The first scream of the night wasn't human.
It came from the sky—except the sky wasn't there anymore.
One moment, the world of Eltherion slept beneath its twin moons. The next, the heavens folded inward like wet paper, crushing the stars into a single black wound. Light died. Color died. Every sound twisted as if spoken underwater.
And in that suffocating silence, something watched.
Not from above.
Not from below.
But from between.
That was when Arien Vale—a boy who should've died three years earlier—opened his eyes inside a coffin that did not belong to him.
The coffin was warm.
Not because of his body.
But because something else was lying beside him.
Breathing.
Slowly.
Hungrily.
Arien didn't scream. He didn't breathe. He couldn't. His lungs felt like they had forgotten the purpose of air. His mind was a thundering emptiness as his fingers brushed the… thing next to him.
Skin. Cold. Soft. Too soft.
Like it had been shaped only moments ago.
And then—
A whisper beside his ear:
"Found you."
Arien slammed his shoulder upward, the coffin lid cracking like a rib cage splitting open. Soil poured in, cold as winter's teeth, swallowing him as he clawed toward a world he wasn't sure existed anymore.
When he broke through the ground, the world greeted him with a nightmare.
Where his village once stood, there was only ash. Not burnt remains—only ash, as if every home, every person, had been carved out of existence molecule by molecule.
And standing in the middle of that gray wasteland was a girl.
Barefoot.
Clothed in funeral white.
Eyes stitched shut with red thread.
Yet somehow, she was staring directly at him.
"Arien Vale," she said with lips that barely moved. "Welcome back."
He staggered backward. "Who… who are you?"
Her head tilted as if confused. "You don't remember?"
Her voice was a melody of sorrow and childlike hunger.
"You traded your soul for this moment."
"What—?!"
She stepped forward, and the ash beneath her feet rippled like water.
"You begged for a second life. A third chance. A fourth escape."
Her tone sharpened. "Every time, you failed. Every time, you died. Every time, you came back."
Arien's blood froze.
He had never lived more than once.
He had never died before today.
The girl raised her hand. Five strings of red thread unfurled from her fingertips, each shimmering with runes that pulsed like dying hearts.
"Arien Vale," she whispered, "you are the only soul that refuses to stay dead. You are the paradox that unmade the sky tonight."
The threads shot into the earth—and the ground shuddered like something enormous was waking.
Ash rose.
Not like dust.
Like limbs.
Like faces.
Like the thousands of villagers who were supposed to be alive this morning were now crawling their way back from annihilation.
But not as themselves.
Their bodies were made of ash.
Their mouths hung open in silent screams.
Their hands twitched like broken puppets trying to remember life.
And worst of all—
They all reached for Arien.
The stitched-eyed girl smiled faintly.
"Your previous selves will always seek you.
You carry all their sins."
Arien backed away, heart hammering. "I don't understand!"
"You don't need to."
Her head tilted again.
"You only need to survive long enough to kill the god who refused to be born."
The ash-people lunged.
The sky split open again.
The wound widened—
And from it, something shaped like a hand reached down.
Not divine.
Not demonic.
Something older.
Something that should not exist.
And it touched Arien's chest.
For a moment—
He remembered dying.
A hundred times.
A thousand.
Worlds that burned.
Lovers who wept.
Enemies who laughed.
Friends who betrayed.
Gods who bargained.
Demons who begged.
And a voice, echoing from every death:
"One more time, Arien…
Just one more time."
His vision snapped back.
The girl was right in front of him now, her stitched eyes bleeding through the threads.
"You wanted a story that no one could copy."
Her fingers touched his cheek.
"Then live a life no one would dare repeat."
And as the world collapsed into darkness again—
Arien Vale finally screamed.
Not in fear.
But in recognition.
He had heard that whisper before.
The one inside the coffin.
It had been his own voice.