People call me a killer. A monster. And I do not argue. I am. But it all began when I was twelve, and even then, I was just a scared, crying child. My parents had died, leaving me utterly alone in the world. I had no one, no safety, no hope. I cried for days. I screamed into empty rooms, my sobs echoing back at me from walls that could not answer. Eventually, exhausted and broken, I fell asleep. And that's when I learned the first rule—the rule that would define everything that came after. When I woke, I was not in my bed. I was not anywhere familiar. The world I knew had vanished. I opened my eyes to a sky the color of rust, heavy with clouds that dripped ash and metallic rain. The streets were choked with vines that pulsed like veins, crawling across shattered buildings, twisting around themselves like living chains. Broken glass sparkled in pools of black water, reflecting shadows that weren't mine. The air reeked of rot and blood and something I could not name. There were no people. Only silence. Only the feeling that the world was watching me, waiting. I wandered, my small feet slipping in the filth, my body shaking with terror. And then it found me. I did not see it first—I felt it. A movement in the shadows, a vibration in the ground. Its eyes were black pits that reflected nothing but hunger. Its jaw was lined with serrated teeth, each one sharper than the last. Its claws glinted like knives. It leapt. I screamed, but no sound could escape the terror pressing down on my chest. Its claws sank into my stomach before I could move, ripping my skin and muscle apart. My intestines spilled across the cracked pavement, wet and sticky. I gasped for air, but it tore at my throat, slashing and cutting, blood filling my mouth and lungs. Every nerve screamed in agony. Every bone felt as if it had been shattered and ground into dust. And yet… I did not die. I was eaten alive. Its teeth tore into me, muscle shredded, organs crushed, sinew snapped. I could feel every bite, every tear, every shred of me disappearing, and then being forced back together. My stomach was chewed, my chest crushed, my limbs flayed. And still, somehow, I survived. Every scream, every heartbeat, every spasm of pain was mine to feel, over and over. Hours—or maybe it was days—passed in this cycle of destruction. I don't know how long it lasted. Time became meaningless. Pain became my only reality. When I finally awoke, stitched together in ways I could not comprehend, I realized the truth: in this world, you do not die. No matter what the monsters do to you, no matter how completely your body is destroyed, the dark world refuses to release you. You feel everything. Every wound. Every tear of flesh. Every taste of your own blood. It is punishment, and it is lesson. I screamed until my lungs burned. I cried until there was nothing left in me. I touched my stomach, my chest, my arms, and felt the scars of what should have been fatal wounds. I tried to tell someone. Anyone. But no one could hear me. I was utterly alone, and the first rule made sure of it. Pain became my constant companion. I learned to anticipate it, to brace for it, even though it always found new ways to surprise me. I learned that monsters do not pity the weak. They do not hesitate. They do not stop. And the first rule… the first rule taught me one final, horrifying lesson: survival is not mercy. Survival is suffering. And it would never, ever let me forget it.
After surviving my first encounter with the monsters, I thought I understood the dark world. I was wrong. The first rule had shown me that I could not die. I had felt my stomach torn open, my chest crushed, and yet I woke again. But the second rule… the second rule was subtler, crueler.
I discovered it after I awoke for the first time in the daylight world. The monsters were gone, the world familiar in its normality, but I was trembling, bleeding, exhausted. My body still ached from every tear, every bite, every violation. It had been only a few hours—or maybe a few days. I could not tell. Time in the dark world did not exist as it did in the day. But the rule whispered in ways I could feel before I ever understood it: seventy-two hours. That was all the time I had. After seventy-two hours in the dark world, no matter how much I suffered or how many monsters I avoided, I would wake in the real world.
I tested it cautiously at first. I hid. I stayed silent. I avoided the monsters. Hours stretched into endless motion. My stomach grumbled with hunger, my lungs burned with each scream I swallowed. I walked the empty streets, hoping the creatures would ignore me, hoping I could last. The dark world did not care. It sent monsters in waves, testing me, biting, tearing, and when I collapsed in pain, it stitched me back together just enough to force me to continue.
I learned the cruel rhythm of seventy-two hours. If I killed monsters, I could wake sooner. That was the third rule, but if I did not, I had to endure the full cycle. Each minute stretched like an eternity. I could feel time slipping through my body, counting in pain pulses, in every torn muscle and shattered bone. I was consumed, chewed, crushed, flayed, over and over, and yet the hours ticked toward seventy-two.
