"My body…!"
Lennon Park gasped, every fiber of him burning like fire. The pain was real, yet impossible to define – a mix of shock, fracture, and fever. He opened his eyes and found nothing. No light beam, no reflection – only suffocating blackness, thick enough to swallow even the air.
He tried to move, and the sound of chains echoed, metallic and deep. Every arm, every leg, bound to something unseen, cold and unbearably heavy.
"What the hell is this!? Am I chained!?"
His voice was swallowed by the darkness, devoured by absolute silence. His heart raced. The memory of that message on his phone flashed back:
"You've already tasted all fame conceived. Your soul is no longer yours." It hadn't been a dream. It couldn't have been.
Lennon's mind spun like a roller coaster without brakes. The pain in his body, the weight of the chains, the absurdity of it all… it was too much to rationalize. Part of him wanted to believe it was just a kidnapping, some insane prank by an obsessed fan. But the image of the helicopter exploding against the mountain shredded that reasoning.
He had died.
He knew it. So why was he still here?
A whisper stirred within, deeper, as if rising from inside himself: Or maybe…?
He didn't finish the thought. A sudden light blinded him. Blazing, white, projected in front of him as though a screen had materialized from nowhere. He blinked, trying to focus – and then he saw it.
The screen showed the world reacting to his death.
New York frozen before the monitors. Headlines screaming:
"LENNON PARK: THE IDOL WHO DIED AT HIS PEAK."
Social media flooded with tributes, hashtags in every language. Fans on the streets, some fainting, others weeping as if it were their own lives ending. Girls tattooed his face for eternity, makeshift shrines sprouted on corners, even new religious movements declared him a martyr of a new era.
His family, locked in a private room, sobbing. His father – rigid, yet broken; his mother – collapsed in doctors' arms; his little sister – red-eyed, clutching an old photo of the three of them.
Governments declared days of mourning. One minute of silence held in schools, stadiums, churches. The Pope uttering his name in a speech. Heads of state sending condolences. Even stock markets wavered at the news – his influence was that immense.
His funeral, broadcast live to billions, looked more like a spectacle than a farewell: famous artists singing tributes, holograms of him glowing onstage, crowds gathering outside to leave flowers and letters. Lennon Park had surpassed fame – he had become myth.
But as he watched, chained, Lennon felt no pride. Only fear. The world mourned him, yet here he was, trapped, alive in some impossible way.
Then the image froze. The sobs, the headlines, the entranced fans – all vanished, replaced by a black screen with one detail: a counter.
5 years — 00 hours — 00 minutes — 00 seconds.
Lennon's heart pounded. The clock began to tick. At first, slowly, like an ordinary timer. But then it accelerated. Seconds swallowed minutes, minutes turned to hours, hours crashed into days, days collapsed into months – and the five years he had lived in glory burned away before his eyes like fire devouring paper.
When the last digit hit zero, a sharp beep echoed.
And the screen went dark.
Blackness returned. Silence, sharp and suffocating, engulfed him again.
" Wh… what was that? " – he murmured, his voice failing, almost a whisper.
His chest heaved, lungs clawing for air as if drowning. The thought that those numbers weren't random – that they represented his own five years of glory – ate at him. Was that the price? Had the countdown been written from the start?
Blood throbbed in his temples. Lennon pulled against the chains, desperate, but the iron only sank deeper into his skin, punishing every attempt at escape.
" No, no… this can't be real! This is just… just a nightmare! " – he screamed, his voice echoing without return, devoured by the dark.
But the void gave no answer. Only the weight on his body, the throbbing pain, and the metallic taste in his mouth, as though blood still dripped from somewhere.
A coldness crept up his spine. The silence wasn't empty. It was alive.
As if something, hidden in the dark, was watching him.
Lennon shut his eyes, as if that made any difference. Words rushed through his mind in a storm:
Is this hell? Or… the beginning of something worse?
The crushing silence forced him inward.
That's when a memory slashed through like a blade:
May 23rd, 2025.
Five years ago. Lennon wasn't the global myth yet, not the pop god. He was just a gifted boy who had just won one of the toughest music contests in the United States. The stage, the applause, the cameras – it all felt like the start of a dream life.
And that same night, someone appeared. Not among the fans, not among the judges, but backstage – introduced by his own producer. A man with an overwhelming presence, both magnetic and unsettling. He didn't present himself as a manager or talent scout, but as something beyond that.
" You may have talent " – he said, his voice low yet sharp, every syllable cutting like a blade.
"But talent alone doesn't fill stadiums. It doesn't buy magazine covers. It doesn't turn your face into tattoos on millions of skins. The world doesn't reward talent, Lennon. The world rewards power. And power is made of things you can't buy on any street corner."
Lennon stared, silent, his skin prickling. The man went on, smiling almost paternally, almost venomously:
"Look around. How many geniuses die on the streets? How many with angelic voices sing forever in empty bars? How many prodigies are buried without ever being heard? You know as well as I do that this world is cruel. But I can put you at the very top. Higher than anyone has ever gone. All you need to do is accept the price."
Back then, Lennon knew. He knew the industry's cruelty, the masses' indifference, the rot behind the lights. Accepting felt inevitable. His producer handed him over like a raw diamond waiting to be cut. And he accepted. He built his glory, but in exchange for fame and power, he had to pay the price…!
Suddenly, in the dark, something shifted.
A slit of light tore through the space, like a door opening far away. From the glow, a humanoid figure emerged, draped in a dragging black cloak. On its face, a grotesque, inhuman mask – and behind it, two red eyes burned like coals.
In its hand, a chain. The very chain binding Lennon.
The air grew heavy. Lennon tried to step back, but the shackles dragged him toward the creature. The jolt made him stumble, nearly fall. His eyes widened, unable to process the sight.
The being tilted its head slowly, like a predator studying prey at leisure. Its voice rolled through the void, guttural, impossible to ignore:
" Prisoner… your time has come!"