My adrenaline gave me the jolt that I needed to get past the immediate dry heaving the moment I first touched maybe a stomach of one of the bodies and my fist SANK through the baggy skin and plunged into a soup of innards.
But Vulture works in mysterious ways.
My closed fist didn't only invade a mound of guts. Instead, Lady Luck seemed to kiss each one of my fingers as it sloshed through the wet meat, because at the bottom of those guts, my knuckles hit something sharp, and hard. As I felt around in the gelatinous pile, I wrapped my fingers around something and pulled it out immediately.
And in my fist, was a set of keys.
The keys were on a ring. And also, on that same ring, was a small black keychain-flashlight. The same kind of keychain flashlight that everyone makes fun of for being such a useless piece of shit accessory. I wish every one of those bastards that verbally attacked the tiny flashlight were all in here with me. Bad stomach or not, I would eat them all.
I wiped the flashlight off on my pants, freeing it from its mucussy cocoon.
I turned the little head of the flashlight to the left, and I swore I heard the sounds of a thousand angels belting out the most beautiful song I have ever heard as its electrons sparked up the bulb.
I know I didn't ask for light.
But I can handle it in a small, direct dosage.
And I can USE it.


…

I searched and I searched, but I came up empty. I exhaustingly spelunked around the piles of bodies with my new glowing friend, digging through layers of flesh and soiled clothing, forcing myself to breathe in as many of the horrible smells through my nose for 2 reasons. 1. To numb myself to them. It's weird how your body can do that. Smell shit for 30 seconds and it no longer smells like shit. And 2. To remind myself that I am, indeed, still alive. Any one of those smells would be enough to wake a dreaming giant.
I wasn't dreaming.
Still, I came up empty.
But I had an idea. The absurdity and the immorality of the idea took a back seat to the logic and the passion for the idea. My arm, my hand, and probably the part of my face that I can't feel have all transformed. So why not my soul? Why not let myself become a monster? It may be the only way I can get out of here without completely succumbing to every force in here that is begging me to die.

I used a small strike of determination to open my right claw, and with one quick snip at the top of a thigh, I cut an entire leg free from its torso.
…
I'm sorry.

The light made it easy to continue. As I held the flashlight in my mouth and pointed the beam at my new leg, I was able to remove the femur bone and scrape it clear of any meat, muscle and skin.
I then sat for what felt like hours, and probably WAS, and I scraped the femur against the concrete ground feverishly, making sure to scrape all sides of one end evenly. I would stop briefly every few minutes, but when I would stop, I felt like passing out, so I continued scraping, until one end of the femur was forged into an impressive stalactite shape.
I had my weapon. It was sharper, pointier and harder than anything I could have asked for from an old blacksmith.
I am holding in my hand a possible way OUT…