Fan-made (Tokyo Ghoul) #2
Chapter Two
(May include graphic gore and violence, reader discretion is advised)
"The worst part about loss is that, the more you lose, to more pain you gain."
- Kiayo Inoraki
Kiayo forced his eyes open, his emerald kakugan blazing with instinct as his conscious mind fought for control. He needed to move. He needed to disappear.
His kagune, a terrifying beacon of blood and power, writhed uncontrollably. With a guttural cry, Kiayo willed them to retract, channeling the monstrous appendages back into his spine. The retraction was an agonizing, bone-jarring ordeal, leaving him panting, drenched in sweat. A fresh, raw pain pulsed on his back, but the kagune were gone, leaving only torn, blood-soaked clothes.
He pushed himself off the wall. Weak, but mobile, he forced his gaze forward. A wide, straight tunnel lay before him, lined with pipes and conduits – the most direct route, and the one his pursuers were taking. To his left, a narrow, circular grate opened into what seemed to be a deep drainage system. It was a tight squeeze, a horrific prospect, but it offered the chance for concealment.
Acting on impulse, Kiayo kicked the corroded grate down the main tunnel. Its clatter echoed loudly. Ignoring the pain, the cold, and the gnawing hunger, he stumbled towards the sump drain. He slipped into the hole just as a powerful flashlight beam sliced through the darkness from the main tunnel, followed by the pounding of running footsteps.
Kiayo plunged into the dark, wet opening. He scraped his already wounded body against the rough concrete, the city’s underbelly assaulting his hyper-sensitive nose with the stench of waste, runoff, and damp earth. It was repulsive, but it was the smell of freedom, masking the metallic scent of his own blood.
He pushed deeper into the sewer, his heart pounding, the frantic shouts of his pursuers fading above. He had escaped the lab, but now he was lost in the sewers, transformed from a student into a predator. Mutated, wounded, and consumed by a desperate hunger, he was now a creature of the shadows.
The rough, algae-slick concrete scraped against Kiayo’s skin as he forced himself deeper into the pipe. Each movement sent jolts of agony through his body, and the acrid stench of sewage burned his nostrils. His breath came in ragged gasps. Above, the distant sounds of his pursuers faded, replaced by the unsettling gurgle and drip of the unseen water system.
The raw hunger was a beast clawing at his insides, a desperate urge he fought with every ounce of his fading consciousness. He knew he couldn’t stay conscious much longer. The adrenaline that had propelled him was ebbing, leaving behind profound exhaustion and the realization of his situation.
He stumbled onward, his vision blurring. The tunnel seemed to twist and narrow, the oppressive walls pressing in, and a sudden wave of dizziness washed over him. He lost his footing, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the slippery surface.
With a final, choked gasp, Kiayo’s body gave out. He slumped forward, his head hitting the cold, damp concrete with a dull thud. The world dissolved into blackness, the hunger and pain momentarily silenced by oblivion.
A faint, gray light seeped through the corroded grate above. It was dawn. The stench of the sewer, however, remained as putrid as ever. Kiayo stirred, a low groan escaping his cracked lips. The cold seeped into his bones, an ache that moved down to the throb where his kagune had been. He was still alive.
He pushed himself up, his movements stiff and agonized. The concrete beneath his palms was slimy and cold. His ripped clothes were now plastered to his skin with a mixture of grime and dried blood. The hunger gnawed at his empty stomach.
Above, the sounds of the city began to stir. Distant traffic rumbled, and the occasional shout echoed faintly.
Kiayo’s emerald kakugan flickered, and the green hue his vision had been registering faded. His senses, still heightened from his transformation, picked up the faint scent of decay, stagnant water, and… something else. Something metallic—something delicious that made his instincts recoil.
He forced himself to stand, his legs trembling. The tunnel stretched before him, a dark maw leading deeper into the earth. The grate above offered his only hope of escape, but it was too high to reach and too strong to break through alone. His pursuers were gone, at least for now.
Kiayo’s mind was a battlefield. The primal urge to feed was within him. It was the smell of raw life, something far more potent than the decay surrounding him. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, what it was.
But the thought of it was terrifying. He was a Ghoul. The student, the boy who worried about exams and his next meal in the campus cafeteria, was gone. In his place was this… thing. A creature defined by its hunger, its power, and its desperate need to survive.
He stared at the tunnel stretching into blackness. It was a path, a way out of this immediate trap. The grate above was unreachable. Any attempt to draw attention for help would be suicide.
