The red light pierced my eyes like a knife.
The ground beneath my feet was sticky—as if bleeding.
The air was heavy… saturated with the scent of ash and invisible vapor, as though I were breathing the dying breath of some massive creature.
I stood there…
Not knowing where I was.
All I knew was that I was no longer in our world.
I looked around.
There was no sky—only a cracked black dome, from which threads of glowing fire slithered like serpents.
The trees were dead, black, their twisted branches like severed fingers.
And the ground… was not ground.
It was thick, living flesh—pulsing beneath my feet every few seconds, as if I were standing on the body of a sleeping giant.
I didn't know how to move.
My body trembled.
I hadn't stopped breathing heavily since entering this place.
My clothes clung to me, drenched in suffocating moisture.
My knees buckled with every step.
I am no hero.
I'm not even brave.
I am Adam.
A man in his late twenties. Faded.
Living a life with no clear meaning, passing each day as if waiting silently for it to end.
My body is thin. My shoulder bones stick out.
My glasses are always slipping down my nose.
I've failed in my relationships, in my studies, even in understanding myself.
And now… here I am.
In a world that isn't mine, searching for a grandmother who's already dead—facing… what?
Mythical beasts that fuel storms in our world?
What the hell am I even doing here?
I screamed.
But the sound echoed back distorted.
Even the echo here was twisted, unfamiliar—like the world itself didn't know how to return a human voice.
I walked—hesitant steps.
I passed by a massive corpse.
A creature with no clear features.
Its skin was cracked, and a third eye gaped open on its chest—still staring into the void even after death.
Was this one of the "monsters" my grandmother had fought?
A chill ran down my spine.
Then… I heard it.
A growl.
Like an animal devouring something alive.
I ducked behind a large black rock and peeked over it slowly.
What I saw made me shake like a child who had lost his mother.
A colossal creature.
Six legs. Torn wings.
It was tearing apart something vaguely human.
Its body was covered in wounds, from which smoke hissed out.
Every movement sent tremors through the earth.
It was… ravenous.
Savage.
And it had smelled me.
It turned its head—no eyes.
Just a black cavity that breathed and released a screeching, agonizing hiss.
It crawled toward me.
One step… then another…
I stood frozen.
My knees wouldn't hold me.
My hands trembled.
I had no weapon.
I couldn't even run!
I wished to wake up.
For this to be a dream.
To be back in my room.
Back in the familiar emptiness.
But this world offers no escape.
In that moment of despair, I felt something strange in my pocket.
I pulled out the notebook… my grandmother's notebook.
It opened on its own.
A page flipped by a wind I couldn't feel.
And a sentence appeared—written in red:
> "Speak the beast's name… and you will see it as I did."
Beneath the sentence, a strange word:
"Zar-Nim"
Without thinking, I whispered it, voice shaking:
— "Zar… Nim."
The world froze.
Then—light exploded.
The creature screamed.
Not in rage… but in fear.
As if the word had shattered something inside it—unlocked some ancient memory.
Then… it vanished.
Not dead.
But dissolved—like it had never existed at all.
I collapsed to the ground.
I gasped.
And then—I cried.
For the first time since my grandmother's death… I cried.
---
This world…
It's not just strange.
It's a prison. A battlefield.
A realm designed to measure your weakness—and consume you from within.
And now… I am inside it.
And there's no way out…
Unless I understand why my grandmother chose me—of all people.
---