A Scum's Redemption

It was a bear—once. But the word doesn't fit anymore.

Its fur hangs in oily clumps, threaded with veins that glow green from beneath the skin. One side of its face has collapsed inward, exposing torn sinew and shattered bone. The jaw hangs open, muscles twitching. Saliva drips in thick strands that hiss when they touch the ground.

Both front paws have burst at the seams. Bone juts through the pads, dragging furrows through the dirt. They're torn, ruined, but still moving.

Its eyes are gone.

In their place, two sunken holes seep pus and light. Pale, cold, flickering in and out like a dying lantern.

The chest pulses—rhythmic, wrong. A glow pushes against the ribcage, bleeding through the skin. Not power. Not grace.

Sickness.

Whatever this thing was—it's gone.

Only what's left remains.

Gil sees it.

His voice drops, barely a breath.

"Corrupted."

He doesn't draw his blade.

He doesn't blink.

Just turns to me—expression unreadable, tone final.

"Run."

And I do.

I bolt into the trees, Kai clutched tight to my chest. His breath is warm against my collar, but everything else is cold—air, mud, the taste of fear in my throat.

Behind me, the forest explodes.

A roar—louder than anything I've ever heard—splits the sky open. Then steel. Screaming steel. Wood cracking. Something massive crashes through trees like they're nothing. And Gil—

Gil doesn't shout.

He laughs.

A low, guttural bark of a man who's already too deep in the fight to care how bad it is.

I hear the clash of blows. A sickening crunch. The bear screams—not like an animal. Like something broken. Like it remembers being human.

I push harder.

Branches whip past. Roots claw at my boots. The forest blurs. I don't look back.

But I can still hear it.

Every strike. Every breath.

The rhythm of a man refusing to die.

And then—

The ground vanishes.

One second I was running—mud and root and blood in my teeth. 

The next— Nothing. My foot hit air. 

The world tilted. 

The forest fell away. 

We tumbled down the unforgiving ledge—rolling, crashing, weightless.

Until the water swallowed us whole. 

Freezing. Roaring. Alive.

I held Kai tighter.

Didn't breathe.

Didn't think.

Just wrapped both arms around him and let the current devour us.

The river churned like it wanted to tear the skin from my bones.

Waves slammed us against rock. Branches whipped past, lashing my shoulders and neck. One jagged edge scraped my temple—warmth bloomed in the cold. Blood.

I kicked, twisted, fought to stay upright—but the water didn't care.

It threw us down again. Harder.

Something cracked.

My right arm bent wrong.

I felt the bone go.

Clean snap.

Agony bloomed like fire.

I screamed.

Water rushed into my mouth, drowned it.

Still—I didn't let go.

We spun. Tossed like driftwood through the chaos.

I saw the sky once—just a flash of stars smudged by clouds.

A quickly approaching noise.

Then a drop.

A waterfall.

The roar changed.

No more rocks.

No more branches.

Just space.

Open air.

And then I saw it.

The waterfall didn't crash into a pool or flatten against stone.

It fell into darkness.

A hole in the world.

A cave.

Swallowing the river whole.

We went over the edge.

Together.

No footing. No control.

The slope vanished beneath us.

We hit the water hard.

It tore the breath from my lungs.

Crushed in around my ears.

Cold. Violent. Endless.

Silence.

And dark.

I didn't surface.

Not really.

My body drifted down.

But my mind—

It sank somewhere deeper.

Not water.

Not air.

Memory.

Cold.

Unforgiving.

Not a dream.

Not light.

Just the dark—

The kind that remembers everything you wish it didn't.

I was ten.

Skinny. Filthy. Stupid enough to think I could trick him.

The cellar door slammed shut above me. The bolt slid into place. Heavy.

A small slit near the top let in a line of light—just enough to show the damp walls and the floor cluttered with broken crates and rats that didn't run anymore.

Then his voice, muffled through the slot.

"This what happens to thieves who steal from me."

