In the darkness of the destroyed world, its destroyer sat alone. He rested his back against the dead weight of the Vowalker he had slaughtered.
His eyes were closed, yet he was not asleep.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
It had been six hour since he began hearing this relentless noise. With his eyes still shut, his hand moved on its own to take up the vessel he had built. He drank the water from it, ignoring the foul taste.
Right beside him lay a brutally opened Vowalker. Its entire body had been carved apart, and most of the muscles had been cast aside.
Ayanokouji did not eat. But his body began to move against his will.
His mouth pulled open saliva dripping down, his jaw trembling as his throat swallowed nothing but air. His hands dragged across the dirt, fingers clawing toward the raw, bloodied meat of the creature beside him.
He forced his muscles to go still. He did not let them reach the carcass. He simply left the remains there while the air reeked of iron and rot.
Ayanokouji's eyes shifted beneath his lids, and he covered his entire face with a trembling hand.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
It was almost morning, yet he did not move. He remained still, waiting for the sun to break the horizon.
Amidst the constant ringing of the kill notifications, he remembered a distinct sound that was different from the rest.
It was a notification about receiving a memory. Ayanokouji had been too drained at the time to focus on it, but now that he was no longer tired, just exhausted, starving, and frozen, he decided to think about what it could possibly be.
'The message that is censored in my mind. I instinctively understand that it has five syllables. The wording memory could mean that it will reveal one of those syllables.'
This had been the best lead he had. It was the only thread of logic he could pull to make sense of the void in his mind. To test this theory, Ayanokouji recalled the specific message.
[Aspirant. Welcome to the Nightmare ?????. Prepare for your first trial.]
Ayanokouji squeezed his already closed eyes even tighter. His hands moved without his consent and clutched his head as his body curled into a ball for the fifth time.
He lay there shivering in the dirt, a single person broken by the cold and the dark.
There was nothing natural left around him, The world was destroyed, Every monster that hid before the river was no longer breathing...
All of this would have been alright if Just his theory happened to be correct...
But...
His theory was wrong. The one anchor he had created to steady himself had snapped. For the first time, his logic had failed him. Leaving him alone in this destoryed world.
Where he was helpless.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have received a memory.]
***
By the dim light of the fire he had made, Ayanokouji slowly walked toward the river.
He reached down and put his hand into the water once more, searching for the bottom.
His hand went deep, then deeper, yet he could not find the surface of the earth beneath. He closed his eyes.
This river was an inconsistency. When he had first arrived, he could easily touch the bottom, but now he could not. The river was becoming deeper with each passing minute.
Ayanokouji did not spend his energy thinking about the new memory or the changing river. He had too little information to loop his mind around those facts. Instead, he took off the slippers he was wearing and threw them into the fire.
He took a handful of mud from the river and pressed it against his legs, leaving it to solidify. He could not risk walking barefoot in a world that refused to remain the same.
'The notifications about the Vowalkers finally seem to have ended.'
Time passed.
Slowly, the light returned to the world as the sun rose. The dirt on Ayanokouji's feet had hardened into a crude shell as he stood up.
He could finally see the river. It was seven meters wide, and its water was perfectly still.
He had rested for a few hours. His body was still begging for food, but he ignored the hunger.
Ayanokouji walked to the three hearts he had collected.
He threw one to the other side of the river.
He waited for a reaction, a shift in the world, or a hidden trap to trigger.
Nothing happened.
The heart simply thudded against a patch of ground that did not move.
He threw the second one further in. Again, the world remained still. No Vowalker emerged.
He threw the third right beside the water. It
Still, the world refused to react.
...
Ayanokouji sat back on the ground and looked up at the sky. He looked at the vast sky seeking a direction or a sign, but found only reality.
He stood up and walked back toward the part of the world he had destroyed. He saw nothing but ruin. He felt truly lost, standing in the center of a devastation he had caused, unable to see a path forward.
Ayanokouji sighed and walked back to the river. He had no choice but to swim to the closest heart. Seven meters was a short distance, but as the sun made the water transparent, he saw how deep the river had truly become.
He was not comfortable swimming through such an inconsistency, but he could not think of a better way.
He tried to go down to the water, but his body refused. His legs took steps back, away from the edge. His physical form was terrified of entering the inconsistent world again.
His pulse began to race against his ribs. It was as if his nerves were screaming that it would be better to stay in the ruin they already knew.
