Tokyo Ghoul: Living in the maze as a Human. What could go wrong?

The metal restraints felt cold against my wrists, but that wasn't what made me shiver. It was watching my friends try to pretend they weren't scared.

Kenji kept cracking jokes under his breath, the same nervous habit he'd had since we were eight. "Maybe we'll come out of this with superpowers," he whispered, forcing a grin. "Like those manga you're always reading."

I wanted to smile back, to play along like we always did, but something felt wrong about this whole situation. The scientists had been too eager, too excited when they'd selected us from Saint Mary's Orphanage. And the injection they'd given all of us an hour ago...

The serum still burned in my veins. It had been this sickly green color that seemed to glow with its own light, and from the moment it entered my bloodstream, I could feel it changing something inside me. My heart beat faster, my skin felt too tight, and there was this constant warm buzzing running through my entire body.

Looking around at the others, I could tell they were experiencing the same thing. Yuki's face was flushed, and she kept flexing her fingers like she was testing whether they still worked properly. Little Hana was the worst off—only ten years old, and her small body was visibly trembling as whatever they'd injected us with did its work.

"Subject responses are within normal parameters," one of the scientists said, checking something on his clipboard. "Initiating phase two in three minutes."

Phase two. I didn't like the sound of that.

"Hey," I whispered to Kenji, who was in the chair next to mine. "Are you feeling okay? You look kind of..."

"Yeah, don't you feel it too?" he said, and his voice sounded strained. "It's like there's something crawling around inside me."

Before I could respond back, Kenji's whole body went rigid.

It started as a convulsion, his back arching against the chair while his hands clenched into fists. But within seconds, it became something much worse. The veins in his arms and neck turned black, visible through his skin like dark rivers, and his eyes...

When Kenji's eyes snapped open, they weren't brown anymore. They were red and wild and completely empty of everything that had made him my friend.

"Kenji?" I called out, but he didn't seem to hear me.

With a sound that was more animal than human, he tore through his metal restraints like they were made of paper. For just a moment, I felt a surge of hope—if he could break free, maybe he could help the rest of us escape.

Then I saw the way he was looking at the nearest scientist. The same way a starving person might look at food.

What happened next burned itself into my memory in a way I knew I'd never forget.

Kenji launched himself at the scientist with inhuman speed and strength. There was a brief, horrible scream, and then... silence. When Kenji straightened up, his mouth and hands were covered in blood, and the scientist was very clearly dead.

But the worst part was that Kenji didn't stop there. The thing wearing my friend's face turned toward the other scientists, and I could see in those red eyes that he was still hungry.

"Containment breach in Lab 7," someone was shouting into a radio. "We need emergency response teams immediately!"

That's when Kenji exploded.

Not like a bomb, exactly. More like all the energy from that green serum had built up inside him until his body couldn't contain it anymore. One second he was there, the next second there was nothing but a crater in the floor and chunks of... things I didn't want to think about scattered across the walls.

Three more scientists were caught in the blast. They just disappeared, vaporized by whatever force had torn Kenji apart from the inside.

I stared at the empty space where my friend had been, my mind refusing to process what I'd just witnessed. This was supposed to make us stronger, not...

"No, no, no," I heard myself saying, pulling against my restraints. "This isn't supposed to happen. This isn't—"

Yuki started convulsing.

The serum in her system was reacting to whatever energy Kenji's death had released. I could see it happening—the same black veins, the same inhuman strength building in her small frame.

"Yuki, fight it!" I shouted, even though I knew it was useless. "Don't let it take you!"

She looked at me one last time, and for a moment, her eyes were still her own. "Tell my sister I love her," she whispered.

Then she was gone too.

The explosion was bigger this time, and closer to where I was sitting. The heat washed over me, and I felt my chair slide backward from the force of the blast. Emergency lights flickered on as the main power went out, bathing everything in an eerie red glow.

More scientists were running now, shouting orders and evacuation procedures. But they weren't fast enough.

Hana was the last to go. Maybe because she was the smallest, or maybe because she kept fighting against whatever the serum was doing to her. She lasted almost ten minutes, long enough for me to watch her little body change in ways that weren't natural, weren't right.

