"Please forgive me... me, agh! agh! Please... forgive me. I promise, agh! I will never look up at you again..."
Saying these words, Ruhan collapsed to the ground. His forehead bloody. His whole body bloody, washing away in an unpleasant rain.
His life's lamp is flickering faintly. His body had endured so much torture that he had stopped feeling pain. Blood seeped from his lungs with every breath. This was surely the end...
He lay prostrate, looking at a man. It was terribly dark all around. The wind whispered. A storm had begun. Lightning flashed wildly across the clouds. In its bright light, the man's face was partially visible.
He had long hair. Ruhan's eyes, their sensitive parts damaged, couldn't discern the color of the man's hair. But intense rage was easily visible on his face. A twisted smile on his lips, as if he was greatly enjoying Ruhan's writhing.
Ruhan's eyes were swollen with blood. The red veins were clearly visible. His vision had turned blood red. His eyelids could no longer stay open.
"Do you know what your fault was? Huh?? Do you know?"
Ruhan had no strength left to speak. His eyes were closing. He had lost a lot of blood. His left wrist was visible in the man's hand in the distance. Fresh blood was still dripping from it!
"Why don't you say? What happened? Do you want more affection, perhaps? Oh, my dear baby boy! Come, come, come to me!!"
He spoke these words in a mocking, playful tone. But suddenly, his blood boiled. He became extremely angry. He started shouting,
"Will you come, you son of a bitch! You like to play the hero in front of everyone, don't you? Where's that swagger now?"
He waited for a moment for a reply, then said,
"If you don't come—I'm coming! To give my baby boy his due love!"
With a devilish grin, he took one step, then two, moving forward. In one hand, he held Ruhan's bloody wrist. In the other, a terrifying axe. Purple lightning flashed around it intermittently.
Seeing him approach, Ruhan's heart pounded violently. Like a horse galloping at its fastest speed. Tremendous strength suddenly surged through his body.
A strange state. He, who had no strength moments ago... now, seeing death approach, he got up and started to flee!
One of Ruhan's legs was bent backward from the knee. He couldn't walk. His broken bones pierced his muscles like needles. Any person seeing him in such a state would surely faint from fear.
Yet, a great excitement worked through his body. He limped forward quite a distance.
He saw someone standing in front of him. Perhaps some help had arrived to save him. He became happy in a way he never had before. Beside himself, he started running even faster.
The surrounding scene was not clearly visible to his bloody eyes. Still, with a strange hope, he moved forward. Was his life about to be saved! Was help coming for him!
Driven by excitement, he shouted,
"I...(cough)... I knew you would come! I, I, knew it!!"
Then he collapsed onto the man. At first, it felt strange. But he didn't fully comprehend it. His senses weren't working properly. He leaned on one of the man's hands, closed his eyes, and said,
"I knew. You would never let me die! I—"
"What do you mean, 'I'll come'? I was already here. Has your mind gone mad or something? And it seems you're not paying attention to my affection... Why? Didn't you like it, perhaps?"
Ruhan's soul trembled. Now he understood why he had felt something different. He hadn't found help; instead, he had returned to that monster. To this cruel, merciless demon.
He put his hand to his stomach and found a knife plunged through it. It had penetrated completely through him. His hand was stained red with blood.
The surroundings were soaked in a red liquid. He vomited a mouthful of blood. His vision began to darken.
Now the man pulled the knife out of his stomach. As a result, a fountain of blood gushed out from his abdomen.
He collapsed to the ground again. No, that's wrong, he began to drown in his own sea of blood.
Still, the man's heart was not satisfied. He chopped Ruhan's left arm at the elbow. His arm was severed. He screamed.
Instead of tears, blood streamed from his eyes. His veins were confused about where to carry the blood. The sea of blood swallowed him a little more.
Then he struck his right elbow. The arm flew fifty meters away. Ruhan's scream made the nearby mountain tremble repeatedly. His heart began to shatter into a thousand pieces from the agony.
One by one, the man also severed his right leg, left leg, and even his penis. A twisted satisfaction on his face! He seemed to be laughing heartily for the first time in a thousand years. In great joy!
"Are you a climbing perch, with nine lives? Your life? You're still alive after so many blows!"
He observed Ruhan for a while. He understood that Ruhan would only be with him for a short time longer.
"Anyway! With sympathy, I've eaten all the nine curry... and you're no exception!"
He then raised the axe high above his head. He aimed to strike Ruhan's neck. But—
Suddenly, Ruhan saw a skeleton's skull lying in front of him. His gaze was fixed. His eyes were not moving. His breathing was barely there.
"Because you cared for me, I can do you a favor. I can take you to another timeline," the skull said. "Where you 'might' get another chance. But that will only come if you sacrifice your memories. And anyway, I am one of your long known familiar relatives."
The skeleton's skull said nothing. But its every word seemed to be etched into Ruhan's soul. He consented to this last resort. He had no other choice.
"Very well then! Oh my child, your wish is granted. Through the sacrifice of memory, you have gained a new opportunity!"
Immediately, the skull vanished from existence. Taking Ruhan's soul with it. After suffering countless torments, this one found object gave him new hope.
Meanwhile, the man completed his work. Ruhan's head flew off and fell into the canal water. It floated away with the current to distant lands. On his face was a twisted smile...
On the road lay the headless, armless, legless, and castrated bloody corpse. Around it, blood surged like an endless sea.
The man's heart felt full, then saddened, and he began to leave. As he went, he said,
"It would have been fun to entertain myself a bit longer! Well, for what I was given, I am grateful to the Creator and to Ruhan."
Observing the corpse for a bit longer, he said,
"We will meet again in another life, dear Ruhan! Bye-bye. Come to me again in the next life, because my love for you will never diminish!!!"
Now he gestured to the sky with his hand. The white-blue lightning turned a deep purple. As if a monstrous dragon was swimming in the heart of the clouds.
The next moment, the man pointed his hand at Ruhan. Immediately, that lightning descended from the sky in a great destructive force upon Ruhan's corpse.
It burned the dismembered corpse and the surrounding blood to ashes. All evidence of an unprecedented torture was erased.
"Ruhan Ahmed was erased—from existence..."