*Drip*

*Drip*

*Drip*

Cold droplets fell from a lonely stalagmite.

*Drip*

*Drip*

It echoed throughout the cavern like a choir of bells.

The girl slipped into the darkness she feared, surrounded by nothing but the harrowing splashes.

*Drip*

She could feel the harsh thumps banging against her forehead.

*Drip*

And at some point, she tasted the bitterness of the water as it trickled past her lips.

*Drip*

Was she dead?

She didn’t know.

But this sensation was eerily familiar to her.

*Drip*

< There are no current Antagonists detected >

< 0 Nemesis Tokens Gained >

< Your tale is still in the prelude, isn’t it? >

A voice from beyond the void spoke. Subtle ticking accompanied it like a heartbeat. The origin of the voice came from everywhere at once within her dark purgatory, haunting her as she tried to understand who this voice belonged to.

The void was cold. Terribly lonely. Her existence was rendered null by the darkness as her consciousness voyaged without purpose or a goal in sight.

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Suddenly, an ember of light hovered before her. It flew like a firefly, its light fleeting as she instinctively reached for it with invisible hands. The light was warm, and it warded away the cold, monotonous ticking.

The drips soon returned, replacing the ticking heartbeat.

*Drip*

This was not the first time she had experienced this abnormal dream-like state. She heard that life usually flashes before one’s eyes when they die, but for her, there was only darkness. Not even the memories of her life as a monster carried enough weight to be reminisced.

Always… always, she was brought back here in this primordial ooze of darkness.

“… Vengeful Red… Hooded Assassin…” She whispered her name in full, one that once fought for the murdered denizens of her dark forest.

Something inside of her chest cracked.

* * *

< One Sanity Token has been deducted >

//////// < WARNING > ////////

< Lowering Sanity increases the likelihood of Instability >

< When Sanity reaches 0… >

< Sanity Scale >

< 11 >

She didn’t know what it meant at the time.

But one day, she would be reminded of its significance.

* * *

The blue glow of the cave ceiling blinded her momentarily. The dizziness rattled her senses as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. It didn’t occur to her that she was alive, and so, she began murmuring to herself like she was on her way to the elusive place people called ‘heaven’.

“I wanna eat tasty things. Apples. Meat. Wolf meat. Apple pie. Apple and wolf meat pie. Mmm…” She groggily spoke to herself, lazing in a pool of an unknown liquid like a starfish.

She didn’t bother to look down. Instead, focused on the droplets that fell onto her forehead.

“That Facility had people eating delicious things too. I wonder if there are Corrupted that want to eat tasty things too, just like animals and monsters.” The thought stuck with her for a while. The glowworms twinkled like false stars, as if replying to her question.

Slowly, her hand slid onto her chest, smearing a crimson liquid over her drenched articles. The iron scent immediately heightened her senses, and before she knew it, she threw herself upright, now wide awake.

“Mm… no. That’s right. We just want to kill each other. Corrupted don’t think. They just do. Animals and monsters are different.”

She was awfully sober compared to her clumsy self just…

… Minutes prior?

Hours?

Days?

She didn’t know how long she had been out for. Her hands immediately explored her body for signs of injury, but to her shock –

“No cuts. No bruises. No lacerations. My clothing is fixed too… I survived…”

It looked like she had reached an epiphany. Like all her wisdom of the past returned all at once. However, this was far from the truth. Instead, her tiny fists clenched into balls as she made a small, celebratory jig whilst simmering in a concoction of her blood, and the slaughtered wolves.

“Naturally, heh.” She proudly announced with a smug face.

Two of the wolves were left exactly as she remembered: freshly disemboweled. The third was left skewered somewhere above, its blood trickling down the slope from whence she came from like a red waterfall.

The girl’s stomach grumbled as she feasted her eyes upon their carcasses. Another drip echoed within the cavern. But this was not from the water above.

*Grrrr*

“I know stomach. Food…”

It was the drool dripping from her lips.

She swiped the blade, spinning it dangerously between her fingers with spectacular skill before she pounced on the nearest wolf, plunging her blade into its body where she began to remove the pelt from the flesh.

Hatchling Red was once the Vengeful Red-Hooded Assassin. A Corrupted that thrived on the essence of the hunt. Butchering them was nothing to her, and once she carved out a sizeable fillet of meat, she messily munched on it like it was no more than a peeled dragon fruit.

However –

“Pffffft. *Cough* How do wolves eat meat if it tastes this bad!?” She complained, spitting the food out.

But her growling stomach urged her to steel herself.

“Tch. Yuck… How come you can eat stuff like this, but I can’t? Mnn… I bet it’s because it comes from a wolf.”

*Munch*

*Squelch*

*Slurp*

Her stomach thanked her for the meal, but her tastebuds screamed at her. It was nothing like she expected. She had seen people eat meat before. It wasn’t quite as red as this, but meat was meat! So, like the logical person she was, she blamed the lackluster quality on the fact that it came from a wolf.

Munching mouthfuls, she began to speak to her prey’s head.

“You know, I always wondered why monsters and animals get the freedom to eat. You had the choice to leave grandma alone. But you decided to eat her. It’s only fair that I get eat you too.” She easily rationalized her hunt, peeling flesh from the bone with her blade.

Hatchling Red didn’t realize it immediately because of her overwhelming hunger, but the longer she ate, the more she realized that her hands weren’t quite as small as they were.

Staring down at her blood-soaked body, she blankly blinked and then studied herself in the reflection of the crimson puddle.

“Um… Aren’t I a little bigger now?”