Chapter 5

After the battle, we didn’t return to the station.

Sina sent orders to remain stationed at the border village for a few more days.

Thanh had a light wound on his shoulder.

Zeo chuckled while bandaging him up:

> “First time seeing your own blood, kid?”

Thanh didn’t answer.

He just stared at the bullet wound like he wanted to claw it out with his bare hands.

As for me… there wasn’t any blood left on my body.

Because… the stench of burnt flesh and rot had smothered it all.

---

Three days later, the villagers led us to an old tunnel — once used for hiding from raids long ago, now abandoned.

> “There are people inside,” an old man said.

“They don’t come out anymore. No one dares go down.”

He didn’t say who these “people” were.

Just left us with one last sentence:

> “I hear… laughing. Every night.”

---

We went down just before dusk. We brought oil lamps and weapons ready.

The wooden hatch was moldy, with scratch marks on the inside.

The deeper we went, the heavier the air became — thick with human waste, dried blood, and mildew.

I started to sweat cold.

Zeo led the way. Thanh was in the rear. I was in the middle.

> “Drag marks,” Zeo said.

I looked: he was right. Along the dirt path were heel marks… someone had been pulled along.

A trail of dried blood dotted the way, dripping deeper into the dark.

---

We reached an underground chamber — the widest point.

There were ten of them.

Emaciated.

Naked.

Hair tangled, eyes pale and lifeless.

They turned to look at us…

and I couldn’t tell if they were still human.

One of them crawled forward, a finger in their mouth… someone else’s finger.

---

Zeo raised a hand to stop me from firing.

> “Wait.”

A voice rang from a dark corner.

High-pitched. Childlike.

Like a lullaby being sung by a child…

> “They told me to eat… eat so I won’t die… eat so it doesn’t hurt anymore…”

We turned our lamps toward that corner.

A little girl. No older than thirteen.

Her eyes had no pupils.

Both hands were covered in blood. One of them… holding a tiny skull the size of a teddy bear’s head.

---

> “Who taught you that?” I asked.

The girl smiled.

A crooked smile.

Then sang:

> “Eating is living… living means blood… blood is warm…

Eating is living… living means eating people…”

I stepped back. The lamp in my hand wavered.

> “Want me to shoot?” Thanh whispered. His voice trembled.

“She… can’t be saved anymore…”

---

Zeo didn’t answer.

He stepped forward. Knelt down to her eye level.

> “Who was the first to be eaten?”

The girl tilted her head.

> “My mom. She cut her own thigh first.

Then my brother.

Then… grandpa.

Then… I don’t remember…

But everyone’s meat… tastes different…”

She smiled.

A strip of human skin was caught between her teeth.

---

I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I vomited.

Dry heaves. Nothing left to puke. Just air, and horror.

I understood now.

This is war.

There are no heroes here.

Only survivors — at any cost.

Even if that cost is…

eating your own family.

---

None of us pulled the trigger.

Not because we couldn’t.

But because… we didn’t know where to point the gun.

At the girl?

Or at the war that turned her into this?

---

When we emerged from the tunnel, sunlight no longer felt warm.

The only thing left inside me was a single, gnawing question:

> “Am I still human?”

---

Perspective: Vũ

---

On the seventh level belowground — deeper than any map, where sunlight has never touched,

Vũ sat… at ease.

He wore a black robe embroidered with gold, legs crossed on a chair, spinning a silver dagger as thin as a needle in one hand.

The air was cold enough that breath turned to mist.

But he was unfazed.

Because this was his home.

---

A subordinate bowed low, placing a handwritten report on the dark wooden desk.

> “News from the eastern border forest, sir. Sina’s unit has gone through several clashes… morale seems to be cracking.”

Vũ set down his dagger, raising an eyebrow:

> “Hmm… is that it? They survived?”

> “Some casualties. But they held.”

He laughed.

That laugh… carried no particular meaning — just that he found everything amusing.

---

> “That little thing made them cry already?” — He leaned back in his chair.

“A cannibal tunnel… a few skeletons… and the kids are already shaken?”

He rested his chin on one hand, eyes drifting upward like listening to a piece of music.

> “Keep pressing.

Gentle, but deep. So that ‘Sina’ can’t find peace even while alive.”

---

The subordinate nodded slightly. But didn’t leave.

Vũ tilted his head:

> “What else?”

> “The soldiers in the Southern ranks… are beginning to doubt Bell.”

Vũ stopped spinning the dagger.

The name “Bell” leaving the subordinate’s mouth seemed to make the room even colder.

> “Oh…” — He said slowly.

“My golden boy… finally standing out, huh?”

He got up, walking leisurely toward a stone window.

Beyond it, an abyss — pitch black and bottomless.

Vũ smiled — a smile as cold as a blade.

> “Leak a few more rumors.

Plant some corpses with wounds that match Bell’s style.”

“Let’s see… how long Sina can love him like that.”

---

He turned his back again, passing a row of chains — each holding a captured enemy soldier.

Blood dripped steadily onto the floor in thin streams.

> “War doesn’t need stronger weapons.

It only needs weaker minds.”

And in the dim light of the chamber,

his laughter echoed — long, steady,

reverberating endlessly through the gut of the earth.

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