"Shit, shit, shit!" Lucian cursed without a care, legs pumping as hard as the sand allowed. He'd already pulled far ahead of the other participants, so if he didn't make noise himself, silence would reign, claiming him through paralysis.

  He wasn't ready to die yet.

  But his actions screamed the opposite: an 8-foot+ aberration of a hellspawn—the one he'd personally taunted—was blitzing after him with inhuman speed. And it was swiftly shortening the distance.

  Lucian, still powering his way through the sand, twisted mid-stride to gauge the distance—oh, it was close.

  "Curses!" he exclaimed as his heart beat even faster. His calves burned with each stride, veins throbbing beneath his skin as adrenaline surged, pushing him onward. Even if only for one more second. Albeit how irrelevant it seemed. His lungs burned, his muscles screamed, but he ignored them and continued onward, cold sweat slicking down his back.

  But the abominable creature was truly frighteningly fast. Its steps seemed ironically light despite the tremors they sent through the ground. Even the insufferable sand seemed incapable of slowing down the abomination's relentless advance.

  "You already had quite a few lies, aren't you satisfied, you insatiable pig?!" Lucian shouted, bitterness rising. But of course, the hellspawn didn't pay his words any heed... wait, no, it did. Its two grotesque tongues swirled and squirmed in the air in an excited sequence. Its razor-sharp claws, no different from blades, sliced through the air with renewed ferocity, each arc a testament to its accelerating speed. Its sinewy limbs, driven by an unnatural power, propelled it forward with terrifying efficiency.

  Lucian's jaws dropped, slack with disbelief and bitterness. He began venting, "Bastard! I asked why you weren't satisfied, not if you could run any faster. Why would you even... shit, I lied," he concluded. He'd briefly forgotten it took every sentence literally—no jokes, no insults spared. He recalled that he had called it a pig instead of hellspawn or something else that could broadly describe its existence.

  Sighing in frustration, "You're quite a relentless one, aren't you?" he commented as he watched the hellspawn draw closer to him, each jarring step it took a reminder of his impending doom. Suddenly—seemingly distracted—he tripped. His foot snagged a rise in the sand, and he stumbled, his eyes widening in disbelief.

  He stood up once more... or at least, tried to. His legs buckled—fatigue, a cruel victor, finally claiming him. His eyes fluttered, his mouth went slightly ajar, and his facial expressions contorted, mirroring horror. His body began trembling uncontrollably, and his breathing became way more erratic. The sweltering desert and the sweat soaking his body didn't help one bit.

  He turned behind himself and noticed the hellspawn just a few feet away, needing not more than two or three sprints to close the distance. It seemed excited by his fall, its claws outstretched, eager to seize its prey.

  Lucian shivered, dread consuming him. "By the gods! What a terrible way to die." But suddenly, his demeanor changed, his gaze turning cold and calculated, an almost hoping glint flashing in his sunlit brown irises. He continued, his voice laced with a steely resolve, "Luckily, I'm not an easy meal."

  The instant the words left his mouth, the hellspawn took a stride forward, claws shooting forward. But suddenly, it lost balance, Its right limb plunged into the sand, sinking at a terrifying rate. At the same time, a cluster of razor-sharp, blade-like claws swung before Lucian but stopped a few inches away from his position, falling into the quicksand as well.

  Lucian's gaze flickered, but his determined expression remained. Everything was going according to plan.

  'Now, the hard part,' Lucian thought as he controlled his breathing and got comfortable on the sand, staring the hellspawn dead in the eye... and did nothing.

  The hellspawn was somewhat lost about its current condition, but it swiftly began to free itself from the restraints of the sand. Suddenly, it froze and faced Lucian in what seemed like urgency. He couldn't tell because it lacked a proper face and didn't even possess eyes. But he knew... it was scared.

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  Well, if not scared, then at least wary.

  He had noticed earlier, when it attacked them, that it seemed almost frozen in time — as if the paralysis affected it as well, just not fatally. So he decided to test that theory.

  The hellspawn thrashed, its sinewy limbs churning the quicksand in a frothy mire. Each desperate lunge only sank it deeper, the sand finally exerting its hindering influence, clinging like a suffocating shroud. Yet, its raw power was undeniable. The ground trembled with its shorts, a grim promise of its impending escape.

  Lucian remained motionless, his breath held tight, a statue carved from his determination as well as fear, both very powerful motivations pushing him forward... or better yet, keeping him in place. His gaze locked onto the hellspawn. And though it had no eyes, he knew most of the creature's attention was on him. A silent battle of wills played out in the stillness. Not a muscle twitched, not a sound escaped him. He was a void in the desert's vast emptiness…

  His mind was a mess, though.

  'Stop moving already, you tongue-hungry bastard. Are you that conceited? I just told a few lies, and you want to bite out my tongue. Damn you! What's so intriguing about lies? Give up already!...' Lucian thought wildly, a chaotic barrage of silent curses and desperate thoughts echoing in the confines of his mind.

