Brené Brown: "You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."
"Hand over 20% of your dig, or I will beat you so badly that your mother won’t recognize you," Barnabas threatened in a gruff voice.
Barnabas was a tall man for his age. He was only 16, but over 6 feet tall. His body was also thick and muscular, so when he stood over Robert and threatened him like that, it was like a giant talking down to a rat.
And Robert did look like a rat. He was not a small man; he had an average build and was fairly muscular. But next to Barnabas, he was like David standing in front of Goliath.
It didn’t help that they were in an underground tunnel. Barnabas’s large body was big enough to block half of the way, and when he spread his arms, he could block the path completely. So Robert was clearly at his mercy.
Despite the size difference, Robert refused to back down. He stepped into Barnabas’s face and said, "Make me."
Barnabas obliged by swinging his massive fist. Alex, who was watching from behind, winced at the sight in anticipation of serious injury.
As he watched, he saw Robert’s legs give way beneath him. Robert dropped low and side-stepped, so the punch sailed above his head. Then Robert punched out, slamming his fist into Barnabas’s stomach with all of his might.
A moment later, Barnabas curled into himself and held his stomach in pain. By now, Robert had rolled away, putting some distance between him and the giant.
Then Robert grabbed his pickaxe and took a fighting stance. His center of gravity lowered, and his legs primed to spring up and launch him upward.
When Barnabas saw this, he knew that Robert wouldn’t be easy to deal with. The giant turned to the pickaxe beside him, contemplating using it to fight.
After a brief hesitation, just before Robert could leap, he said, "Forget it. It is not worth it. You can go."
As he spoke, Barnabas shifted his massive body to the side to make way. Upon seeing this, Robert relaxed somewhat.
Robert was still wary, so he didn’t let go of his pickaxe. His eyes remained trained on Barnabas and his two lackeys as he picked up his bucket and walked over.
Alex was half expecting a fight to break out at any moment, but no such thing occurred. Barnabas let Robert go without double-crossing him. Then the giant spat in disgust after Robert left.
Since he was next in line to leave the mine, Alex stepped up to Barnabas. The giant gave him a once-over, then said, "Leave 40%."
"Isn’t it 20%?" Alex asked in confusion.
In response, Barnabas spat in his face and said, "It is whatever I say it is."
As the wetness of spittle slid across Alex’s face, anger surged within him like a flame. His heart began to pound within his chest, and his ears began to ring.
He wanted to shout. He wanted to fight. He wanted to do something to protest and, hopefully, prevent this injustice.
And when he thought back to what had just happened, how he should protest appeared in his mind. Robert had made it look easy too, so it felt like he should be able to do it too.
A bystander wouldn’t have any hope in him because he was small, weak, and malnourished. Robert was small compared to Barnabas, but he was small compared to Robert.
What no one knew was that he was much stronger than he looked. To be specific, he was exactly 3 times stronger than he had any right to be. So he had the right to consider it a victory if the fight happened.
But then he remembered that he had never fought for anything in his life, in either this life or the last, and didn’t know how. He was a paper pusher back on Earth and had never had any reason to engage in physical confrontation of any sort.
In this life, there had been many opportunities to fight, but he had always kept his head down and followed the rules to survive. So this was another chance to change his methods and stand up for himself for once.
After thinking about all of this, he clenched his fist and unclenched it. Then he bent down and began taking coal out of the bucket. He took out about two-fifths of the bucket’s volume.
Upon seeing his compliance, Barnabas nodded in satisfaction and said, "Good job, pipsqueak. You may go."
Alex didn’t say anything. He only brought his sleeve to his face to wipe the saliva.
But Barnabas caught his actions and said, "Keep it on."
As he spoke, he glared at Alex as if daring him to defy the order. So Alex lowered his arm from his face, picked up his bucket, and started walking.
"That’s it, pipsqueak," Barnabas said in jest as he roared. "You’re my bitch."
The two lackeys joined in laughing. They sneered, pointed fingers, and called him names.
Throughout the ordeal, Alex kept his head down, as he always did. As he walked by, he was tempted to execute a surprise attack with his pickaxe, but he gave up on the idea just as soon as it appeared.
Just like Barnabas did earlier, he didn’t think it was worth it to risk his life for some coal. So he gave up on the fight.
