Chapter 7: The Depths and the Curse

I drifted in and out of a feverish, red-tinted consciousness. Every shallow breath I took felt like a serrated knife twisting between my broken ribs, grating shattered bone against raw nerves. The world was a haze of agony and the smell of my own copper-scented blood. My left leg was twisted at a sickening, impossible angle, my hand was a mangled ruin of crushed meat, and the deep gashes across my belly continued to ooze dark, sluggish blood onto the filthy, termite-eaten floorboards.

“F-fucking… hell…” I wheezed, the words accompanied by a wet bubble of blood on my lips. “Just kill me already… or let me pass out… I can’t… I can't do this anymore.”

The two guards, Garrick and Bolen, hadn’t bothered to come back inside to check on their handiwork. Why would they? I could hear them through the shattered doorway, their voices carrying on the damp night air. They were laughing—vile, rhythmic bellows of amusement as they placed bets on exactly how long the “fat sack of shit” would last before his heart finally gave out.

Then, the world literally fell away.

The floor beneath my massive weight groaned one last time before giving way with a sickening, explosive crack. The rotten wood weakened by decades of moisture, neglect, and the silent tunneling of termites, collapsed entirely. I didn’t even have time to scream. I was simply swallowed by the darkness.

I plummeted maybe ten feet, hitting the damp earth with a bone-jarring impact that sent fresh waves of white-hot agony through my ruined frame. Dust, splinters, and ancient debris rained down on me in the dark. For several long minutes, I just lay there in the dirt, unable to even draw a full breath, staring up at the jagged, moonlit hole in the floor above.

“…Why?” I croaked, my voice a broken rasp. “Why does this world fucking hate me so much? What did I do to deserve this?”

A skittering sound filled the silence of the underground space.

It wasn't the sound of one creature. It was hundreds of legs, chitinous and sharp, clicking against stone. I heard the rhythmic snap of mandibles and low, hungry hisses that vibrated in the humid air. My one good eye widened in horror as shapes began to peel themselves away from the shadows of the underground cove.

They were spider monsters, each the size of a large dog, their carapaces glistening like polished obsidian. They had multiple red, glowing eyes that tracked my every tremor, and dripping fangs that wept a clear, paralytic ichor. Some were even more grotesque, with human-like arms sprouting from their thoraxes, or venom sacs that pulsed with a sickly, rhythmic green light.

This was their nest. I had fallen directly into the larder of the nightmare that had attacked me earlier.

“Oh god… no… not like this…” I tried to crawl away, but my body was a leaden weight. I dragged myself a few inches, my broken bones grinding together, before collapsing back into the filth. “Just… make it quick, you ugly fucks. Eat me and be done with it.”

The spiders swarmed closer, their legs clicking excitedly. One particularly large specimen reared up, its fangs extending toward my exposed, bleeding belly. I closed my eyes, waiting for the final piercing pain.

The lead spider leaned in, its mandibles hovering just inches from my flesh. Suddenly, it recoiled with a violent, high-pitched screech. The others hesitated, waving their front legs in agitation as if they had just encountered a wall of fire.

“What…?” I muttered weakly.

Another spider tried to approach, but it immediately backed off, shaking its head-appendage in apparent revulsion. The entire swarm began chittering angrily, circling me but keeping a clear, five-foot distance. One smaller spider actually vomited a sticky green fluid before scurrying away into the dark.

I let out a weak, broken laugh that dissolved into a hacking cough. “Even the fucking spider monsters don’t want me? I’m so disgusting that even the bottom-feeders of this world think I’m rotten?”

The creatures gave one last collective hiss and retreated into the depths of the cove, leaving me alone surrounded by old bones and thick, dusty webbing. I lay there in the filth, bleeding, broken, and now utterly rejected even by the monsters of the forest.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…” I whispered hoarsely. “Transmigrated into the worst character possible. Lost my title. Beaten half to death. Pissed myself. And now even the goddamn spiders think I’m too foul to eat. What kind of sick joke is this?!”

My voice grew louder, raw with a cocktail of fury and despair. “Fuck you! Fuck this fat body! Fuck my sister! Fuck that bitch Mira! Fuck the Hero! Fuck the Demon Lord! Fuck every single character in this trash novel!”

I screamed until my throat was raw, then lay gasping, staring at the moonlight filtering through the hole. Hours passed in a blur of pain. I was dying, and I knew it.

That was when I noticed the glow.

Half-buried in the dirt near the far wall was a faint, pulsing blue light. An old wooden chest had cracked open during my fall, revealing several ancient relics. Among them was a crystal vial filled with a shimmering, swirling pink liquid.

“Poison? Healing? Who knows…” I laughed bitterly. “Doesn’t matter. Anything’s better than this.”

Using my one working arm, I dragged my broken frame across the ground, leaving a dark trail of blood. Every inch was a fresh hell of torture. By the time I reached the vial, I was whimpering. I pried it open with my teeth and drank the entire contents in one desperate, thirsty gulp.

The liquid tasted like overly sweet wine, honey, and cold iron. Warmth spread through my chest instantly, followed by a pain that made the spider attack look like a massage.

“AAAAAHHH, what is this?!” I screamed as every broken bone in my body began to shift and knit together with the sound of snapping wood. My mangled hand straightened; the gashes on my belly closed into ugly pink scars.

But the change didn't stop there.

My skin burned. My fat redistributed with a sickening, fluid motion. My chest swelled outward painfully, forming heavy, soft breasts that strained against my ruined nightshirt. My waist pulled in, and my hips widened with a loud, wet crack. Between my legs, I felt a horrifying inversion of my manhood shrinking, pulling inward, and reforming into something entirely different.

“No… no no NO!” I shrieked, my voice cracking and rising into a higher, feminine register.

Long, soft, greasy black hair sprouted from my scalp, falling past my shoulders. My facial features softened, my jawline rounding out, though the multiple chins remained. My massive belly stayed still, grotesquely obese, but it now sat upon a distinctly female frame.

The transformation finally ceased.

I, no, she lay there panting, staring at two enormous breasts rising and falling with every ragged breath. I reached down with trembling, pudgy hands and felt the smooth, horrifying absence between my thighs.

“You’ve got to be shitting me…” The voice was higher-pitched, feminine, but carried that same sleazy, desperate rasp. “I’m a woman? A fat fucking woman?!”

I sat up, amazed that the physical pain was gone, though the weight distribution was now entirely different. I wobbled, my new center of gravity making even sitting a chore.

From above, Garrick’s voice called down through the hole. “Fat-ass? You still alive? We heard screaming.”

I quickly scrambled behind a pile of rubble, my heart pounding. If I spoke, the new voice would betray me instantly. I looked at the broken chest again. There were other relics; maybe this was a forgotten mage’s sanctuary.

I whispered to myself, the sound disturbingly soft. “Alright… new body. New rules. Everything’s fucked, but I’m alive. And I still know the plot.”

A dark, unsettling smile crept across my rounder, softer face. “Maybe being a fat bitch has its own advantages. We’ll see.”

I clutched the empty vial, my eyes gleaming with a new, dangerous resolve. “Fuck you, world. I’m still here. And I’m going to make you regret every second of this.”

Just as I prepared to find a way out, I heard a new sound from the back of the cave. Not the spiders.

The sound of heavy, rhythmic breathing that wasn't mine.