When she finally looked at me, tears were streaming down her face.

"Yuuto, I want to go home," she said in a voice that was already not quite human anymore.

The blast that took her sent my chair flying across the room and through what had once been a reinforced wall.

I woke up buried under chunks of concrete and twisted metal.

Everything hurt, but in a distant way, like the pain belonged to someone else. I should have been dead—no question about it. The explosion had thrown me at least thirty feet, and I'd hit the wall hard enough to crack it.

But when I carefully moved each limb, to see if I could move. Everything was working, more than working, actually. I felt stronger than I ever had in my life.

The restraints that had held me to the chair were completely destroyed, the metal twisted and broken by forces I couldn't begin to understand. When I looked around at what remained of the laboratory, I realized just how lucky I'd been.

The entire facility was in ruins. Where there had been pristine white walls and sophisticated equipment, now there was nothing but rubble and smoke and the occasional emergency light casting strange shadows. Bodies were scattered everywhere—scientists, security guards, people in hazmat suits. All of them clearly dead.

I'm the only one left alive.

The thought hit me like a physical blow. Kenji, Yuki, Hana—all the kids from Saint Mary's who'd been selected for this project. They were all gone, and I was the only one who'd survived whatever that green serum was supposed to do to us.

Why me? What made me different?

I caught my reflection in a piece of broken glass and got my answer. My eyes weren't black anymore. They were this bright cyan color that seemed to glow with their own light, like something out of a science fiction movie.

The serum had changed me, just like it had changed the others. The difference was that somehow, for some reason, my body had adapted to it instead of rejecting it violently.

I was still trying to process this revelation when I heard voices echoing through the ruined facility.

"No survivors found at the injection site," someone was saying. "Continuing sweep of adjacent sectors."

"Copy that. Orders are to contain any escaped specimens for study."

Specimens. Do we not even deserve to be called human?

I pressed myself against a pile of rubble and held my breath as a team of armed figures moved through the wreckage. They wore black tactical gear and moved with military precision, checking each body and scanning the area with handheld devices.

Clearly they weren't here to rescue anyone. They came here to clean up the mess and capture whatever was left.

Meaning me.

I waited until their footsteps faded into the distance, then began picking my way carefully through the debris toward what looked like an emergency exit. My enhanced vision let me see clearly even in the dim emergency lighting, and my improved hearing helped me track the search teams as they moved through other parts of the facility.

Whatever they'd done to me, it had given me advantages I was going to need if I wanted to stay free.

The emergency exit led to a maintenance tunnel that connected to what looked like an old subway system. I followed it deeper underground, putting as much distance as possible between myself and the ruined laboratory where my friends had died.

With every step, I could feel the weight of what had happened settling on my shoulders. Kenji's nervous jokes, Yuki's quiet strength, Hana's innocent questions about when we'd get to go home—all of it was gone now, destroyed by whatever twisted experiment those scientists had been conducting.

I was alone in a way I'd never been before. And despite the strange new strength coursing through my veins, I felt more empty than ever.

The underground tunnels seemed to go on forever.

I walked for hours, maybe longer—it was impossible to tell time down here, and my internal clock felt scrambled by everything that had happened. The enhanced vision that came with my cyan eyes helped me navigate in the darkness, revealing old maintenance shafts and abandoned subway platforms that hadn't seen human activity in decades.

My original body would've gotten dropped tired long ago. Whatever the serum had done to me, it had improved my endurance along with everything else. I should have been exhausted, both physically and emotionally, but instead I felt like I could keep walking forever.

Behind me, I occasionally heard the search teams in the distance. Their voices echoed through the tunnel system as they tried to track me down, but the underground was a maze, and I was always one step ahead.

"Expanding search grid to include sub-level maintenance areas," someone reported over a radio. "Still no visual on the escaped specimen."

"Understood. Continue sweep. Subject is considered high priority for recovery."

High priority. Because I was the only one who'd survived their experiment.

The thought made my stomach turn. They weren't chasing me because they were worried about my welfare. They wanted to study me, to figure out what had made me different from Kenji and the others. And then probably do more experiments.

I wasn't going to let that happen.