Laughter.

The sound of fading footsteps.

Then nothing.

The dark didn't scare me.

Not at first.

I sat against the wall, arms wrapped tight around my knees, waiting for the door to open.

For someone to change their mind.

They didn't.

The cold came first.

It crept in quiet. No bite, no warning. Just stillness.

The kind that seeps under your skin and takes its time.

I curled tighter into the corner, arms around my knees, face buried in cloth that didn't smell like me anymore.

Then came the hunger.

Not the kind you feel after skipping a meal.

This was deeper.

Throbbing. Spreading. Twisting.

It lived in my stomach, but it didn't stay there. It moved—up into my ribs, down my spine, into my head, until everything pulsed with emptiness.

Each breath felt heavier than the last.

Not because I was tired.

Because I was being hollowed out.

The first day, I dreamt of stew.

The second, of bread.

The third—nothing.

No dreams. Just darkness pressing in.

By then, my thoughts were blurred. Slow. I'd stare at the floor for hours, not blinking. Trying to remember what warm food tasted like. Trying not to imagine chewing. Swallowing.

My stomach didn't growl anymore.

It just ached.

Constant. Dull. Alive.

It felt like someone had cut me open and carved out my insides with a spoon, and now my body didn't know what to do with the space.

I scraped mildew off the walls with my nails.

Licked it.

Didn't help.

The water from the crack in the stone ran thin that day.

The rats came closer.

I didn't scare them anymore.

On the fifth night—if it was night—I woke up shaking.

I don't remember grabbing the rat.

Only what it felt like.

The way it kicked.

The sound it made when I slammed it against the wall.

I was crying. But I couldn't stop.

It was already dead before I ripped it open.

The fur stuck in my teeth.

The blood was warm, and for a moment, that made it easier.

I ate as much as I could.

Threw the rest into the corner and curled up again, mouth still wet, hands still shaking.

Silence.

Not in the cellar.

In me.

No growling stomach.

No crying voice.

Just the dark, settling in.

Shame came later.

Now all I felt was full.

The sixth day, I decided to do something.

I laid down flat. Still. Face turned just enough to breathe.

And I stopped moving.

Didn't twitch. Didn't scratch. Didn't blink.

Played dead.

I thought maybe they'd come check. Maybe someone would open the door to clear out the body.

No one came.

Not that day.

But I didn't stop.

I kept still.

Let the rats sniff at me. Let the cold chew my joints raw.

Days began to blur.

I could barely think by then. The pain was dull, muted—like my nerves had finally given up.

Thirst clawed at my throat. Hunger sat in my belly like hot iron.

I wasn't pretending anymore.

If they didn't come soon—

I wouldn't have to fake it.

After what felt like years, I heard the bolt slide.

Footsteps down the stairs. Slow. Careless.

Then a voice, low and bored.

"This one croaked, huh."

The man grabbed me by the arm.

I didn't resist.

Didn't move.

I let him lift me—one-handed. I weighed nothing by then.

He didn't notice the way I'd sharpened rat bones against the stone.

Didn't realize what I'd hidden beneath my ribs.

Until I buried it in his neck.

The bone snapped between his cords.

He made a sound—not a scream. Not a growl. Just a thick, wet grunt as blood sprayed across the wall.

He staggered back, clutching his throat.

Didn't fall.

He reached for me.

So I stabbed him again.

Then again.

The bone was small. Thin. Not deep enough to kill fast.

But it was enough to hurt.

Enough to bleed.

Enough to blind him with pain.

He swung once. Missed.

I stepped forward and drove it into his chest.

His hands dropped. Legs gave out.

But I didn't stop.

I kept stabbing.

Over and over.

Until the bone cracked.

Until my hand went numb.

Until the blood was everywhere—on me, in me, around me.

When he stopped moving, I kept going.

Because I didn't know how to stop.

Because I didn't want him to get up.

Because in that moment, I wasn't a starving child.

I was the thing you lock in the dark.