The world around Ren blurred as the sword pierced him. It tore through his ribs and drove straight into his heart, the impact buckling his body as rusted metal lodged deep within him. He couldn't breathe—no matter how hard he tried. Blood spilled from his mouth, staining his lower lip before it dripped to the stone below.
But the corpse wasn't finished.
It twisted the broken blade inside him. Metal scraped against bone and flesh with a sickening grind. Ren tried to scream, but his throat locked tight, choked both by the blood and shock.
Then the corpse wrenched the sword free.
Ren jerked as the blade left his chest, blood following out in thick streams.
Before his mind could even register the relief, the rusted steel plunged into him again—this time through the stomach.
Again and again, until Ren could no longer count the wounds.
His body collapsed, twitching as he drowned in a spreading pool of his own warm blood.
'How much longer?' Ren thought, staring up at the corpse with bloodshot eyes. 'Haven't I had enough?
The corpse didn't answer.
'That's right…You're gone aren't you? You...you can't hear me. Even if you could…would you even listen to my plead?'
Over and over, the blade struck down.
Ren's body became something unrecognizable—meat and bone reduced to ruin.
'I hate it…I hate this body. This useless, pathetic body. It's mine—but it never listens. I tell it to run, it collapses. I tell it to fight, it trembles. I tell it to endure, it breaks. And when I want to die—it won't let me.'
Then, a familiar softness reached him.
'Poor little soul...' The motherly voice returned, settling into his mind like a soothing lullaby.
'I hate myself. Waking up. Breathing. Just to endure another cycle of torture…I always fail. Every single time…'
'You've tried so hard…for so long. You've been carrying all this pain alone…All by yourself. Such a cruel fate to behold."
'What's the point?' Ren wondered. 'Why keep going?'
'There is no point,' The voice answered. 'You're right, little soul…There is no reason to continue when it only leads to more of the same.'
'I don't want to wake up anymore…I don't want to feel this. It never stops, and I can't take it—'
'You don't have to...You can rest...You can let go...'
'I don't care anymore,' He pleaded to the voice. 'Please…'
'It will end. I will make it end, little soul. All you have to do is give in…Let the darkness take you, and everything will finally be quiet.'
Ren's eyes grew weak. This was what he had wanted his whole life—to escape pain, to stop suffering, to finally rest. He could almost feel it: the release, the silence, the darkness closing in around him. Then, the pain vanished.
'It stopped? The voice…the darkness…it really will save me.'
But the relief didn't last. Agony returned—but in a different manner this time.
Not the pain of being stabbed.
The pain of healing.
His body, shanked beyond recognition, began to knit itself back together.
A pain he came to know all too well.
Ren gasped and jolted awake, forcing himself upright with trembling hands.
The corpse stood before him. The same one that had just butchered him over and over again. But something was different. Hollow eyes—once empty and unfeeling—now seemed…uncertain. Regret flickered there. Sadness…It no longer looked like a threat. It looked lost...
Before Ren could make sense of it, the voice returned.
'Don't worry, little soul...Rest...Sleep...Break free from the torment.'
The corpse's hand shook, and the broken sword slipped from its grasp, clattering to the floor.
His breath hitched when he realized just how close he was to breaking the promise he had made to himself moments before.
"I-I promised myself I wouldn't give in. But I still almost did. How? How am I so gullible? Thinking I'd find peace in such empty words…"
'You don't need to think anymore...Let me—'
"No…"
'You don't have to fight..' The voice coaxed. 'The pain will end...The loneliness will end...Let me take it…Let me carry it for you...'
Ren stepped back, his shadow stretching long across the stone.
"You're the reason?!" It came to him. "These things...You've made them like this?!"
Images burned through his mind—
Corpses hanging from blackened trees. Lifeless bodies swaying forever. The silent screams for help. The suffering.
"You creep into their minds, and eat at them...Just what the hell are you?"
'I am the one who takes pain in return for peace...'
Ren looked over to the corpse, unmoving from where it dropped its sword.
"You hear it too, don't you? This voice made you do it..."
Ren could no fully forgive the corpse, not after what it had done. But there was empathy for it.
He understood that the emotions he feels right now.
Sadness. Anger. Disgust. Should be directed to the voice and the voice alone.
"That voice..." Ren's breathing quickened. "It controls everything here..."
It got hard to breathe, so Ren sprinted out, trying to leave what happened here behind.
Outside, the crimson night was eerie, perfectly quiet.
There were no painful screeches audible here.
Not too far, Ren came across a shallow cave cut into the cliffside.
It could act as shelter, and that was enough.
He stepped inside, letting his eyes adjust to the cold darkness.
For the first time since it all began—since the wolves, the corpse, the blade, the voice—Ren was not moving. The silence crushed him. He stared at his hands, grime and blood hiding the lines of his palms. He turned them over, searching for something human.
There was nothing. No answers, nor comfort.
"What am I even doing here?"
The question lingered, unanswered. Memories pressed in—too many, too fast. Moments he'd never had time to feel. Because this world hadn't allowed it. But now that it has slowed down, so did he. Ren's shoulders shook as the first sob escaped him—quiet and startled. He tried to stop it, but the dam had already broken. And he wept. The sound tore itself from his chest, raw and unrestrained. Tears streamed down his face, dripping through his fingers as he buried himself in his hands.
He cried from the pain, from the confusion.
But most of all, he cried because he no longer knew what it meant to live.
Because living in this world hurts more than dying ever could..
Alone in the cave, he whispered:
"I don't know how much longer I can do this." His voice cracked, breaking into fresh sobs. "I…want it to stop. I want everything to stop."
But deep down inside himself, he knew it wouldn't.
The voice would return to haunt him, and the pain would follow.