’I guess I am too smart for my own good,’ he thought with a deprecating chuckle as he wiped the saliva from his face.
He knew that Barnabas had picked him out to be an example for anyone in line who might have gained some ideas from Robert’s actions. He looked weak, which made him a prime target for bullying, so Robert didn’t hesitate to goad him into fighting by raising the price.
If he had decided to follow in Robert’s footsteps, what awaited him was most likely a fight he would regret. Barnabas would have used him to reestablish his authority, which meant broken limbs if he lost.
’Anyway, I am alive, and that’s what counts,’ he said to encourage himself.
’Slow and steady wins the race. I’ll soon save enough to go to school and learn how to read and write. As long as I remain patient and hardworking, everything should work out.’
’I will leave this mine and become an accountant. Or maybe a librarian. Anything that doesn’t involve hard labor would do.’
He was thinking about his plans as he walked through the side tunnels into the main tunnel. The main tunnel was much larger than the side tunnel. Ten people could walk through it side by side.
Barnabas couldn’t hold off a tunnel like this without more manpower. Plus, the overseers supervised the main tunnel, so bullying wouldn’t be allowed to happen so easily.
’It is not as if they don’t know it is happening,’ he thought in frustration.
’I am sure they know about it. But they let it happen anyway.’
He had a lot to complain about in his new life, but the one he hated the most was being picked as an example for teaching a lesson even though he had done nothing wrong.
Clearly, he hadn’t let go of what Barnabas did to him. The anger within him still raged, ready to break loose. Unfortunately, he had no outlet for it, so it could only suffocate him.
His surroundings seemed to mirror the feeling in his chest. The tunnel was mostly dark, but small lamps lit it here and there.
At this point, he was already used to the darkness and didn’t mind it. In fact, he doubted he needed light to walk through the tunnels. The darkness in his life and in the world around him had become all too familiar.
Taking a step at a time, his feet met the ground, kicking up black dust. Slowly and surely, he made progress through the tunnel with the many others walking along the way.
From above, they looked like a tide of soulless men going through life absentmindedly. One by one, they fell in line at the checkpoint just shy of the exit.
He was still thinking about that confrontation as he stood in yet another line. This line was for submitting his dig for the day and getting paid.
Up ahead, an overseer inspected their digs and paid them for their work. So it was not another round of unconstitutional fleecing. But more fleecing would come later. It always did.
The thought of being cheated later by some gang members seemed to reignite his anger. But he exhaled and said, "Slow and steady. Slow and steady."
Just then, he heard a loud explosion. "Bang!"
Then came, "Boom!"
"Boom! Boom!"
He looked up ahead to see what the noise was. But something slammed into Robert and threw him against Alex. The two of them fell over, rolling across the ground.
"Get off!" he called out.
But Robert didn’t listen. Instead, Robert was saying, "My legs. I can’t feel my legs."
Robert’s voice was shaky and confused. It was a far cry from the confident voice he’d used earlier when he confronted Barnabas.
All around him, people were screaming in pain. Even without being able to see what was going on, he knew that it couldn’t be good.
When he finally pushed Robert aside and stood up to survey his surroundings, he saw a sorry scene. It was a scene of flowing blood and dismembered body parts.
Everyone ahead of him was either dead or maimed. The person in front of Robert had been cut in half at the waist. They were the one screaming the loudest.
"My stomach! My stomach!" the screaming man said as he tried to put his intestines back into his stomach.
The man’s legs were some distance away, but he didn’t seem to have noticed this. He was too preoccupied restoring the structural integrity of his stomach.
Up ahead, more people cried or groaned in pain. In the tunnel’s dim light, he saw their bodies in different states of dissociation. The more scattered they were, the less they screamed.
Some of them didn’t make any sound. They didn’t move either. They were clearly dead. Whatever had killed them had killed them very quickly.
The culprit behind all this carnage was a large black halberd. It had pierced through the gate, through everyone in line, and lodged itself in Robert’s guts. Then it had thrown Robert into Alex.
When he looked over his body, he saw blood all over his body. He sighed in relief when he realized that most of the blood belonged to Robert. There was only a small cut on his chest where the halberd had struck his ribcage.
Without seeing who had thrown the halberd, he knew who it was likely to be. The image of a giant of a man named Kent appeared in his mind. Even now, he could hear Kent stomping about outside the mine.
