????? – ????

There is no color, there is no flora, no fauna, no blue sky, just a barren badlands of a mix of rock and dirt stained by black puddles of putrid liquids. The space was only filled by the occasionally rotten corpse, that is, if it hadn't already dissolved into a skeleton or even pure dust.

Between the joyless landscape, a small silhouette walked. It was bare, in fact, almost completely bare; the only things covering the body were a cloth wrapped around the waist, composed of various pieces of withered fabric, and another one that hung over the shoulder.

The steps made their feet protrude from the cloth, revealing glimpses of a blank, colorless skin and nails that had grown into black, putrid shells in the shape of hard claws. Their face was covered by dirty, overgrown, black, messy hair, like untreated thorns that formed decayed spikes.

The wind was hollow, carrying no fragrance other than the faint residues of gut-wrenching remains of the bodies and unknown substances. The atmosphere was dry, dry enough to make each step lift a tiny wave of dust. The area was so quiet that those sounds were the only thing subtly filling the silence.

They took another step, stopping their foot when they felt the tiny rocks that were scattered around the ground jump, vibrations that alerted them to an approaching presence. Soon enough, there was someone else behind them. They turned around, seeing a thin, malnourished male whose skin was a faded mint; what's more, there was an irregularity on one of his arms, a third arm emerging from a lower part of his shoulder.

"So, it's true, a kid is roaming around this place..." By the tone of his voice, he was a teenager. "It's been so long since I tasted fresh meat..." he licked his lips with a hundred-year stare, taking a knife out.

"Oh... are you a cannibal?" They inclined their head to the side, the wrinkled throats making creaking noises. "Wait, we're not the same species at all, you just like eating people, huh?"

The teen didn't respond, as he was already lunging at them. They stepped back only to tumble and fall. The 3-armed teen tackled them, trying to carve his knife on their head, but they grasped his hands in a struggle to push his hand away. Even then, the dirty hair was covering the face, obscuring any possible expressions.

They didn't let out a word, just a raspy, groveling sound of struggle while the knife got closer to their neck. They moved one of their feet against the dirt, grinding their toes on the ground and pushing themselves back to stand, shoving the teen away from them in the process.

The 3-armed male scoffed, regaining his feet to charge at them again. The child waited for him to come close, only to lift his feet as if he were about to kick, when in reality, he was throwing a pack of dirt that they had picked up with their toes at his face.

"Agh!" He brought his hand to his face, staggering his steps. That second was used as they jumped at their face, grabbing his head and slamming it against the ground as they descended.

He lifted his head forcibly, growling almost as much as his stomach, using his third hand to swing the knife at them. It scraped their cheek, forcing them back as they crawled back in retaliation.

The seen male pushed himself back up, crawling towards them, disoriented as his eyes were still filled with dirt. He started swinging unthinkingly at him, swaying the knife from side to side while he moved forward. They continued to crawl back, scarcely avoiding the blade as they moved back on their feet bit by bit.

Once they were completely back up, they kicked him over the head. The hit was enough to knock the dust particles out of his head. He got up, shoving them back and attempting to stab him in the gut.

They extended their hand to defend themselves, unintentionally catching the knife between their fingers, making the sharp edge brush against their mistreated skin. His third hand grabbed at his wrist, trying to make him release his hold, but they raised their clawed foot and stomped on his foot, making him shout in pain again.

"Agh!" he growled, tripping over another rock, causing him to fall back with the small figure chasing after him. "Get off me, you little freak!" he thrust the knife upward, directly at their face, but it barely made it past the crusty threads of hair before stopping short against a rigid surface.

"Huh..." they stared down at him, the steel had opened a rift between their eyes, letting him see an eye. A black river with a single, white void in the middle acting as the iris. Below it, the blade made a minuscule cut; the liquid that dripped on it revealed cracks in the gaps between their hair, as the white skin showed.

The way they stared wasn't challenging, it wasn't defiant, confident, or threatening.