The tunnel I was following gradually began to change. The concrete became older and more weathered, and the air started to smell different—mustier, but also sharper somehow. Strange symbols were carved into some of the walls, and I began to see evidence that people had been living down here. Makeshift shelters built into alcoves, cold fire pits, scraps of clothing and personal belongings.

But everything looked abandoned, like whoever had been here had left in a hurry.

Eventually, I found a ladder leading upward. My enhanced hearing told me there was no one moving around above, so I climbed carefully to investigate.

I emerged into what looked like the ruins of an old subway station. The ceiling was high and vaulted, but large sections had collapsed over the years. Debris was scattered everywhere, and the tile work that might once have been beautiful was now cracked and stained.

This felt like a safe place to rest, at least temporarily. I found a spot behind a pile of rubble where I'd be hidden but could still watch the entrances, and settled down to try to figure out what to do next.

That's when I heard someone screaming.

It was faint, echoing down from somewhere above me. A girl's voice, high and terrified, calling out what sounded like a name over and over again.

I should have stayed hidden. Everything that had happened so far should have taught me that getting involved in other people's problems was a good way to end up dead. The smart thing would be to wait until whatever was happening up there was over, then continue trying to find my way to the surface.

But that girl sounded deadly worried of whoever she was calling. And after watching my friends die while I sat helplessly strapped to a chair, the idea of doing nothing while someone else was in a similar situation made me feel sick.

I found myself climbing without thinking of the consequences.

My enhanced hearing helped me track the voice as it led me up through collapsed passages and broken maintenance areas. The screaming stopped after a few minutes—maybe she'd been forced to focus on running instead of calling out—but now I could hear rapid footsteps and harsh voices in pursuit.

When I finally found an opening that led to the source of the commotion, what I saw made my enhanced reflexes kick in automatically.

Three men were chasing a green haired girl who looked about my age through what appeared to be the ruins of an old underground shopping area. She was fast, but clearly exhausted, stumbling as she ran. Her clothes were torn and dirty, like she'd been running for a long time.

The men pursuing her moved in a way that immediately reminded me of how Kenji had moved after the serum changed him. Too fluid, too predatory, with an inhuman grace that set off every alarm bell in my head.

As I watched, the girl stumbled and went down hard on the broken concrete. One of the men lunged forward with impossible speed, his hands reaching for her.

I didn't think about the risks. I didn't consider whether I was strong enough to take on three adult men, or what might happen if I lost. All I could think about was that someone was in danger, and this time I was in a position to do something about it.

I dropped through the opening and hit the nearest man from behind before he could reach the girl.

The impact sent him flying forward into a pile of debris, but to my surprise, he rolled with the landing and came up in a crouch, apparently uninjured. When he turned to face me, I saw that his eyes had changed—the pupils and irises had turned completely red, glowing with an inhuman light.

The other two men turned toward me as well, and I realized with growing horror that they all had the same red eyes. They looked completely human otherwise, but there was something predatory in their expressions, something that made every instinct I had scream danger.

What were these things?

Before I could process an answer, dark appendages erupted from the first man's back gradually covering his arm—writhing, tentacle-like structures that definitely didn't belong on any human being I'd ever seen.

"A human," one of them said, and despite his normal appearance, his voice had a quality that made my skin crawl. "Although he smells... different."

"Doesn't matter," another replied, and similar dark appendages emerged from his shoulders. "The girl is the priority. Kill him quickly."

The first appendage lashed out at me faster than any normal human could have reacted. But my enhanced reflexes kicked in, and I found myself dodging to the side just in time to avoid having my head taken off.

Whatever these things were, they were trying to kill me. And from the way the girl was looking at them, she clearly wanted to kill them.

That was all I needed to know.

The fight that followed was unlike anything I could have imagined. The three creatures—because that's what they were, not men at all—moved with inhuman speed and coordination. Their appendages struck out like whips, carving grooves in the concrete where I'd been standing moments before.

But my enhanced abilities let me keep up with them. I was faster than I'd ever been, stronger than should have been possible, and my reflexes seemed to anticipate their attacks before they made them.

When one of them tried to grab me with those writhing appendages, I caught hold of one and pulled as hard as I could. The creature screamed as something tore, and dark liquid that definitely wasn't blood splattered across the floor.

