The Bite of Fate

The scream ripped through the dark and left me shaking, making my very skin crawl.
I just started running, trying to get away from that vile thing.

“Uh-uh-uh… what was that?”
I gasped, my voice breaking.

I kept running and running, no logic left in my head, no reason, just fear pushing my body. But it was no use. Useless. Hopeless.

Then, suddenly, from behind me came another scream — even worse, even more monstrous. I turned my head and saw it: the thing. The thing was coming after me. Its torso spinning in circles, the whole body twisted and wrong, only its upper half chasing me.

The scene was so horrifying, so unnatural, I could hardly breathe. But I kept running. The distance between me and that upper body started to shrink. Then, suddenly, it drew its hand — a hand full of sharp blades — at me.

I couldn’t even understand what to do in that moment. My mind froze.
“Sora! Run!” I shouted.

I pushed Sora away with all my strength, threw her to the side, and blocked the creature’s attack with my right arm.

And then it felt like time stopped. Everything frozen. The upper body in front of me. My breath stuck in my throat.

“Huh?” I muttered.

Then a fountain of blood sprayed from my arm.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed.
“My hand! Ahhhh! My hand!”

My hand was cut in half, right below my elbow.

The thing stood in front of me, grinning with a horrible smile as I felt pain in every nerve, like burning fire stabbing through my heart.

“AHH! It hurts! It hurts! IT HURTS!”

I shoved my arm into the snow, trying to stop the blood, but the snow turned crimson red. It burned even more as the icy flakes crept into my flesh.

The monster laughed louder. The more I suffered, the more it enjoyed my despair.

“Ahhhhhh! It’s burning! IT’S BURNING!”

Its laughter grew louder and louder, echoing in the night.

“Oni-chan! Your hand! Your hand!” I heard Sora screaming. She was crying, trying to come back to me.

The thing started to move toward Sora. With my remaining strength I grabbed one of its wings. Thin, nasty, creepy — impossible to describe.

“Sora! Don’t come! Run! Just run!”
“But Oni-chan!”
“Run, Sora! I said RUN!”

But she stood still. And then it bit down on my shoulder.

“AHHH! UUUHH! ARRHHHHHHHHHHH!” Blood sprayed from my body again like a fountain.

With the last of my strength, I grabbed its neck with my right hand, pressed its head with my own head, and squeezed with all my might.

“SORA! RUN! Don’t stand there! Don’t worry about me, just run! I promise I will come, Sora!”
“You promise you’ll come? Really?”
“Yeah, I will—UHHHH!” Its teeth sank even deeper into my shoulder.
“I will!” I gritted my teeth, forcing the words out through the pain.

“I may not have any memories of us together! No shared memory, no joy, no emotion, no past! BUT it doesn’t change the fact that you are my sister! My joy, my emotion, my memory! And I know who I must protect! I don’t care if my memory is erased a thousand times — every time I will protect you no matter what!”

Tears slid down her face as I spoke.

“Now don’t stand there! RUN with all the strength you have!”

I gritted my teeth even harder and pressed on the thing’s head, making its fangs go deeper into me. Blood burst from my mouth. But I gathered all the strength I had left.

“RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!”

Then Sora started running. “I will be waiting for you, Oni-chan!” she screamed — her last words before disappearing into the trees.

In moments she was gone, out of the fight. And for a second, just a second, I felt a strange, bitter relief.

Then I grabbed its neck with my hand, and with the very last power left in my body I pulled its head down and wrenched it aside — but the blood inside me just kept pouring and pouring, like it would never stop.
I tossed that thing away and fell to the ground, resting on my knees.

“Uh-uh-uh-uh…” I could hear my own faint breathing so faintly it felt like my heart was collapsing right inside my ears.

I started crawling. Through the snow, dragging myself, trying to go forward.
“Uh-uh-uh… I… uh-uh… have to… uh-uh… get out… of here!”

I was grinding my teeth, clinging to the last spark of hope that I could escape. But my body had already given up a long time ago.
My legs wouldn’t move. My whole body was trembling.