From outside the tunnel, he heard roars of anger, followed by the frequent sounds of clashing weapons. There was also the occasional explosion.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The whole place vibrated from the fight outside. But strangely enough, there was no panic within the mine.
Clearly, the mine was under attack. But the miners didn’t seem to care. Most of them bore impassive faces. Even the sight of so many dead in front of them didn’t seem to elicit any response.
Since the overseer was dead, they couldn’t submit today’s dig. And since a fight was going on outside, they couldn’t leave either. So the miners sat on the ground to wait for the outcome of the fight.
Only Alex was still healthy and moving about, instead of sitting down. He bent down to apply pressure around the halberd stuck in Robert’s stomach.
He wasn’t doing this because he liked Robert. He didn’t even know Robert that well. They were barely acquaintances in the same job.
He was helping because he didn’t want to see a life go to waste just like that. Despite his recent experience, he still felt that a life should be worth more than this.
"I am going to die," Robert stated as a matter of fact.
"Please, tell my sister. I have money. It is in the shoebox under my bed."
As he spoke, blood trickled down his lips. Soon he was coughing blood.
"Speak less," Alex urged him.
"For what?" Robert asked with a chuckle. "I am done. It is over."
"I only have one regret. My sister. Please tell her."
"Then try to stay alive for her," Alex insisted.
But Robert grabbed his arm forcefully and said, "Promise me. Promise me that you’ll tell her."
Alex could only say, "I promise."
Upon hearing this, Robert smiled. It was a serene smile of a man who had made peace with his situation.
When Alex saw that smile, he felt inferior as a man. He felt inferior because he didn’t think he could face death with this level of composure.
His shame was especially pertinent because he possessed the Life Forge Artifact, which, as far as he knew, most people didn’t have the privilege of possessing.
So he should be capable of great things. But he had been too afraid of death to make full use of it.
He was thinking about his situation when the sound of a metal gate opening drew his attention. When he turned towards the sound, he saw an armored giant appear through the opened door.
He also saw that the metal gate was crumpling where the giant had gripped it. When the giant stepped through the door, their hand left the gate, leaving a handprint permanently etched into the metal.
After the giant entered the tunnel, their full figure became clear. They stood at least seven feet tall, with their head nearly touching the roof of the tunnel.
The giant removed their helmet, revealing a woman’s face. Her hair was black and cut short, but what stood out most about her wasn’t her cropped haircut. It wasn’t the scar across her face either.
Her most notable feature was a second pair of eyes beneath her normal ones, and the fact that her cheeks were absent, revealing her teeth and tongue through the sides of her face.
’That’s not Kent,’ Alex thought to himself in growing realization.
As if to confirm his suspicions, the giantess said, "Sorry about the disturbance. Ownership of this mine has just changed hands. It is now under the control of the Meat Brutes Order."
She patted her armored chest, making a ringing sound like a bell being struck, as she said, "I am Tessa. I am one of the Big Bosses of Meat Brutes."
"As usual, this change of ownership doesn’t affect you. You can go about your service without expecting any changes. The rate we buy the coal will be the same."
At this point, she noticed Robert, who was dying on the ground, and Alex, who was covered in blood. The sight of so many dead people made her click her tongue and say, "Such a shame."
Then she walked over to the two teenagers and said, "You two are injured. As it turns out, the Meat Brutes are short-handed. So how about you join us? I’ll give you something that can save your life."
Robert’s previously calm eyes immediately flared up when he heard this. He had a look on his face that was reminiscent of the facial expression he had when he was confronting Barnabas earlier.
"What is it?" he asked in agitation.
"It is a gluttony worm," she said in reply. "Have you heard of it?"
Robert couldn’t move his head and seemed to have become too weak to speak, so Alex shook his head for both of them.
Since they didn’t know, she began explaining, "It is a symbiote. It will fuse with your body, heal you, and help you become stronger."
"But you should know that it is very dangerous. In most cases, your body won’t be able to withstand it, and it will kill you. And in some rare cases, the body can withstand it, but the mind can’t, so you lose control and go mad."
She pointed at Robert as she said, "I guess you don’t have much of a choice."
"But you need to think about this carefully," she said pointedly to Alex. "You can still walk, so you don’t need to risk your life. And even if you win the gamble, you will have to give up your freedom and serve Sir Bane, a Noble Tyrant."
