"What?!" Leon's voice was so sharp it made the shattered posters move without even touching them.
"Is that a human hand?" His eyes widened just as he saw a rotten arm peek out—hanging in an impossible way.
Leon almost fainted, as he realized he hadn't hidden himself in an ordinary trash bin—but one meant for unclaimed dead people, those without families to give them a proper burial.
As he stood, his face twisted in regret. Then, he felt something in his mouth.
In that instant, Leon remembered something falling on him just as he entered. His body shook as he prayed it wasn't what his mind played.
Slowly, he spit it out. But as soon as it landed in his palm, Leon vomited. "Human tongue?!"
It was as if his entire lungs, liver, and intestines had revolted. Blood, water, and half-digested food burst out of him like a waterfall.
After a while, his body trembled, bones aching as he retched uncontrollably, unable to stop the flow.
As soon as the vomiting subsided, he staggered towards home. With every building he passed, he spat on the ground, convinced remnants of the tongue still lingered in his mouth.
When he reached his house, the dogs that had been lounging outside barked twice before sprinting away. Even after reaching the door, the stench clung to his nose and mouth—worse than the carcass of a rotting rat.
Slowly, Leon opened the door, carefully not to disturb anyone inside. But the moment he stepped in, something fell, filling the room with a deafening crash.
At that moment, he knew he'd have to rush to the shower before anyone got close. If he couldn't stand his own stench, he wasn't ready to assault another person's nose.
The moment the water hit his body, sharp pain lanced through his skin—as if the droplets were tiny blades. The agony was so unbearable that he had to step out of the shower every two minutes.
Once finished, Leon stood in front of the polygonal mirror and rubbed his forehead where the pain was most intense.
In the reflection, he spotted a scar right in the middle of his temple. At first, he thought it was a crack in the mirror playing tricks on him, but when he touched the raised skin, his eyes widened.
He traced the scar, following its path as it disappeared beneath his hair.
As his finger moved, a burning sensation pulsed beneath the scar—painful, but it wasn't something that could be easily removed in an instant.
"Is that a Y scar?!" Leon froze. If he could tear the skin off and remove it, he would have done that. Knowing very well most people who tend to have scars on their temple are those who end up begging the elite for jobs. Since it was some kind of a curse, Leon wasn't ready to accept it.
But right after peeling a portion of the scar, he went rigid – a faint golden light pulsed in the wound he had created.
"What light is that? Where did that light come from? I thought I almost died right after my skin got peeled by light at first. So, whose skin am I wearing?"
Lost in thought, Leon nearly missed his bedroom door and opened Lily's instead. Just as he realized it wasn't his own, he slowly closed it—making sure she didn't wake.
The moment his body touched his bed, he collapsed into sleep as if his days on earth had ended.
His room hummed with ragged breaths, as his mouth kept twitching—opening and closing. As his snores quieted, a light began spiraling above the Y scar.
With every circular turn the thin light went, the scar glowed, and his arms twitched in sync.
Leon tossed and turned sideways, sharp pain racking his body like molten gold searing his veins. No matter how hard he tried, his eyes remained still—not opening.
The light grew so intense the entire building shimmered with the golden hue, but since his mum and Lily were deep in sleep, no one was awakened by the light. But even in their sleep, they stirred at the unnatural heat.
Then, the vision began:
He stood on green water—no tree, no animal, no land, only thick greeny water—almost like a vast ocean, yet he wasn't drowning. It felt so real that every movement affected his physical body.
"Wow, this place is so beautiful." Leon had heard of people experiencing visions like this, but no matter how hard he tried, he never had one. Even after going through intense teaching under his father's guidance, he still couldn't.
Now, here he was—standing on a vast greeny ocean.
Upon every movement he made, trees began forming. When he paused, everything would pause as well—but immediately he moved, it would continue forming—almost as if he was crafting a world of his own.
But right as he paused for the third time, the sea parted—separating itself. It gave birth to a hard, solid ground filled with more vegetation than the world he was actually in. But the height and length of the trees made them too ancient for him.
"I am not stepping on it. Wait, doesn't that look like the perfect spot for traps in the movies?" Leon opted not to move onto it since it looked too distinct for him. But he began drowning mid-sentence.
Since there was no option left, he swam straight to the shore. But he wasn't the only one standing when he got up—others stood in the far distance, pointing hands at him.
They looked alien but weren't the same as the one he had fought—they were gray and had void-like eyes.
Leon froze just as his eyes fell on them, but since there was no way of escaping, he opted to move towards their direction, since it was the only path he could take.
But while he moved towards their direction, he kept praying in his mind to wake up from this dreadful dream.
As he got a bit closer, someone among the alien-looking people shouted, causing the rest to rush towards Leon at a vast speed.
Leon's face shifted to fear the very instant he saw their jagged smiles, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth.