“...” Tas bit his lips and turned to his left.

  “You didn’t even notice you died, didn’t you?”

  “...Yeah…” A gust of wind came out of his mouth, blowing at Harley’s face.

  While waving the smell away, “Shall we go?”

  “Did you even eat yourself?”

  “How dare you, you hypocrite.”

  “Name a human who isn’t a hypocrite.”

  “...”

  “Go on… I’m waiting.”

  “-Fuck you.”

  “Anyway, I don’t think that path is possible. If you count the amount of zombies, if it is, just a guess, actually an increasing number of zombies every hour, at the end of the three days, we would be fighting 72 zombies! That doesn’t even include the 71, 70, 69-”

  “Nice.” Tas slapped Harley in the face as soon as his mouth opened.

  “-68, 67, and so on. The fuck therre is no way we could beat that shit.”

  “Well then, how do you suppose we beat that!” He pointed at the window, and zombies then flooded inside. Despite the zombies, the two continued their conversation.

  “Then what is the purpose of an unbeatable section of a floor?” Said Tas.

  “Your contradicting yourself, then your basically admitting the basement isn’t fucking unbeatable.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry about that.” He said calmly.

  “Also! It’s obvious! The tower has a mechanic to come back. That just means that giant fucking worm is something we are supposed to defeat later.” Harley carried the desk and smashed it out of the window.

  “But even then! Even if zombies are like ants, with numbers, we would still die.” On the other side, Tas kicked the zombies down the basement stairs, bouncing at each drop like a cartoon.

  “Well, who said we can’t be zombies for the remaining duration?”

  “We don’t even have a fucking timer! This fucking tower didn’t even give us a timer! I’ve clicked on the mission so many fucking times!” Tas killed the last zombie remaining in the room. His voice echoed throughout, dimming back into silence.

  “You have infinite lives, it’s okay.”

  “You don’t.”

  Harley smiled. His eyes glowed, staring at Tas’s mouth slightly shift downward, his mind raised, and everything turned blank before he spoke once again.

  “Let’s just go.” He grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him down the stairs, going back to the endless tunnel. “Remember, it might look impossible, but ants are still ants. If we can’t kill them with our fists, there are other methods.”

  Walking down the crooked stairs made of stone arranged like bricks, they arrived in the tunnel, torches lit the endless path, soon the stairs would vanish, and the exit was gone. Hours passed by quickly, and the two didn’t wait much longer. The two created a system a simple system to last in the tunnel, one would walk and the other would rest. Whenever a group of zombies that a single person couldn’t handle, the other would help and rest just after.

  Every fifth wave of the zombies, the two would switch places, and so on. Soon, a situation would arise where the two would once again be too hungry to even move. A few hours before that happened, Harley’s stomach howled.

  He lowered his head, looking at his arm. The image from the past appeared. “Tas, eat yourself.”

  “...” He looked while looking. “Fine, it is fair. Once I sit down…”

  “You’re being weirdly obedient today.”

  “I just noticed something after a while.”

  “What?”

  “You’re always calm, like you know full well you won’t die.”

  “I’m just not scared of death. I chose to be here.” He smiled.

  “What? Chose?”

  His smile dropped before Tas could see it, “I wasn’t supposed to go to school, but then somehow when I opened my eyes, I was in front of our classroom. Then I just went in even though I didn’t wear any uniform. I chose to enter hell, so I deserve it.”

  “School isn’t hell, this is.”

  “I would argue it is.” He sharply commented.

  Silence befalls the tunnel. A few more zombie waves later, the two switched. Once Tas had sat

  down, Harley stared at him, moving his eyes from his face to his arm.

  “What if I want to eat my thighs, huh?” Said Tas.

  “Then if you can’t walk, you just have to give your flesh to me.” He smiled.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Tas closed his eyes. His entire life slowly flowed through his mind. He channeled every painful death he had experienced from the first floor. Those gruelling scenes of him acting as a feed to stone termites, those pains that made his body numb.

  He leaned his face down, eyes squinted, teeth ringing. Once his lips touched his skin, he slowly opened his mouth till half of his arm was inside his mouth.

  “Wait!” Harley yelled, ruining Tas’s focus, and his head bounced up.

  “Oh fucking hell! I was so close! Why the fuck do you have to yell at me!”

  “Well, that’s the point. I just realized, why eat your arm when you need it to fight? So strip, go eat your stomach.”

  “...”

  “You just have to eat the bare minimum. If you can’t cut it, I will.”

  “If you come close, I will cut you!” Tas immediately struck his dagger forward, body shaking.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Okay…” I don’t know if I should kill him or not… it might not be the right time… however… is it even possible to defeat this thing without eating the other whole… oh wait…

  Tas sliced his uniform to the side and ripped it off with both hands. I should have eaten more. He thought, looking at his flat stomach. While his hands shook, he reached onto the skin of his stomach and pulled it a little till a bit of skin flexed out. Tas gulped and slowly placed his dagger close to the top of the elongated skin. Then he quickly sliced his skin off, blood spraying forward like pee.

  Fortunately, he didn’t cut beyond his muscles, being able to slice mostly just his skin. Now on his hand was a piece of skin just as wide as his palm and a quarter of the thickness of his finger. “Well, this is unpleasant.” He closed his eyes and quickly placed it inside.

