The Coin of Flesh

The grinding grate beneath them screamed, a thousand teeth chewing at the dark. Aki yanked Power back from the sloped floor, his boots skidding on the rust-slicked metal. Denji remained pinned near the center, one hand clutching Aki's severed hand, the other slick with his own blood. The vending machine's voice echoed from the walls, hollow and metallic: *"One coin remains. Spend it wisely."* Power laughed, a brittle sound. "Fools! I already have the coin!" She held up a molar, still wet. "I pulled it from the grinning face that swallowed Denji!" The tooth throbbed in her palm, pulsing with a faint red light. "That's not how currency works," Aki said, his voice tight. He looked at Denji. "Denji. What did it take from you?" Denji's eyes were glassy. "It took... a dream. The one where I eat a sandwich that doesn't end." He laughed, hollow. "Guess I was full anyway." The grate slowed. From the darkness below, a pale hand rose, then another, then a dozen. They were the hands of past victims, each with a single hole drilled through the palm. They crawled up the walls, reaching for Power's molar. "Give it here," Aki ordered. "No! It's mine!" Power shoved the tooth into her mouth, swallowing. The hands stopped. The machine groaned. Then the floor gave way entirely, dropping them into a chamber filled with vending machines, each showing a different body part behind its glass: eyes in cans, fingers in bags, lungs in boxes. At the center stood a woman made of coins, her face a slot machine that spun without stopping. *"You have inserted a dream and a tooth,"* the coin-woman chimed. *"One coin remains. But the currency is not yours to choose."* She pointed at Aki. *"He must give what he values most."* Aki looked at Denji, at Power, at the severed hand Denji still held. "I value... my contract with the Curse Devil. The one I made to kill the Gun Devil." He unsheathed his katana. "Take it." The coin-woman's slot machine face stopped on a picture of a hand pulling a cord. *"Accepted."* The katana shattered. Aki screamed, clutching his sword arm as it withered, the curse sealing itself inside his bones. The machines behind them blinked green, and a hatch opened, revealing a stairway up into the night air. Power grabbed Denji. "I did that! I saved us!" Denji dropped Aki's hand. It crumbled to dust. "Thanks, Power," he whispered. "But I still want that sandwich." They climbed out into the cold dawn. Behind them, the vending machine stood silent, its glass empty, its lights dead. Aki cradled his arm, saying nothing. And somewhere in the dark, a slot machine spun again.