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Quick author note:
I have revised and changed the ending of the previous chapter. I felt that I wanted to push too many ideas at once, which risked making the story unclear or overwhelming. After reconsidering it, I decided to scale it back to preserve pacing and coherence.
I will return the removed concept later in the story in a more fitting context.
I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
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Corin stood in the blood soaked room, slowly taking it in. Aside from the gore, there was little else of note. Just a small room with a single window, a bed, a closet and a desk. From the arrangement alone, he assumed it was the girl's room. The one leaking blood out of her hollow eyes.
His gaze drifted towards the severed head resting in a pool of blood. He stepped closer and crouched, his head tilting slightly. Rough brown hair, brown eyes frozen wide with terror. A patchy beard framed a face locked in horror.
Corin lifted the head by its hair. Blood dripped freely, staining his hands and pattering onto the floor. For a brief moment, his lifeless eyes mirrored the expression, widening unnaturally.
He froze.
His free hand rose to his chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart was racing.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Curiosity sharpened his gaze.
He had never felt this before. His body reacting without instruction. Without permission.
He had always been in control.
To him, everything followed structure. Cause and effect. Input and outcome. That was why other people fascinated him. They had something he didn't posses. Emotions. Impulses. Reactions without logic. A system that contradicted themselves.
He studied them because they made no sense. And now his own body had done the same.
Something stirred in his chest.
His eyes flickered.
Deep within the grey, a faint spark trembled. A small point of light nestling in an ocean of emptiness.
It felt foreign.
It felt intrusive.
It felt... Disgusting.
The severed head moved.
Its pupils flooded yellow. Its eyes shifted and focused on him.
A wide smile split across its face, too broad, too forced. Teeth chattered against one another as thick blood began to stream from its eyes.
"A a are… you… scared?"
The voice scraped out in broken fragments.
Corin tilted his head the other way.
The spark vanished.
His heartbeat steadied.
The strange stirring inside him was forced down, buried, chained in the dark.
The emptiness returned.
He drew the head closer until their faces were inches apart.
"Am I?"
The room fell silent.
The air grew heavy.
Seconds passed.
"Another question," he continued, voice thoughtful. "Have I seen you before?"
The head sighed. A sound of disappointment.
Then it trembled.
A crack split across its cheek.
Another followed.
The sound spread.
Hairline fractures crawled across the walls. Across the floorboards. Across the bed, the desk, the window. Even across Corin's own skin.
The entire room began to splinter.
Each crack widened.
They opened like mouths. Inside were rows of narrow, glistening teeth.
All at once, they spoke.
"You should be scared."
"You should be scared."
"You should be scared."
The voices overlapped until the air vibrated.
A violent fissure tore through the floor beneath him. It yawned open, revealing layer upon layer of jagged teeth grinding against one another.
They lunged upward. The head tore free from his hand as the floor swallowed him whole.
Teeth closed around him.
Fabric shredded first. Then skin.
Fingers severed. Arms crushed. Bone splintered.
His body was reduced in seconds, devoured in a frenzy of snapping teeth.
Then it stopped.
The cracks sealed. The room returned to its blood soaked stillness.
…
Silence settled once more.
…
He died.
For the fifty sixth time.
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Stars littered the night sky.
Corin threaded through the snow swept plains, fierce winds tugging at him. Behind him, Kertelmoor stood like a dark silhouette.
A small cabin came into view. Snow lay thick upon its roof, the structure groaning as the wind pressed against it.
Corin pushed the door open. Snow spilling in as he stepped inside.
He crossed to the table. It barely reached his hips. Crouching down, he sat on the floor and folded his legs beneath him. From here, the table met him comfortably.
He loosened the small sack at his belt and tipped several compact spheres into his palm.
Bread.
Dense, compressed balls of it.
Without hesitation, he placed one in his mouth. It broke apart into dry crumbs, stale and nearly tasteless.
Flavor was irrelevant.
He ate a few in silence. The stale, compressed bread chewed no better than cardboard.
When he finished, he rose and moved to the desk. Striking his fire stones together, he coaxed a weak flame from the candle's dying wick.
Light flickered across the walls.
He reached for the heavy book.
Then stopped.
His hand hovered above the cover.
He stood completely still.
The candle flickered, its glow washing over the white mask. The smooth surface reflecting a dull gleam.
Corin lowered his head. Strands of dark hair slipped forward, half veiling his face.
He listened.
The cabin offered nothing. No footsteps. No wind forcing the boards. No breath that was not his own.
Yet he was certain.
Something was there.
"Show yourself."
He slowly rose from the chair. His eyes swept the cramped space, pausing on every corner.
"I know this is fake," he said evenly. "I remember."
A faint glint caught his attention. In the mirrorshard embedded in the wall, two yellow eyes opened.
A voice followed, "What are you?"
Corin turned his head and met its gaze.
"Should I not be asking you that?"
He moved before the words had fully left his mouth. His hand closed around the pickaxe, hurling it. The metal head struck the mirror and exploded it into fragments. The force carried through, biting into the wood behind it.
The cabin trembled.
A new shard surfaced in the wall.
Then another.
And another.
They forced themselves into existence across the room. In the walls. In the table. In the door. Each shard reflecting the same pair of yellow eyes.
The voice returned, layered now, distorted.
"You remember… and you are not afraid? How?"
Corin did not respond. He stepped forward and drove his fist into the nearest shard. Glass shattered. Splinters lodged in his knuckles and palm. Blood ran down his wrist.
The voices multiplied.
"How?"
"How?"
"How!"
They echoed from every surface.
He pressed his hands to his head as the sound swelled. It grew sharper, denser, vibrating through the air like a physical force.
Within seconds, the pressure ruptured his eardrums. Warm blood slid down his neck.
The ringing did not stop.
He forced himself upright and smashed another shard.
Then another.
Glass embedded deeper into his skin. His hands becoming slick red.
The shouting intensified.
"How!"
"How!"
"How!"
Though already deaf, he still felt it. The vibration pulsed through bone and marrow, shaking his ribs, his spine, his skull.
Blood spilled from his nose. From his ears. From his mouth.
He started to stagger.
The cabin shook violently around him, mirrors multiplying faster than he could destroy them. Yellow eyes filled every surface, blinking in unison.
The sound became pressure. The pressure became rupture.
Something inside his skull shifted.
Then tore.
Corin dropped to his knees. His fingers scraped against the floorboards before he collapsed.
His vision fractured. The candle light stretched into ribbons, fracturing into countless streaks that bled into one another.
The world drowned in a crimson haze.
Minutes passed in unbearable pain before his brain dissolved entirely. Blood pooled beneath him, seeping into the cracks between boards. Around him, in every direction, countless yellow eyes watched.
…
Silence returned.
The mirrors vanished.
The cabin stood empty once more.
…
He died again.
For the fifty seventh time.