  Tas immediately gagged. He closed his mouth and covered it with his hand before the skin could jump out. He forcibly swallowed, veins popping, head bobbing, his throat feeling as if a sharp blade were piercing him. “Oh my God!” He lay down on the ground, his wound covered by his uniform. “That was insane.”

  ***

  A day and a half had passed since the two entered the tunnel. The enemies were increasing as expected and had already gone past thirty zombies. Harley lay on the ground, mumbling to himself with his hand held thigh on his side.

  The two had lasted long enough for both their sides to have almost half skinned. For Tas, it was not that painful at all; for him, pain was actually hard to feel to a certain degree, and it was only exhaustion that could drag him. On the other hand, Harley’s pain was immense, but of course, this soon turned into absolutely nothing.

  Holding his side in front of Tas, groaning and moaning in pain. So this is what my lying trait does. It’s a little complicated, it works similarly to the liar’s paradox. My pain completely disappeared just by acting so much in pain and then believing I’m not. So then, in front of the world, I am lying that I am hurt. In some stupid logic, I don’t feel any pain anymore. I’m just not gonna stop faking it. It’s great to be a liar. Maybe… I can even be an actor.

  Tas’s fifth wave soon came, containing thirty-five zombies. Harley stood up and he fought with only one hand, while Tas fought with some of his blood already dried. Unlike Harley, Tas fought with both hands, armed with his daggers.

  The two fought easily, while the zombies struggled to push themselves through the tunnel, getting themselves stuck on each other, unable to attack properly, making themselves into a wall of flesh open for any attack. “I told you, ants will be ants. As long as we have the energy, we can keep fighting.” Said Harley.

  “Energy my ass,” Tas said, thumping to the ground, exhausted. “Just one more day and I’ll have to either to also fight with one hand, or fight while crawling on the ground. At least you can fight with two hands anytime as long as you hold it in, but if we start to eat our arms, that’s just.” He shook his head, sighing afterward.

  Harley ignored Tas’s complaints, and as usual, the tunnel was filled with silence. Half a day passed, and by counting the zombies, the two had already learned they were only a day away before they could complete the third floor. However, their entire body was razed of flesh, their only options would be to eat their arms or legs. “Tas…” Harley said, his whole body lying on the ground.

  “What?” Said with an elongated tone, carrying a ton of exhaustion. He turned around and stared at the living corpse coated in crimson.

  “I told you before that we could just be zombies in the end and wait it out, right?”

  “Yes…”

  “But that will buy less than a day, maybe even just hours, based on the time it took you to reach the supermarket from the spawning area.”

  “Mostly an hour would do.”

  “Then… we need to fight for a day more…”

  “Yes. Now stop talking, it’s taking a lot of energy.” He turned away and looked straight ahead, walking.

  A few minutes passed, and the goblins appeared. “Harley, stand up. Stop being lazy and let’s get to it.” There was no response. “Harley?” He turned around, his eyes widened. Harley’s hands held on to his dagger plunged into his chest.

  “Fucking son of a bitch. Weakling… weakling…” A tear fell from his eyes. He waited for the zombie's arrival, holding daggers in both hands. He fought for minutes, eyes balled a river. Imagine crying over a living person! Hahaha! Would… be… me… I still am soft… You would have killed me, didn’t you, Harley… why did you kill yourself? Why… is it because I can handle the pain? Fuck you. Now I can’t die or I’ll never hear the end of it. Tas smiled, pushing himself to kill every zombie that slipped through the cluster of a wall.

  After the 52nd wave of zombies, Tas slowed down, dragging Harley’s body to him and swallowing his saliva whole. For the next few waves, Tas endured the pain in his body, in his mouth, and his mind. Fighting the zombies was not much of a struggle. The zombies kept getting stuck on themselves, making it easier for Tas to kill the zombies each and every wave.

  Soon, when the zombies had surpassed the number of sixty-five, more and more zombies were able to attack at a time. Thankfully, Tas was fully energized to fight all of them. He often took a break, just sitting down and waiting for the shaking before standing up again and walking for a few minutes.

  Repeating this and having his full attention with the corpse in front of him, Tas was able to push through into the last wave. Then, like it was laughing at him, maybe it was a taunt or it was an actual feature, immeasurable numbers of zombies arrived. “First, we get hungry so fast it’s ridiculous, second, we can’t even stop moving for more than a minute, and now this. I get it, I’ll survive, that’s why they did it. I’ll survive, right? As long as I’m conscious, I’m still alive. As long as I’m still not fully a zombie, even a mage could turn me back.”

  Regardless of his thoughts and opinions on the tunnel, Tas fought till the end. The zombies rushed at him, the wall of flesh turning irrelevant. As soon as they get stuck on each other, numbers alone would topple that wall in no time.

  Tas swung his blade, constantly slashing in front of him with no real technique, no edge, no style, just swinging like an animal. The zombies in front of him passed the reach of his blades, sneaking from the sides and overthrowing Tas to the ground. Zombies bit every part of his body, pain he felt was just like an ant. Termites bite harder than this.

  Half an hour passed, and Tas emerged from the ground, his body all tattered, limbs swinging around, bones exposed throughout. His consciousness still existed, waiting only for the tower to bring him back.

  As he blinked for the millionth time already, he awoke at the cabin, facing Harley with a giant smile on his face.

  “I knew you could do it.”

  Tas fell on Harley’s chest, a warm arm covered his back, and he cried for hours.