It just looked like the stare a child would deploy while trying to understand a new concept. And even with that, there was a sensation of unrestricted unease emanating from their blank gaze.

They hummed, leaning their hand towards the knife, causing more of that black substance to drip into it, making it sizzle as it dropped down and melted a small section of it.

"Huh.... Your knife is dull... did you know that?"

"w...what the..." the teen male tried to pull his knife back.

"Here..." They opened their hand, showing muddy, pointy nails. "This is a real sharp thing." They dug into his third arm, making a nasty gash on his skin, leaving some muscle exposed, earning a scream of unbridled pain.

"Huh... maybe not sharp enough." They dug deeper into the decayed flesh. "Okay... let me just..." They hummed as he fidgeted with their fingers, scraping away more skin, making more and more screams come out of his mouth while his blood flowed into the ground, staining more and more until their hand closed, completely ripping the arm from his shoulder.

"G.... get off me, you little psycho!" he shouted with a voice strained in dread and aching, his feet moved frantically when, digging into the ground as he tried to move away, the knife fell to the ground, drenched in a mix of sweet, blood, and boiling black liquid.

"Hey... Hey, where are you going..." they mumbled, crawling after him, still holding the severed arm in their hand. They looked back at the Male's malnourished torso. Then, at the separated arm, a macabre thought formed in their mind. At the same time, their head was still turned to the separated arm. "You said you wanted fresh meat... didn't you?"

They gripped the arm with both hands, lifting it above their head, and slammed it against his face. It elicited a small wince from him, he lifted it back up and smashed it back down, aiming for the mouth, scaring the face, and making the nose bleed.

"s...stop," he coughed, his face getting more scraped and bloodied with each forceful slam, "p...please let me go, I'll never show up again..." he gagged as the arm was forced into his mouth, muffled sounds of dismay and pain.

Those sounds.... Those cries of agony, of misery, made a twitch on his mouth, a twitch that formed in a grin. "Hehe.... Hehehe..."

The blood started to fly out of his face, the grin widened, their hands lifted and slammed back down into the teen's mangled face.

Each time they slammed the arm into his face, it formed further into his mouth, opening it agape, breaking teeth, smashing more and more bones while chuckles started to erupt from him.

The drops of blood stained his face, painting over the cracks, and it got on their teeth, but they didn't care, not even registering the metallic taste of blood as the rush filled their brain with a feeling that clouded any sense of control.

"Come on... Come on... I thought you were hungry." He snickered coyly while the sounds of the teen male's cries descended in volume, while the squishy noises replaced them.

They kept lifting their hands and slamming their arms back down. The wrist had been broken by how many times they had hit it against his unwilling face; the nose was no better, completely shattered with blood spilling all over the sides; the mouth was essentially an open hole now; and the teeth were completely gone.

Even as he tried to lift his hands in protest, they slammed the broken arm more, the groaning noises slowly being muffled out by a growing chuckle. "What's wrong.... What's wrong, tell me! You needed to eat, didn't you? Are you not hungry anymore!?"

More and more, their voice erupting into a hysterical laugh. Their eyes flashed a barely contained joy. Not just malice, not just depravity, no: the continuous spilling of blood on his mouth and face, combined with the putrid noises of a head being turned into mush and the slow descent of his struggles, brought a pure sense of joy to the young figure's semblance.

"Ha... ha..." the laughs transformed into breathless gasps, their vision finally setting clear, letting them see the pile of smashed skin, broken bones, and flattened skin that they've made of the teen's head. "Ha.... Ah.... You're broken now...."

Their hands dropped to their side, and their head dropped in exhaustion. "That's a shame..." Seconds later, they were interrupted by the rumbling of their stomach. "Hmmm..." Their vacant eyes glanced back at the body; it was motionless, lacking much flesh, but aside from the head, it seemed to be in reasonably good condition.

"Hehe... what a fun thought." Opening their mouth wide, they sank their teeth into one of the arms, ignoring the taste and simply ripping a piece out.

