Chapter 11: The Protective Wings

The storm had passed. On a beach far to the west lay a massive corpse. It was a sea monster with only eleven fins circling its body.

A little farther inland lay a man—Ashfall. Near him was a broken tree trunk.

Slowly, Ashfall opened his eyes. The sun blinded him, forcing him to instinctively turn away. Then it hit him. "What happened?" he muttered, stood up, and looked around.

His entire body was dry and covered in black sand. He searched for any sign of Lira or B-Day—but they weren't with him. Overwhelmed with grief, he collapsed back to the ground. He let the sand trickle through his fingers.

"In the end, I lost them... I couldn't do anything, just like always..." Frustrated, he stared at the red sun—searching for either salvation or answers.

"What did I do to deserve this suffering?!" he screamed at the sky. In despair, he struck the ground again and again. His hands, now bloody, didn't stop hitting the black sand.

"Why...! Why! WHY!" he cried out in frustration. "Why... WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE ALL THIS?!"

The sky remained silent—which in itself was an answer.

"First you took my homeland in your damn war, then you took my comrades—all twelve of them. Why? Did I really deserve all of this?"

Dejected, he let himself fall into the sand—mentally and physically drained, lying in the black grains, waiting for whatever might come.

The sound of the waves lapping at the shore and the breeze of the wind were the only things that gave him a faint sense of a reply. No voice answered him, but even that felt like a response.

He had to keep living—for them. Just like always. Even though he knew that, he couldn't bring himself to move.

He turned his head to the left—an endless beach of black sand, only broken by the red waves. Then he looked to the sky.

Hopelessly, he turned his head to the right—nothing but more beach—or so he thought. In the distance, there was something big—a rock or maybe another large corpse. Something told him to go there.

He quickly removed his uniform, soaked with the dried fluid of the ocean, and left it behind on the shore. He changed back into his cloak—this time entirely black like the sand.

As he walked toward the object, a sudden sharp pain hit the left side of his face. Not only had he gone hours without food or water, but he also hadn't taken his medication for the chronic pain.

Without it, the pain would soon become unbearable. He clenched his teeth and pushed forward. His mind was blank, drowned in grief—just like his uniform had been soaked by the ocean.

He continued toward his destination, ignoring everything around him, thinking only of his comrades.

As he got closer, he recognized it—the corpse of the sea monster lay before him. He remembered—that creature had swallowed Lira and B-Day. "What happened after that?" he asked himself, digging into his memories.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

~ ~ ~

Earlier, inside the beak:

Everything was dark. The water level was slowly dropping as it leaked out the sides of the beak. Around him were several of those fish monsters—all staring at him hungrily.

One of them was bleeding slightly from a wound—as if something had escaped it.

Before a fight could break out, the creature they were in suddenly crashed into the water, spilling out much of its contents—including some of the sea monsters.

Ashfall tried to grab onto something, but there was nowhere to hold. He was sucked out along with several of the fish and thrown back into the ocean—this time near the shore.

The giant bird let out a furious cry and spread its wings wide, making itself even larger.

Standing across from it, on a high point of the beach, were none other than the Demi-God duo of Greed.

Ashfall reacted quickly and dove underwater. He caught only a blurry glimpse of the two and the bird—but even through the murky water, their presence made him shiver.

They held something up—it looked like a feather. It was just as big as the bird's, yet Ashfall could tell, even through the blur, that it didn't belong to it.

The Goddess of Greed said something, but it was muffled, impossible to understand.

After a short hesitation, the bird allowed them to climb onto its back via one of its wings and flew off.

The strong gust from its wings washed both Ashfall and several of the sea creatures ashore, where they struggled helplessly, their twelve fins flailing against the sand.

Ashfall tried to stand, but a tree trunk slammed into him, knocking him unconscious.

Back in the present, the pain in his chest returned. He inspected himself and let out a sharp hiss—some kind of internal injury.

"Damn it... as if I didn't already have enough to worry about."

He ignored the pain and moved toward the giant corpse. From afar, it still looked alive—though one of its twelve fins was clearly missing.

He examined it more closely—its mouth had no teeth. The reddish shimmer of its scales was gone. The massive eyes, once glowing, were now dull.

He reached for his knife to cut into the corpse—but it was gone. He must have lost it during his second blackout.

Too exhausted to be angry, he simply pounded his already bleeding fists against the creature's scales.

"Why did you have to take them... why again..."

He slowly let himself fall against the monster's side, leaning on it.

Then he caught a scent—a delicious one. Someone nearby was cooking. His stomach growled, forcing him to rise and investigate.

He moved around the corpse. More rotting bodies of similar sea monsters were scattered ahead. But what caught his eye was a trail of smoke rising in the distance—a fire. It was just behind the maze of carcasses.

His legs carried him almost on their own toward the smell. He navigated past the bloated corpses, holding his nose at the stench, and crawled through the ribcage of an older carcass to get closer to the fire.

Eventually, he reached one last fish—still damp, as if it had arrived recently.

Cautiously, he stepped out from behind it.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

In front of him burned a blue-red campfire. Several pieces of the fish were skewered on bones and roasting above the flames.

But that wasn't what made him so happy.

Sitting at the fire were Lira and B-Day, chatting as they ate pieces of fish.

B-Day looked up, saw Ashfall, dropped his food in shock, and stood up.

Lira gave B-Day a confused look, then followed his gaze to Ashfall. She quickly stood up and swallowed the last bite of food before saluting.

"Y-you're alive..." Ashfall said, stepping forward.

"Of course we are! What did you think happened?" B-Day replied cheerfully and saluted too.

Ashfall hugged them both. "Can we please agree not to get into situations like that again?"

"As you command, sir," they both answered playfully and returned the hug.

They talked for a while. Mostly, Ashfall listened to their tales as he ate.

"...and then we pulled out our knife and slowly cut our way out—"

"You mean I cut us out—you were clinging to me in fear," Lira interrupted.

"That's not true! I was the one who even came up with the escape plan!" B-Day protested.

Ashfall burst out laughing. Despite everything, some things never changed.

He started coughing and almost choked.

Lira and B-Day quickly offered him some of the monster's blood they had been eating from.

He examined it cautiously, then drank — and to his surprise, it tasted better than the ocean water and had no salty taste.

"We emptied our pistol magazines," Lira explained, pointing behind her. "They became useless after the storm. But we filled them with the blood of that fish over there. Even though it's the same color as the ocean… the consistency and taste are definitely better."

Ashfall was impressed and grateful for how much they'd accomplished since landing here.

"Don't think we didn't look for you, sir! That was the first thing we did. When we didn't find you nearby, we figured we should recover first before launching a full search—"

"I know... Thank you—for everything," Ashfall said, cutting him off. He knew these two were anything but bad people.

As one sun set and the other rose, they decided to get some rest before making their way out of this world.

"These fins feel like a cozy blanket—this one washed us ashore," B-Day said, pointing at the fin—its severed end matching the first monster Ashfall had seen.

"I'll take first watch—you two get some rest," said Ashfall, waiting until they lay down.

"Wake me when it's my turn, sir," Lira insisted, clearly not open to negotiation. Ashfall nodded in agreement.

They lay on the sun-warmed sand, the fin draped over them like a blanket.

He watched them with a smile and then looked to the sky.

"Thank you," he whispered, adjusting the fin over them like a protective wing from a mother bird.