Jaune's body was stiff again, and the rodents had come back and woke him up again. He could hear them squeak and scatter about, but there wasn't one near his mouth, thankfully.

Since the last rodent had given him some strength after he ate it, he decided to kill another. He twitched a finger, just to see if he could move, the action was slow, but it did move. The only rodent on him was sniffing the handle of the sword, however it was on the right side of it, and he doubted he could grab it fast enough with his left, and only, hand before it fled.

But there was something he could try. He was missing his right hand and wrist, what was left was just dead flesh and bones. Two pointy bones. He slowly angled his arm, and then he struck suddenly, he barely scratched the rat, then it ran away before he could try again.

Saddened by his lack of 'food', but determined to find a use for his right arm, he thought of a way to make his 'weapon' better. He chose to pick off the dead flesh, exposing more bone, of course this caused a lot of pain. He contemplated eating the bits of his own flesh, a part of his mind lost the argument and then he did.

He bit into a small piece, and ripped the rest apart with his hand, he reasoned that 'chewing' his 'food' would make him 'digest' it faster. While it 'digested', Jaune scraped the points with the rock, but it was too big to get in between the bones, so he focused on the outside of them.

He felt his insides spark, and he only slightly spasmed, since he had expected this outcome, he had only eaten scraps. There was something else he needed to test now. He reached over to the corpse next to him, and dug his fingers into the rotten flesh, he ripped out a handful from the body. He could feel the maggots squirm in his hand.

He forced the flesh down his throat, and for the first time since waking up, he did something he only thought about. He vomited, it wasn't powerful, it had barely come up his throat and he had to turn his head with his hand to let it spill out the hole in his cheek.

But he wasn't done yet, he needed to know why he vomited, so he took a handful of flesh and maggots from his own gut to eat. He vomited again, the rancid stench was mixing with the putrid smell of rotting corpses.

He grabbed a maggot from his body, just one, and swallowed, then he gagged. He tried again with a maggot from the body next to him, same result. Seems he couldn't 'digest' maggots. On another note, there was a pile of puked up rotten flesh and maggots next to his face, he scooped up as much as he could, and hurled it over the ledge.

He didn't hear the sound of it hitting something. Which was great, in a sense, because it was useful to know, it told him there wasn't land beneath him, maybe the Abyss was bottomless, either way he should be careful to not slip further down.

Back to what remained of his vomit, while scooping it up, he felt something hard, turns out he couldn't 'digest' rat bones. Or maybe they took longer, regardless, he left them in a pile.

While mindlessly lifting the rock with his left hand and jabbing the air with his right arm, He let his mind wander. It didn't go far, all he knew was that he wanted to live, and aside from that, he couldn't think of anything.

He only had one memory of the world outside the Abyss, and that was of him getting killed, but from what he could gather in that memory, he was innocent and was wrongfully punished. Maybe whatever crime had occurred was his reason to live, maybe he wanted to prove his innocence or get justice, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

Jaune only had knowledge of the Abyss, and he knew what things were, just not where he knew them from. If he wasn't given a prompt, then he couldn't fill in the rest because he didn't know what he didn't know. He didn't bother with the sword before he went to 'sleep.'


He had expected to 'wake up' to rats running around and making noise again, but he instead 'woke up' to something nibbling on his left arm. He almost reflexively jerked his arm away in a panic, but managed to calm himself. Whatever was eating his arm, was big enough to fit his whole arm in its mouth.

The pain he felt in arm and hand was evenly spread across, and it felt like countless teeth were slowly rotating around it, and for the first time since he woke up in the Abyss he could see something that wasn't darkness.

A glowing red eye, the monster had a single glowing eye that illuminated the darkness, he could see the black and slimy skin surrounding that eye. The monster was laying over and atop the corpse to the left of him, its form was large and limbless.

Jaune had to act, he could feel pain in his whole arm and hand, but only numbness where his pinky should be. The monster had all of his arm in its mouth, and its lips or whatever was pressed against his shoulder, the red glowing eye staring directly into his only eye. If he had turned his head back the last time he was 'awake' he wouldn't have been able to see it.

