Femi lay sprawled across the cold stone, his blood spreading in a slow, sticky tide beneath him. The darkness creeping at the edges of his vision felt almost… familiar. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he was already dead.
"I've already died once," he thought, the irony bitter as palm wine left too long in the sun. "Why not try it again?"
Then, like a spark in the void, his father's voice cut through the haze in his mind, hoarse, frail, but steady.
"Remember, boy… In this life, you're born, and you die. Everyone does. But it's not the dying that matters...it's how you lived."
The memory was sharp as a blade: His father on the deathbed, skin stretched taut over bones, yet eyes burning with a fierceness that defied the sickness eating him alive.
"Never give up, Femi. Fight until your final moment. So when you look back… you can say you did your best."
A cough, a rattling breath. Then silence.
Femi's fingers twitched against the stone. "…Damn it, papa even now you no go let me rest."
But the words had done their work.
With a snarl, he dragged himself up, his ribs screaming, his vision swimming. The Skeleton King watched, its crimson gaze flickering with amusement.
With a snarl that tore at his injured throat, Femi dragged himself upright, ribs screaming, vision swimming. The Skeleton King watched, its crimson gaze flickering, then it brightened with something that looked like. Anticipation.
"I won't give up," Femi spat, blood dribbling down his mouth.
"If I'm dying anyway…"
A feral grin split his bloody muzzle.
"I'll drag you down with me. You won't celebrate my death, we'll go together."
-----
The creature's sword hummed, its serrated edge vibrating like a living thing. "Such spirit!" it rasped, bones clattering in a macabre chuckle. "I'll send you to death with my strongest attack!"
Femi's axe trembled in his grip as he circled, each step leaving a bloody footprint on the ancient stone. The creature's bones gleamed under the ghostly gray luminescence, its empty eye sockets burning with crimson fire.
He'd noticed it earlier, the way the skeleton's metallic aura flickered from iron-gray to crimson, how its invulnerability wavered for a heartbeat after each massive strike.
Watch the aura.
The Skeleton King moved first, a blur of yellowed bone and tattered armor. Its sword came shrieking down in a diagonal arc, forcing Femi to parry.
"CLANG!"
Sparks flew as steel met steel. The impact sent shockwaves up his arms, nearly buckling his knees.
Femi barely twisted away as the follow-up strike carved a chunk from his shoulder. Hot blood sprayed, the coppery stench flooding his snourt.
The skeleton's bones pulsed gray. "Iron Body." Its ribcage thickened like forged armor. Femi's answering strike bounced off harmlessly, the recoil nearly dislocating his wrist.
"Damn it—!"
A skeletal fist smashed into his gut. Femi flew backward, skidding through his own blood. More ribs cracked. His vision blurred.
Through the pain, Femi's instincts screamed: "Watch the aura."
Then, crimson light. The skeleton's blade ignited. "Bladework!"
Femi rolled as the sword sheared through stone like paper. Chips of rock stung his face. But he "saw it" now,the instant the blade flared red, the gray aura flickered out.
"That's the gap."
The Skeleton blade locked against Femi's axe, sending up a shower of sparks that illuminated the throne room for a moment.
"You've lasted longer than most," it rasped.
"What is your name, warrior?"
It said in a hollow voice, with a hint of something that almost sounded like... respect.
Femi laughed,a wet, broken sound."You dey mad?" He shoved forward, their weapons screaming against each other.
"You want to kill me and now you dey ask for introductions? My friend get out."
The skeleton disengaged with a flourish.
"Then die nameless!" Its blade erupted in crimson fire. "I am Azrael! The Forgotten!The Last King of—"
Femi didn't care. He shifted his stance, pouring every shred of will into his final lunge.
Femi's breath stilled. The world narrowed to a single point, the Skeleton King's exposed skull, pulsing with fading gray light.
"Iron Body's down."
He didn't think. Didn't hesitate.
His body moved on instinct, the last, desperate gambit of a man with nothing left to lose.
