“Fwah! Egg mayo!”
I quickly tuck the sandwich from today’s meal package into my panty waistband for later.
How long have I been in this place now? A month? Two months? It’s hard to tell. I thought I’d get sick of it pretty quickly but I’ve been having fun with Biscuit, Mei-Mei, and Bran every day.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted friends. One hundred friends to be exact. I don't know why I wanted a hundred in particular. I think it was just the biggest number I knew at the time. Even though I loved my mom and my sisters, I still longed for something... different to a familial bond. Friends.
I wonder if Mom ever felt like that? Before my sisters and I were born, did she also long to make friends? Was she able to?... Even as a demon? A race considered monsters by most people. Unlike me, Mom's tall and her horns are a lot more visible than mine. It’s not like she could’ve hid the fact that she was a demon, even if she wanted to. Were there people who still accepted her, knowing she was a demon?
... Would people still accept me if they knew I was a demon? Would they still want to hang out and be friends?
Fweh... It’s not like me to get anxious about sappy stuff like this. Maybe it’s the lack of protein in my diet lately. And it’s not like I’m hiding the fact that I’m a demon either. I’ve just never had a reason to bring it up. I love my demon bloodline! Nothing makes me prouder than being the daughter of Demon Queen Gluttony! Sister to the Bloodstained Blackspawn! Pepper Black, the Strongest Demon! A title my loving family bestowed upon me themselves. Pepper Black is a woman who has never, not once, been ashamed of who she is or her bloodline at any point in her life! Ever!
... So why am I even worrying about stuff like this in the first place then?
“Mm! Definitely a lack of protein!”
Pondering to myself about ultimately unimportant matters after my morning workout, I approach Bran and Biscuit who are sticking together like usual. Biscuit watches on in silence as Bran carefully waters the tree—my fourth friend! Though I do tend to forget about it often since it doesn’t really do much. It’s just a tree after all.
“Oh? I didn’t realize Bran cared so much about his fellow inmates.” I tease at Bran, an oddly focused look on his face as he seems to be seriously fixed on the deliberate tender care and treatment of the tree he's watering.
Biscuit gives a sour pout and puffs out her cheeks.
"Bran says the tree will turn out to be a c-cute girl and she'll be super grateful and end up falling in lov... She'll end up l-liking him a lot for taking care of her all this time..." Biscuit fidgets awkwardly as she struggles to spit out her sentence.
“Exactly!” Bran responds with an odd enthusiasm. “If they’re in Curse Ward, surely they used to be somebody before they became a tree, right? That somebody is bound to be a woman, I’m sure of it! Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why would it be a woman? What about the ratio? I get it, I get it. We’ve already got three girls and one guy here, it’d make more sense for the fifth prisoner to be another guy, right? Wrong! The ratio of this world is warped in favour of having more girls for some reason! I can tell! Almost as if it’s under the influence of some kind of personal preference or something! In fact, I’m starting to suspect the only reason I exist in this world is to fulfil some kind of sick masochistic self-insert fantasy about being locked up in prison with three women! Not that I actually enjoy this situation though! Maybe I would enjoy it if I shared the same tastes in cute women, but the world’s idea of ‘cute’ is way off the mark! Violent gorilla? Zombie loli? What kind of taste is that?! Whose idea of cute does this adhere to exactly?! Not mine! Not any self-respecting person, I’m sure!”
Bran slams a fist against the wall in this unexpectedly long-winded and confusing burst of passion and general nonsense. As usual, I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. I shoot Biscuit a puzzled glance and she just shrugs, equally just as puzzled as me.
Calming back down, Bran gently gestures to the tree with two outstretched arms.
“This one is different though. I can tell,” he continues. “The cool-beauty type. Pure of heart and body. Probably an elf. Blonde. Modest chest. Th-thank you for taking care of me all this time, she’ll say as she shyly tries to hide the red blushing of her pointed ears behind her soft and slender fingers. Mm, definitely an elf girl, for sure. Popular tropes and archetypes considered, that’s just how these things tend to go, you know?”
I give Bran a blank stare.
No, I don’t know! I don’t know at all, Bran! And from the looks of it, Biscuit doesn’t either! The only thing I could somewhat gather from all that nonsense is...
“So, basically... If we water the tree it’ll turn into a cute girl?”
“Basically.” Bran nods in response to my question.
Hmm...
“Hey, Bran.”
“... What?”
“I want a cute elf girlfriend too. Let me water her.”
“... No.”
As we fight over the watering can, Bran ends up dumping the remaining water over my head.
“Maybe if I water you, you’ll turn into a cute girl as well,” he quips.
“...”
Drying myself off, I contemplate how many of Bran’s ribs I should break this time when I notice Mei-Mei waving me over from nearby.
“Psst! Gorilla! I need you! Hurry up!’
Is it just me or has everyone been kind of disrespectful to me lately? If Biscuit started to catch on to this current trend as well, I don’t know if my heart would be able to take it.
