Her expression is smug. The corner of her right lip is tipped up.
Keeping the eye contact, she spits the piece of flesh to the side. Her mouth is a bloody mess as she smiles at me. Red is streaked all over her cheeks and forehead.
I’m frozen on the spot, unable to react as she crawls up my body until her face hovers over mine.
Blood drips from her mouth onto mine. She presses her hand on my jaw, holding me still as she lays her bloody lips on mine.
“You’re useless,” she mutters against my lips. “How does it feel being so helpless?”
I shake my head but she holds my jaw tightly in her grasp. “You lay here, selfishly pursuing your dream while your beloved suffered for you.”
“W-what?” I whisper.
She smirks at me. “Wouldn’t you want to know?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
At the mention of Moe—the true Moe—my focus becomes singleminded. I don’t care about my severed dick anymore or the pain radiating from that spot, or the blood that keeps leaking until I might hemorrhage to death. As soon as I hear that something happened to Moe, nothing else matters.
She leans back. With the snap of a finger, the dark, barren ceiling turns into a motion picture. It’s Moe. And me. She’s next to me, holding a damp cloth over my forehead as she tries to cool me off. She does this time and again. For hours on end.
And then…
Bat-like creatures swarm into the cave, flying straight toward us. To protect me, she places her body atop my own, fieldingthe attacks as she can. But that means their sharp claws scratch away at her skin. At first, it’s light, superficial cuts. But the more they attack, the deeper the wounds become.
She’s steadfast, though. She doesn’t let go of me. No matter how much pain she’s in, she continues to protect me at the expense of her own safety.
Although the attack ends, it’s far from over. Every few hours, another swarm of those creatures attack. And every time, Moe covers my body with her own, shielding me from any harm.
She’s a bloody mess. Although she heals, even that begins to slow down after repeated blows. To ensure she’s fully healed, she drinks some more liquid from the Wilka.
She doesn’t have to withstand those blows. Now she’s fast enough to dodge them all—even fight back.
But she doesn’t, because that would leave me wide open.
The repeated attacks would undoubtedly kill me.
So she sacrifices herself instead. She bears the pain. She grits her teeth at the way her flesh breaks.
My eyes are filled with tears as I see the full extent of her actions. But no matter how grateful I am to her, to see her risk herself like that…hurt like that… I think I’d rather die.
“Perhaps I will grant you that wish,” the Scarlet Lady murmurs against my ear.
She’s still atop me, her nails dug into my skin.
I lay motionless on the ground, bleeding, tears spilling.
Perhaps I do deserve to die…
36
Iwake up with a start. Traces of pain and terror still linger in my mind but no matter how much I question their origins, it’s like some crucial memory is gone.
“You’re awake?” Moe asks in a sleepy voice.
“H-how long have I been out?”
“Almost three days,” she says as she offers me a jug of water.