"I’ll do it," Alex said without hesitation.
He didn’t think about this because it was something worth dying for. He wouldn’t risk his life for coal, but he would risk it for this, especially since he didn’t want to be laid to waste in the blink of an eye by a stray halberd just because he was in the wrong place.
’Besides, I have the Life Forge. I should be able to handle it,’ he thought to himself in anticipation as his heart was pounding heavily in his chest. ’And if I die, so be it.’
This was the second time his heart had beaten this fast in ten minutes. It was a typical sign of his fight-or-flight mode activating. It had activated earlier when Barnabas spat in his face, but this time, he was choosing to fight.
In response, she nodded and said, "As you wish."
Then she turned to the rest of the miners and said, "Who here is willing to become an Apostle under Sir Bane and join us?"
She didn’t shout when she spoke, but the constrained space in the tunnel made her voice sound louder than it should be. Her voice even reverberated down the tunnel, persisting for a while before fading away.
As soon as she spoke, many people leaped from their seats. They jumped into action as if they were sitting on a coal pot. Then they rushed over to stand in front of her like eager chicks waiting for food.
Barnabas was among those who came forward. His massive figure stood a head taller than everyone around him, making him prominent in the crowd.
With a glance, Alex spotted the big-bodied Barnabas pushing through the crowd. The two lackeys followed behind him.
Even though everyone was eager for this life-changing opportunity, no one was mad enough to block Barnabas. They allowed him and his lackeys to reach the front even if they were reluctant to do so.
"Don’t rush," the giantess said sternly, silencing the crowd.
"I only have 11 glutton worms here. Aside from these two, to whom we owe compensation, I will pick the rest from those of you with the strongest bodies."
Upon hearing this, Barnabas relaxed. He was confident in his physical strength, so he was sure that he would be selected. However, he didn’t like the first part of the selection criteria.
His dissatisfaction blinded him, and he pointed at Alex as he said, "But he is weak. He will surely fail and die. That would be a waste of an opportunity."
Just as Alex wanted to speak up to say that he was stronger than he looked, Tessa picked a piece of coal from his bucket, crushed it in her thick fingers, and tossed a fragment in Barnabas’s direction.
The fragment of the coal shot through the air like a bullet, whistling as it went. It passed through Barnabas’s hair, scraping a patch of his scalp along with it. Then it smashed into a distant wall and exploded into dust.
Barnabas’s scalp was now tingling, and it wasn’t because he felt the shadow of death pass over him just now. There was now a welt on his scalp that was slowly bleeding.
He was in pain, but he didn’t say anything. In fact, he shrank his neck to make himself look smaller.
Her eyes were cold as she said, "Know your place."
"You’re only a Drone. Your rights won’t protect you from the consequences of talking back to me."
As she spoke, two jaws came out from the sides of her cheeks
It looked like she had three sets of jaws in the same mouth, making her look fearsome.
"And if you become an Apostle, you will have to follow the orders of your superiors with no questions asked. When I ask you to risk your life, you will do so as soon as I ask of it. Is that clear?"
Barnabas nodded immediately like a hen pecking corn. He wanted to speak up and say that he understood, but for some reason, his throat refused to open.
His usually big mouth had failed him when he needed it the most. Fortunately, giantess Tessa didn’t hold this against him.
"If you’re not comfortable with this rule, you had better quit now while you can," she said, addressing all of them.
But no one stepped back. They already knew the risk, and it wasn’t every day they got the chance to become Apostles.
In fact, getting good Drone jobs wasn’t easy either. If it were easy, they wouldn’t be miners.
The usual candidates for Apostles were Drones who had undergone years of training and were usually serving as squires to other Apostles. Therefore, it shouldn’t be their turn to receive this benefit.
So none of the people who had stood up were willing to back down. Only those content with their status, or those who didn’t have the confidence to survive the process, remained seated. These people were usually the older men and women.
After silencing the crowd, Tessa called out, "Roy!"
A young man came running from outside the mine when he heard the call. He was about the same size as Robert, but his plate armor made him look bigger.
In fact, this young man looked nearly as big as Barnabas. But just like Barnabas was currently doing, he kept his head down as he addressed her.
"Yes, Boss Tessa," he said when he reached her.
"Bring the 11 packages," she instructed without looking at him.