I make my way over to Mei-Mei who seems to be looking over some kind of strange device in her hand. Probably something I had thrown up at some point.
“When you say you need me, is that a confession of love or are you just asking for a favour? The lack of protein in my diet has made my tender maiden’s heart even more sensitive lately and I can’t have you toying with me like this.”
I stick my tongue out playfully and she beckons me closer in return. Crouching down to her level, she pokes my tongue back inside my mouth with her finger and flicks me on the forehead.
Ouch. My tender maiden’s heart.
"I need you to do something for me," she says.
“What is it?”
“I need you to lift me up.”
I pause for a moment in thought before answering her request.
“I think the short twintail style you’re rocking is super cute and really suits you," I tell her, hopefully quelling the self-esteem issues I didn’t even realize she had until now.
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Mei-Mei glares up at me with an expression that looks like she’s not sure if she should be mad at me or not. Shaking her head, she points up at the wall beside us. Halfway up the wall is a small metal panel fixed into an otherwise stone surface, about the size of an egg mayo sandwich. Focusing on it, I can see a row of thin gaps in the metal, hinting at an empty hidden space behind it.
“Lift me up there.”
I do as she asks. Grabbing her ankles, I lift her and hold her in front of the metal panel—my back pressed against the wall and my arms fully outstretched above me. She pulls out some kind of tool from one of her many pockets and starts fiddling with the panel, seemingly trying to pry it from the wall. Looking up, I frown in quiet disappointment at the fact that Mei-Mei chooses to wear pants instead of a skirt.
“Ah. Got it.”
A few short seconds later, she lifts the panel from the wall and tucks it beneath her arm, revealing the space underneath. I watch as she wraps something around her left hand and then, to my surprise—pulls the entire hand off. Carefully placing her dismembered hand inside the gap in the wall, I hear it move around a little, before scuttling deeper into the hole, out of earshot. With her one remaining hand, she pulls out a strange device and stares intently at the moving images that appear on its surface.
Noticing me fidgeting with curious anticipation, Mei-Mei sighs and gives me a better look at the strange glowy thing in her hand.
“I’m trying to find where this vent leads. This is a display that lets me see where my hand is going through the camera I attached to it. The hand is still connected to my nervous system via this cord so I still have full control over it, of course.”
“Ah.” I nod my head knowingly. “I understand completely.”
I do not understand at all. I have no idea what this dead dwarf is talking about but, unlike Bran, when Mei-Mei starts talking nonsense I at least know it’s a useful kind of nonsense.
“Look, I promise I'll explain it properly later. For now, just do as I say.”
Mei-Mei continues to focus on the glowy screen in her hand while occasionally feeding some kind of cord into the gap in the wall. Nearby, I watch Biscuit and Bran continue to goof around together, seemingly oblivious to whatever Mei-Mei and I are up to.
After some time, Mei-Mei gasps a little and her face lights up as a wicked grin spreads across it.
"Keh... Keh-heh... What the heck even is this place?” she cackles. “This is... Keh-heh-heh!"
“Find something funny up there?” I ask. “Is it the Warden’s diary? He seems like the kind of guy who keeps a diary.”
Still grinning to herself, Mei-Mei turns down toward me. “Even better! You wouldn’t believe what they’ve got just sitting directly above our head—!”
The lights suddenly shut off— leaving us in complete darkness.
“[WARNING. BREACH IN ORGANIC STASIS CHAMBER #0000.]”
A hollow voice echoes across the prison wing and a dim red light suddenly lights up the ceiling, illuminating the whole area with an eerie red glow.
“[WARNING. ACTIVATING DEFENSE SYSTEMS IN LEVEL— ERROR.]”
A thin, wispy red mist begins to rise out of small gaps in the floor, and the sound of grinding metal from somewhere below us hums loudly beneath our feet.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit...”
Mei-Mei curses to herself as she begins frantically pulling on the cord she had been feeding into the wall. A very panicked Bran and Biscuit scramble their way over to us and look up at her apprehensively.
As a misty red tendril floats its way past my nostrils, I sniff the faint scent of something I probably shouldn't be sniffing anymore...
“It’s gas!” Mei-Mei yells down at us. “Probably non-lethal but don’t breathe it in! Hold out as long as you can!”
... Fweh? ‘Probably’?
The panicked duo cover their mouths to protect from the rapidly rising mist and await more direction from the only person in the room who seems to know what's going on. I would cover my mouth too but my hands are currently occupied with holding that particular person above my head.
“Biscuit, Bran, hide everything! All of it!”
Mei-Mei barks instructions and the other two nod and run off together, covering their mouths as they disappear into the red mist quickly filling the room.
“And Pepper!” she continues, shouting down at me. “Do not drop me, no matter what!”
Mm! Understood!
Gulping down several lungfuls of clean air before I'm fully submerged in the gas, I hold my breath and continue to hold Mei-Mei in place, waiting for her to... do whatever it is she’s frantically trying to do.
“[WARNING. ACTIVATING— ERROR. MINING-BUN #ERROR TO LEVEL— ERROR.]”
