Aarav plunged into the pit. The air ripped from his lungs as faceless bodies clawed at him, their fingers cold and slick, like worms burrowing into flesh. Their silent mouths pressed against his skin, trying to eat without teeth.
He kicked, thrashed, but every movement pulled him deeper. The green light above dimmed, the wall of faces receding until all that remained was endless blackness.
Then—something spoke.
Not in whispers, not in fragments, but in a voice that filled every nerve in his body. A voice that seemed to crawl directly inside his skull.
> "Do you know what lies beneath your skin, Aarav?"
He froze. The faceless bodies stilled, as if waiting for his answer. His heart slammed against his ribs.
"I—I don't know," he stammered.
The voice laughed. Not a sound, but a vibration that made his teeth ache.
> "Fear lies there. Weakness. And I will peel you until nothing remains."
The bodies released him. He fell hard onto something solid. His palms scraped against it—and when he looked down, his stomach lurched.
It was not stone. It was skin.
An endless plain of stretched flesh, pulsating, veins twitching beneath its surface. Each heartbeat throbbed beneath his hands, alive.
A seam opened in the ground. Slowly, carefully, as though a wound was being cut. From within, something clawed its way out—a figure covered in strips of torn skin, stitched crudely across its body. Its face was a grotesque patchwork: half of a stranger, half of Aarav himself.
He stumbled back, bile rising in his throat.
"W-what are you?"
The creature tilted its head, skin stretching audibly, and grinned with his own mouth.
> "I am what you leave behind. I am the mask the abyss will wear when you are gone."
Before Aarav could react, the stitched figure lunged. Its fingers dug into his arm, nails slicing deep. But instead of blood, ink poured out—thick, black, and alive. The same ink that stained the diary.
It slithered down his arm, wrapping around his veins, pulsing, burning. Aarav screamed, trying to tear it away, but the ink sank into his skin, crawling upward toward his heart.
The creature leaned close, whispering through his own lips:
> "The diary is not a book. It is your skin, torn and bound. Every page you open, you carve yourself thinner."
Aarav's vision blurred. The cavern shook. The wall of faces above began to peel, their flesh unraveling like paper, fluttering down around him. Each strip dissolved into ink before hitting the ground, seeping into the fleshy floor.
He collapsed to his knees, the ink burning through him, choking his breath. His hands clawed at his chest as if he could rip it out.
But then—silence.
The stitched figure was gone. The faceless bodies had vanished.
Aarav was alone, kneeling on the endless plain of flesh.
And in his hands, without realizing, he held the diary. Its cover was warm, pulsing like a heartbeat. The ink-stained pages whispered softly.
When he looked down at the first page, he didn't see words. He saw his reflection—his own face, hollowed, eyeless, skin stretched thin like parchment.
The diary whispered one final line before the green glow went out completely:
> "To write is to bleed. And you have only begun."