"Yes, Boss," he said before running off.
Alex watched this squire go while wondering, ’Why isn’t the squire being picked for this opportunity? Surely, he would be more competent as an Apostle than a group of impoverished miners.’
He really wanted to know why the giantess was being generous, but he didn’t dare ask. He didn’t want to become another Barnabas, so he kept his mouth shut.
A few seconds later, the armored squire brought in a trolley full of glass jars. The glass jars contained a yellow liquid that looked like urine. But what worried Alex the most was the ringed worms slithering in the jars.
A group of armored people had also followed the squire into the mine. But Alex wasn’t looking at them. He was solely focused on the jars of worms.
The worms looked like a hybrid of earthworms and leeches. They were large, ringed, and possessed circular maws full of sharp teeth.
By now, Tessa was standing in front of Robert, bent down to examine him. Robert had lost a lot of blood, and his lips were pale and cold.
He was feeling an overwhelming urge to sleep, but he refused to close his eyes. Tessa saw the determination in his eyes and said in encouragement, "Hold on for a bit longer. It will be over soon."
As soon as the squire returned with what she asked for, she beckoned with an outstretched hand. The squire quickly picked up a jar, opened its lid, and placed it close to her hand.
She dunked her massive hand into it and grabbed the slithering worm in it. Next, she used her other hand to pry open Robert’s mouth. Then she removed the worm from the jar and unceremoniously deposited it into the open mouth.
As if it had found a home, the worm immediately burrowed into the opened mouth. It bit Robert’s tongue, cutting it off, and swallowed it. Then it slithered down Robert’s throat.
As the worm got to work, Robert began convulsing. His body was shaking, and he was screaming.
When the halberd had struck him, he didn’t scream. When he lost feeling in his legs, he didn’t scream. But now, he was screaming hoarsely with all of his might.
Throughout the process, he wanted to close his mouth and bite down to deny access to the worm, but Tessa kept his jaws wide open against his will with force.
Even if he were at full strength, he wouldn’t have been able to overpower her. Now that he had lost too much blood, he stood no chance at all of ridding himself of her grip on his mouth.
She let his mouth go eventually. But by then, the worm was already making its way down his stomach. As it went down, it grew bigger, making Robert’s chest budge unnaturally.
When it reached Robert’s stomach, it began swallowing everything. It swallowed the stomach, liver, pancreas, large intestines, and small intestines. It literally hollowed out Robert’s abdomen.
From Alex’s position, what he saw was a massive snake moving just beneath the skin of the abdomen. He saw the abdomen shrink, only to expand as the snake swelled.
The sight disgusted him so much that his stomach feared for its life and began heaving as if it was also being invaded by a worm and wanted to expel it by vomiting.
Unfortunately, his stomach was mostly empty from the lack of food, so he didn’t have anything to vomit. He could only heave in futility.
His discomfort seemed to amuse Tessa, who chuckled and said, "What a newb!"
"If you’re lucky, you will survive long enough to get used to things like this. If you’re extremely unlucky, you’ll die soon," she said as he removed the halberd from Robert’s stomach to make more room for the worm.
Alex immediately opened his mouth to say, "I can manage."
But he didn’t get to say it because Robert’s condition worsened.
Apparently, something had happened inside Robert that he couldn’t see, making worms wiggle all over the dying man’s body. He was holding onto Robert, so he felt worms slither beneath the patch of skin he held. The feeling was extremely disgusting, which induced another bout of dry heaving.
Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one feeling discomfort this time. The sight of worms devouring Robert’s body from within and turning him into a husk also made the other miners go pale in the face. Many of them also began attempting to vomit.
Their reaction only made Tessa laugh harder. She was the only one enjoying the situation.
Soon, Robert became mostly skin and bones. He was so thin that Alex could see his heart beating through his skin.
By now, Robert was no longer screaming. He had gone limp and motionless. Only his constantly moving eyes indicated that he was still conscious.
However, Robert didn’t remain skinny for long. In a few seconds, his body filled out again. It was like watching a balloon being inflated.
He didn’t recover his full figure, though. His body was leaner and more muscular. He seemed to have gotten taller, too.
Then another pair of eyes appeared beneath Robert’s eyes, and the worm reappeared from his throat. The worm had changed now, though. It now had three heads, each with its jaws.
