Chapter 664: Are you hungry?

As they descended, the city seemed to rise around them.

Buildings that had appeared modest from the rim became towering masses of pale stone, their sheer walls broken by narrow recesses and immense, empty doorways.

Ornate ledges projected above the streets, some still intact, others hanging in fractured sections that looked ready to fall at the slightest disturbance.

Between them, elevated passages connected one structure to another, though many had collapsed, leaving their broken ends suspended over the avenues below.

There was a solemn beauty to the place, made all the more harrowing by its silence.

Whoever had built it had shaped even the smallest visible details with care, carving delicate borders around doors large enough to admit giants and setting slender columns beneath roofs that now lay in heaps across the ground.

By the time they reached the lower road, the trees were no longer visible.

Neither was the outer wall through which they had entered. Above them, the sky had narrowed to an irregular strip between the rooftops, and the warm afternoon light reached the paving only in long, slanting patches.

Elion paused to survey their immediate surroundings, his gaze passing over the dark entrances on either side.

Dust lay undisturbed across much of the road, gathering in the seams between enormous paving stones, while fragments of carved masonry littered the edges.

Cole crouched beside a shallow groove in the ground, running his fingers near it without touching. Mayumi remained standing, looking up at an overhead passage whose underside had split down the middle, while Maya studied the nearest doorway.

Yaana had stopped humming.

Even the small sounds of their movement seemed intrusive here, from the shifting of their equipment to the faint scrape of a boot against stone.

Elion found himself listening between those sounds, waiting for something that might explain the growing discomfort beneath his ribs.

That was until he heard a faint but very loud sound.

A soft, wet noise came from somewhere farther along the road, followed by a pause and another, slightly louder sound. At first, he thought it might be water dripping into a shallow pool, but the rhythm was wrong, uneven in a way that made him turn his head.

There was a muffled crunch, followed by the unmistakable sound of chewing.

Elion raised one hand, and the others fell still behind him. In the sudden quiet, the noise became horribly distinct, each slow movement accompanied by a moist clicking and an occasional, eager swallow.

Something was eating.

A fallen pillar lay diagonally across the road ahead, its immense shaft broken into several sections. The largest piece rested against the corner of a building, forming a sheltered space beyond it that Elion couldn’t see from where he stood.

He approached slowly, his fingers settling around the hilt of Kurogoroshi. The sound continued as he drew closer, indifferent to the scrape of his boots, and a thick, sour smell reached him before he rounded the broken end of the pillar.

He stopped.

Disgust surged into his throat so violently that he had to swallow to keep it down. His hand tightened around the sword, but he made no move to draw it, his eyes fixed on the small figure kneeling on the stone.

"Elion?" Maya asked behind him.

When he failed to answer, she stepped closer, a frown forming as she caught sight of his face. Whatever colour had been there a moment before seemed to have drained away.

"What is it?"

She moved around the pillar before he could reply.

Her entire body recoiled, one hand flying to her mouth as her stomach lurched. Bile rose sharply in her throat, and she stumbled half a step backwards, catching herself against the broken stone.

The others were little better. Cole let out a strangled breath, while Nora turned her face aside, pressing her lips together so tightly they almost disappeared. Mayumi went rigid, and Yaana’s fingers closed around Uta’s sleeve without her seeming to notice.

A little girl was kneeling on the floor.

She couldn’t have been older than eight, her small frame almost lost within a loose dress that had once been a much lighter colour. Blood had soaked into the fabric across her lap and down its front, turning the folds a dark, uneven crimson.

Before her lay the remains of a human being.

Decay had already discoloured what skin remained, leaving patches of dull grey and sickly green beneath the dirt. Torn clothing clung to the body, but most of its torso was simply gone, consumed so thoroughly that Elion struggled to understand what he was seeing.

The girl bent over it and took another hurried mouthful.

Her movements were clumsy with hunger, her small shoulders hunched as she ate, and the terrible sounds they had followed filled the narrow space between the buildings.

There was no hesitation in her, and no sign that she found anything unusual about what she was doing.

Elion couldn’t reconcile the child before him with the bloody ruin at her knees. She was so small, her wrists so slender, yet there was no mistaking where the missing flesh had gone.

For a moment, thought itself seemed to desert him.

Her head snapped toward them.

The movement was so sudden that they all flinched, even Elion, and the girl stared up at the silent group with wide, attentive eyes. A thin trail of crimson slipped from her bloody chin and fell onto the already sodden front of her dress.

’She isn’t human.’

The thought was formed more to convince himself than as a declaration.

Some creature had taken a child’s shape, some ravenous fiend had clothed itself in an innocent face, and there had to be something in her expression that would reveal it.

She smiled.

It was the kindest, warmest smile Elion had ever seen, so open and unguarded that his attempt to make sense of the scene faltered.

There was nothing mocking in it, or even any sign of cruelty, only a small, earnest pleasure at discovering that she was no longer alone.

"Are you hungry too?" she asked.

Her voice was sweet and perfectly ordinary. Hearing it in that place, above those remains, made Maya press her hand harder against her mouth.

The bile she had been holding down rushed into her mouth. She immediately choked it out and turned away, bursting behind the pillar.

A moment later, the sound of water hitting the pale floor could be heard, followed by wheezing coughs.

Nora, Mayumi, and Uta followed her, and the same sound repeated.

The little girl tilted her head to the side, seemingly confused by the reactions, but then she looked back down at the corpse and reached for one of its arms.

She pulled with both hands, her brows drawing together as she struggled for a moment, then braced herself and tugged again.

There was a thick tearing sound, followed by a sickening crack as the arm was ripped off the body.

She nearly lost her balance, but steadied herself on her knees before turning back toward them. Still smiling, she lifted the severed limb in both hands, offering it with the same shy generosity another child might have shown while sharing a piece of bread.

"Here," she said. "It’s not much, but I haven’t eaten in days, so this is the best I can do for you..."

Elion didn’t move a muscle.