  The silence was absolute, a heavy blanket that smothered all sensation but the faint shuddering of the sand and the visual struggles of the hellspawn. Each second stretched into an eternity, a tense gamble between predator and prey.

  The hellspawn's tongues writhed, their movements frantic, as though sensing the encroaching stillness.

  The paralysis was upon it!

  Its claws, still partially free, scraped against the sand, a silent, desperate plea. But its plea went ignored—just as it always had, across unknown years in this hell. In a last desperate attempt, it stretched its claws out once more, and to Lucian's horror, it actually reached his face and grabbed on to it.

  'Shit!' was Lucian's next thought. His heartbeat increased, his breathing threatened to become more erratic, and only with little self-control was he able to keep it in check. His entire body trembled, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as cold sweat dripped down his back. Feeling the cold and unforgiving hands of the hellspawn, he still stubbornly refused to abandon his position.

  'D-do your worst, you lonely, pitiful abomination from hell,' he thought, fear warring with defiant resolve. This was the best position he could hold right now, as any single movement threatened the return of sound.

  The hellspawn's head went forward, and out of it came its weird, almost surgical knife-resembling row of teeth. It directed it forward, seemingly struggling to do so. Lucian himself, though quite disturbed by the eerie scene, remained still... or at least tried. Subconsciously, he began pulling back, pulling his face against the claws that held his face in place, leading to cuts on his face.

  Eventually though, to Lucian's relief, it froze completely, its frantic tongues coming to a pause mid-air. Lucian released an internal sigh of relief, just right before his eyes widened in horror.

  Paralysis had begun claiming him as well.

  A cold numbness crept through his limbs, a chilling reminder of his gamble. His fingers tingled, then grew heavy, unresponsive. His breath grew shallow, each inhale a struggle. His heart pounded erratically, each beat a fading echo.

  'Curses! What do I do? What can I do?' panic clawed at him, a silent scream trapped in his throat. He wanted to move, to shout, to escape, but his body was a traitor, locking him in a prison of his own flesh. No, perhaps that was inaccurate, and his mind was what kept him from freeing himself. He still had enough will and ability to shout and free himself of the paralysis... but the threat of the hellspawn still loomed greatly upon him. If he decided to free himself by making sound, it would definitely be loud and awaken the paralysis-imprisoned horror before him.

  Keeping this in mind, he remained still, letting the paralysis consume him, and consuming him it did with glee.

  First, his legs went completely numb, then his arms, then his chest. At a certain point, his throat became completely unresponsive, unable to make a single sound. Eventually, his breathing became an issue, and his vision began to blur. The world dimmed at the edges, his vision blurring, then fading. The desert soon vanished, leaving him in a suffocating darkness.

  'So, this is how it ends?'

  He found himself trapped in a vat of darkness, losing his hold on his awareness and time. His senses had been almost entirely dulled, barely able to feel and, surprisingly, barely able to hear. Didn't matter, though. If he didn't hear any sounds soon, he would die in the most eerily peaceful way he could imagine.

  'Compared to my death in life, this isn't so bad. I wanted to beat this trial, have my revenge… but if this is how I go, at least that bastard didn't eat my tongue.' Lucian sighed.

  A moment more of reminiscing, a picture of his mother came to mind. 'If she saw me accepting death quietly, she'd slap the thought out of me… maybe even wake the hellspawn, forcing me to fight, or die trying.'

  He chuckled bitterly. 'She always hated passivity. Never accept the rules silently. Make your adversaries bleed. Keep your morals, even when hopelessness stalks you. And look where it's got me.'

  He took in a deep breath... or at least tried to. He was still suffocating peacefully. His thoughts were already growing muddled and incoherent, and this was the second time.

  'I probably won't get another chance… but if I do, I'll survive. I swear it!'. With that vow, his will finally stopped fighting the paralysis, allowing it easy access to shut down his heart.

  But suddenly, a gentle, yet powerful, pressure eased the claw away from his face. The movement was slow, deliberate, a silent struggle against the unseen force that imposed the paralysis as well as the hellspawn's own monstrous strength.

  'Hm?' Lucian was confused.

  Soon, though the feeling was kind of vague, he felt strong arms lifting him, a sensation of being scooped, of being carried. He was adrift, unable to control his own body, involuntarily reliant on the unseen hands that held him.

  'What's going on?' Lucian wondered, confusion clawing at his heart, so much so that his will was battling the paralysis once more. Darkness continued to consume his vision, a void where there was once sight. He was adrift, lost in the sea of nothingness. But then, he heard the vague call, "Hey, are you still alive?"

  With those words, he saw his first flicker of light, nothing more than a faint glimmer at first. But then, his vision began returning slowly. It started off blurry but then sharpened into the desert's harsh reality, his other senses and body functions slowly joining in on the revival. He could see the braided beauty's face and the big one's back, which bore deep gashes.

  'They... they saved me?' he thought, surprise flooded him. But before he could think more, his ability to breathe returned, and he began to cough and gasp.

  Yes, he was alive, but barely, a ghost clinging to the edge of existence.

  He would live, though.