When the three-headed worm and the second pair of eyes appeared, Robert’s eyes began to roll in his head.
Seeing this, Tessa slapped him and shouted, "Wake up!"
She hit him hard, making his brain rattle in his skull. The pain seemed to help Robert focus. His eyes narrowed into focus instantly, and he glared at everyone around him.
After looking around, he said in a hoarse voice,
"I’m hungry. So hungry."
She snorted and said, "It seems you made it through."
"Listen to me, whatever happens, always maintain control. Don’t let it lead you astray, and don’t lose yourself to the pleasure of eating. Do you hear me?"
Robert didn’t respond to her question. He was looking at her, but he didn’t seem to actually to see her.
This made her frown and say, "Nod if you heard me?"
It took a while, but he eventually bobbed his head up and down. It was a slow, uncoordinated movement that made him appear drunk.
"Take him away. And watch him. If he loses control, kill him," she instructed nonchalantly.
The people behind her stepped forward to take Robert away. Throughout the process, Robert was looking at them strangely. He was also salivating.
However, the saliva was coming from the maws of the three-headed worm. Apparently, it had taken over his mouth.
Alex was looking at all of this, but he had to snap back to attention when Tessa said, "Now it is your turn."
His head turned to Tessa, and when he saw the serious look in her eyes, he shrank away from her. For a moment, he couldn’t believe that she was seriously asking him to put a worm in his mouth and have the worm eat his internal organs before taking over his body.
When she saw his reaction, she frowned and said, "Are you no longer interested?"
The fierce look on her face made him shrink back for fear of punishment, but she tried to soften her voice as he said, "Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not forcing you."
"As a Drone and property of Lord Byron, you have the right to choose which master you serve. If you don’t want to accept the gluttony worm, no one will force you."
"So, are you still interested?" she asked with a more soothing voice this time around.
Alex wanted to shake his head to indicate that he was no longer interested. But then he remembered the shallow cut on his chest where the halberd had grazed him and how he had only survived by luck. So his head froze just as it was about to move.
Then he said, "I am willing."
Tessa nodded calmly. After she received his agreement, she looked away from him to grab the next worm. Alex was watching her grab the worm with trepidation, so he didn’t notice her other hand lunge for his mouth until it was too late.
In a split-second reaction, he jerked his head back to avoid her hand. A look of surprise crossed her eyes just as she grabbed his mouth.
With her thumb and last two fingers, the pinky and ring finger, holding his lower jaw, she pushed her middle and index fingers into his mouth. Then she pushed his upper jaw open with her middle and index fingers.
He tried to back away from her, but she held onto him with an iron grip. He was like a baby in her hand, easily controlled and easy to bend to her will.
The whole thing was all too much for Alex. He grabbed her arm and tried to push her away. She didn’t like this, so she put the worm back into the jar, freeing her right arm. Then she punched his two arms.
She struck him two times in a row, with her fist hitting him just beneath his shoulders. It was a light tap for her, but her fist shattered his arms on impact. His arms went limp beside him, and tears began streaming down his eyes.
With nothing holding her back, she took the worm once again from the jar. Then she stuffed the red, squirming worm into his mouth.
"Ahaaaaaaaaa!"
A scream tore through Alex’s throat as the worm got to work. The first thing to go was his tongue. It was ripped out of his mouth from its root, causing blood to pour out of his mouth.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, none of the blood spilled to the ground. The worm slurped up all of the blood as it appeared. It was like a vacuum cleaner in his mouth.
As the worm gorged itself on his blood, it swelled and began producing thin silk-like tentacles. The red, silky tentacles drilled into his blood vessels from the wound in his mouth. They were like a dog’s nose in how well they located open blood vessels.
The tentacles drained his blood and carried it to the red worm, making it swell even further. The tentacles also clogged the wound, stopping the bleeding. Since there was nothing left to do in his mouth, the worm decided to visit the rest of his body, and it chose to use his esophagus as the channel for this visitation.
His screaming ended then when the worm entered his esophagus. While the worm was making its way down, its tentacles were also making their way into the rest of his body through his blood vessels. So it was a two-pronged attack.
The screaming had stopped, but the pain was only getting worse. Nothing about his body was sacred to the worm. It defiled every inch of his body either by devouring it directly or draining him indirectly with its tentacles.