I tried to keep track. A monster would tear my leg, and I would feel its sinews pulled apart, organs crushed, ribs snapped and reknit. Hours passed—or maybe minutes—and then another would strike. I screamed, I sobbed, but nothing could end it. No mercy, no reprieve. Only the pain, only the waiting. My mind twisted with fear and exhaustion, wondering if I would ever survive another cycle.
But at the end of seventy-two hours, I woke. Always I woke. Exhausted, broken, and stitched together, but alive. The rule was absolute. It did not matter if I wanted to end it. It did not matter if I ran or hid. Seventy-two hours was the limit, and the world honored it. I could rest for a moment, recover, breathe.
And yet the dark world lingered in my mind. Its pain, its hunger, its cruelty—everything I endured remained. I realized then that survival was not freedom. Survival was suffering that I carried into the day world, into my skin, into my blood. The seventy-two-hour rule was a leash, an unyielding rhythm that reminded me that no matter how safe the day world seemed, the dark world always waited.
The first few cycles nearly broke me. I cried myself awake, trembling, shaking, unable to believe that I had survived. But with each seventy-two-hour wake, I began to understand: endurance was power. The dark world could destroy my body, but it could not destroy me. I learned to brace for the pain, to anticipate the attacks, to move with it instead of against it. I could not stop the cycle, but I could survive it.
By the end of my first months under the seventy-two-hour rule, I had memorized its rhythm. I knew the signs of approaching monsters, the warning tremors in the ground, the hiss of their breaths in the shadows. I learned to hide, to fight, to endure. I learned that if I could survive seventy-two hours, I could live another day, another week, another cycle of unimaginable pain. The second rule was absolute. Break it, ignore it, and the dark world would punish me with every shred of my body. Follow it, endure it, and eventually, I could return to the day world with my life intact, ready to prepare for the next night.
I had endured enough seventy-two-hour cycles to know the rhythm of the dark world. I could hide, brace for attacks, endure bites, tears, and crushing pressure, and somehow survive until the world spat me back into the day. But endurance was exhausting, and the dark world offered no respite. I was small, a child in a world of monsters, but desperation sharpened my mind. And that was when I discovered the third rule: if you kill a monster, you return to the day world immediately.
I didn't understand it at first. I thought it was a fluke. One day, a small creature, no bigger than a dog but with hundreds of needle-like teeth lining its mouth, skittered past me as I crouched in the shadow of a collapsed building. Its exoskeleton was black and wet, glistening under the dim rust-colored light. I had seen these creatures before, and they had ripped me open, chewed my muscles, and left me hollow and screaming.
But this time, something inside me snapped. Anger, rage, exhaustion, survival instinct—all fused together. I remembered the rule: kill it, and you can return. My heart pounded, my arms trembled with adrenaline, but I leapt. My hands closed around its neck. Its small, wriggling body fought against me, claws tearing at my skin, teeth sinking into my palms. I did not flinch. I squeezed harder. I felt the bones crush beneath my grip, the soft give of sinew tearing.
I twisted. Its body arched and writhed, but I did not release. The smell of warm blood and something metallic filled my nose. Teeth broke under pressure. I felt the last pulse of life slip away, the tiny shudder of its death beneath my hands. And then, almost immediately, the world shifted. I woke up in the daylight, gasping, arms slick with blood that wasn't mine—or maybe it was, I couldn't tell. The rule worked. Killing a monster returned me to the real world.
I remember staring at my hands, trembling. No one had seen me. No one could ever understand. I had killed, and it had saved me. And something else had shifted. Before, I had been prey, weak and desperate. But in that moment, I tasted power. Not the kind of childish power that comes from winning a fight on the playground—this was raw, primal, terrifying. I had taken a life and survived the darkness because of it.
It wasn't long before I tested the rule again. Each time, I stalked the creatures, waited for the right moment, and struck. Dog-sized roaches, clawed beasts with wet, glistening skin, creatures whose jaws could tear through bone—they all fell beneath my hands. I watched blood pour, organs tear, sinews snap, and each time I felt the rule pull me back into the day world. The adrenaline became intoxicating, the act of killing addictive, the satisfaction sharp and horrifying.
And yet, I could not forget the suffering I had endured in the dark world. Each kill, each burst of survival, carried with it the memory of pain. I had learned endurance in the seventy-two-hour cycles, and now I had learned precision, strategy, and timing. The dark world was no longer just a place of terror—it was a place where I could act, hunt, and survive on my own terms.
But the rule came with its own caution. Kill too hastily, too recklessly, and the monsters adapted. They became faster, smarter, hungrier. If I misjudged, I would be shredded again, forced to endure another cycle of seventy-two hours in agony. I could not afford mistakes. Every kill required calculation, focus, and ferocity.
