A new weight crushed my chest. Someone was shaking me. A sharp voice pierced through the ringing in my ears.
"Connie! Wake up!"
The world was still blurry. I could barely see her face. But the tears streaming down her cheeks were unmistakable.
Meili.
Her small hands clutched my fur, desperately trying to shake me awake.
"Wake up! We need to leave now!" I felt her tugging at me, trying to drag me across the ground.
Even though I was smaller than the humans, I was still too heavy for her to move on her own.
"Did we win?"
The words barely left my mouth, my voice cracked and dry. My hazy vision wavered as I tried to focus on the scene around me. The crater where the Queen Slime once pulsed was now a blazing pit of fire.
Its beating heart was gone.
But at the edges of the crater, I could still see the smaller slimes—green blobs, squirming mindlessly, as if they didn't understand what had just happened.
Since there were no more orders being given, what would they do now? Give up, right?
"I've got you, Connie."
A firm grip hoisted me up, slinging me over a shoulder.
A male voice. Familiar. Kevin.
Now that I was higher up, I could see more clearly. The slimes were scattered. Directionless.
The yellow and red ones drifted aimlessly, as if they'd lost their purpose. The smaller green ones still squelched around, dissolving whatever they could.
But the purple ones—
They weren't dissolving. They were gathering. Pooling together in the distance, merging into a single form. The color darkened… then shifted.
A deep, sickly pink. I felt ice crawl up my spine.
"Ah."
That was how they made new Queens.
If we didn't get out now, the next one would form—and it would learn from the last one's death.
"Where's Lance?" I muttered into Kevin's ear, the pounding in my skull worsening with every uneven step he took.
"Right! Situation update! Thank you for your service!" Kevin chirped, his voice annoyingly energetic despite everything.
"Sir Lancelot and Hogan are cutting through the last of the slime, clearing the exit. We'll be out of here in no time!"
Right. Which meant I'd only bought us time. Minutes. That's all we had.
"We got them, Sir Lance!" Kevin called out as we reached the two men furiously hacking through the thick layers of slime still sealing the exit.
Lance didn't even look up. "Good work, Sir Kevin," he said, his tone clipped, his hands never stopping.
His blue-silver armor was streaked with dark stains.
Hogan's axe was dulled from overuse.
They were both covered in burns, their arms and faces raw from where the slime had nearly consumed them whole.
And yet, Hogan was smiling. They were still alive.
For now. Then—
A deep, wet, guttural sound echoed through the forest. A noise that did not belong. Like muscle twisting inside out, a gurgling, hideous birthing cry.
I didn't need to look back to know what it was.
The new Queen had been born.
"Damn it," Lance gritted out, his knuckles turning white around his sword hilt.
"Everyone, push forward!"
Kevin's grip tightened around me, and Hogan hoisted Meili higher.
The only thing between us and escape was a thin, pulsing layer of slime.
The remnants of what Hogan and Lance had already cut through. It would touch our skin. It would burn. But it was that—or die.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Human, animal, or both, we all screamed as we tore through the last layer of slime—its gelatinous tendrils clawing at our skin, pulling, suctioning, desperate to keep us inside.
But it was too late.
We broke free.
Fresh air hit us like a shock of cold water.
Hogan stumbled forward, gasping, before pumping his fist in the air. "We made it!"
*
"No. No, we didn't."
Lance's voice was low. Flat. Tense.
Then, sharper—"Don't stop running! Get to Orion—NOW!"
I snapped my head around, my ears perking up at the sickening squelch of movement behind us.
The red slimes—the fastest ones—were already pouring through the breach.
They glided unnaturally fast over the uneven ground, closing the distance in seconds.
I gritted my teeth.
Even if we reached Orion, what stopped the slime from following us there?
Kevin was in front, carrying me on his back, my body bouncing with each frantic step.
Hogan ran beside him, his breathing sharp and uneven, Meili limp in his arms—her arms dangling uselessly, her body barely moving.
Lancelot held the rear, shield raised, sword flashing in wide arcs, slicing through any slime still lunging forward.
The city loomed ahead.
Orion.
It was a rotting carcass of a kingdom, its walls crumbling, towers broken.
The streets were empty. The buildings scorched.
The slime had already been here.
The land itself looked sick.
The grass was gone. The trees stood blackened, skeletal.
Even the dirt pulsed—tainted, decayed, ruined.
I forced my heavy head up, blinking groggily.
"They're still following…"
Lance threw a glance over his shoulder, his voice raw but unwavering.
"Don't stop running!"
The slime was still coming.
