Yet even then, Mom still managed a smile toward Piel from the center of that hellish cell.
“Piel…
as long as we stay alive, good things will come our way someday.
On a quiet, beautiful day.” “Really…?
Even…
even locked up like this?” “Of course.” Mom’s voice was still warm.
Even covered in blood, even missing teeth, even with ragged breaths—she never let go of hope.
“There’s a saying from the far east: ‘Better to roll in shit than die.’ It’s hard now, but…
good days will come, for sure.” “…Okay.” Mom always shared stories of hope.
Tales of princes rescuing princesses.
Stories of the unjust finding salvation.
Tales of spring arriving at the end of snow-covered mountains.
But Piel could sense it.
The rotting smell from Mom’s body each time she returned.
Her loosening teeth.
Legs that could no longer stand properly.
And…
Dad had died long ago, yet her belly swelled more each day.
Still, Mom said, “Piel.
As long as you’re alive…
good things really will happen.
So don’t give up…
you, or the sibling yet to be born.” In the darkness, those words lingered like an ember, guarding some corner of Piel’s tiny heart.
Without them, she would have shattered already.
And one day, that ‘small hope’ seemed on the verge of returning at last.
“Hey, kid.
Special meal today.
Heh heh…” A grating laugh like scraping metal, and a metal bowl clanged onto the cell floor.
Piel looked up.
Steaming stew.
To Piel, who had subsisted on hard bread and muddy water, it was food from dreams.
And it was packed with ‘meat’.
Piel’s hands trembled as she scooped a spoonful.
A body-temperature warmth spread in her mouth.
It was warm.
Delicious.
Maybe…
good things really were happening.
“Mom should…
eat some too…” Half the stew remained in the bowl, but Piel deliberately ate no more.
She wanted to give the first spoonful to Mom when she returned.
Clutching the bowl tightly in her small hands, she waited in the dark, smiling quietly.
But— The second spoonful reached her lips, and Piel’s fingertips quivered faintly.
“Huh…?” It was tasty…
but something was off.
Was her tongue numb from starvation?
Or was it just because warm food had been so long?
But chewing again, the soft, tearing texture of the meat brought a familiar ‘feeling’ to her mouth.
A feeling she shouldn’t recognize…
A faint metallic scent, like blood, rose from the stew.
“What…
is this taste…?” Piel cautiously lifted the bowl.
Small chunks of meat floated amid the steam, but one shape was oddly strange.
Fishing it out, it was faintly round, like a human finger joint.
Piel swallowed hard.
But with a ‘what if’ lingering, as she tilted the bowl again, something clinked against the bottom.
Metal.
With shaking hands, Piel flipped the bowl.
Splash— A ring.
The wedding ring Mom had clung to like her life, the one from Dad.
“…Mom?” Piel’s voice shook like cracking ice.
That was the moment.
From beyond the bars, a wet, rotting laugh oozed in.
“Still don’t get it, kid?” The darkness held its breath, and the man whispered low.
“That stew you just scarfed down so tasty?
That was your mommy’s flesh…
and the brat in her belly.” “…Huh?” Piel’s eyes trembled.
It took time to grasp the meaning, but the words pressed on mockingly.
“They say beastkin meat gets tender the more kin you feed it.
Used in medicine, too.
Client specially requested a firm, soft one.” Piel heard nothing.
Cannibalism, medicine, client—none mattered.
Only one thing choked her heart.
Then…
Mom is…?
Mom, captured because of me.
Mom, who couldn’t escape because of me.
Mom, who took my pains instead.
I ate that Mom?
Refusing to believe, she bolted up reflexively.
The bowl slipped from her hand, stew spilling across the floor.
In her dazed vision, someone grabbed her head.
Slam—!
Her face smashed into the ground.
And amid the scattered stew, a single gleam rolled out, revealing the impossible reality.
Orange.
The color that had always felt like ‘home’, warm and loving.
Mom’s eyeball.
Piel’s breath hitched to a stop.
“You fucking bitch, why waste it?
Eat it all!” “W…
waaaaah—!” “This little shit?” She vomited up the bile surging in her mouth.
But the humans forced her head up and shoved the puke back into her mouth with their hands.
“If even a drop leaks from your mouth again, your eyeball hits the floor before it does.
Ears are bonus.” But she vomited again.
Her throat rebelled, her body screamed.
In the end, they acted on their warning.
They ripped out her own eyeball to swallow instead of Mom’s, tore off her ears.
No screams came.
She’d lost too much; even the strength to cry was gone.
Years later, Piel learned.
The one who tried to turn her into medicine was caught but barely escaped being torn apart.
But it meant nothing.
She was already broken beyond repair.
Piel thought, ‘Mom…
you said good things come if we just stay alive.
But no.’ There was no blessing in survival.
Better to die than roll in shit.
So the day she was sold to her new master, Argent, Piel decided to end it herself.
Hope, life, even warmth.
Her breath grew ragged, blood spurted, vision shook.
As cold death reached out, Piel mumbled through her trembling body.
“Mom…
I’m coming to you soon…!” The cold, black darkness drew near.
It terrified her, but she lied to herself it would end in an instant.
And then.
Instead of death, what came was— “…It’s warm.” The warmth of that oldest ‘home’, the one Piel thought she had forgotten.