Just like a piece of a different lifeless body that a slightly grown figure chewed on, which they promptly spat out. "Blegh..." They wiped their face. "A lot of people reek way more than others.... How interesting."

The sound of a light tap echoed from deeper into the cave, reaching their ears. Their eyes turned first, followed by their head in a jerky motion, the piece of flesh still on their hands. "Oh? Did I bark in someone's place?" he stood from the ground, his eyes staring into the dark of the cave through the dirty tangles of his hair.

As the taps became more frequent, a group of figures started to come out of the dark. It was a pack of crustacean-like, human-sized monstrosities that made no noise other than the snapping of their limbs as they approached the dirty figure. Shell-like lids covered their eyes, and their bodies were protected by an exoskeleton that had nearly no color, except for faded, almost unnoticeable shades of orange.

As soon as their eyes set on the figure, they stopped all movement, their pupils staring into it as they dilated. Without a single thought, they started charging, their limbs letting out frantic snapping sounds while they crawled at him on an animalistic craze.

"Oh?" They tilted their head, staying in place and letting the crustaceous beings get close enough to him to swing a sharp limb at them. They moved out of the way clumsily, but using the wall to prevent themselves from falling by leaning into the wall, pushing themselves back on their feet to run back from another swing from the creature.

Another of the creatures jumped at them, a smaller one that they caught between their hands, trying to prevent it from scratching their faces. They heard the first creature approaching from behind. They turned around, attempting to smash the other creature, but their shells seemed to bounce off each other, only for them to jump back on their limbs and charge at them.

A third creature started to run after him from the other side, prompting them to run deeper into the cave. They passed through a lot of remains of different shapes and sizes, coming across a severed bone that had a sharp end to it. They picked it up and turned around, meeting one of the crustacean monsters halfway and attempting to stab it; however, the figure's weapon proved not sharp enough to pierce the shell, causing it to be tackled to the ground.

They grunted, their hands trying to prevent the sharp, raspy legs from stabbing into them while their wide eyes stared up at the creature. Unfortunately for them, the monster had a lot more legs than they could hold with their hands, and eventually one of them latched onto their shoulder.

They gasped, their head jerking back as their hand grabbed into one of their eyes, involuntarily gripping from the pain. The pressure of this reaction crushed the creature's eye, causing it to wail in pain as it pulled back from them, fluids coming out of the cavity and tainting over its husk.

They stopped while they watched the creature blindly claw towards the walls, craving at the rocky wall while blood continued to spill out of where its eye used to be. A grin started to crack on their face as they approached, "What even are you..." They tilted their head, trying to reach for the other eye. "Let's see...."

Just then, the larger crab-like creature charged them from the side, shoving him against the ground, its sharp limbs moving to cover them so they couldn't reach its eye. As they tussled to keep the many claws from stabbing them, their pale eyes saw the union between two sections of its limbs. They reached for the joint, gripping the sides as the other legs scratched at them, but this didn't deter them one bit, as their thumps dug into the joint.

With that, they pulled the crust-covered armored appendages, the pressure on the middle point causing it to sever after some moderate effort. The creature started to wail in pain, the lack of one of its limbs causing it to lose balance and stumble around as it tried to get away from them. They remained motionless for a couple of seconds.

"Does that hurt? ... oh... You can't answer me, can you?" They looked at the claw on their hand.

And then their mouth cracked open again, growing and growing with twisted noises until an ear-to-ear smile painted on their face, while their eyes stared down with a macabre idea forming. "Maybe you can."

They grabbed onto the crustaceous creature and grabbed another of its joints, gripping on it and digging their sharp finger into the fleshy section, cutting it off with vicious force, throwing it away, and leaning closely. "Can you understand me now?"

The creature's blaring noises of pain only became louder as it limped around even more clumsily, falling on its own body and subsequently trying to pick itself up with its remaining legs. "Hmmmm." They placed their foot over it and, taking another of its limbs, tore it off. "How about now?"