The pain got worse still when the tentacles reached his brain. It finally distracted him from the feeling of worms digging through his body.
It was simultaneously the most disgusting and most painful thing he had ever experienced. It was so much that it tried to make him lose consciousness again and again. But throughout the process, he still had enough presence of mind to glare at Tessa.
The red tentacles swam in his eyeballs like snakes in a pool of water. Their antics clouded his vision with red threads, making it difficult to see. But somehow, he could still see Tessa’s calm face.
"Do you hate me?" she asked nonchalantly.
He couldn’t give voice to his answer since he didn’t have a tongue, and he couldn’t nod since he had lost control of his body. But Tessa didn’t seem to expect an answer.
She continued to say nonchalantly, "If you hate me, stay alive long enough to get revenge. Don’t hold back on that anger. Let it burn within you. Let it give you purpose. Otherwise, you’re hopeless."
"Your body is surprisingly strong, but your will is weak. You lack the resolution needed to achieve greatness."
"Take this as a lesson, young Drone. Nothing good comes easy. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to achieve greatness. Even then, you might fail. But if you never try to achieve greatness, you will forever be mediocre."
"If you disagree with me or are unwilling to do whatever it takes to survive, excel, and achieve greatness, then give up now. If you’re not willing to put everything on the line so that your life can shine like a flame in the dark, if only briefly, then allow yourself to die."
"The world already has enough mindless Drones. It doesn’t need another spineless rube."
As she spoke, her eyes seemed to shine. Something in the depth of her eyes gave her existence purpose.
Alex recognized what made her eyes light up when he saw it. It was the same look Robert had when he confronted Barnabas earlier. It was conviction. It was determination. It was an iron will.
They were all things Alex lacked. But what he had in copious amounts was anger.
For so long, he had been comfortable avoiding conflict. He had repressed his anger for a very long time. But now he could finally have an outlet for it.
’I refuse to be disrespected,’ he thought with determination. ’I refuse to be belittled. I refuse to be someone’s bitch. I refuse to be tossed around like a toy. I refuse to be talked down to.’
’I refuse to die,’ he thought with a mental roar.
Tessa seemed to have heard his internal roar. It was either that or the fierce glare he was giving her, even though his eyes were bleeding and had become completely red.
Either way, she saw something that satisfied her, so she nodded in satisfaction. Then she moved on.
She called to some miners, "You, come here. And you. You too."
She picked the biggest miners she saw, so Barnabas was one of them. In fact, he was the first one she picked out.
Like so, she picked out 9 miners. Two of them shook their heads and said that they had changed their minds. She let these two go and replaced them.
While Alex’s body was convulsing as if he was having a seizure, she went about calmly putting more people in the same situation. Clearly, regardless of his life or death, the world would move on without him.
As for Alex, he was still fighting for his life. The worm was trying to take over or eat every part of his existence, including the intangible part like his mind. True to its name, its hunger was bottomless.
In a place no one could see, the worm had appeared around his mind, coiling around it like a snake coiling around its prey. But instead of crushing his mind, it was actually fusing with it.
So the boundary between his mind and that of the worm had blurred. This was a good thing because it meant that he could influence the worm. The only price to pay was that the worm could also influence his thoughts and possibly control him.
Usually, this would be the end of it. Unfortunately, something special about Alex’s existence made the worm stronger than it should be. To be exact, the gluttony worm became three times as strong.
With the increase in power came an increase in responsibility. And with the willingness to take up more responsibility, the worm was no longer content with vying for control of his body with his mind. It began eating his mind, taking everything for itself.
When the worm hadn’t fused with his mind, his mind was strong enough to withstand it. But now that the worm was three times as strong, his mind no longer stood a chance.
His mind was like a white egg, and the gluttony worm was a red snake. The white egg was much bigger than the red worm, and there was no way the snake could swallow the egg. But the snake’s jaws were very strong, and its teeth were sharp so that it could bite into the egg.
After biting into his mind, the worm inhaled forcefully. A vacuum appeared in its Jaws, making his mind unravel into streams of white energy that went down the worm’s gullet.
The good news was that the process was painless. Because his mind was fractured, he couldn’t perceive anything, including the pain of his mind being devoured.
His last thought was, ’I hope it was worth it.’
The bad news was that his mind finally shattered and he died.
THE END.