My breath caught at the thought.
An ability… to return from death?
It wasn't a fleeting idea; it struck my mind like a hammer inside my skull. The mere passing of the thought was enough to choke me, as if the air around me had vanished instantly. I felt my mind slam its doors shut all at once, refusing even to consider it, refusing to give it any space to grow.
No.
This is impossible.
A thought like this could not be accepted without collapsing everything I believed in, everything I had built in my life, even if that life had been simple, mundane, almost meaningless.
I am not special.
I never was.
I do not believe in miracles, in chosen destinies, or in heroes granted supernatural powers simply for being "different." I was not someone who drew attention, nor someone deserving of stories revolving around them. I was ordinary. Ordinary to the point of boredom. I woke up, worked, returned home, slept. A closed loop, without glory, without heroics.
And I still insist on that, even now.
But the problem wasn't in my thoughts.
It was in my body.
My intact body, carrying no trace of death. And my memory… saturated with pain. The pain I had endured was no illusion. It was not a dream, nor a passing nightmare. It was real. Brutal. Present with a cruelty far greater than any experience I had lived before. No sane mind could invent the sensation of being torn apart, the moment your body ceases to exist, or that void that swallows you when everything ends.
And before I could dive deeper into this paradox—
I heard it.
The sound.
At first, it was faint, barely perceptible, almost blending with the background. Yet something in it was wrong. It was clear enough to silence my thoughts instantly, as if a cold hand had reached inside my head and switched everything off.
It wasn't merely a sound to be heard—it was a presence to be felt, a recognition in the bones.
My body shuddered involuntarily. A sharp chill ran down my spine.
No.
Not now.
I told myself in a commanding tone, though it was closer to a plea than an order:
Run…
You have to run now.
If I encountered that monster again, I couldn't endure it. I wouldn't survive. Just remembering its teeth—the sudden snap—was enough to paralyze my limbs. And yet, I forced myself to stand.
I rose with difficulty, my legs trembling violently, nearly giving way beneath me. The ground seemed unstable, rejecting my weight. But I no longer had the luxury of hesitation or thought or rational fear.
I ran.
I ran with everything I had left, in a random direction, without plan or goal. Just away. Away from the sound. Away from the memories. Away from anything that could drag me back to that ending.
The air tore through my chest. My breaths came jagged and sharp, painful, as if my lungs were rebelling against me, on the verge of bursting.
"Haaah… haaah…"
I had only run a few seconds, yet time stretched unnaturally. Every step felt like the last. Exhaustion hit me frighteningly fast—far faster than it should—until I was sure I would collapse at any moment. My head spun, my vision wavered, and my limbs grew heavy, as if some invisible force were dragging me to the ground.
Don't stop…
Don't stop…
Don't stop…
I repeated it madly in my head, as if the words themselves were keeping my body upright, keeping me from falling and surrendering.
Then I saw it.
A massive rock, jutting out of the ground, larger than the rest, different, as if it had been part of this place since time began.
I didn't think. I didn't analyze.
I hurled myself toward it with everything I had and slipped behind it at the last moment, pressing myself against it, trying to make my body as small as possible—to disappear, to melt into its shadow.
I bent over, hands on my knees, gasping wildly. My chest heaved painfully, each breath a battle. Sweat poured down my forehead, and my muscles trembled from exertion. But little by little, I began to regain my breathing… slowly, cautiously, as if even my inner voice might be heard.
Moments passed.
Seconds?
Minutes?
I no longer knew.
Then I cautiously lifted my head and peeked from behind the rock.
Nothing.
No sound.
No movement.
No shadow chasing me.
I murmured in a low voice, barely audible, a mixture of trembling relief and fragile joy that could hardly believe itself:
"I… survived."
The word felt strange on my lips, heavy, as if it didn't belong here. As if reality itself wasn't certain of it.
Only then did I allow my mind to function again.
Where am I?
Why is there no sign of humans?
No roads, no voices, no life.
Is this place completely empty? The thought of remaining alone here was as terrifying as the monster itself. Loneliness here doesn't mean peace—it means death, sooner or later.
I must find someone. Any human. Even the mere presence of another could mean the difference between sanity and ruin.
But before I could sink into those thoughts—
I felt something cold touch my skin.
A drop.
My breath froze.
I looked up at the sky, but there was no sign of rain. The clouds were unchanged—silent, oppressive, unmoving. No wind, no thunder, nothing.
A strange, heavy feeling crept inside me, like a belated warning.
Slowly…
Very slowly…
I raised my head higher.
And then I saw it.
The rock I had been leaning against…
Was not a rock.
It was a mouth.
A colossal mouth, gaping wide, jagged, irregular teeth lining its interior—some broken, some unnaturally long. Thick saliva dripped slowly, splattering onto the ground… and onto my skin. A warm, rotten stench slammed into my nose, twisting my stomach.
My blood froze in my veins.
This…
This thing had been waiting.
My body jerked back instinctively. A muffled scream lodged in my throat—but I was too slow. Painfully slow.
I wasn't even close to escaping.
The mouth lunged suddenly.
I felt teeth clamp down with unimaginable force. In a single instant, half my body was gone. The pain didn't come gradually—it exploded at once, a blind wave that crushed every thought, every shred of awareness.
"Aaaaaaaaah!"
I screamed with everything I had, a scream ripped from somewhere deeper than sound itself. I saw the ground pull away, my body crushed, ground down, as if I were nothing.
There was no time to beg this time. No thoughts. No hope.
Fear…
Shock…
Absolute helplessness…
All merged into a single, brief, merciless moment.
Then—
Everything went dark.
And with the disappearance of pain…
I knew.
I had died… once again.