The hollow voice rings out again and the grinding hum beneath my feet becomes even louder. Seconds later, something bursts up from the floor near the centre of the room and lands back down with a heavy thunk. Aside from being clearly much bigger than me, I struggle to make out any discernable features on the mysterious lumpy silhouette through all the mist.
The wall of mist is much too thick to see through now, having very quickly filled the entirety of the prison wing. I can't imagine Bran being able to hold his breath for very long so he's probably knocked out somewhere by now. Mei-Mei seems oddly fine, but I'm not sure she even needs to breathe in the first place. And as for the tree... Well, I don’t think it matters either way. It’s just a tree.
Suddenly, the silhouette starts to move. It jitters awkwardly for a moment, and then seemingly grows in size. Two green beams of light shine out from it, piercing through the mist as they scan their surroundings. Reaching me and Mei-Mei, the lights immediately turn red, matching the dim red glow from the ceiling. Slowly, the silhouette begins to hop towards us.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The heavy thunking of metal echoes out with every hop as the mysterious creature makes its way toward us. As it nears, a sudden buzzing cries out and the red mist begins to swirl around the figure and blow apart. The silhouette becomes clearer as the mist parts, revealing— A bunny! A giant bunny hops through the mist. Its shining red eyes focus a piercing light down on me—the reflective glint of its metallic skin only adding to its menacing red glow. From atop its head, a long metal drill buzzes loudly between two floppy metal ears, spinning the gas apart in a red whirlwind.
Fwah! It’s one of those things! A horned rabbit! We used to get these monsters back in the Underground sometimes! Except they were a lot smaller. A lot smaller. And they weren’t made of metal either. And their eyes didn’t glow, and their horns weren’t drills, and...
... Maybe it’s not a horned rabbit after all.
Hopping closer, the metal bunny suddenly lowers its head—the drill pointed right toward us, clearly intent on using it to shred a messy hole straight through our bodies.
“Fifteen seconds!” Mei-Mei cries out, still awaiting the return of her wandering hand.
Fweh? Fifteen more seconds? Looking up at the metal drill-bunny right in front of us, I don’t think we have fifteen seconds. Unless...
The drill-bunny lunges at us with its spinning drill and— I catch it. Caught in my mouth, the spinning metal tip of the drill grinds painfully against my aching teeth as it struggles to force its way further in.
Ouch! It’s hard! I’m trying to bite down on it but... Ouch!
“Got it!” Mei-Mei cries out again, pulling her hand from the wall and slapping the metal panel back against it.
At Mei-Mei’s sudden signal— I throw her into the air.
With my hands free, I swing them down, firmly gripping the drill with both hands. It instantly grinds to a stop in my palms. Slamming a foot against the head of the rabbit for support, I tear the drill right off of it. Twirling it around in my hands, I swing it back down, impaling the metal bunny to the floor with its own drill. A torrent of sparks hiss up at me from the wound as the light in the bunny's eyes slowly fizzles out.
“Fwahahaha!” I laugh, barely scooping Mei-Mei out of the air before she hits the ground. Only a few short seconds have passed since the moment I threw her to the moment I caught her again.
"Pepper Black is a woman who would never lose to a horned rabbit! Even a giant metal one! Fwahaha!” I continue to laugh over the corpse of the metal bunny.
I’ve never fought something made of metal before! I didn’t even know that was a thing! Surstrom Spire sure is amazing! I'm starting to feel a little light-headed from all the excitement. I wonder where this horned rabbit even came from? It kind of just rose up from the floor. Fwah! Maybe there’s like a hidden passage down there! Maybe—!
“...epper! Pepper! Pepper! Listen to me, you stupid meat-headed gorilla!”
“Fwaha—! Fweh? Mei-Mei?”
From her seat in my arms, Mei-Mei’s desperate pleading for attention snaps me away from my excited thoughts and boisterous laughter.
“Fwaha! What is it? Are you going to praise me? Did you see how cool I was? Fwahaha! Pepper Black is a woman who—!”
“Stop breathing it in, idiot!”
“... Fweh?”
Ah. That’s right.
In all my victorious gloating, I had unknowingly been sucking in lungfuls of mist— Gas. No wonder I was starting to feel light-headed...
“Fwahaha!” I laugh. “Pepper Black is a woman who won’t be beaten by air!”
Smirking down at Mei-Mei, I gently place her back onto the floor and give her a reassuring pat on the head.
“A-are you sure? You breathed a whole heap of that stuff in, you know? I mean, I don’t think— Eh? Wait, where are you going?”
Leaving Mei-Mei alone with the metal bunny’s corpse, I swiftly make my way to my cell and jump into bed.
“Goodnight!” I call back to her from beneath the covers.
Yes, there’s no way I’m going to be beaten by a little mist, so I’ll go out my own self! On my own terms!
—And then I close my eyes. The dim lights from the ceiling cast a gentle red glow against my eyelids, before slowly fading to black...