The forest was quiet.
Tall trees stood close together, their branches weaving a canopy that dimmed the afternoon light. The air was cool and still. No birds called. No wind passed through.
Everything watched.
Curling around the twisted roots and rotting undergrowth. Black vines snaked between the trees, pulsing faintly—as if feeding on something unseen beneath the soil.
In a small clearing, the earth gave way.
And in the middle of that forest...
A pit sat there—deep, round, and half-swallowed by roots and overgrowth. It looked old, like no one had touched it in years.
It was filled with bodies.
Not soldiers. Not beasts. Just… people.
Dozens of them. Old and young. Men and women. Twisted in impossible ways, their limbs curled like roots, their faces frozen in silent screams or hollow stares. Some were missing eyes. Others had too many. Skin warped, limbs stretched or sunken, as if whatever had thrown them into this place had broken them in both body and soul.
And then—
A hand moved.
Pale. Weak. Trembling.
It pushed up through the pile of corpses, clutching at the air like it had never touched light before. Slowly, a thin figure rose from the center—covered in blood, dirt, and silence.
A boy.
He dragged himself free from the bodies, each movement sluggish, his breath shallow. The corpses shifted beneath him, cracking and sighing like they, too, were trying to escape.
He didn't stand.
He simply sat—on the nearest twisted form—eyes low, hands limp at his sides.
His skin was ghost-pale, like it had never known sunlight. His hair was gray and matted, sticking to his face and neck. He was thin, almost starved, and his clothes—what little remained—were torn to shreds. Slashed and ruined, as though he had been scraped across the world's edge.
He looked around.
The forest was still. The pit said nothing. Only the slow, wet sound of something sinking deeper below disturbed the silence.
He blinked once.
"How did I get here"
He sat in the pit, surrounded by stillness and ruined bodies, the forest stretching quiet and endless above him.
His head ached.
How did I get here?
The question echoed in his mind, but no answer came. Just silence. Thick and cold.
He tried to remember.
Faces. Voices. A street. A room. Something.
Faint images flickered—blurred like half-remembered dreams. He thought maybe… maybe he had been on his way to apply for a job. Some office. A company. He remembered the feel of concrete under his shoes, the weight of nervousness in his chest.
But then it slipped away.
'What was the job?''Where was it?'
And suddenly, more painfully:
'What was my name?'
He searched his mind for something solid—anything.
Nothing came.
No name. No family. No familiar voice.Not even the echo of one.
Did I even have a family?
The thought sat with him like a second shadow. He didn't know if the emptiness in his chest was grief… or if it had always been there.
But for some reason, he didn't panic.
No screaming. No tears. No wild rush of fear.
Just quiet.
He sat still, staring at his hands—white, soft, and a little too clean beneath the drying blood and dirt.
They didn't feel like hands that had ever done real work. No calluses. No scars. No strength in the fingers.
'Did they always looked like this?'
He turned them slowly in the low light, studying the shape of his palms, the lines in his skin. They felt distant, like they belonged to someone else.
'I don't even know what kind of person I was…'
He stopped.
There, on his right arm—just beneath the torn sleeve of his ruined shirt—was a bracelet.
Gray. Simple. Almost dull in color. It looked like metal, but felt smooth as stone. No markings. No glow. Just a plain, solid band resting snugly against his skin.
He stared at it, puzzled.
Just as he turned his hands once more, lost in thought, a sharp pulse ran through his skull.
He flinched.
Then it hit him—Then a flood.
Flashes of memory, or something close to it, flooded his mind like a broken dam. They didn't feel real—not quite—but they stirred something deep in his chest. A flicker of emotion. A sense of familiarity.
They came in fragments.
Children running through stone streets.A gentle voice reading stories beside a fireplace.Rain against an old window.
They weren't his.But somehow, they were.
But the faces… were blurred. Names? Gone.
Everything hovered just beneath the surface, impossible to hold.
And yet, they kept coming.
Warriors in strange armor that breathed smoke.Men with blades of bone.A towering beast splitting open under a silver blade.
'What is this?'
'This… isn't my world.'
He cutched his head as the flood became too much. His head throbbed as if something were being carved into his very soul.
His hands trembled as he dug his fingers into the dirt.
Sweat clung to his skin. His breath came shallow and fast. The flood slowed, then faded—leaving only silence in its place.
His breath slowed.
The memories faded like smoke in wind, and for a moment, all that remained was the pounding in his skull.
Then—he looked around.
Really looked.
Bodies.
Dozens of them. Twisted. Wrong.
Some were missing limbs. Others had faces half-melted or stretched like wax. Eyes in the wrong places. Bones pushing through skin. Mouths frozen mid-scream.
He hadn't noticed before.
Or maybe he couldn't.
The sight hit him all at once—raw and violent.
He fell forward, landing on his hands and knees atop cold flesh. His stomach twisted. He slapped a hand over his mouth, ready to vomit.
Nothing came out.
Dry.
Empty.
He stayed there, shaking, for a few long breaths. Then, something strange happened.
He calmed.
Too quickly.
The panic drained out of him like it had never been there to begin with.
'Why...?'
He blinked. His hands were still trembling, but the fear was already fading. It was… unnatural. Like something inside him had simply switched off the reaction.
It bothered him.
But not enough.
Not right now.
He grabbed a root jutting from the side of the pit and pulled himself up. His limbs ached, his body screamed, but he kept climbing—over broken forms, through tangled black vines, up into the muted green of the forest above.
When he reached the top, he didn't look back.
Mybe... He just couldn't look.
'I have to get away from here'
The trees around him swayed in silence.
He clenched his wrist once more, the bracelet cold against his skin, and turned his eyes to the forest around him.
'I need to see where I am.'
He scanned the trees for something—anything—tall enough to give him a view. One caught his eye: a thick, old tree with rough bark and wide, sturdy branches.
Climbable.
Probably.
He approached it and stared up, sighed, then began climbing. His limbs ached, his grip was weak, and twice he nearly slipped—but after a few grueling minutes, he pulled himself onto the highest branch he could safely reach.
He sat, chest heaving, clinging to the trunk as the wind tugged at his torn clothes.
'I really need to do somthing about this pathetic body', he thought, wiping sweat from his forehead.
From here, the forest stretched out in all directions—a sea of green, broken only by twisting paths of roots and jagged stones.
No roads. No buildings. Just endless trees.
He was about to climb down, disappointment gnawing at him—when he saw it.
A thin trail of smoke, rising in the distance.
Just past a hill. Faint, but unmistakable.
His heart jumped.
It wasn't much—but it was something. A sign of life.
No second thoughts.
He didn't care if it was a town, a camp, or just someone cooking a squirrel over a fire. It was the only sign of civilization for miles.
And with this body—thin, weak, barely stitched together—there was no way he'd survive the forest alone.
Without hesitation, he began his climb back down.
And with one last glance at the pit behind him, he disappeared into the trees.