After they released the creature from their foot, its sounds had died down into mere whimpers, accompanied by weak attempts to crawl away with the little legs it had left. At this sight, the figure couldn't help but hold a ghastly, coy smile. "Yeah... I can hear it... I like that."

When they turned to another sound, they perceived the smaller creature crawling back from them, the previously feral monster trying to get away from them as soon as possible. "What's wrong... why are you walking that away?" They approached slowly, black liquid leaking from the cuts left on their body. They lifted the cut leg of the other creature, looming menacingly with that unsettling smile on their face, soon cornering the small creature and bringing down the sharp object.

Splash.

The blood of another body stains their hands after they dug a jagged blade on its head. The scars on their torso and chest had become more cracks, the colorless figure had grown into something resembling adolescence, their body showing sequels of various struggles, cracks spreading across a malformed physique, looking like it was barely held together.

"Hmmm... this one barely struggled... how curious," they dug the knife out of the head, glancing at it curiously and then licking the blood off, only to spit out the next instant. "Gross." They stood, kicking the body off and disregarding it with little thought.

"I guess I am not hungry." They cracked their semi-mangled arms, stretching them behind their head, feeling how their disheveled hair rustled with every little movement. The sky was as dark as always, having no sense of day or night and much less of what time it was on the barren planet.

They started to talk, but when they took the first step, they felt the sky darken. Or at least a sizable section in front of them. They looked up to see and bulky giant, covering the light from the starred sky. There was a club in his hand and a ripped cloth covering his middle section, held together by a belt composed of skulls of different creatures.

"And here I thought this place was deserted." They looked up, their eyes showing nothing but a deep, uneasy sense of curiosity. "Are you looking for something?" he twirled back and forth, displaying an unsettlingly acquitted attitude.

The giant's head barely turned on their direction, his hand tightening on the club, his muscles tightening around his arm, "squash..."

"Oh?" They tilted their head. They saw the shadow over them moving; the giant lifted his weapon and brought it down towards them. Even as they jumped away, he dragged the club across the ground, catching them midjump and causing their body to roll and pull through the surface.

They gasped, coughing out black liquid. "Oh... that's new..." They held their side, feeling something crack. "Something broke in there... I didn't know that could happen." Their husky words turned into a growing chuckle while they stood back up, their hands aching open as the cracks on their skin seemed to ooze.

The giant turned his head back at them, his club still buried in the ground. "Not squashed..." he turned in their direction, blank eyes staring at them. "Not good..."

"Heh... yeah... yeah... let me see more of this..." they hanged their hands low, running at the giant and jumping above the club, taking a sharp object out of their hair and trying to stab on his arm, but the skin was rigid like rocks, forcing them to jump back as he tried to reach him with his other hand.

The next second, the giant moved his club upwards. They barely avoided it in time to watch him charging at them, and attempting to grab their head. "Squash..." They took another step back, landing on the back of his hand after it landed on the ground.

They jumped at his face, attempting to get a hold of a vulnerable area, but the giant moved his club at their face, to which they took the knife and carved it on the stone weapons with enough force to use it as a lever and pull themselves away from the swing. "What exactly are you?" They tilted their head and waved their hand.

"Squash..." he started to charge at them again.

"I suppose that's all you can say," They sighed, shaking their head. They ran ahead, taking a closer look when the giant raised his hand to bring his club down again. They jumped, anticipating the swing and wrapping their arms and legs around the forearm.

He turned his head to them, his arm hanging in the air. "Squash..." he reached for them with his other hand. Their eyes darted to the section between it and his arm. They opened their hand rapidly, sending their sharp fingers on the flesh, and this time, it actually pierced, if ever so lightly. It made the giant's eyes shoot up ever so slightly.

He let out a pained roar of pain, pulling them off his arms and slamming them back on the ground. "Not good! Not good!" he growled, keeping them in place with his hands pressing their entire upper body against the ground. "Squash!" he lifted his hand and started swinging down to crush their head.

