"I will remember them. Who will remember you?"
I didn't say it for him to understand. I said it because it was the truth.
A truth that would crawl into his mind eventually, like rot in a sealed box. Given enough time, even silence can scream. And he had plenty of time coming.
He wouldn't get it now. But he would.
He would.
I stood there, staring down at the remnants of what had once been lives—whole and bright and human. The demon's gaze was still on me. Still watching. But he didn't matter now. Only the girls did. Only they did.
I had been injured—damaged in ways even I didn't fully understand. But it had changed something in me. The blood had lessened. I saw more colors now. Not metaphorical ones. Actual color.
Not just red. Not just black.
All of it.
I could see their hair. Their skin. Their wounds. Not just shapes and smears anymore—details. Details that mattered. That meant something.
There were four with black hair.
The first and the second… their bodies were ghost-empty. No blood left. Not even rot. Just these pale, rubbery husks like they'd been drained to the last drop. Like something sucked their existence out through their skin. Their bodies didn't stink like the others. They smelled like cold metal and ash.
The fifth girl—she didn't have a lower body at all. Her torso spilled open like a sack, organs sliding free with every shift. She was split, butchered. A body left mid-sentence.
The sixth girl… the one I ended myself. My hands still remembered the way her bones moved when I held her. The relief in her eyes, right before the stillness.
Two of them had brown hair.
The third… a long shard of glass embedded in her eye like some kind of twisted crown. Her face was twisted mid-scream, but the glass sparkled. It caught the light like it didn't belong in a place like this.
The fourth… wooden splinter had pierced her. And I had promised myself I would use the splinter to kill the demon.
And then there was the last one.
The red-haired girl.
She had only a head and a arm that connected with her neck.
No torso. No legs. Nothing else. Just her face, her hair. I remembered her the clearest. I remembered the pendant she wore. I remembered how light caught in her hair when I first saw her.
Even now—torn, lifeless, silent—she was the most beautiful in my eyes.
But there was nothing else of her.
Nothing.
I searched the body parts I'd carried like they were sacred pieces of a shattered temple. Size, color, bone structure, length. I compared them with care that bordered on obsession. I needed to know. I needed to get it right.
Not for ritual. Not for magic.
For them.
So that in death, at least, they could seem whole. Maybe not perfect. Maybe not precise. But recognized. Dignified.
So that if their souls were watching, they would see someone finally cared enough to put them back together.
And I found pieces that resembled them. Little ones. Chewed ones. Ragged scraps of flesh and broken knuckles, all chewed and spit out. I found fingers that matched the curve of brown palms. I found a foot that had a mole where the second toe met the third. I knew it belonged to one of them.
I matched what I could.
They would look whole.
They would feel whole.
But the red-haired girl…
I never found a single piece of her.
No bone. No skin. No scrap of dress or freckled wrist. No fingernails. Not even a smear of blood that felt like it came from her.
I searched twice. Three times. I pulled piles apart. Looked in corners I hadn't dared to look before. Turned over bones and muscle and even the skulls—just to be sure.
Nothing.
And still, the demon watched.
Still smirking.
And then I knew.
I didn't need proof. I didn't need confirmation.
I could feel it in the way his eyes gleamed.
That arrogant, sick delight.
He had eaten her.
Not just killed her.
Not just torn her apart.
He consumed her. Every last part.
There was joy in his grin. He had enjoyed it. He enjoyed me searching for her body part.
And for a moment, I couldn't move. My body locked up like all the bones inside me wanted to scream but didn't know how.
So much fury wanted to break loose. But it couldn't. Because I had to finish this. I had to finish this right.
She wouldn't be remembered as meat.
She would be remembered as the girl who wore the pendant.
As the one with fire in her hair and dignity in her silence.
No one would look at that empty space beside her head and see absence.
They would see reverence.
She had nothing left because he left her nothing.
But I would make sure her name wasn't lost too.
The others would be whole.
And she would be respected.
Even in fragments.
I turned back to the demon's head. I met his eyes again. That smirk faltered—just for a second. Just long enough for me to see that yes, he knew what I knew. And that somewhere, under the blood and pride, even he felt something cold creeping in.
He would not be remembered.
She would.
And that's what would haunt him.