Ethan had thought the "hell of immortality" was the bottom of the nightmare. He quickly learned—there was no bottom.
Under the white sky, the crowd moved like a scratched record, their cries, laughter, and screams blending into a single distorted track. Every soul begged for death, yet their bodies betrayed them endlessly.
A woman smashed a rock into her own temple.The first blow—blood sprayed.The second—skull cracked.The third—gray matter spilled.By the fourth, the film rewound: wounds sealed, she stood whole again, tears mixing with manic laughter. "Why… why won't I die?"
Nearby, an old man crawled into a bonfire. His flesh sizzled, filling the air with choking stench. When the flames died, he sat renewed—skin fresh, wrinkles gone. He looked at his restored body, laughed, then wept, then curled up sobbing like an infant.
Cycle. Endless cycle.
Ethan looked around and saw the truth. Here, destruction was impossible. Every attempt at self-erasure only rebounded as doubled despair.
"Do you see it now?"
Karl appeared again. His smile had calcified into a grotesque mask. His chest wound looped endlessly—ripping, grinding, healing, ripping again—meat stirred into eternal soup.
"This is Void's cleverest trick," Karl declared, arms spread as if welcoming guests. "We're not alive. We're being lived. Death? That's a luxury item, long discontinued."
Ethan's stomach turned. He vomited—but the bile vanished before it touched the ground. This world tolerated no residue.
Far away, a youth screamed at the sky: "Please! I'll give anything! Just let me die!"
The sky split open. Eyes spilled from the crack, coldly watching. A moment later, the boy was torn into chunks, limbs scattered. The crowd erupted—finally, a glimpse of death!
But seconds later, the chunks wriggled, stitched together, and the youth sat whole once more. His eyes empty. "Even death is a joke…"
The crowd howled with laughter. Insane, tidal laughter. Some slit wrists as they laughed. Some shoved stones down their throats mid-sob. Others simply knelt, muttering: "Stop… just stop…"
Ethan felt madness swallowing him whole.
This immortality wasn't blessing—it was mockery.
"Understand now?" Karl whispered like a devil's confidant. "Void doesn't destroy us. It keeps us alive—alive until we shatter. Alive until even the right to beg for death is stripped away. We're not survivors. We're the punchline of an eternal comedy."
Ethan clenched his fists. His veins burned. He felt his own body twitching, eager to join the cycle, to test the rule for himself.
Then came the laughter.
It wasn't human—it rolled from the sky's cracks, where eyes blinked in rhythm, humming like an audience enjoying a perfect farce.
"Eeee-than," they called, voices sticky, crawling inside his skull. "You too… you'll beg. You'll see. You're no different."
Ethan froze. His chest ignited with searing pain. He looked down—his flesh splitting open silently, wounds blooming, healing, splitting again, in grotesque repetition.
"Welcome to the cycle," Karl grinned, as if hosting a dinner party.
Ethan opened his mouth to scream—but only a hoarse laugh escaped.
And he knew then: he had already joined the cast of this eternal hell.