Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight!-Chapter 222: ’Leila...?’

"L-L..."

The sound barely made it past his lips. It felt wrong—like his own voice didn’t belong to him anymore. His throat closed around the name, refusing to let it out, refusing to make it real.

But he forced it through.

"L... Leila...?"

The name cracked in the silence, a whisper swallowed by the thick, rotting air.

The torch trembled in his grasp. The fire flickered wildly, casting broken, shifting shadows over the storage unit’s interior. But even in the dim, stuttering glow, he could see her.

Leila.

She was there.

His stomach lurched violently.

She lay motionless, half-consumed by darkness, her body sprawled across the blood-slicked floor. The torchlight barely reached her, leaving her features blurred in shadow, but he knew it was her.

He knew.

And yet—

’No. No, no, no. This—this isn’t real. This isn’t—’

His mind recoiled, refusing to accept what his eyes were telling him. But he couldn’t stop moving. Couldn’t stop seeing.

The ground was wet beneath his boots. Thick. Sticky. Each step made a sickening, faint squelch. Blood pooled across the floor in dark, glistening smears, soaking into the wood, spreading in uneven trails toward the far corners of the room. It wasn’t just in one place—it was everywhere.

Bones.

At first, they didn’t register. Just shapes scattered across the floor, littered like discarded trash. But the closer he got, the more the details surfaced, sharp and unbearable.

Some were stripped clean, bleached by time and exposure. Others still clung to dark, rotting sinew, patches of dried flesh clinging desperately to jagged edges. A ribcage, half-crushed. A femur, snapped in two, marrow hollowed out.

The air was thick with decay.

And with it—something worse.

Something rancid. Something familiar.

A scent that curled at the back of his throat, sinking deep into his lungs, until his stomach twisted into a painful knot.

’Meat.’

The word slammed into him with suffocating weight.

Florian sucked in a sharp breath—too sharp, too fast. His chest ached, his ribs tightening like iron bands around his lungs. His vision swam, his head spinning violently as a wave of nausea clawed up his throat.

’No. No, no, no, no, NO—’

He kept walking. He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t look away.

Leila’s body was still shrouded in darkness, the torchlight barely brushing the edges of her form. His mind latched onto the dim hope that she was just injured—that she could still be alive.

But the moment the firelight finally reached her, all hope turned to ash.

His breath shattered in his throat.

Her arms—gone. Torn from their sockets, flesh and bone ripped apart in jagged, brutal wounds. One of her legs—missing entirely, severed at the thigh. Her clothes were tattered, barely hanging onto what remained of her body.

And her skin—

Florian staggered.

Her skin.

It wasn’t just blood. There were cuts. Deep, deliberate, clean. Strips of flesh carved away in precise sections, like a hunter carving meat from a fresh kill.

’No. No, no, no, no, NO—’

His head was spinning. His stomach lurched, bile rising fast and violent. His knees buckled, and he barely caught himself against the wall, fingers curling against the wood like a drowning man grasping for shore.

He wanted to move. Wanted to run.

But the realization crashed over him, full force, merciless.

The chief’s words.

"We keep our food in the storage unit."

The villagers.

"It’s unique meat."

The feasts. The meals. How they had survived all this time—how they had never seemed worried about food despite their circumstances.

His pulse pounded against his skull, too fast, too erratic. His vision blurred at the edges, dark spots creeping in, his breath strangled and shallow.

And then—

Then Heinz’s voice, echoing back from earlier that night.

"That’s not dreadboar meat. Dreadboar meat is supposed to be spicy."

His entire body seized. His stomach collapsed in on itself.

The food they gave him. The meat he had eaten.

The meal that had sat so warm, so heavy in his stomach.

’No. No, NO—’ freёweɓnovel.com

The storage unit spun violently around him. The walls felt like they were closing in, pressing against his ribs, suffocating him under the weight of the horror, of the truth.

He had eaten.

He had eaten her.

Florian’s body revolted.

A dry, ragged gasp tore from his throat as he doubled over, his stomach wrenching. He gagged, heaved, but nothing came up—nothing except for pure, gut-wrenching nausea and a scream trapped somewhere in his chest. His entire body shook, his limbs trembling so violently that he could barely hold onto the torch.

’No. No, no, no, no—’

His breath came in short, broken gasps. His vision swam, tilting wildly, but he couldn’t close his eyes—because the moment he did, all he could see was Leila’s body.

Butchered. Carved.

Served.

Another heave wracked his frame. He felt sick, felt like his entire soul was rotting from the inside out. His hands clawed at his own skin, his arms, his chest, as if he could somehow undo it, as if he could rip it out of himself.

His own breath was strangling him, too fast, too sharp, panic clamping around his ribs like a vice.

’Wake up. Wake up. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.’

But it was.

The smell. The blood. The bones. The taste still lingering on his tongue, refusing to leave.

It was real.

A ragged, broken noise tore from his throat. Something close to a sob, something raw and desperate and wrong. He tried to move—tried to crawl, to escape, but his legs refused to work, his body locked in place by sheer, unbearable horror.

The torchlight flickered.

Shadows moved.

Something shifted.

Florian sucked in a shuddering breath, his pulse hammering so hard it felt like his heart might burst.

Florian’s chest heaved, every breath scraping against his throat as if the air itself was poisoned. His vision blurred, darkening at the edges, the torchlight flickering like it was fading out of existence.

’Can’t... breathe...’

The walls felt like they were closing in, pressing tighter, suffocating him with the stench of blood and decay. His stomach twisted violently again, his body trembling so badly that his knees threatened to buckle.

’Move. I have to move. I have to—’

His limbs felt like lead, sluggish and weak, but somewhere, buried beneath the crushing weight of terror, a single thought surfaced.

Heinz.

’Heinz... I have to... tell him.’

The realization was a lifeline—something, anything, to cling to in the storm raging inside him. His fingers curled weakly, his body screaming to shut down, but he forced himself to move.

’Get up. Get up. Move, damn it!’

His legs felt like they weren’t his own, barely responding as he stumbled backward, his steps unsteady, swaying dangerously. His head spun, vision swimming as black spots danced in his periphery. His breathing was ragged, shallow, his chest tightening with each passing second.

"H-Heinz..."

The name barely made it out, a whisper that barely broke the suffocating stillness. His throat was dry, raw, but he swallowed the bile rising in his throat and took another staggering step.

’Just a little more... I just have to get out...’

But the moment he turned—

CRACK.

A searing pain exploded across the back of his head.

The world tilted.

The torch slipped from his grasp, clattering to the ground with a dull thud, the flame sputtering as it rolled across the blood-soaked floor.

Florian’s vision blurred instantly, stars bursting behind his eyes as his legs gave out.

’W-What...?’

He collapsed, his body hitting the ground hard, sending a sharp jolt through his bones. His glasses flew off, skidding across the slick floor, landing somewhere in the darkness beyond his reach.

"Ahh—!" A strangled gasp escaped his lips, but it was barely more than a whisper. His head throbbed, the pain radiating through his skull in pulsing waves.

’W-What... who...?’

His thoughts were sluggish, swimming through a haze of pain and dizziness.

The world was spinning.

The blood. The bones. Leila.

Florian blinked, vision swimming as he tried—tried to focus. His body felt too heavy, too distant, as if he was sinking deeper into the cold, blood-soaked floor.

He blinked again.

A shadow.

Something—someone—was standing over him.

’Who...?’

His lips parted, but the words barely came.

"...H-Heinz...help..."

The name tumbled from his lips, barely a whisper, before the darkness swallowed him whole.

And then—

Everything went black.