At first, he thought it a nightmare. How could it not be?
The world around him looked torn from the pages of some forbidden tale—one he used to fear before sleep claimed him. The ground was slick with a breathing, black liquid, thick and viscous, slithering like a living thing. Buildings collapsed inward in solemn silence, and the sky above was no sky at all... but a vast, cracked eye, unblinking, watching him.
He was twelve. A boy once wrapped in silk, warmth, and laughter. Now stripped of all but fear.
He did not understand.
He called for his mother. For the maid. For anyone. But the only answer came from a wall that tore open like wet paper, birthing a shape that mimicked man—but was no man. Its face was butchered, mouth split to the ears, and its body twisted as if forgotten in hell for centuries.
The boy ran.
He stumbled, sobbed, crawled.
The creature followed.
It caught him. Smiled. Never spoke.
Then it began to cut.
Slowly.
Small fingers snapped. Nails torn free. Chest sliced open.
Until the child's body was split in two.
The pain...
It defied description. Enough to kill him a thousand times.
But he did not die.
He remained awake.
He felt everything.
He watched his insides.
Saw his heart stop.
Then beat again.
Watched his flesh re-form, painfully slow—each cell screaming.
He tried to scream with them. But his voice betrayed him.
Tried to die. But his body refused.
And then... he was whole again. No wounds. No scars.
But the mind?
The mind was not the same.
He whispered to himself:
"Am I alive? Why? Why didn't I die?"
The questions repeated. Twisted. Bled into each other.
He no longer understood place or time. Only this:
Death was impossible. Pain was eternal.
And in this world... there was no mercy.
The monsters were not the worst part.
The worst was the illusion—of escape, of safety, of pity.
He wept in silence.
No tears.
Just empty eyes. A ghost of himself.
Each time his body returned, he felt another piece of his soul crumble.
What would remain in the end?
A husk? A cage for endless agony?
The world around him whispered.
The walls chuckled.
The trees screamed his name.
And the boy... the boy began to believe—this place was his new "home."
A body that cannot die.
A mind that fractures.
And a heart, once soft, that forgets how to love...
only how to endure.
Day One
(Or so I think… I do not know if there was a day before it.)
I was sleeping in my bed.
The room was warm. The light was dim.
The servants' voices faded behind closed doors.
Everything felt... normal.
The last thing I remember was the hush of wind, the softness of silk sheets.
Then—
Everything vanished.
I awoke into a darkness that had no shape, no edge.
No ground beneath me.
No sky above.
Only a vast, consuming void.
I floated. Or fell.
I could not tell.
And there, within that black nothing, stood an old man.
No face. No features. His body was made of fog—
as if the air itself had decided to wear the form of a man.
He did not speak at first.
Only watched me.
Then, with a calm voice, he said:
"I have seen your heart, little one... it is full of fear. Of weakness.
From this moment on—
you shall not die."
Before I could ask, before I could even think,
he reached toward me.
And I felt it.
Something crawling into my flesh.
A cold unlike winter.
A cold that touched the soul.
Then—
he was gone.
And I fell.
i woke up again, but not in my room. i was in a strange place. the city around me was tilted, black, covered in thick fog that smelled of blood. the ground was coated in a slimy substance... breathing. the walls whispered. shadows moved on their own.
i screamed, ran, cried. but no one heard me. there was no one. no mother, no father, no servants—no one… only monsters.
then one of them appeared. a tall creature… a woman?? her body was broken, torn, and sharp like a shattered doll, and her eyes didn't shine with life, but with hatred. she turned to me and smiled. then she grabbed me… and started cutting me apart.
i felt everything. every second. every moment. the pain was beyond what i could bear. i begged for death… pleaded for it. but death didn't come.
my body returned, recreated. but my heart? i don't know. i'm still here, and this hell is still swallowing me piece by piece.
the old man said he helped me… but he lied. or maybe he thought he was doing good. but now i'm trapped. i can't die, and i can't survive.
i'm a child. i was a child.
and now? i don't know what i've become.
day five
i woke up to the smell of rot and death. i don't know how long it's been since that one-eyed giant tore my body apart. maybe hours… or days. i've lost all sense of time. this forest doesn't know light. it doesn't believe in morning.