"Kuros-Enchantment-Blade Work!"
The Skeleton King's sword erupted in a conflagration of crimson energy, the air screaming as it split apart
Femi channeled every ounce of dying strength into a single downward swing. The skeleton, still mid-swing with its crimson blade, had no Iron Body to protect it.
-----
A glacial numbness crept through Femi's veins, the kind of cold that comes from the staying in the fridge for too long. His vision swam, the dungeon tilting like a sinking canoe.
"Huh. Pretty sure I used to have two arms."
He glanced at the ruin of his right side, where his arm should've been, only meat and splintered bone remained, the wound so clean he could see the jagged edges of his ribs rising and falling with each wet, shuddering breath. Blood spread beneath him in a dark mirror, staining his fur too.
"I must look like a zombie"
His laugh came out as a bloody cough. The pain hadn't even arrived yet, just the blessed cold, the great equalizer, wrapping him in its indifferent embrace.
He collapsed onto his back, staring at the vaulted ceiling as his life pooled around him.
A dry chuckle from the darkness.
"You're still breathing, rodent."
Azrael shadow fell across his face , but the killing blow never came.
Instead, he knelt beside him with a sound like dry branches settling. Up close, Femi saw the truth: beneath the monstrous aura, its bones were pitted with ancient scars.
"You fought well... for a rodent," the skeleton said, but the insult had lost its venom. Now it sounded almost... fond.
Femi spat blood. "Oh shut up. We both knew I'd die here." Even dying, he wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction of pity.
A rattling chuckle. Then impossibly Azrael sat down cross-legged beside him, like old friends sharing stories. His bony fingers brushed the axe embedded in his skull.
"Clever trick. I didn't think you'd noticed the pattern."
"Tch." Femi's smirk pulled at his broken face.
"You're not as subtle as you think." Each word cost him, but he'd be damned if he didn't get the last word. "All that flashy red sword juju... left you wide open."
The skeleton's laughter echoed through the chamber, rich and full-throated despite its hollow chest. "Ahhh, you remind me of her. My Rose always said I showed off too much."
Femi watched cracks spiderweb through Azrael's bones. Strange, he'd expected triumph at this moment. Instead, he just felt... tired.
"Tell me, warrior," Azrael murmured as his fingers turned to dust, "what will you do now?"
Femi closed his eyes and thought about it, but only one thing came to mind.
"Food".
The skeleton's laughter this time was warm. "After all this... you hunger for a meal?" Its form crumbled faster now, pelvis disintegrating. "How very... human of you."
As darkness took him, Femi felt skeletal fingers briefly squeeze his shoulder, the closest thing to respect the creature could offer. The last thing he heard was the whisper of ancient bones finally finding peace.
--------
Darkness swallowed Femi whole. The cold wasn't unpleasant anymore , just... distant.
Like the dungeon, the pain, the skeleton's final words were all part of some half-remembered dream.
"You survived," the wind whispered. Or was it his own fading thoughts?
Then, light. Blinding. A silhouette against the glow.
"You," spoke a voice so soft and relaxing like chiming bells. "Mortal who should be dead. You interest me."
Femi tried to blink. Couldn't tell if his eyes obeyed.
"The rules demand a price for passage," the voice continued. "But you've paid it in blood and wit." A pause. "Ask."
Femi's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Ask?" His mind swam through the haze.
"Make a wish, anything you desire within the dungeon's power."
As Femi reflected on everything, the fights, the pain and the skeleton's strange camaraderie. He realized all he had ever truly wanted, from the very beginning, even now was something simple yet deeply satisfying.
"Plate of...jollof... rice," he rasped, the words barely audible. Not a demand, not even a request. Just a dying man's simple, delusional human craving.
The light flared. "You mortal fool," the voice sighed - but there was warmth in it now. "Always surprising me when I least expect it."
A snap of fingers.
The last thing Femi tasted before oblivion took him was the perfect blend of tomatoes and scotch bonnet peppers.