He needed to do something now, but he couldn't just jab his right arm into its eye, he wouldn't penetrate deep enough to kill it, and blinding it would send it into a fit of rage. He chose to go with plan B, which was the same as plan A but his arm was a sacrifice.

The sharp bones of his right arm were slowly raised up and then it was sharply driven into the monster's eye. It let out a deafening screech, and he grabbed a hold of its teeth and swung his arm downward, in the direction of the ledge. The monster was heavy and bit down hard, but he could tell by the extra pain that his plan had worked, the bottom half of the monster was over the ledge, so he continued to stab the monster with his right arm.

His left arm felt like it was getting ripped out his socket, even after the monster went limp. Jaune was able to eventually free his arm, and was left disappointed that he couldn't have gotten a souvenir from the monster before it fell off the ledge and left him in the dark.

As the pain faded, he realized he felt pain in his chest too, the weight of the struggling monster had forced his torso to slide down a bit, and it had made his sword wound a bit bigger. He briefly wondered what would've happened if the monster was stronger. Would he have simply lost his arm? Or would he have been dragged through the sword?

Then he thought about dragging his body upwards and let the sword cut through what remained of his body. He dismissed that thought, his body was already in bad shape and he should avoid making it worse.

Since the monster had snuck up on him, he's been trying to stay more alert.

He had been ignoring the constant buzzing of the insects, but when a lower pitched buzzing flew by him, he'd been waiting for it to either land or leave. And when it finally landed on his exposed face, he could immediately feel the difference. It was five times bigger than the rest, and as it bit into his skin, he could feel it secrete a liquid that stung, probably acid.

Before it could go much further, he smashed it with his rock, obviously hitting his own face as well. The thing, maybe a beetle, was still alive and only briefly stunned. Jaune dropped the rock and grabbed the beetle between his thumb and index finger. He tried squishing it, but it was too tough, so he used his teeth instead.

After grinding his teeth down for a while, he finally managed to kill it, then he wiped the acid off his face, and 'ate' the bug, he didn't gag. The beetle gave slightly more than his own flesh, and left his throat stinging.

Jaune mindlessly lifted the rock with his left hand and jabbed in the air with his right arm.


Finally, Jaune had managed to skewer a rodent. He was 'awake' as soon as he heard squeaking coming towards him, then when it was in a viable position, he jabbed at where he believed it to be, and his sharp bones pierced its flesh.

He immediately 'ate' it, well, he chewed and swallowed. It didn't take long for him to 'digest' it. He twitched in pain, but smiled afterwards, as he could feel his body getting stronger. And he could feel that his nose was getting better at smelling and his teeth were getting sharper. The stench of the Abyss was quickly becoming unbearable.

He thought about his 'food' and their effects, his nose and teeth got better after 'eating' rats, and his 'food' had 'digested' faster after he 'ate' that beetle, and he couldn't 'eat' maggots. Clearly, there was something happening, but since he didn't even know what he was, he didn't spend any more time thinking about it. But he did wonder what would've happened if he had 'ate' the glowing red eye from the monster he had killed.

Jaune tested his new strength on the sword, he could barely tell it moved, but it did, so he kept pulling on the sword.


When Jaune next 'awoke' he noticed that he wasn't stiff, which wasn't a new thing, but before he had other things on his mind. He went about his normal activities like a routine, 'wake up', kill whatever was in sight, 'eat', test the sword, 'exercise' then 'sleep' and repeat.

He had lost count of how many times he 'woke up', but now the blade of the sword was exposed, just slightly, so he would definitely remember this moment.

He had been a little put off after realizing he had done that in his 'sleep', and that his routine was so easy that he had begun doing it subconsciously. So he began picking maggots out his wounds, and after a while, the blade was big enough to grasp with his full - minus a pinky - hand, but then he started doing the maggots picking in his 'sleep' as well.

He questioned what he could do to stay 'awake' because he feared he would stay 'asleep' after finishing his task. He began trying to catch insects, which was surprisingly hard considering the near infinite amount that buzzed around.

Eventually, even that became a subconscious action.


Thanks for reading! I'm always open to feedback, so please leave a review, or reply in my forum, about what you liked or hated about this chapter or the whole story. If anyone wants to be a Beta Reader, then PM me and we'll talk details.