I didn't add any parts to the red-haired girl.
That would've been a lie.
She deserved more than that.
Not just bones and guesses, not a patchwork of maybe-this-fits. That would've been disrespectful—insulting, even. Like giving a stranger her name and pretending it meant something.
So I left her as she was.
Just her head.
Just her face.
Still more whole than any illusion I could've made.
Instead, I took the leftover parts. The ones I couldn't place—the ones too chewed, too torn, too far gone to belong to anyone for sure. Fingers without nails. Ribs that were too small. Pieces of jaw. A bent shoulder blade. Flesh that had been carved, bitten, discarded.
And I scattered them.
Not haphazardly. No. I laid them in a circle, precise and deliberate. A ritual circle. Like the kind they say summons devils from hell, brings them clawing up through cracks in the earth.
But this wasn't for bringing anything back.
This was for keeping things out.
This was to guard their rest. To make sure he never touched them again. That no demon—him or anything like him—could ever lay a claw or thought on these girls again. This was their line in the sand. Their sanctuary.
Let him scream from the edge of it. Let him claw at the dirt like a dog starving behind a fence. That would be enough.
I stood over it. Quiet. Heavy.
Felt like I'd poured every piece of myself into making it right.
And then I looked up.
She was there.
The blue-haired girl.
The one the merman protected.
The one who had survived this without being broken by it.
She didn't speak to me. Not really. Not like someone trying to make conversation. She opened her mouth a few times, sure—started to say something. But it died on her lips.
Maybe she knew nothing would fit the moment.
Maybe she realized some things shouldn't be said out loud.
Still… her silence wasn't empty.
She saw me.
She had seen everything. The care I took arranging the bodies. The way I studied each wound, matched every limb, touched each girl like I was afraid the dead could feel pain. She saw the cuts, the tears, the gore. She saw the joy I didn't hide while slicing the demon's tongue again and again, while listening to him gurgle like a choking pig. And she never turned away.
Not even when I laughed.
When the blade slid across his mouth and painted his cheeks red—when I carved that jagged smile and felt some twisted justice burn through my chest—I'd laughed.
Not a big one. Not a madman's scream. Just a short, sharp bark of satisfaction. Like a pressure valve letting off steam.
And she flinched.
Her body jerked. I saw it. But she didn't run. She didn't hide. She didn't look away.
That flinch wasn't fear of me.
It was something else.
Her eyes—those blue eyes, cold and deep like ocean trenches—watched me. Not blankly. Not accusingly. Just… trying to understand. Trying to balance what I'd done with what I was doing now. Trying to hold both things at once.
She'd seen worse, I could tell. There was hardness in her stare. A calm that comes from walking through fire so long you stop looking for the burn.
But in those eyes, I still saw something human.
I saw sympathy—for the girls.
Not pity. Not weakness. Respect.
She knew what they went through. Maybe not their names, not their voices—but she understood the weight of their suffering. I could feel it in how gently she looked at them. How she didn't interrupt. Didn't ask dumb questions. Just watched.
Still, when she looked at me—there was more. Something complicated. She didn't hate me. But she hadn't decided how to feel either.
Maybe she saw something broken in me.
Maybe she understood it.
Maybe she had it in her too.
And maybe in another world—another life—I would've met her eyes and let myself drown in that blue. Just let go. Let the waves take me.
But not now.
Not while the demon still breathed.
I tore my eyes away from her—not out of shame. Out of focus.
This wasn't done.
I didn't care if he couldn't scream anymore. Didn't care if his tongue was gone, if his throat only made rat-sounds now.
He still had eyes.
He could still watch.
And he would.
He would watch every second of this ritual.
He would see how they were cared for.
How they were respected.
How they were loved in death more than he was ever worth in life.
He would see the blue-haired girl witness it all—see someone survive.
And he would know it was his failure.
And that was the real punishment.
Not the pain. Not the cuts.
The knowledge.
That they would be remembered.
And he… would be nothing.