The chains and the cuffs that were binding Kyle loosened, but first, they were so hot that their color literally turned into fiery orange. Little by little, they broke.
Kyle woke up, and he too was different from what he was before. His skin was burning up, emitting heat like lava smoke. He looked at himself and saw his hands changing — his skin burning off, but not in the sense of roasting. It was burning off as if all his flesh was disappearing.
His skin was now boiling — blisters bubbling and bursting like boils on flesh. Kyle was still underwater while all of this was happening. He saw his cuffs breaking off and falling down.
Beneath him, the ground was soft, like ocean sand — brown and loose.
He just stood there, watching himself finally get free from being cuffed and shackled. He was even able to breathe underwater, and when he exhaled, hot smoke came out of his mouth, like a person's breath in freezing cold.
He crouched, picked up the chain, and broke off the cuffs. Maybe the length was unclear to determine, but Kyle dragged it underwater as he walked forward.
He looked up, calculating the distance he would have to swim if he decided to go upward.
All he saw was boiling water.
He looked ahead and continued moving. The chain he dragged left a trail behind — not only the chain, but his footprints too. He wasn't wearing shoes, so the footprints he left behind glowed hot.
He was silent. There was nowhere obvious to go, yet he walked with purpose — as if he knew exactly where he was heading. From the seriousness in his expression, it was clear that he did.
---
The journey was long. If it had been like the first time, Kyle would have given up and probably suffocated.
Especially since he was still underwater — as an ordinary person, he wouldn't have even made it a quarter of the way up.
The striped black-and-white clothes he wore were burning away, turning to ash. His skin was now fully exposed, but it didn't bother him. He didn't even stop to look.
Whether he was unaware of his condition or simply didn't care, one thing was clear — Kyle knew what he was doing.
---
After what felt like hours, Kyle finally arrived where he was heading.
In front of him stood a transparent, coal-colored wall. On the other side, he saw himself — headless — lying on a bed. He wasn't dead; instead, he was trembling and shaking, as if having a seizure.
There wasn't even any blood, despite his head having been swallowed and possibly eaten. He was just lying there, convulsing.
Kyle placed his hand on the wall. With his completely fleshless finger, he drew a large circle. As he did, his finger ignited, burning through that part of the wall.
He stepped through.
---
The Kyle on the other side — the one lying headless on the bed — woke up. He got out of bed and looked toward the window high above.
He was still faceless, but his head began forming again — this time as a skull. A clean, uncracked, human skull.
Then he looked down at his hands and body. His clothes were still burning but not completely gone. Even the whip scars on his back began emitting smoke — and suddenly, fire burst from them like exhaust from a race car's pipes.
A sizzling sound filled the air behind him.
---
Kyle pulled the chain he had dragged with him. It wasn't particularly large or small — just right. It looked like one of those old chains used in ancient times to restrain monsters.
It gleamed silverish in color. Kyle wrapped it around one hand. When there was a certain length remaining, he spun it around.
It released smoke and sparks — the kind that appear when two rocks are struck together to ignite a flame.
After spinning it for a while, he threw it upward. The chain latched onto one of the window bars.
He tugged on it, testing its strength. It held firm.
Kyle pulled back, using the chain for momentum, and launched himself upward toward the window. He grabbed one of the bars and tested it again — still strong.
The entire room was built of solid cement — the kind used in dungeons to keep prisoners trapped for eternity.
The chain wasn't strong enough yet to break the bars — not at the right temperature.
So, Kyle lit two of his fingers aflame and burned through the bars, melting them out of the cement wall.
He climbed through and stepped outside.
---
The streets were empty and peaceful. It was already nighttime, and the moon shone brightly over the city's landscape.
Kyle looked up at the moon, then glanced around. Nothing seemed suspicious.
Then again, his fiery breath escaped once more — smoke pouring out as he exhaled.
He looked toward a specific direction in the distance, spun his chain again, and threw it. It hooked onto a tall titanium pole.
Kyle leaned back, using his weight to build tension, and then pulled himself up — leaping into the air and landing atop a building.
He did the same with the next one, and the next, moving from rooftop to rooftop.
After repeating this three more times, he finally reached his destination.
---
Standing on the building's rooftop, Kyle looked down. The street below was shrouded in darkness — the moonlight didn't reach it.
Then he saw something.
Two figures were fighting — a boy and a girl, both around Kyle's age. They weren't fighting each other, but something else.
They had weapons — not military-grade, but the kind you'd see in magazines or toy catalogs. Whatever they were fighting, it wasn't going well.
The boy was being hit over and over, coughing up blood. The girl was also injured, struggling to protect him while fending off the unseen enemy.
---
"Don't give up on me yet, Jack! I still need you!" the girl cried, nursing his wounds while trying to keep the threat at bay.
From the looks of it, the threat came from the shadows themselves.
"You have to let me be a sacrifice so you can escape in one piece," Jack gasped, barely conscious.
He was in terrible shape — face bruised and bloodied, one eye swollen shut, his stomach bleeding nonstop.
"No! Stop it! I'm not going to leave you behind and let you die in the hands of these monsters!" the girl shouted desperately, trying to fend them off.
But she wasn't doing well. Focused on pressing Jack's wounds, she couldn't see the creatures closing in.
Invisible at first, they attacked from the darkness — clawing at her until her arm, once her best weapon, was now broken and mangled. The bone beneath was beginning to show.
She was helpless, bleeding, yet still shielding Jack with her body.
The creatures finally revealed themselves — five in total.
They were tall and thin, as tall as trees and as light as branches.
Deformed, horrifying, and barely visible, they encircled the two humans like predators ready to strike.
"Don't worry… I got you," the girl whispered, her voice trembling through the unbearable pain.
---
Kyle watched it all unfold from above.
His breath came again — but this time, it wasn't just smoke. His head burned with roaring fire.
He growled, then leaped from the rooftop, landing exactly between the creatures and the girl.
He retracted his chain, wrapped it around his arm, and faced them head-on.