The sight of it made my stomach lurch, but I pushed the nausea down. These things had been hunting the girl. Whatever they were, whatever they wanted, I couldn't let them hurt her.

I managed to get my hands around the head of the second creature and slammed him backward into a concrete pillar. There was a wet cracking sound, and he slumped to the ground, his red eyes going dark.

The realization that I'd just killed something—someone?—hit me like a physical blow. My hands were shaking, and I could taste bile in the back of my throat. But the remaining creatures weren't giving me time to process what I'd done.

The third one tried to flank me while I was distracted, his appendages striking out toward the girl instead of me. That snapped my focus back to the immediate situation.

I intercepted the attack, grabbing the creature by the arm and twisting until I heard bone snap. He howled in pain and rage, then tried to rake his claws across my face.

I ducked under the swipe and drove my fist into his chest as hard as I could.

This time, the wet cracking sound was even louder and my hand was covered in his blood. The creature's eyes went wide with shock, then he collapsed backward and didn't get up again.

The first creature, the one I'd seriously injured earlier, looked between me and his fallen companions while sitting on the ground, he was too drained to continue fighting after cutting off his appendage.

Yet I couldn't bear to spare him, even though my insides churned from my past actions I had to kill him so he stayed shut from what happened here.

As I heard the last wet cracking sound I almost vomited but I couldn't since I didn't have much content in my stomach anyways.

I stood there in the aftermath, breathing hard and trying to process what had just happened. The three dead creatures lay motionless among the debris, their inhuman features even more disturbing in death than they'd been in life.

I'd killed them. Three living beings, even if they hadn't exactly been human. The knowledge sat in my stomach like a stone, making me feel even more sick and shaky.

After a moment I remembered the reason I fought, I looked over at the girl, who was still sitting on the ground where she'd fallen, I knew I'd made the right choice. Whatever those things were, whatever they'd wanted with her, they'd been prepared to hurt her to get it.

"Are you hurt?" I asked trying to force a smile to reassure her.

She shook her head quickly. "N-No..."

Her voice was small and frightened, but there was something in her eyes that seemed older than her apparent age. Like she'd seen things no kid should have to see.

Just like me.

"I'm glad," I said, and meant it completely.

The relief of knowing she was safe, combined with the adrenaline crash from the fight and the emotional weight of everything that had happened since the laboratory, hit me all at once. My vision started to blur around the edges, and I felt my knees buckle.

The last thing I saw before consciousness left me was the girl reaching out to catch me as I fell forward.

Eto's POV

The boy collapsed into my arms, and for a moment I just held him, trying to understand what had just happened.

A human had saved me. Not just any human—one who could fight V agents and win. The three ghouls who'd been hunting me for the past 4 or 5 hours were dead, killed by a boy who couldn't be more than thirteen or fourteen years old.

But how?

Humans couldn't fight ghouls like that. Even the CCG investigators needed special weapons and years of training to take on a single ghoul, and this boy had defeated three of them with his bare hands.

As I held him, I could feel how warm he was. And his eyes... before he closed them, they were striking. Bright cyan, almost glowing. I'd never seen eyes like that on a human before.

What are you? I wondered, studying his peaceful face.

He looked young and innocent, with soft features that hadn't quite grown into themselves yet. But his clothes were torn and stained with blood—not his own, it came from the previous fight—and there were shadows under his eyes that spoke of recent trauma.

More importantly, he'd risked his life to save me. A complete stranger who, for all he knew, might have been just as dangerous as the things chasing her.

When was the last time anyone had done something like that for me?

Noroi, maybe. Back when I was smaller and he still worried about my ability to take care of myself. But Noroi was...

The thought hit me like a physical blow, and I had to blink back sudden tears. I'd been running for so long, focused so completely on staying ahead of the V agents, that I hadn't let myself think about what might have happened back at our shelter.

But the V agents had found me somehow. Which meant they'd probably found him too.

No. I pushed the thought away. Noroi was strong, stronger than almost any ghoul I knew. He could take care of himself. He was probably worried about me right now, wondering where I'd gone.

All I had to do was get back to him, and everything would be okay.

But first, I needed to figure out what to do with the mysterious human boy who'd saved my life.