Ayanokouji looked at the ground. He felt no hatred for his circumstances. He began to walk back, and his body calmed down, thinking the danger had passed.
Suddenly, Ayanokouji began to run. He did not let his body think for itself. He dived into the water, covering three meters in a single jump, and began to swim the remaining distance.
As soon as he crossed the river and reached the hearts, he pulled himself up with effort. His hands were slick with water and mud.
Then the world shifted.
The decayed trees burst into life. Their bark stretched with groans as new branches snapped outward and bloomed with thick, dark green leaves. In seconds, they grew to twice their size.
Twenty meters ahead, the land rippled. A hill erupted from the earth, climbing thirty meters before leveling into a forest.
The ground beneath him trembled as grass sprouted rapidly. It shot up until it was nearly a meter high.
Chill went through Ayanokouji as he felt his legs becoming wet and looked down, The river was surfing up...
He was already running. The grass swayed violently as countless figures began sprinting beneath the canopy. The Vowalkers were no longer hidden or passive. This forest belonged to them.
He sprinted toward the nearest tree and climbed its trunk. As he reached a thick branch, he looked down. Dozens of twisted figures surrounded the tree, scratching at the bark.
The tree groaned and began to bleed...
Ayanokouji just stared at the tree.
The river behind him overflowed, and a deluge of water surged across the forest. The Vowalkers did not resist the flood; they absorbed it. Their skin hardened.
Ayanokouji leapt into the water and swam toward the hill. The flood connected the shattered land like a bridge of water. Beneath him, more Vowalkers sank into the depths, their bodies turning to rock under the pressure.
He swam fifteen meters and finally reached land. He pulled himself onto the hill and ran through the tall grass.
Behind him, the river had become a wide, raging lake. His lungs burned, cold fire as he forced air into a chest that felt constricted by the sheer speed of the world's transformation.
The grass rustled again. Thousands of ripples moved toward him. Swarms of Vowalkers surged after him like a wave of shadows.
Ayanokouji dodged a clawed hand lunging from the grass. He ducked another from the right. A third leapt from a branch, but he twisted midair, kicked off its chest, and kept moving.
The forest was a blur of green and grey. He slid under logs and vaulted over roots. Dozens of Vowalkers collided behind him, but more took their place. He zig-zagged through the trees. A claw grazed his shoulder, but he did not stop.
Every second the forest thickened. Every step brought more noise.
Then, there was silence.
The trees ended. The grass stopped. Ahead was a clearing.
A ruined village stood in the mist. There were broken walls and homes. Ayanokouji crossed the threshold and turned back.
The Vowalkers stood at the edge of the forest, staring. They were motionless, as if an invisible line kept them from crossing.
He did not sigh in relief. He just breathed. He had been running with the hope of finding a pond, but instead, he had found this place.
Ayanokouji stood at the edge of the clearing, his chest rising steadily as he watched the monsters. For a long moment, not a single one moved.
Then, without warning, they turned away. They left one by one, disappearing back into the trees.
𓁹𓁹
I stood there watching as the last of the Vowalkers disappeared into the jungle. I looked down at the soft earth and saw only their footsteps left behind.
I had a lot of theories about why they had turned away. Everything pointed toward one particular conclusion, but I did not let myself think of that.
My mind was tired of chasing answers that only led to more questions.
I looked at my own hands. I expected them to shake, but they remained perfectly still. Even my heart was not beating much now. This body was no longer scared of them.
I had so many questions about this world with little to no answers.
I looked back into the ruined village. It looked as if it had been abandoned for decades. When I first found the well in the other world, I knew I would eventually find other signs of human life, but I did not think I would find them this way.
Finding a village of the dead felt more isolating than being alone in the ruin.
I went inside the village. Every house was destroyed, with thick moss growing over the broken stone and rotted wood.
I still preferred this smell of dust over the smell of blood.
I explored the ruins for some time, stepping over collapsed beams and shattered pottery. I was trying to find any clue of what I was supposed to do next, but the search felt futile.
There were no voices here and no paths that made sense.
I moved deeper into the village. The houses here were taller. The world had changed into a forest and a lake, yet I was trapped in a pocket of history that had failed to survive.
Every step through the moss felt like a step further away from reality.
Finally, I reached the middle of the village. There, sitting among the ruins of the square, was a small well.
It was made of gray stone, cracked and worn by years of neglect. I stopped at the edge of it and looked down into the darkness.
There was something written there. On the worn stone of the well, smeared in dark, dried blood, were symbols that I could not recognize.
