Renji Arakawa had always thought of himself as painfully ordinary.Not the kind of person who stood out in a crowd—just another face in the sea of students, another name on the attendance list. A second-year college kid with average grades, no particular talent, no particular dream.
His parents had often told him, "Find something you want to do."But Renji never did. At best, he just wanted to survive the grind of daily life.
That night, however, survival was the one thing he would lose.
The rain poured mercilessly over the city highway, blurring the world into streaks of gray and neon. The windshield wipers struggled to keep up, screeching in protest. Renji yawned, left hand gripping the steering wheel, while his right groped around the passenger seat for his half-empty bottle of tea.
"Quiz tomorrow, and I'm out here driving home past midnight…" he muttered, his tone caught somewhere between annoyance and resignation.
But before his fingers could touch the bottle—SCREECH—!
A truck from the next lane swerved. Its tires lost traction, skidding across the soaked asphalt.
For a fraction of a second, Renji saw the world swallowed by blinding headlights. His mind barely processed the spinning mass of metal rushing toward him—
—and then, silence. White.
When Renji opened his eyes, the rain was gone.
The air was damp and heavy, seeping into his lungs like a foreign poison. He lay sprawled on wet soil that reeked of rust and stagnant water. Slowly, trembling, he pushed himself up.
The world around him was not the highway. It wasn't even close.
Towering trees loomed in every direction. Their bark was pitch black, as if charred by fire, and their leaves were colorless, a dull gray that drooped lifelessly. The ground was soft, wet, and uneven, littered with roots that twisted like skeletal fingers.
"Where… is this?"
His own voice sounded too small, swallowed instantly by the thick fog rolling between the trees.
Renji tilted his head upward, searching for stars, for a moon, for anything familiar.There was none.
Instead, the sky itself seemed broken. The fog glowed faintly silver, tinged with streaks of blood-red light. And beyond the mist, Renji saw something that froze his breath—cracks.
The sky was cracked like shattered glass. A jagged line stretched across the heavens, glowing faintly purple, and branched in every direction like a fracture spreading through fragile glass.
It didn't look like the sky of any world. It looked like the surface of a fragile sphere, breaking from within.
His chest tightened. His heartbeat thundered.
Renji touched his body. No blood. No wounds. He was whole. And yet… the phantom ache of the crash lingered deep in his bones.
"…Am I… dead?"
The words barely escaped his lips.
KRAAAK!
A harsh cry sliced through the silence.
Renji jerked his head upward.
A crow perched on a blackened branch just above him. Its feathers glistened like oil, its eyes burned crimson. It stared, unblinking, as though judging him.
Renji stumbled back. "A… crow?"
The fog stirred.
It swirled, curled, as though alive. From its shifting folds came noises—low dragging sounds, the scrape of something sharp, a guttural growl.
Renji's stomach turned to ice. Something was watching. Something was coming.
"No, no, this isn't real…"
His voice cracked. His hands shook. His lungs refused to pull enough air.
The fog split open.
A creature emerged.
It was tall, impossibly gaunt. Its skin was a dead gray, fissured like parched earth. Its eyes were blank, milky white voids. Its mouth had been torn far too wide, stretching to its ears, drooling thick black fluid that sizzled as it hit the ground.
Its limbs were wrong. Too long. Too sharp. It walked like a spider forcing itself into a man's shape, jerky and unnatural.
Renji's body froze. His brain screamed to move, but his body was locked in shock.
Then survival instinct seized him. His legs finally responded, and he bolted.
Branches whipped at his face as he ran. His breath was ragged, his chest burned, his heart pounded so loud he could hear nothing else.
Behind him, heavy footsteps echoed—fast, unnatural, closing in.
"Stay away! Stay away from me!!"
He looked back.
The monster lunged, claws gleaming in the crimson fog.
CRASH!
The talons tore through his chest.
Agony. A fountain of blood. His world spun, his strength left him.
As the world went dark, the last thing Renji saw was the crow swooping down, its wings brushing across his face.
Darkness.
White light.
Renji jolted awake, gasping for air. He clutched at his chest. Whole. No wound. No blood.
He was back in the forest. Same spot. Same posture.
But the world wasn't the same.
The trees had withered further, their bark flaking into ash. The gray leaves shriveled, dropping like dying embers. The air was heavier, colder, suffocating.
And when he looked to the sky, his heart stopped.
The fracture above had grown. What was once a single jagged line had now split wider, branching into smaller cracks like a spreading web.
"What… happened…?"
Kraaak.
The same crow perched above him again, crimson eyes gleaming. Its cry rasped through the silence, cruelly mocking.
Renji trembled. His mind reeled. He remembered the claws, the blood, the pain. His death.
And yet he was here again. Alive. Whole.
"No way… this is… respawn?"
The word slipped out. He was a gamer—of course the thought came. But this was no game. The pain had been real. The terror was real.
Thud.
Footsteps again.
From the fog, the gray figure emerged. The same monster. Identical.
But this time, the ground beneath it cracked, black fluid bubbling upward.
Renji's breath hitched. "No, no, no… I can't do this—!"
He ran. Again.
Branches tore at his arms. His breath came in short, desperate bursts. His mind screamed for a weapon, for help, for anything. But there was nothing.
The monster shrieked. A high, hateful sound.
Pain stabbed Renji's skull. His vision blurred. He clutched his head, stumbling.
Something was wrong.
He tried to recall his mother's face—blank.He tried to recall his father's voice—gone.
"No… no, no, no… why… can't I remember…?"
The monster lunged. Renji fell, knees smashing into the ground. He gasped, tears blurring his vision.
He knew what came next.
And he was right. The claws struck again, tearing through him.
Blood. Pain. Darkness.
But this time…
A voice whispered at his ear.
"Don't die."
Soft. Feminine. But heavy with command, like chains on his soul.
Darkness.
…
Renji awoke once more.
The forest was worse than before. Trees rotten. Fog thick. The cracks in the sky wider still, glowing brighter, spreading further.
And on the branch, the crow waited silently.
Watching.
As though counting how many more deaths the world could endure.