I opened my eyes.
There was nothing.
No sound. No movement. No sense of direction.
I couldn't even feel myself existing.
Is this… the afterlife?
Time lost meaning.
Gradually, sensation returned. I moved without knowing where I was going. The darkness thinned—not disappearing, but changing.
Something was there.
I couldn't see it clearly.
Only presence. Pressure.
Fear unlike anything I had known.
I tried to run.
I fell.
This was the first time I truly understood death.
As my consciousness began to fade, images surfaced—my sister, my father, the home we lost.
At that moment, something deep inside me stirred.
Not courage.
Not anger.
A primitive instinct, buried far deeper than thought, awakened.
Time blurred.
Pain existed, but I couldn't tell where it came from.
I fought. Or maybe I simply refused to stop moving.
How long it lasted, I didn't know.
My body screamed for rest.
And then—
I collapsed.
Through half-closed eyes, I saw light.
A distant figure in chains.
Then darkness claimed me once more.