The blood had stopped healing his tongue.
It writhed no more. No twitch. No regeneration. Just a wet slab of ruined meat sitting limp in his mangled mouth. He couldn't scream anymore—couldn't spit curses or obscenities. All he could do was make these pathetic, broken little sounds. Squeaks. Wet whimpers. Like a dying rat crushed under boot.
I smirked. Couldn't help it.
That sound?
Music.
I held his head higher, turned it so he could see the ritual. Really see it. No more taunting. No more warnings. Just cold, clear truth laid bare like bones in the sun.
His eyes widened.
They twitched at the sight of the blood eagles—those red wings carved from flesh, stretched out in twisted beauty. Symbols of suffering turned sacred. Ribcages cracked open like flower petals, Heart still pulsing and beating inside the skull.
Yet, Even after all this—after being reduced to a fucking head—he still looked at the girls with that same obscene craving in his eyes. Like death had stripped his body but left the rot in his mind untouched.
I should've been surprised.
I wasn't.
He still had some spunk.
Still thought he had dignity.
Still thought this story wasn't over.
That was fine.
He'd lose it. Piece by piece.
Just like they had.
Without a word, I carried him to the collection. Dozens of other skulls arranged in rows like grim trophies—some cracked, some still glistening with congealed blood, but all of them watching. Silent. Each one had a heart nearby, still beating. Some in ribcages, some inside hollow chests made from driftwood and iron. All still alive in a way that mattered.
I placed his head among them.
Not as tribute.
Not as punishment.
As a reminder.
He was no different. Just another head in the pile now. Another monster reduced to a relic. And unlike the girls, no one would weep for him. No one would speak his name with reverence. He would never be mourned. He would only be remembered—and not kindly.
I turned my back to him then, and walked toward the demon's cabin.
Every step was heavier than the last. Not from fatigue. Not from pain. But from weight. From memory. From the list of names I couldn't remember fast enough and the screams I couldn't forget. The ones who died in silence. The ones he broke. The ones whose dreams turned to ash in his hands.
I opened the door to his prison and stepped inside.
The smell hit first—rot and salt and something older. The scent of decay that didn't belong to the sea. Piles of flesh, stacked without care. Hands. Ribs. Legs. Breasts. Skinless, boneless, bite-marked. Human and not. Torn to pieces, left to stew in the stink of old blood.
This was where he kept them.
This was where they were stored.
Not buried.
Not laid to rest.
Just dumped. Like trash.
I swallowed hard, my throat raw. My hands shook, but not from fear. Not from grief.
From restraint.
There was a part of me that wanted to burn this place down. To torch every shred of it and never look back.
But the girls deserved more than fire.
They deserved dignity.
Even in pieces.
So I knelt. Slowly. Reverently. And I began to gather them.
I carried arms that were once held down in the dark. Legs that once kicked against cold stone. I held torsos that still bore bruises shaped like his hands. Some pieces still twitched. Still bled. Some looked like they were gnawed on. Bitten. Like he hadn't even seen them as people—just food. Toys. Meat.
It took me four trips.
Four long walks across the deck, past the demon's head, past his prison, past the bleeding eyes of the sea. Four times I bent down, scooped what he left behind, and carried it with all the care he never did.
I placed each piece gently on the ritual site.
Not like building corpses.
Not like making dolls.
But like restoration.
I placed each limb beside the bodies they might've once belonged to. I didn't know their names—not all of them. But I knew enough. I knew them. I knew how they screamed. How they fought. How they went quiet.
One hand had fingernails broken down to the quick. A girl who fought until her fingers snapped.
One thigh had bite marks so deep they never stopped bleeding.
One ribcage still had shreds of hair caught in it.
I laid them all out with care.
Not to fix them.
Not to undo what had been done.
But to give them something close to peace. Something like a resting place. A home.
The ritual didn't need perfection.
It needed truth.
And truth was messy. Bloody. Full of names and pieces and half-remembered faces.
But it mattered.
I stepped back, hands shaking. Blood on my arms. On my chest. My boots were soaked in it. My breath felt like fire in my lungs. But I stood tall. And I looked down at what I'd built.
The demon's head watched it all.
I turned toward him, met his gaze.
"This is what care looks like." I said, voice low. Cold. "This is what remembrance looks like."
He couldn't speak. Couldn't spit.
But I saw it in his eyes.
That wasn't hunger anymore.
It was something else. Something more.
And good. He should be feel it. He should start to fear it.
Because I was just getting started.