Voice near a whisper.
“Yeah.”
“......We survived.”
El said it, then gave a small laugh. Followed by a wince. Something broken, probably.
“We survived.” I said it this time. More important than the war's outcome.
I reached up. Pushed rubble with my knuckles. Small light bits tumbled away.
Targeted the biggest chunk, surged Reinforcement a bit more. Muscles strained; rock shifted.
After a couple tries, light filtered in. Crimson-black sky through the tear.
I wormed out face-down. Surged once more, lifted rubble, carefully pulled El free.
Her left leg bent wrong. “Leg.”
“...Yeah, I know.” El wiped blood and dirt from her forehead.
“You?”
“Not dead.”
“...We survived together.”
The words almost made me laugh. Victory or defeat here didn't matter to us. Just that we both still stood—it felt huge, surreal.
I propped her up. From afar, we might look like intact demons. Up close, walking corpses. But not corpses.
The battlefield where we'd stood was gone. Wall site now half-melted stone piles, topped with tangled demon and angel corpses. Severed guts, flesh, limbs. Crushed eyeballs mixed in. Blood-and-dirt angel wings half-intact, demon horns and skulls shattered beneath. Some burned to bone by light, others melted into darkness.
Where roads were: gore-slicked mess. Hills: dirt mounds over bodies. Distant buildings: skeletons gone, all pulverized.
El gazed briefly, lips pressing shut. Instinct said no words fit this scene. Same for me.
Win or lose, who killed more—irrelevant. No room to think it now.
Just one thing clear. “We're alive.”
El laughed softly beside me. “......Yeah.”
Victory didn't matter. Us standing here—that was enough.
Far off, toward the horizon—a presence flickered. Heavy, impossible to ignore. Black, deep hunger. Great Demon aura.
Even from here. Probably Bell over there. The Great Demon who'd held against the angel horde to the end.
“Rak.” El followed my gaze. “The Demon of Gluttony... right?”
“...Probably.”
Not certain. But only one in this hell could emit such heavy hunger now.
“...Going?”
I drew a short breath. War's end, hell's future—didn't matter now. Just that two survivors had to go somewhere.
“Let's go.”
Arm over her shoulder. Her leg buckled. I gripped firmer.
Forced muscles and bones to hold her up.
“Can you walk?”
“Ugh... yeah, slowly... should be fine.”
“That's enough.”
We trudged slowly through the ruined battlefield. Over flesh-mingled ground, stepping in dying blood pools.
Demons mostly dead. But not over. Two survivors left. Hunger waiting far ahead.
For this moment, that was everything.