The world around Ren blurred as the sword pierced him. It tore through his ribs and drove straight into his heart, the impact buckling his body as rusted metal lodged deep within him.
He couldn't breathe—no matter how hard he tried.
Blood spilled from his mouth, staining his lower lip before it dripped to the stone below.
But the corpse wasn't finished.
It twisted the broken blade inside him. Metal scraped against bone and flesh with a sickening grind. Ren tried to scream, but his throat locked tight, choked both by the blood and shock.
Then the corpse wrenched the sword free.
Ren jerked as the blade, blood following out in thick streams. Before his mind could even register the relief, the rusted steel plunged into him again—this time through the stomach.
Again and again, until he could no longer count.
His body collapsed, twitching weakly as he drowned in a spreading pool of his own blood.
'How much longer?' Ren thought, staring up at the corpse with bloodshot eyes. 'When will you stop this…Haven't I had enough?
The corpse did not answer.
'That's right…' His thoughts spiraled. 'You're gone…You can't hear me. Even if you could…would you even listen to my pleading?'
Over and over, the blade wounded.
Ren's body became something unrecognizable—meat and bone reduced to ruin.
'I hate it…I hate this body.' Ren thought. 'This useless, pathetic body. It's mine—but it never listens. I tell it to run, it collapses. I tell it to fight, it trembles. I tell it to endure, it breaks. And when I want it to die—it just won't.'
Then, a familiar softness reached him.
'You poor little soul.'
The motherly voice returned, settling into his mind like a lullaby.
'I hate myself,' Ren thought desperately. 'Waking up. Breathing. Just to endure another cycle of torture…Every time I try, it never works. I always fail. Every single time…'
'You've tried so hard...For so long,' The voice whispered. 'You've been carrying all this pain alone…All by yourself. Such a cruel fate to behold."
'What's the point?' Ren wondered. 'Why keep going?'
'There is no point,' The voice answered, growing louder. 'You're right, little soul…There is no reason to continue when it only leads to more of the same.'
'I don't want to wake up anymore…I don't want to feel this. It never stops. I can't take it—'
'You don't have to,' The voice soothed. 'You can rest. You can let go.'
'I don't care anymore,' He pleaded. 'Please…'
'It will end,' The voice promised. "I will make it end, little soul. All you have to do is give in…Let the darkness take you, and everything will finally be quiet.'
Ren's eyes grew weak.
This was what he had wanted his whole life—to escape pain, to stop suffering, to finally rest. He could almost feel it: the release, the silence, the darkness closing in around him.
Then, the pain vanished.
'It stopped,' Ren realized. 'The voice…the darkness…it really will save me.'
But the relief didn't last. Agony returned—different this time.
Not the pain of being stabbed. The pain of healing. His body, broken beyond recognition, began to knit itself back together. Bone realigned. Muscle reformed. Flesh burned as it regenerated.
A pain he came to know all too well.
Ren gasped and jolted awake, forcing himself upright with trembling hands.
The corpse stood before him.
The same one that had butchered him again and again. But something was different. Its hollow eyes—once empty and unfeeling—now seemed…uncertain. Regret flickered there. Sadness…
It no longer looked like a threat. It looked lost.
Before Ren could make sense of it, the voice returned. 'Don't worry, little soul. Rest. Sleep. Break free from the torment.'
The corpse's hand shook. The broken sword slipped from its grasp and clattered to the floor.
"That voice…" He said hoarsely, meeting the corpse's gaze. "You hear it too, don't you?"
His fists clenched, nails biting into bloodied palms.
"It's in your head. Telling you what to do. What to feel. I almost believed it too—I almost—"
His breath hitched when he realized.
Just how close he was to breaking the promise he made to himself moments before.
"I-I promised myself I wouldn't give in," He snarled at himself. "But I still almost did. Why? Why am I so gullible? Thinking I'd find peace in such empty words…"
'You don't need to think anymore,' The voice interrupted. 'Let me—'
'No…' Ren cut it off.
'You don't have to fight,' The voice coaxed. 'The pain will end. The loneliness will end. Let me take it…Let me carry it for you.'
Ren stepped back, his shadow stretching long across the stone.
"You don't carry it," Ren said aloud. "You bury it. You drown it. You feed on it."
Images burned through his mind—
Corpses hanging from blackened trees.
Lifeless bodies swaying forever.
The suffering.
The silence.
"I know…You creep into their minds. You keep their pain. Their fear. Their hate. You thrive on it."
He looked at the corpse one last time, and spoke in a soft manner.
"I get it now. You didn't want this. You didn't deserve it—any more than I did."
Ren couldn't fully forgive it. Not after what it had done to him.
But he understood. His sadness. His pain. Should be directed to the voice in his head.
"This forest," Ren whispered. "That voice. It controls everything here."
When Ren turned to leave. The corpse did not follow.
Outside, the crimson night was quiet. There were no painful screeches audible.
Not too far away, Ren came across a shallow cave cut into the cliffside came into view.
It was a shelter, and that was enough.
He stepped inside, letting his eyes adjust to the cold darkness.
For the first time since it all began—since the wolves, the corpse, the blade, the voice—Ren was not moving. The silence crushed him. He stared at his hands, grime and blood hiding the lines of his palms. He turned them over, searching for something human. There was nothing.
No answers.
No comfort.
"What am I even doing anymore?" The question lingered, unanswered.
Memories pressed in—too many, too fast. Moments he'd never had time to feel. Because this world hadn't allowed it. But now that it has stopped. So did he. Ren's shoulders shook as the first sob escaped him—quiet and startled. He tried to stop it, but the dam had already broken.
And he wept.
The sound tore itself from his chest, raw and unrestrained. Tears streamed down his face, dripping through his fingers as he buried himself in his hands.
He cried for the pain. For the confusion. But most of all, he cried because he no longer knew what it meant to live. Because living in this world hurts more than dying ever could.
Because every part of him ached—not just his body, but the part of him forced to keep dragging it forward. Alone in the cave, he whispered.
"I don't know how much longer I can do this." His voice cracked, breaking into fresh sobs. "I…want it to stop. I want everything to stop."
But deep down inside himself, he knew it wouldn't.
The voice would return, and the pain would follow.