Then—
Something changed.
The massive pink tendrils of the Queen stopped. The swarm slowed. The entire horde hesitated. The slime horde wavered.
The red ones—once charging recklessly—slowed. The larger yellow ones stopped entirely.
Then, one by one, they turned back.
Kevin risked a glance over his shoulder. "Wait, they're—" He nearly tripped. "Are they giving up?"
"No…" My eyes widened, the exhaustion in my body snapped away by adrenaline. "They can't keep going. They've already eaten everything out here."
"They need a food source…" Lance finished, his eyes narrowing.
The Queen Slime pulsed in the distance, its newly formed body shrinking, its tendrils twitching like a dying beast. It wouldn't waste energy chasing prey it couldn't consume.
Lance exhaled, his breath heavy. "Keep moving. We're not safe yet."
"For better or worse," Hogan muttered, trudging forward, "that just means we're walking into a ghost town."
The morning sun began to rise, casting golden rays over Orion's grey walls.
It was beautiful, in an eerie way.
Like no matter how much chaos reigned on earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars would remain unbothered, eternal.
But we weren't eternal.
After fighting through spider-infested ravines, venom, and a forest of flesh-eating slime, we hadn't even slept.
We stumbled into the city, and the tension in our bodies drained the moment we crossed the broken gates.
The streets were silent.
No voices. No footsteps. No birds.
The only sound was the distant, fading squelch of the retreating slime.
The air was thick with decay, but after that forest, this was nothing.
We walked until we found a half-collapsed structure, its frame skeletal. The slime had consumed every piece of wood, leaving behind stone foundations and crumbling walls.
This wasn't a city anymore.
It was a corpse.
A jackal had licked its bones clean, leaving nothing but a husk.
Kevin groaned, his knees buckling as he fell to the ground—still carrying me on his back. We hit the soft dirt together.
"I'm gonna sleep for two whole days after this."
Hogan set Bacon and Silver down. The pig sniffed the air, uneasy, while the wolf limped to a nearby wall and collapsed.
Meili sat cross-legged on the ground, her burned arms trembling as she clutched her knees. She didn't complain.
Lance clenched his jaw, eyes scanning the ruined city. I could tell what he was thinking.
We're running out of time.
But everyone was drained.
Especially Meili.
Lance exhaled sharply, then sat on a half-broken stool that had somehow survived.
"Get some sleep," he ordered. "We leave by sundown."
No one complained.
The ground was hard, cold, uncomfortable. But it didn't matter.
Pain throbbed through my body—dull, persistent—but it didn't matter either. Sleep was coming for me, heavy and relentless.
Then something caught my attention.
Lance hesitated, then sat beside Meili, resting his elbows on his knees. His armor creaked softly as he reached into a pouch tied to his belt.
Something small glinted in the fading light. A lion-shaped pendant—carved from bronze, its edges worn smooth from time.
"Still can't sleep after everything?" he asked. His voice was quieter now, almost hesitant.
If I were her, I would've passed out already.
Meili didn't respond at first. Just sat there, staring into the fire with tired purple eyes.
Lance exhaled. "You did well," he said awkwardly. "Back there. You kept your head."
Meili looked up, her expression flat. "I didn't do anything," she whispered. "I just… ran."
"Sometimes that's enough," Lance replied.
He reached out, pulling her toward him until her head rested against his chest.
The heart-shaped shield on his back caught the last bit of light, the lion's face etched into the metal.
"Here." He held out the pendant. "It's… yours now."
Meili stared. Her exhaustion shifted into quiet curiosity.
"Why?"
Lance looked away, his voice barely audible.
"…Because you remind me of someone." A pause. Then, even softer— "Someone who… didn't get a chance to grow up."
Meili said nothing.
He rested his hand on her head, his touch light, almost unsure. "Your parents did their best. You're a survivor."
Another pause.
"You just have to carry their hopes and push forward. Can you do that, Meili?"
There was no response.
Not because she was ignoring him.
Because she had finally fallen asleep.
Her breathing was slow, steady.
Lance let out a short, breathy laugh—one with no humor. He held the pendant for a second longer before gently placing it in her hand, curling her small fingers around it.
"Looks like your little speech put her to sleep," I muttered, cracking one eye open.
Lance turned to me. His voice was stiff, but sincere.
"…I appreciate what you did back there."
Hogan groaned from where he lay flat on his back. "Alright, great talk, but can we please get some sleep? Just wake me up when the world ends."
"Not ominous at all," I shot back drowsily—before sleep finally dragged me under as we slept in the lost ruins.