Kiayo took a hesitant step forward, the sound of his own ragged breathing amplified in the silence. The tunnel sloped downwards, and the reek of sewage intensified. He pushed aside the revulsion, focusing on the instinct that told him this was the way. His muscles screamed with protest, but he forced them to obey. Every fiber of his being craved sustenance; the thought of the metallic scent, of his own kind of prey, sent a tremor through him. He was new to this feeling. He didn’t understand it; the morality that had once governed his actions was gone.
He needed to find a place to hide. He remembered fragments from the lab – whispered conversations, diagrams he’d glimpsed. His head swirled, and his eyes pulsed; his whole body shook with pain.
A sudden skittering sound echoed from further down the tunnel. It was distinct from the dripping and gurgling, a definite movement. Kiayo froze, his senses straining. The metallic scent, faint but unmistakable, was closer now. His kakugan flared, turning the murky darkness into a shifting canvas of muted greens. He could discern shapes, shadows within shadows.
His pursuers were likely still searching the surface, perhaps even the immediate vicinity of the lab exit. This tunnel was his advantage. He had to move. He had to find a way not only to survive the immediate threats but also to understand what he had become. He had to control the hunger, or it would control him, leading him down a path of irreversible destruction. He needed to learn, to adapt.
With a grim resolve solidifying in his gut, Kiayo pressed on, his eyes scanning the shifting shadows, his ears straining for any sound, his body in pain and pulsing with… power.
The immediate choice was simple: follow the scent of prey and satisfy the hunger, or call for help, trusting that someone would offer both refuge. But doing so would risk being found. He hesitated. The hunger couldn’t wait. Survival was all that mattered.
Before Kiayo could even think, his body shot forward, the scent growing closer. That copper scent. He knew what it was. Kiayo knew, but, for some reason, it smelled so delicious. His legs stopped moving, and his hand began to tremble. His eye pulsed between fear and hunger. Drool fell from his mouth, landing on the dead man’s back.
Rats skittered away from the body, leaving a bloody carcass of a sewage worker. The man’s neck was twisted, a bone bulging out from the grotesque flesh.
Kiayo’s eyes cracked, turning black and green; he swallowed his spit. It was a dead human. Kiayo knew that. And yet. Yet, it looked… incredibly appetizing. Kiayo closed his eyes and shook his head wildly. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. But. But. It looked so delicious, like it was something he had been craving for years after starvation. He stretched out a hand, only to pull it back to his waist. His legs went weak, and his knees slashed into the shallow water. Tears poured from his face.
What? What did they do to me? What am I? What did they turn me into?
He knew. Kiayo knew what he was, but he couldn’t accept it. No. He didn’t want to.
But hunger. The pain. The dry crack in his throat craved the blood. His teeth needed flesh. His stomach needed to be filled. The tears stopped for a moment. He let his arms fall limp.
Gritting his teeth, he lifted his head. Then, rolling up his sleeve, he bit into his own arm. Tearing the flesh from its bone, swallowing down the hot red juice, and chewing down the skin. He gritted his teeth and swallowed. He lifted up his arm, and the skin was pulled away, revealing white bone and torn veins. But then he felt a strange heat surrounding the wound, and in an instant, the wound was gone. New pale skin covered his arm, no scab nor scar remaining. He felt it. The pain of biting into his own flesh, he felt it, but compared to the tests, compared to the pain in his back. It seemed like nothing more than a scratch.
He turned his attention back to the dead human. He didn’t crave the corpse anymore, but he wasn’t disgusted like a human would be. He stood. I wanted to bury him, to pay his respects, but he couldn’t. Not in a city. Not in a sewer. He still needed to find a way out. Kiayo pulled the man to his bottom and leaned him against the wall. He knelt in front of him and, pulling his hands together, said a small prayer for him. He continued down the tunnels, taking turns here and there and choosing a random side when the path split in two. He knew how long he was walking, hours, days, didn’t matter; all he knew was that it was a long time before he began to feel any exhaustion.
Until, at last, a distant sound of rushing water and the faintest trace of fresh air reached his nose. Kiayo pressed forward until he saw a pale shaft of moonlight breaking through a wide concrete outfall ahead. The tunnel sloped upward, and a rusted grate covered the opening. He tugged on one of the corners, bending the metal upward, leaving just enough space for him to squeeze through.
With one last effort, Kiayo pulled himself out of the tunnel and tumbled down onto damp rocks, his hand falling against grass. He blinked, stunned by the sudden openness above him. Night stretched over the vast, empty city park, the moon painting the deserted playground in silver. The only sounds were the distant hum of traffic and the wind through the trees. It was calming.
Kiayo drew in a shaky breath, savoring the clean, cool air. The world felt impossibly wide after the suffocating darkness of the sewers. For the first time since his transformation, he felt free, beneath the open sky.
