Echoes of laboured breathing slowly spread throughout the empty streets of the Cradle, along with empty clapping of torn winter boots that struggled against the cobble pavement.
A trail of warm blood was coloring the white streets with its presence, spreading like a web of cracks each time it dripped down Valentine's punctured arms.
He ran, ran as fast as he could with his shaky feet that could barely support his draining weight.
His sight had dulled as the image of the street in front of him stretched to the sides, seeming infinitely longer than it should.
It was blood loss.
The rush of adrenaline he had been experiencing so far was coming to an end; it was granted that it would not last forever, but it felt too inconvenient for it to run out at this moment when he needed it the most.
He bit his lip, drawing more blood.
Damn it, dAmn it, da-mn it, damn it!
The sound of rubble collapsing behind his back made his legs pick up the pace, faster than he could have ever expected himself to run despite his pitiful condition.
Having escaped the dark alley, the crescent moon immediately found his position, hovering over his head just a few meters away, still as useless as ever.
As more time passed, Valentine kept discovering new things within his body that came after Sunday healed him. He was stronger, faster, sharper in all aspects, like a superhuman.
But even that was not enough.
Another building crumbled into rubble behind his back, sending a shiver rushing through his body.
Uncontrollably, he looked back over his bleeding shoulder to see
A house-sized beast made of shadows was following his trail, with dust just barely covering its two hollow pupils and the set of teeth that looked sharper than before.
It looked like a giant anglerfish with fins replaced by two giant hands that pushed it through the narrow street and a sea of shadows boiling within its maw, spewing tiny tongues that cleared rubble from its path and shot it into neighbouring buildings.
Valentine sped up.
What the fuck even is that!?
Thinking fast, he spotted a familiar brick factory, rushing to it and entering the maze of endless conveyor belts he remembered quite well.
He darted through it without slowing down, climbing to the second floor of the factory and finding a ladder that led to the roof.
Valentine noticed it once before, remembering it as a secondary exit because of his endless curiosity.
The sound of buildings collapsing had gotten louder and closer to the factory as if a few steps away from reaching it.
Can it trace me even without seeing me?
He looked down at his clothes, then at the blatantly obvious trail of blood that was the color of bright red crimson against pure white and black.
Damn, of course it can find me!
This world had no color in the first place, so his vibrant blood was the only way for it to find him, unless it had a sense of smell that could detect his blood through hundreds of meters.
As he prepared to climb the ladder, the wall of the factory suddenly burst open, shaking the entire building.
Rubble and dust flew across the empty conveyors, tearing through the rubber and its frame.
Behind it all, an anglerfish-looking beast looked around with its round, hollow eyes and noticed Valentine's tiny figure hidden away behind the countless conveyor belts, showing its spiky teeth that looked like a sea of needles.
Two giant hands made of shadows appeared at its sides, opening their palms as the maze Valentine had to navigate was torn to shreds in a matter of seconds.
"That's not normal..." He mumbled after climbing the ladder and getting on the vast roof that trembled each time another layer of rubber was thrown aside like garbage.
The building looked as if it were about to collapse soon, which was already a miracle in itself because one of its walls was missing and the supporting beams inside were most likely destroyed by the monster's rampage.
Valentine looked up at the moon that hung above him with a sour face.
"Do you want to watch me die, or are you finally going to help?"
It didn't answer, nor could it.
How would something without even a beating heart converse with him?
Shaking his head at how pointless that question was, the ground beneath him shook once more, close to collapsing and taking him with it.
Think, Valentine, there has to be a way... You know there is something...
True to his thoughts, there were countless ways for him to escape.
The first option was to go roofhopping and pray for his body not to collapse all of a sudden mid-jump. The distance between roofs was not very long, but he doubted his current state would allow him to do this.
The second option was to try and trick the monster by setting up a bait of his own blood and going in the opposite direction while it tried to figure out where he went. But he had yet to figure out what it was exactly that the monster followed; its hollow eyes seemed to be blind, and even if they weren't, he did not want to take a gamble.
And the last option was... to run.
To escape it with his own speed and endurance while it mauled on the buildings and tried to catch up.
Not like I can do anything more than this.
With a grunt, Valentine ran to one corner of the roof that towered over a narrow alley.
