Aeren had been homeless for two more months when he heard rumors of a ghost house in an isolated place, surrounded by dense forest. His eyes lit up upon hearing this—he immediately set out to find it.
Ever since jumping into the water, Aeren had felt something change within him. The fear of death that gripped other humans had begun to take hold of him too, and he despised this weakness. He decided to leave the streets behind and seek out this haunted forest where the ghost house supposedly existed.
It took Aeren three days to reach the restricted area, but he somehow managed to enter and finally found the house rumored to be haunted.
After his experiences as both a doctor and a beggar, Aeren's understanding of human beings had deepened considerably.
He had found the perfect words to describe humanity: "selfless" and "puppets."
All human beings on Earth were selfless, he realized. They never thought of themselves. Humans had created light bulbs, electronics, the internet, automobiles, and medicine—all for the betterment of the world. But not a single human had created anything that would truly help humanity itself break free from its fundamental prison.
Human beings made things that helped society function, but nothing that liberated the individual human from the cycle of life and death.
Humans brainwashed themselves every single second, yet they didn't even realize it.
The truth, as Aeren saw it, was that the world's only desire was to dead human bodies.
Aeren looked at the decrepit house before him and stepped inside. Silence greeted him. He surveyed his surroundings: old furniture scattered throughout, darkness filling every corner, not a single ray of light penetrating the gloom.
When Aeren took his first step forward—
BOOM!
The main gate slammed shut without him touching it. Startled, Aeren's heart began to race. He ran back to the door and started pounding on it, screaming to be let out.
"Let me out! Let me out!" Fear gripped him—the same emotion he thought he had conquered. He looked around desperately, seeing nothing but darkness consuming the house.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
Something invisible dragged him away from the door. Aeren's screams echoed throughout the house as he was pulled to the first floor, then thrown down hard.
"AHHHHH! My leg!" he cried out in pain, unable to stand. He began crawling toward the main door, dragging his injured body across the floor.
Just as he nearly reached the exit, something grabbed him again and pulled him back inside.
"What the hell is wrong with this weak body..."
The words came from his own mouth, but they weren't his. Something had possessed him. Against his will, his body ran to the roof, grabbed a knife, and stabbed himself before jumping off the building.
Aeren lay inside the house, blood pooling around him, abandoned by whatever spirit had controlled him.
His eyes opened through instinct learned in college through self-harm. He saw his wounds—they seemed impossible to heal with the resources available. Despair began to settle in.
But somewhere deep in his soul, he still wanted to survive. Then, as if by chance, a medical kit was thrown near him by an unseen force.
Hope flickered in his chest.
Aeren began crawling toward the medical kit, but every time he got close, it seemed to move just out of reach—like bait dangling before a trapped animal. Still, he refused to give up. For an hour, he crawled and reached, crawled and reached, until finally, in a blood-soaked room, he managed to grasp the kit.
Taking what he needed, Aeren closed his wounds as best he could and sighed with relief.
But his respite was short-lived. The ghosts captured him again, binding him with spectral ropes. What followed resembled a human experiment conducted by invisible torturers.
The spirits began their slow, methodical torture.
"AHHHHHHHHH! Please... someone help me..." Aeren screamed until his lungs burned, but no one could hear him.
After each torture session, they gave him time to heal before possessing his body again, destroying him from the inside out.
"AHHHHHHHHH! Help me... please... help me..."
He screamed, cried, and begged, but not a single ghost showed any mercy. He couldn't even see who was tormenting him.
This torture continued for months. The most surprising thing was that Aeren remained alive and conscious throughout it all. But psychologically, he was learning something from each session of pain.
For months, Aeren called for help that never came…
He would crawl across the floor, looking at the door with desperate hope that someone would save him.
"Ple...ase... he...lp... I'm... dy..." He could barely form words properly, but still he stared at the locked main door.
Days passed. No one came…
Months passed. Still no one came…
More months passed, and gradually, Aeren's pain began to fade. The torture started affecting him less and less. Eventually, he began to see the ghosts themselves.
A year passed. Aeren started fighting back and even killed one or two of his tormentors. The remaining ghosts began to fear him, recognizing that his body—whether abnormal or made abnormal through suffering—had become something beyond human.
After that transformation, Aeren made the haunted house his home, learning even more about the nature of human beings.
One night, Aeren lay on the roof looking up at the sky, contemplating the knowledge he had gained from the ghosts and this cursed place.
His body had become twice as strong as a normal human's. He could see ghosts and even kill them. The ghosts now feared him. Most importantly, he had gained insight into death itself, though the complete picture still eluded him.
His thoughts turned once again to humanity.
All humans are the same—puppets.
There were two types of humans: good and evil. But both shared one common trait—they wanted to survive in modern society. They never thought about living for themselves, only caring about societal approval. This wasn't the only thing that made them puppets; their ways of thinking were identical. They all thought the same thoughts and refused to seek something that would truly help humanity itself.
Humans were puppets stuck in an endless circle, unwilling to escape, preferring to believe in comfortable lies.
Whoever thinks they are selfish is the most delusional person of all.
Because not a single person in the world was truly selfish. They were all "selfless puppets" dancing at world's hand, waiting passively for death.
And here I am, searching for something that might not even exist. Maybe I'm the delusional one, believing that for humans to find freedom, they must first find a cure for death.
"I'm living among eight billion emotionless puppets," Aeren whispered to himself.
He continued staring at the sky and the pale moon hanging above.
Drip.
Drip.
"I'm alone..."
Tears fell from his numb eyes as he gazed upward into the endless night.