“Move! Move, damn it! MOVE!”

Then I heard a cracking sound from behind me — like something hard being crushed into pieces.

I turned back and saw a scene so eerie, so monstrous it froze my blood.
That creature was chewing my severed left arm, tearing the flesh apart with its sharp teeth, and smiling — a smile so vile that it made my entire body revolt.

I couldn’t handle it anymore. My stomach twisted violently. Bile rose up my throat.
I pressed my mouth shut with my right hand, trying to hold it back, but it was no use. The vomit burst out anyway, unstoppable, as the inhuman scene burned itself into my mind.

“Ugghhh—Ughhh—Ughhh—Ughhh—UghhhUghhhUghhh—Uggggggggggggghhhhhhh!”

The vomit kept coming, and coming, and coming. It wouldn’t stop. It felt like my insides were trying to crawl out through my mouth.

There was no strength left in my body. I collapsed in the snow.

All I could hear was the sound of my own flesh being chewed and the creature’s inhuman, horrifying screams.

My eyes slowly began to close. I had lost too much blood. I could feel it — I wasn’t going to survive.

“…Sorry… Sora…” Tears slid down my cheeks.

So… this is how I die?
Not too bad, huh?
Dying while protecting the person you love most… isn’t that one of the best ways to go?
At least I have no regrets.

My eyes began to shut. My eyelids barely lifted anymore.
Through the narrowing slits, I saw the thing moving closer and closer.
I knew I was about to be swallowed whole.
Perhaps my only regret was that I wouldn’t even get to die in peace.

Shadows fell across my face.
Its saliva — blood-mixed and steaming — dripped onto me. Hot.
So hot it hissed as it touched my skin, evaporating before it slid away.

It smiled.
In that instant I knew exactly what was about to happen.
It was inevitable.
But my mind was already made up.

Then its smile widened even more.
It moved past me and began to rise, wings beating, turning toward the path where Sora had run.

It wasn’t enough to kill me.
It wanted her.
My most precious treasure in the world.
My love.

Suddenly, strength I didn’t know I had flooded back into my limbs.
Adrenaline roared through me like fire.
My hand shot out and clamped onto its wing before it could take off.

“Whe—urgh—urhgh… WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING, BASTARD?!”

I lunged and sank my teeth into its other wing, ripping at the membrane like a rabid dog.
Then I threw myself down into the snow, dragging the creature with me, pinning it under the frozen crust with every ounce of strength left in my body.

“BASTARD! You’re going after SORA?! Eating me wasn’t enough for you?! How dare you even LOOK at her as food, huh?!”

“HOW DARE—”

Pain exploded through my back, like someone had sliced me open with a knife of ice.
“ARRRHHHH!”

Its upper body slipped from my grasp. I twisted around and saw its torso, its legs braced, claws like butcher’s blades digging into the wound it had just made.

“Naaaaaanaaaaaggggaaaaalllllll!” it roared, the name stretching, warping, a scream that sounded like metal tearing.

It smiled at me, a thin, cruel grin that said I deserved every second of this for daring to fight back.

“Uh-huh…uh…”

My back burned like fire, but I refused to give it my attention.
I ignored the pain.
I couldn’t waste even a heartbeat.

I forced myself upright, snow sticking to my blood. My legs trembled but held.

“UUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH!”
I screamed like a wild beast, my throat tearing with the sound.

“LET ME SHOW YOU—I HAVE TEETH TOO!”

I lunged at it with everything I had, but its upper body shot up high into the air, wings beating furiously, out of reach. Its torso, though, started to scuttle away on its own.

With a surge of rage, I dove after it and grabbed its leg.
“Where do you think you’re going after doing that to me, you bastard?!”

I clamped down on its limb and yanked with all my strength, slamming it to the ground. Before its upper body could swoop back, I hurled myself forward and sank my teeth into its torso with everything I had left.

“KHHHREEEEEEEHHHGGGGRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!”
Its upper body screamed, a sound that split the night.

“You think only you can bite?!” I roared.
“Then you’re dead wrong!”

I bit again—again and again—ripping and tearing at its flesh, pulling chunks free and spitting them out.

“AaaaAAAAHHhhHHh—EEEeEEEeEhhHHhh—GGgggHHhhhhhHHhhh!”
It screamed again, louder, thrashing beneath me.

“Yeah! That’s it! That’s it!”

I bit, and bit, and bit—tearing, ripping, chewing without thinking—until pieces of it clung to my lips and blood misted in the air. The taste was rancid, like rotting copper. I wanted to vomit but my mind had already slipped past reason. There was no thinking anymore.

I had become a wild animal.

Then I started twisting its bones. I shoved my hands deep into its torn torso, fingers clawing past the gore until I felt its ribs. I gripped hard and began to pull.

“COME OUT! BREAK! UUUUUUUHHH! BREAK ALREADY!”

“SKRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAKHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“AaaaAAAAHHhhHHh—EEEeEEEeEhhHHhh—GGgggHHhhhhhHHhhh!”

It kept screaming and screaming, but I didn’t stop. My ears rang with the cracking of bones, the sound like dry wood splitting.

“YES! YES! Almost there! Almost there!”

“SKRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAKHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“AaaaAAAAHHhhHHh—EEEeEEEeEhhHHhh—GGgggHHhhhhhHHhhh!”
“SKRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAKHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I tore deeper, digging inside, breaking and ripping out every bone my fingers could find. Blood gushed over my arms in hot rivers. Its upper body fell from the sky, crashing to the ground in a heap.

I stood up. My brain wasn’t working anymore. I didn’t even know what I was doing, only that I had to keep going.

I walked over to where its upper body lay writhing, making broken, pained noises. I didn’t care. I didn’t even want to care.

Slowly, I grabbed its right wing with my hand. I sank my teeth into its left wing, clamping down as hard as I could, and pulled—harder, harder, with brute force.

“AaaaAAAAHHhhHHh—EEEeEEEeEhhHHhh—GGgggHHhhhhhHHhhh!”

It screamed and screamed.

“UUUUUUHHHHH! TEAR! TEAR! BASTARD, TEAR IT!”

I bit down harder. My feet pressed harder into its back.

“TEAR! TEAR! ALREADY TEAR! UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHH! BASTARD! TEAR IT!”

KRRRRRSHHHLLLTTTCHHHH…

I could hear the tearing—clear, wet, horrible.

“GUUURRRHHHHHHHRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” it shrieked louder and louder as its wings cracked, bones snapping under my grip.

Then—

SLLLCHHHHHKKKKKRRRHHHH!

The wings tore free with a sickening sound.

One of its wings dangled from my right hand. The other still clung between my teeth, dripping with blood. I spat it out, wiped my mouth with my palm.

I dropped to my knees, collapsing into the snow. Blood from the cut on my left hand dripped steadily onto the ground, hot against the cold.

Then everything around me went silent. So silent I could hear my own faint breathing. My heartbeat echoed in my ears, slow and heavy.

I knew this was it. Really the last moment for me. When people die, their past flashes before their eyes. But for me, there was no past to flash, nothing to regret. Instead, in those seconds, I felt more alive than I ever had.

Inside my heart, only Sora’s face floated. My only regret was that I couldn’t see her one last time.

I lifted my eyes to the sky for one final look before collapsing. But there was no sky. The forest was so deep, the trees so endless, their branches sealed off everything above. Even the heavens were hidden from me.

“Haha… I couldn’t see Sora… my sky. And now even this sky… what a twist of fate…”

I finally fell onto the snow. The white around me turned red, spreading slowly. My face was half-buried in the cold, my body sinking into it.

It was about time.

“Onii-chan!”

I heard Sora’s voice in my head, calling me. Maybe the moment of departure had already come.

Sora… sorry… your brother couldn’t keep his promise…