its trees are twisted, like they're in pain, their branches tangled above my head like iron cages. the trunks bleed black fluids, and in the air there's a muffled wailing sound. the rain was light… but sticky, like it dripped from the wounds of the sky.
i kept walking, though i was trembling. every step i sank into the mud, something whispered. i tried not to look at the hanging corpses, dangling from the branches like rotten fruit. some of them were still moving.
then i heard it…
a deep breath. sharp. a hungry beast approaching. i hid behind a tree, not daring to breathe. suddenly, it emerged from the mist.
a creature my young mind could not comprehend.
its body resembled a human's, but its legs were like a dog's, and its arms were long, dragging on the ground. its skin was cracked, pale gray, like its soul had bled through it. its hair was wet, hanging over its face… or what was left of it. its mouth was always open, lipless, as if its face had been torn off. its teeth were long, twisted, hanging outside its skull, and its tongue drooped all the way down to its chest.
it moved terrifyingly fast despite its broken form.
then it turned toward me. it had no eyes—but it saw me. i felt it. my stomach turned. my body froze.
it screamed.
a scream not of this world. it pierced my chest, and i nearly vomited blood. i ran, with everything i had. i fell, got up, cried, called for my mother—but nothing stopped. not the monster… not the night.
then it caught me.
it drove its claws into my belly, lifted me into the air, and began to chew me like a piece of meat. i saw my arm fall, my ribs crack, heard my own voice screaming, screaming, screaming…
but i didn't die.
i came back, sitting in the same forest. no blood. no wounds… just unending pain. and merciless fear.
i want my mom. i want my room. i want death.
but this world gives nothing… except terror.
day seven
days passed like hours, or maybe minutes—but he could no longer tell the difference. hunger became his master. the cold was growing worse, and the city was turning into an iron grip around his heart. all he could feel was emptiness. emptiness in his stomach, in his mind, in his soul.
he wandered through the ruined streets, among the wreckage of homes and the corpses that had piled up over time. but this time, the corpses weren't just remnants of an old life. they were people like him. they had been here before him. all crushed under the weight of this terrifying city.
he stood before the body of an old man, whose face was still twisted in pain even after death. his eyes were open, as if still searching for something—or someone. the boy whispered to himself as he stepped closer:
"did you do the same thing? was this how you ended?"
but the answer was absent, just like everything else here.
then, with a faint tremor in the ground, he felt something strange. hunger was devouring him. he knew the human body couldn't survive much longer in this hell without food. but he had no choice. it was life or death—and death here meant returning to the same hell he had endured these past days.
death here was worse than death. it meant dying again. and it meant he wouldn't escape.
he took a sharp piece of stone and lunged at the corpse. something inside him corroded as he tore through the flesh—something vile, like he was tearing through himself. but he kept going, only because his mind was in denial. he couldn't believe he had become like them. he had become an animal feeding on the dead.
as he ate, he felt something else. a sound was coming from afar. something was approaching. there was no time to think. suddenly, he felt intense pain through his body. his legs trembled under new weight. his eyes went black—and he fell into darkness.
but in a moment of awareness, he felt his body return to life again. it was the second time… or maybe the third. he couldn't tell anymore. every death was different. he suffered—but he didn't truly die. he kept repeating the same battle, in the same place, with the same relentless monsters.
and when he rose, he saw it.
something massive was crawling through the city. a colossal creature, driven by dark instincts. it wasn't a normal monster. it was something else. a being that embodied a shape of hell itself.
the boy ran, but his legs couldn't carry him anymore. he fell again, rolling through the abandoned streets. hunger was weighing down his heart, but something still kept him from giving up. he knew this torment, this hell he was living, didn't mean the end. maybe death wasn't the end here. maybe it was just another stage in a never-ending cycle.
and yet, he couldn't stop. the days kept coming in this place—and with each one, the cruelty grew worse. but deep inside him, something still pulsed with life. something he couldn't explain… but that refused to be defeated.