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At the bottom was a trash bin filled with torn and used bedding rolled in black bags.
Of course, he remembered it as well by glimpsing it at the corner of his eye just once.
Closing his eyes and ignoring his spiking heartbeat, he jumped down, feeling wind brush past his skin for a fraction of a second before coming to a sudden halt and crashing into the piles of cushions.
His body rebounded off it, dropping on the solid ground that forced his bones to ache.
Groaning shakily, he pushed himself upwards and stumbled out of the alley.
It hurt more than I thought.
He held onto his side before picking up pace and resuming his sprint.
However, as he thought he would have some time to take a breath, the factory collapsed right behind him, with the beast letting out an annoyed roar before spotting him.
The monster did not seem to slow down in the slightest, speeding up the moment it noticed its prey getting further from it.
But there was a reason why it was hiding beneath the shadows in the first place, and it was the only way for Valentine to see any hope in continuing to run away.
Its dark skin, which was covered in something akin to thin fish scales, was starting to steam under the pale moonlight; the creature howled both at the pain of being slowly burned alive and at the boy's charming flesh.
Valentine could not notice that fact, but what he did notice was how much it struggled to find him as the streets narrowed, turning into a straight line while also having overwhelmingly more buildings.
Indeed, the creature started to slow down after a minute; the buildings in its path were easily destroyed, but because of its limited size, it could only try to dig through their structures and make a path forward without destroying anything completely.
Wait, why did it suddenly stop?
The colorless dust started to dissipate in the wind, slowly revealing its form fully.
As the beast's pursuit halted for a moment, it suddenly locked eyes with the boy, whose face paled.
The toothy grin painted over it was wide open, revealing the inside of its throat.
"No..." He muttered as if knowing what was about to happen, quickly trying to escape its sight.
A dark void had opened up at the end of the street, stretching its reach over the entire world as its canvas and painting it in a dark, ashy hue of ink.
His mind was screaming at him to dodge, duck, run, roll, jump, do anything that would get him off the damn road.
Even the moon started to shimmer with moonlight, sending trails of pale dust over the only two living entities in the vicinity. It seemed to be trying to help despite not being able to communicate, injuring the beast with its light that burned through the shadows.
Yet what was in front of him could not fall.
It was not a human.
Nor was it an animal.
...It was a monster made of sentient shadows, with ink as its flesh and oil as its blood.
And it wanted to devour him whole.
Valentine's eyes opened wide, watching the beast let out a piercing screech that stunned his shaken mind.
Windows shattered with glass littering the empty street; they popped one by one like bottles being shot, bursting into countless tiny fragments that embedded themselves not only on the stands below but also in Valentine's clothes, cutting through his existing wounds.
The boy fell, dropping to his knees as hands clasped over his ringing ears, letting blood seep from between each finger.
He clenched his teeth so hard that he thought they would shatter, trying to numb the pain of his eardrums almost bursting with an even greater pain in his jaw.
It did not help in the slightest.
With fury in his eyes, he looked up at the grinning beast that was gradually closing in on him, calmly pushing itself toward him with a look on its hideous face that seemed to mock his struggles.
"You fish-looking fu-" His cheeks swelled up as he vomited a handful of blood, the sickly liquid pooling beneath his weak body.
His strength was draining even faster, spent on preserving himself rather than attempting an escape at such a convenient moment!
He was dying.
Again.
At the hands of an inhuman abomination that seemed to be toying with him from the start, jumping from joy at his tattered state.
From the very beggining it could end it like this, without any destruction or unnecessary chase.
But it chose to make him fight for his life, show desperation and fear that could not be replaced.
Raspy coughs escaped his dry lips, draining him of more blood than he could afford to lose.
If this had gone on for any longer, he might have died of blood loss first, not having to grant it any satisfaction.
Valentine looked up at it with his remaining strength, looking into its round, hollow eyes that were a dozen times bigger than his own.
It might have driven him mad if he hadn't expected such an outcome, to die a pointless death like this without getting to enjoy this new world.
What a waste.
With a bloody grin painted on his teeth, he snickered.
"If you want to eat me, then do it already, you sick shi-"
Before he could even finish his words, two sets of teeth closed in on his figure, leaving nothing but a puddle of fresh blood in its place.
The monochrome streets, now filled with crimson, became silent once more.