Ren woke with a violent start, his skull splitting as though a war drum was being hammered from the inside. Every throb sent waves of nausea down his spine, and the memory of this sensation from one of his hundred lives clawed its way to the surface. Back then, it had nearly driven him insane. Now, it was back to remind him of the curse of living too many times.
With effort, he forced himself upright. His body protested, bones creaking, muscles spasming as if rejecting his command. The scent hit him next—overpowering, suffocating. Blood. Rot. Guts. He couldn't see the pit he found himself in, but he didn't need sight. His sharpened senses told him enough. He was surrounded by death. It clung to him, seeped into his skin, stuck to his soul.
His hand instinctively grazed his shoulder. He froze.
His arm… had grown. Not fully. Only to the wrist, but it was there—new flesh, still tender, faintly pulsating with warmth. In mere hours. Something no human should ever achieve.
"…I killed it?" The words came out hollow, a whisper laced with disbelief. He couldn't remember much—only that crushing hunger, primal and all-consuming, that stripped away his humanity. He hadn't been Ren then. He had been something else. A beast wearing his skin. The memory—or rather, the lack of it—made him shiver despite the blood-soaked warmth covering his body.
And the stench. Gods, the stench. His skin was coated in layers of dried gore, his own blood mixing with the monster's. He was filth, walking carrion.
'A river… I need water.'
Ren staggered forward, forcing his senses into overdrive. He ignored the faint golden text of the window that hovered before him—he couldn't see it anyway. His eyelids were glued shut with blood, crusted so thick that forcing them open would tear the skin. His other senses had become his guide: the rustle of leaves, the faint tremor of the earth, the shifting scents of dirt and bark.
He trudged blindly, stumbling over rocks, bark, twisted roots. Thorny vines clawed at his bare skin, scratching shallow cuts into his already battered body. Yet his pain resistance dulled it all. To him, it was no more than pinpricks, annoyances rather than wounds.
But if anyone had seen him then—his grotesque form staggering through the forest—they would not have mistaken him for human. His trousers, shredded beyond recognition, barely clung to his hips. His chest and back, a patchwork of bruises, scars, and blood, clung to bones that jutted out unnaturally. His pale, malnourished frame and lifeless expression would have made him pass more for an animated corpse than a living boy.
Ren, the Freak of Nature. The name would have fit like a crown.
Minutes blurred into nearly an hour before something changed. His ears twitched—the faint, distant growl of water. A rolling, rhythmic sound that grew louder with each strained step. He froze, heart hammering, then smiled despite the pain.
"A waterfall…"
Renewed desperation took hold. He pushed his body harder, no longer caring about the pain or the blood loss. His legs screamed with every step, his half-regrown arm throbbed violently, but he pressed on.
Somehow, against all odds, against the state of his body, he walked.
A living nightmare in rags, drenched in blood, yet still moving.
A freak of nature—no doubt.
...
Ren stumbled into the clearing like a man crawling out of the grave.The thunder of water filled his ears, so loud it made his pounding skull ache even worse, but he welcomed it. It was alive, pure, a sound that wasn't soaked in blood and screams. The mist rolled over his skin in cool waves, washing away the stink of rot clinging to him, though it couldn't touch the filth that seemed carved into his very bones.
He dropped to his knees on the slippery stones near the pool, his chest heaving, throat burning for water. With a trembling hand, he plunged into the icy stream and scooped a handful to his lips. The shock nearly tore the breath out of him—sharp, freezing, real. He gulped greedily, coughing, choking, drinking again until his gut twisted.
Then he leaned forward, pressing his whole face into the water. The cold spread through him like knives, numbing the fire of his wounds. The blood that glued his eyes shut softened and broke apart, washing away in dark crimson streams that stained the pool like ink. For the first time since the frenzy, Ren could see.
And what he saw almost made him recoil.
His reflection rippled faintly in the moonlit pool: gaunt cheeks hollowed to bone, lips split and torn, eyes sunken yet burning with a faint, eerie glow. His skin was pale to the point of death, his torso a canvas of wounds and scars. But it was his mouth—the faint smear of dried gore clinging to his teeth—that made his stomach knot.
"…That's me?" he whispered, though it came out more like a growl.
The memory surged—the taste of flesh, warm and raw, the crunch of bone between his teeth, the way his hunger had driven him past all reason. His body trembled violently, his stomach flipping between revulsion and craving.
The hunger stirred again. Deep, gnawing, primordial. It wasn't the hunger of a man. It was the hunger of something that existed outside reason, a predator born in the dark corners of the world. His chest burned as though something inside him had woken and now clawed for release.
Ren gritted his teeth, gripping the stones beside him until his nails split. "No…" His voice cracked. "No. I won't… I won't become that thing."
But even as he said it, the mist around the waterfall shifted strangely. It curled unnaturally, spiraling in patterns that seemed deliberate, as if responding to him. The air thickened, vibrating faintly with unseen force. The purity of the place clashed violently with the death intent still lingering around him, making the atmosphere heavy, suffocating.
Ren stumbled backward, clutching his chest, every breath sharp and ragged. He wasn't sure if the waterfall was rejecting him… or awakening something buried deeper than even his countless lives had touched.
The forest around the clearing had gone utterly silent. Not even insects dared to chirp.
Ren stood there, dripping, half-dead, staring at the cascade as though it were more than water—as though it were a mirror to something inside him, he wasn't ready to face.