I remember one particular encounter, when a clawed creature twice my size leapt from the shadows. Its teeth sliced my arm open, its claws tore through my jacket, and I felt the sharp pain shoot up my shoulder. I froze for a moment—just a moment—and it was enough for the rule to demand action. I grabbed a shard of broken metal from the ground, plunged it into its chest, twisted, felt its heartbeat falter beneath my fingers. Its life left it in a rush of warm, sticky blood. And just as I had learned, the world shifted. I was back in my room, gasping, my hands slick, my body trembling. I was alive.
That day, I understood something vital: the dark world demanded respect. Survival depended on rules, timing, and understanding. Killing was not just an act—it was a tool, a key to freedom, a measure of skill. I had tasted power, yes, but I had also learned responsibility. Each life I took allowed me to escape, but each escape reminded me that the dark world was patient, and that I could never grow careless.
I practiced, stalked, calculated, and executed. The creatures I killed became part of my experience, shaping me, teaching me, sharpening me. And as I returned each time to the day world, I carried with me a deeper understanding of the rules: the first rule, that I could not die; the second rule, that seventy-two hours would always pass; and now the third, that killing monsters gave me control. The dark world was no longer a place that hunted me—it was a place where I could learn, survive, and, eventually, become something else entirely.
I didn't know it then, but that night would teach me the final rule—the one that would forever change the way I moved through both worlds. I was fourteen, and the dark world had made me sharper, faster, more dangerous than any child should be. I had survived countless monsters, endured seventy-two-hour cycles of agony, ripped apart creatures and stitched them back together in my mind a thousand times. But nothing had prepared me for this.
I had wandered through the city streets in the day world, trying to stay unseen, trying to blend into the light, trying to be invisible. I had learned that monsters weren't the only danger. People were curious. Nosy. They could see something in me they didn't like. That night, I was cornered in an alley by another child—a boy no older than twelve. He had been running, screaming, trying to escape what he imagined were shadows, but in truth he had stumbled into me. His eyes were wide with fear, his hands shaking, clutching a small backpack.
I froze at first. He was just a kid. I had been a kid once. My parents dead, my world gone. I remembered the nights I had cried myself awake, my body torn apart and stitched back together in the dark world. But fear surged in me—not his, but my own. I had learned to avoid exposure in the day world. To let my instincts rule me. And in that alley, I felt the instinct screaming: survive.
The boy tried to run. I could not let him. I had learned the rules: every moment spent in danger could bring me back to the dark world, unprepared, unarmed, vulnerable. I moved faster than thought, my hands clamping down on his shoulders. He screamed, kicking and thrashing, but I was stronger, sharper, faster. My hands closed around his neck, and for a moment I hesitated—he was conscious, he was alive, he was just a child.
I felt the pull of fear, the warning that this could be wrong. But instinct and survival overrode hesitation. If I failed, if I let him go, if I hesitated… I could be exposed, hunted, or worse, pulled back into the dark world. I acted. I ripped, I tore, I crushed. Skin split, blood sprayed, ribs shattered under my hands. His eyes widened in horror, the life beneath my fingers flickering and fading. And then… silence.
The moment of truth was immediate. I fell to the ground, trembling, shaking, and something impossible happened: I slept. Deep, full sleep, the kind I had not known since my parents died, the kind that the seventy-two-hour cycle of the dark world had never allowed. The monsters, the agony, the endless cycles of pain—all of it faded. For the first time, I rested.
It was then I understood. This was the fifth rule. Killing a conscious human allows you to sleep in peace, free from the pull of the dark world. I had survived by instinct, by fear, by calculation—and it had given me the one thing I had longed for since I first fell asleep in tears at twelve: rest. But I also felt the weight of it, the horror of what I had done. This was not survival in the simple sense—it was a moral abyss, a fracture in my humanity.
I had learned why the dark world demanded it. Monsters shaped me, strengthened me, taught me endurance, but humans… humans demanded something else. The price for rest was a life. And that night, I paid it.
When I woke hours later, my body trembling, hands still coated in warmth and iron, I understood everything. I was stronger, faster, sharper. I was a survivor. But I was hollow. The boy's face haunted me, a reminder of the price of freedom, of the rules, of the dark world's cruel perfection.
From that day forward, I understood the rules fully: the first, that I could not die in the dark world; the second, that seventy-two hours would always pass; the third, killing monsters returned me; the fourth, eating them gave me traits; and the fifth, that a human kill granted rest. But the fifth carried its own terror, its own moral cost. Every time I slept after such an act, I slept in blood and guilt, and I knew I would never be the same again.