Day Twelve – The First Hunt
The boy no longer cried — not at night, not even when vomiting from hunger. His tears had dried up days ago, and now it was his stomach that cried in his place. His body was still small, his bones visible, his skin cracked and filthy — but his mind… was awakening.
At first, he thought the corpses he found were people from Earth, from his time. The hope was a lie: that someone else had arrived like him, that he wouldn't be alone. But the more he looked, the more strange things he noticed.
The dead wore unfamiliar clothing — long cloaks, old leather jackets, pants tied with rope, coarse boots made of rawhide. No synthetic fabric. No brand names. No plastic buttons. Some even wore what looked like light armor made of rusted iron.
"These people were never from 2025..."
His heart raced when he understood. No one was coming. No rescue. No humans like him. This world wasn't just a hell outside of Earth — it was from somewhere entirely different.
The city he lived in had become a vast field of death, but now he realized: he couldn't rely on human corpses. They were decomposing. Drying out. Rotting to the point where not even dogs would eat them.
And so, for the first time, a new thought entered his mind:
"What if... I ate a monster?"
He shut the thought down instantly. It shocked him. Made him nauseous. But his mind didn't go quiet.
"They're alive, they move, their bodies don't rot as fast… and meat is meat, in the end."
But he knew. It wasn't logical. There wasn't a single monster here that could be easily hunted. None of them were "prey." None looked like rabbits or even wolves. Each one, in one way or another, was a nightmare that should not exist. Massive creatures, multiple limbs, eyes on the backs of their heads — some with skin that pulsed as if a heart was crawling underneath.
He remembered the monster he saw yesterday — the one whose mouth split open with four massive arms, who screamed so loud skulls cracked, who could not hear but could see, and chased anything that moved.
"If it caught me... nothing would be left of me."
But the idea of hunting remained. It stuck in his head like a needle. He knew it was a path to madness… but maybe it was the only path.
So he chose to begin observing. Not attacking — learning. He sat for hours behind crumbling walls, watching. He noticed that some monsters only came out at night. Some moved only when they heard a sound. Others, the opposite — they only moved when everything was completely silent.
He noticed a monster, relatively small, moving in circles as if patrolling its territory. It crawled on all fours, its head split in the middle, and a huge eye blinked open and shut in its center, with no pattern. It seemed slower than the others.
"Should I start with it? Should I try?"
His hands shook. All he had was a rusty iron pipe he'd found in the ruins of a hospital. But something inside him pushed him forward — instinct? Hunger? Despair? He didn't know.
But he knew one thing:
"If I don't become a hunter... I'll die like them. Just slower."
Day Thirteen – The Smart Failure
The sky was gray, thick with shameful fog. The boy sat behind a slanted wall, watching. The small monster from yesterday had returned. Nothing had changed — same path, same slow crawl on all fours, same central eye blinking in its split head.
This was his chance.
He took the iron pipe, wrapped cloth around his hand so it wouldn't make noise, and crept forward, step by step. His heartbeat roared in his ears, the air so heavy it felt like he was swimming in it.
He got closer.
Two meters.
But then—
He slipped on a broken stone.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was enough. The massive eye shot open, locked on him. The monster let out a strange, inverted meow — and lunged.
The boy struck with all his strength. One hit. But it wasn't enough. The monster climbed onto his body and shredded his face with black claws. All the boy saw was pain and blood—
And he died.
Again.
He woke up in the same dark corner he now thought of as his "starting point." His body was still small, but his memory burned brighter than ever. He sat in silence. Didn't scream. Didn't punch the wall. Didn't collapse.
He thought.
"I can't beat them… not alone."
"But they… aren't on the same side."
He remembered the scream of the large monster — the one with four mouth-arms. Its scream attacked everything that heard it. Everything it saw moving. He had once seen it scream at another creature… and that creature's head exploded in an instant, just like the man hiding behind the glass window on Day Six.
"It can't hear… but it can see. And the others can hear."
"If I make one run near it… it'll scream."
"And if it screams… the other monster dies."
And so, a new plan was born in his mind.
He was learning more about the land. About the monsters. Their nature. What had once been a hungry, terrified child was now an observer. A planner. A hunter of a different kind.
He wouldn't hunt with his own hands.
He would make the monsters hunt each other
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