But just seconds before it reached them, the giant whaled again, stepping back with blood gushing down their hand, causing it to drop the club to hold their fingers in pain. They giggled maliciously as they stood up, their hand holding their knife and a blood, bloody nail on the ground.

Somehow, in between all the trashing movements, they had taken the blade from the giant's weapon and let him slam them down so they could pull the nail off while he thought they were helpless. "Ah! You DO have those squishy spots too, huh?" they snickered more, darkly. "Let's see how many you have."

The giant growled as he held his hand, not noticing that the figure jumped back at him, using the knife to carve it below another of his nails, lifting and pulling violently, making it fall with another bloody display and earning another shout of pain. He began waving his hand around, trying to shake him off, and slamming his hand against the ground with them on it desperately.

They grunted as they felt themselves hitting the ground continuously, more areas cracking, and black liquid coming out of their mouth and noses. And still they started to stab in the unprotected areas of his fingers, causing him to arch his back as he screamed in pain. His head turned towards the fallen club, and he stood up and tried to run at it. "SQUASH..."

But they crawled over towards their head. "Where are you going!? I haven't finished finding those spots yet!" He smirked animalistically, taking their long, ragged hair and wrapping it around his neck, pulling it on it with force. The giant gagged, halting his steps and trying to reach back at them, but the musculature on his arms didn't allow him to reach them. He could only toss and turn as more and more pressure from the rusty threats was applied to his throat. "Come on! Let's see how long this hangs on."

As he tried to run to his club, the lack of balance made him fall on his face, only centimeters away from the weapon and trying to reach for it, "s...squash," he gagged incoherently. They looked at the club, then back at their hair around his neck, his grin widening with malevolent intent. "Great idea."

They lifted his head by the neck, gripping their hands tightly and pulling the giant towards his fallen weapon. Once they were close enough, they lifted his head forcibly with the dark, raspy threats, the cracks on their body oozing with blackened aura. After hearing his gagging and struggling noises for a couple of seconds, they pulled down, banging his head against the club.

The impact created a solid, hard noise that muffled a pained grunt of the giant. They lifted his head, pulling on his neck by his hair, seeing the blood spilling out of his nose as it had been twisted to the side, and bruises covered his face. "swuash..." he mumbled incoherently.

The figure only grinned, pulling him closer to their head. "Yeah, I think we should try again," they stood over the club's lower for support, pulling back on his neck and then back forward, crashing his head against the weapon once more, making another thump combined with a pained grunt. When they pulled back, the nose was even more broken, the bruises were worse, and some of the front teeth were broken.

"Again!" they chuckled and slammed his head again, the blood starting to spill against the stone weapon and on the ground. They lifted his head, seeing an even more abused face with blood gushing out of open bruises and feet hanging on by a thread, eyes barely open, and a voice less coherent from the pain.

"N...no squash." He mumbled, desperation in his voice starting to creep up in an unsettlingly unfitting way.

"Hooo? What's wrong?" Their hands pulled more, tightening the grip on his neck and making his protests more strained. They slammed their head against the club again, the crushing of his face bones becoming more prominent as his broken voice started to turn into screams of anguish.

"n...no swash" they smashed them again, seeing tears falling from his eyes.

"nnnn...n...n sqsh." He begged, not even being able to make an intelligible sentence.

"Hey... that's a funny noise." They smirked wider at the sound of the giant's cries of mercy. They slammed again, "more."

And again. "More!"

And again. "More!"

And again. "More!"

As the giant's head was nothing more than a mush of stained skin and smashed organs, when the cries were gone, the figure erupted with a joyful laughter, not evil, not malicious, just a normal, honest, and hysterical laughter.

They laughed so much that they fell back, the adrenaline slowly dying down and giving way to heavy panting. "That was.... Fun..." he grinned again, a morbidly curious and happy smile. "I want to see more... more of these noises..." Their fingers dragged across the ground.

"So... much more..."