Chapter 08: The Feast of a Thousand Eyes
Chapter 08: The Feast of a Thousand Eyes
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The crow's blood was still warm between Jack's fingers.
Black, thick, *living*. It slithered down his wrist like oil, seeping into his skin, carrying with it the last whispers of Daruga's malice. The demon's final scream still echoed in Jack's skull, a sound that was less noise and more *violence*, a blade dragged across the inside of his bones.
But the crow was dead.
*For now.*
Solomon's memories pulsed inside him, a rotten tide of knowledge. *Seven days.* That was all he had before the Abyss regurgitated Daruga back into existence, reborn, reforged—hungrier than before.
Jack's lips peeled back in a grin that wasn't entirely his own.
*Not this time.*
He would not be a pawn. Not for Solomon. Not for Daruga. Not for the Abyss.
He would *feast*.
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The skull throne room was silent now, the air thick with the scent of iron and something older—something that had festered in the dark long before men had names for gods or demons. Jack knelt in the center of the chamber, his fingers tracing the cold stone floor.
A knife lay beside him, its edge serrated with age and misuse. He picked it up, weighed it in his palm.
Then, without hesitation, he dragged the blade across his left hand.
Blood welled, black in the dim light, and Jack pressed his palm to the ground.
"Day One of Creation," he murmured, his voice a rasp of smoke and shattered glass.
"The Void said, 'Let there be Night.'"
His blood moved on its own.
It slithered across the stone, carving a path, forming lines—*a pentagram*. But not just any pentagram. This one *breathed*. The edges pulsed like veins, the center a gaping maw that swallowed the light.
Jack's breath hitched as the ground beneath him *softened*.
It was no longer stone.
It was *flesh*.
Warm. Slick. *Alive.*
The pentagram was complete.
Now, the real work began.
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"The First Cut: The Heart"
Jack pressed the knife to his chest, just above his heart. His hands did not shake. His soul did not waver.
He *carved*.
The pain was exquisite—a white-hot brand pressed into his very essence. His blood did not drip. It *crawled*, threading itself into the shape of a second pentagram, this one etched directly into his skin.
Somewhere, deep inside, Solomon *laughed*.
"Fool," the demon-king hissed.
"You think to bind the dark with blood? You are only digging your grave deeper."
Jack ignored him.
"Day Two of Creation," he continued, his voice steady even as his vision swam.
"The Firmament Cracks."
The moment the words left his lips, his skin *split*.
Not just where the knife had cut.
*Everywhere.*
Thin, jagged lines tore across his arms, his legs, his face—as if something beneath his flesh was pushing, *clawing*, desperate to get out. Darkness oozed from the wounds, not blood, but something thicker, something *sentient*. It writhed in the air before seeping back into him, carrying with it whispers of the Abyss.
Jack's teeth ground together. His bones *ached*. His very soul shuddered as the darkness forced its way inside, stitching itself into his being.
"You are not strong enough,"Solomon taunted.
"You will break before the ritual is done."
Jack's fingers twitched.
He was right.
But it didn't matter.
---
"The Second Cut: The Mind"
The knife rose again, this time to his forehead.
Jack did not hesitate.
The blade bit deep, carving an upside-down cross into his flesh. The pain was different this time—*sharper*, colder, as if the knife were cutting not just skin, but *thought*.
Memories that weren't his flickered behind his eyes.
*Daruga, perched on a mountain of corpses, feasting on the still-screaming souls of the damned.*
*Solomon, kneeling before a throne of eyes, his body unraveling as the Abyss claimed him.*
*Himself—Jack—strapped to an altar as his parents chanted, their voices merging with Daruga's laughter.*
Jack *screamed*.
But no sound came out.
His voice had been stolen.
"Day Three of Creation," he forced through the agony, his lips moving soundlessly.
"Earth's Dark Harvest."
The pentagram beneath him *shuddered*.
Then the ground *opened*.
Hands—skeletal, rotting, *familiar*—burst from the fleshy earth, clawing at his legs, his arms, his torso. They dragged him down, not into dirt, but into *something else*—a sea of gnashing teeth and wailing mouths.
Jack's body convulsed.
He was being *eaten alive*.
But he did not fight it.
He let them *devour*.
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"The Third Cut: The Soul"
Somehow, impossibly, Jack still held the knife.
His fingers were broken. His wrists were bent at unnatural angles. But the blade was *his* now, as much a part of him as the darkness in his veins.
He plunged it into his own stomach.
"Day Four of Creation," he gasped, blood frothing at his lips.
"Celestial Deception."
The upside-down cross on his forehead *burned*.
Light erupted from it—not holy, not pure, but a sickly, pulsating red, the color of a wound that never healed. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the things that writhed beneath his skin.
*They had faces.*
Daruga's. Solomon's.
*His own.*
They screamed as the light touched them, their forms melting, merging—
*Becoming part of him.*
Jack's body arched off the ground. His spine cracked. His ribs *splintered*, peeling open like petals of a grotesque flower, revealing the writhing mass of shadows beneath.
He was no longer human.
He was *more*.
And he was *hungry*.
---
"The Feast"
"Day Five of Creation,"Jack whispered, though his throat was torn, though his voice was no longer his own.
"Beasts of the Void."
The darkness *answered*.
It surged from his wounds, from his mouth, from his *eyes*, taking shape as it spilled forth—a thousand crows, their feathers slick with oil and blood, their eyes the same abyssal black as Daruga's.
They circled him, a living storm of beaks and talons, before *diving*—
Not at him.
*Into him.*
Each one tore into his flesh, burrowing beneath his skin, their bodies dissolving into smoke as they merged with his soul.
With every crow that entered him, Jack *grew*.
Stronger.
Darker.
*Whole.*
Daruga's voice rose in a final, desperate shriek—
Then *silence*.
---
"The End… and the Beginning"
"Day Six of Creation," Jack murmured, his body knitting itself back together, his wounds sealing shut.
"In His Own Image."
He stood.
The pentagram beneath him was gone. The knife had dissolved into shadow.
Only the upside-down cross remained, pulsing faintly on his forehead.
He was no longer just Jack.
He was the darkness.
And the darkness was him.
"Day Seven of Creation," he said, his voice echoing with a thousand whispers.
"The Rest That Never Comes."
The world *shuddered*.
Somewhere, in the depths of the Abyss, something *stirred*.
It was not Daruga.
It was not Solomon.
It was *worse*.
And it was *watching*.
Jack smiled.
The ritual was complete.
The feast was over.
But the war?
The war had only just begun.
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