Who am I?
…Who are you?
Looking down, I saw pools of dark red liquid flowing across the floor.
"What is happening?"
I turned left, then right. Everything felt unfamiliar—wrong, like I had stepped into someone else's life halfway through the ending.
I moved toward the desk in front of "me?"A bloodied book rested on top. I reached for it.
Nothing.
My hand felt like it passed through air.
Where was my hand?
I turned and looked down. A stump writhed slightly, twitching as if trying to convince me it was all I had ever owned.
My vision blurred.
Was there something that was supposed to be there?
I tried to remember. It was futile. Empty. Like grasping at smoke.
I looked back at the book and stretched my left hand this time. My fingers closed around the leather cover, now slick with red. Supporting it against the table, I flipped through the pages.
February 2: My time is near. I can finally return to my eternal rest.
March 3: I'm dying. No—I'm already dead.
March 13: This can't be happening. I was supposed to be gone. What went wrong?
April 1: What was I doing? My name? I think it was Rey… but it doesn't matter now.
The rest of the book was mostly empty, filled with scattered ramblings I couldn't understand.
"So… my name is Rey."
It didn't feel special. Or exciting.
But something settled inside me, like I had reclaimed a piece of myself that had gone missing.
I closed the book and slowly walked into the room beside this one.
A bathroom.
I stared at the mirror. My body was covered in blood. It looked fresh—too fresh—but I felt no pain. None at all.
After washing the blood away, I looked again.
A young man stared back at me, maybe in his twenties… or thirties. Thin. Lifeless. Like he hadn't slept in years.
There was a tattoo on the back of my left hand.
An eye—crossed out, layered beneath another symbol. The longer I stared, the more confusing it became. Like reading words in a language I almost understood but couldn't remember.
This tattoo mattered.
So did the diary.
As that thought formed, something in the mirror moved.
I wasn't alone.
The thing behind me shifted smoothly across the room, its shape swallowed by the darkness.
How long had it been there?
How did it get here?
Who… what is that?
My thoughts spiraled. My eyes darted wildly, trying to track it as it drew closer.
And then—