The smart thing would be to leave him here and make my way back to Noroi alone. I didn't know anything about this boy, and bringing an unknown human back to our hiding place could be dangerous.

But he'd saved me. When those V agents had cornered me, when I'd been too exhausted to fight back, he'd appeared out of nowhere and risked his own life to help me.

They wanted to capture me alive, I remembered, thinking back to what I'd overheard during the chase. Something about "bringing her back intact." They didn't know what I really was—probably assumed I was just another ghoul, albeit an unusual one.

If they'd known I was a half-ghoul, their approach might have been very different.

That had to mean something.

Besides, if he could fight three V agents and win, he might be useful to have around. The 24th ward was dangerous even for ghouls, and having a companion—especially one with whatever strange abilities this boy possessed—would make survival much easier.

I adjusted my grip and lifted him more securely. He was heavier than he looked, but not unbearably so. And there was something comforting about having someone else here, even if unconscious.

I'd been alone for too long. Even before the V agents started hunting me, it had usually been just me and Noroi, hiding in the deepest parts of the 24th ward where other ghouls rarely ventured. Having another person around, someone closer to my own age, felt... nice.

As I began making my way back through the ruined passages toward the deeper sections of the ward, I found myself looking down at the boy's face every few steps. He seemed so peaceful in sleep, his breathing steady and even.

"Who are you?" I whispered, not really expecting an answer. "Where did you come from?"

The boy's lips moved slightly, like he was responding to my voice even in unconsciousness, but no words came out.

I'd find out soon enough, I supposed. When he woke up, I'd have plenty of questions for him. Starting with how a human could fight like that, and ending with why he'd risked his life for a complete stranger.

But for now, it was enough that he was here. That I wasn't completely alone anymore.

The journey back to our shelter took longer than usual, partly because I was carrying the unconscious boy and partly because I kept stopping to listen for signs of pursuit. The V agent's may have called for reinforcements, and I didn't want to lead them straight back to Noroi.

But the deeper sections of the 24th ward were quiet, and my enhanced hearing picked up no signs of movement behind us.

Maybe we'd actually gotten away. Maybe, for once, things were going to work out okay.

That hopeful thought lasted until I rounded the final corner and saw our shelter.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Blood, but old blood—not fresh like what would come from a recent injury. Then I saw the broken concrete, the claw marks gouged deep into the walls, the scattered debris that spoke of a violent struggle.

And finally, I saw Noroi.

He was slumped against the far wall, his massive frame unnaturally still. Even from the entrance, I could see the dark stains covering his clothes and the concrete around him.

"No," I heard myself whisper, but I was already moving forward, setting the unconscious boy down carefully before rushing to Noroi's side.

He was dead. I knew it before I reached him, but I had to check anyway, had to press my fingers against his throat and feel the absence of a pulse before I could accept what I was seeing.

His skin is already cold.

The blood around him was almost completely dry. While I'd been running from the V agents who'd found me, he'd been here fighting a different group.

And losing.

I knelt beside his still form, reaching out with trembling fingers to touch his face. Noroi, who'd taken care of me for as long as I could remember. Who'd taught me how to hunt and how to hide and how to survive in a world that wanted us dead.

You always promised me that you'd find a way to reunite me with my father someday.

"You were supposed to wait for me," I said, my voice barely audible even to myself. "We were supposed to figure this out together."

But even as I said it, I understood what had happened. The V agents had found our shelter somehow—probably the same way they'd tracked me down. When they came, Noroi had fought them to give me time to escape.

He'd died protecting me, just like he'd always said he would.

Behind me, the human boy stirred slightly in his sleep, reminding me that I wasn't completely alone. He'd saved my life, and now... now maybe we could save each other.

I looked back at Noroi's peaceful face one more time, then stood and walked back to where the boy was lying.

"I don't know who you are," I said softly, "but thank you. For everything."

Then I settled down to wait for him to wake up, so we could begin figuring out how to survive together in a world that wanted us both dead.

Maybe Noroi had sent him somehow. Maybe this was his way of making sure I wouldn't be completely alone.

It was a silly thought, but it made me feel a little better as I sat vigil over my sleeping savior in the ruins of everything I'd once called home.