I had studied countless scripts and cyphers in the White Room, yet this language was different from every single one I had ever read. I could not even identify the basic structure of the symbols used to form the words.
I could not tell how I knew. I could not read the letters, but just by looking at the crimson marks, the meaning forced its way into my mind.
"One last stride into the afterlife."
The words formed in my mouth automatically. I could not explain it. I just knew they meant this.
Step. Step.
The sound of footsteps echoed through the silence, and my heart jumped in my chest.
I looked at the narrow boundary of the well, but it was too small to provide any cover.
I ran inside a broken house, pressing myself into the shadows as the sound grew closer with each passing second.
These footsteps were untrained and hesitant. The feet dragged along the ground.
Sniff. Sniff.
It seemed to belong to a woman. She was crying as she walked through the village. But she was not alone. I could feel other presences following a little behind her.
I had to decide my approach. Should I apprehend her or try to be careful? No, I could not afford to be careful. The Vowalkers had refused to enter this village for a reason. What if that reason was her and the others?
I stood in total silence, forming my plan. As the girl passed the house I was hiding in, I felt the other presences closing in.
I had to go for it.
I lunged toward her silently and caught her in a chokehold, locking my arm tight to prevent a single scream.
She shook in panic, her nails digging deep into my skin until blood began to leak onto her fingers.
I dragged her away into the ruined village as her legs struggled against the earth. I narrowed my eyes at her feet. Though she was fighting against the ground, she did not seem to leave behind any footprints.
I dragged her further back and clamped my hand over her mouth. She clawed at me at first, but suddenly she stopped and began tapping my hand. I loosened my grip just enough to speak.
"Lingua."
The word was the most common alternative for language. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
"We are same as you."
The words did not seem to match what her lips formed.
I did not release her. I felt one presence flanking me from behind. He was trying to hide his steps, but his movements were reckless and untrained. I could easily apprehend him too.
The real problem was the second one. I could not hear his footsteps at all. I only knew he was there.
"If you scream, I will kill you."
I whispered the threat into her ear. I was covered in smell of blood from head to toe, I knew she would not take my words lightly.
She nodded slowly.
My hand slid down from her torso to her knee.
She tensed, her own hands digging into the dirt she probably thought I was taking advantage of her.
I reached her knee and dislocated it.
She let out a sharp, painful scream. It was exactly what I wanted. The others heard it and stopped their careful approach, their movements becoming rushed.
I strengthened the hold on her neck until she could not speak.
"I told you not to let out a single sound. But I am merciful. I am going to throw you to the ground. If you try to crawl away, this time I will surely kill you."
I threw her onto the ground behind me. As she fell, I watched for the dirt to shift, but it did not. She simply landed on the surface without disturbing it.
I had purposely placed her behind me so the man approaching from the rear would feel confident in attacking, thinking I had abandoned my hostage.
I needed two of them within reach to counter the stronger one I could not hear.
Everything was moving toward my conclusion until the third man appeared from the front. He did not bother hiding. He walked directly into my view.
My heart began to beat fast again. My eyes widened and my body tensed.
This was wrong.
I quickly rotated, catching the girl again and slamming her head into the ground. Blood began to pool beneath her.
The man in front of me was someone I knew.
He was the one who had been with me the longest in the White Room. If he had bad intentions, I knew I would not survive.
This body was too weak and compromised for me to try and go against him.
I grabbed the girl's head and hit it into the ground once more to ensure she was incapacitated.
Keeping my eyes locked on the man. He did not stop. He kept coming toward me with a smile. It looked human.
Wait. Why can I not remember his name?
We have known each other since childhood. He was my closest rival. I remember his face and every lesson we shared, yet his name was gone.
He put forward two fingers, making a finger gun, and pointed it at me.
The man behind me kept coming closer.
I needed these two as shields to figure out if the one in front of me was real or another monster.
His mouth opened, but I could not hear the beginning of his sentence. He looked directly into my eyes.
"___ Don't come near. He wants to hold the two of you hostage."
The name was censored.
I tried to look behind me, but my body refused to look away from the man in front. The man behind me stopped and cursed.
"Fuck."
There was nothing but pure hatred in his voice. I needed to see his face for information, but I could not turn.
"Long time no see, Kiyotaka."
He was the only one left with me in the 4th generation. He was one of the few who defeated me once, only to be overshadowed later.
He was the one who gave me the idea of freedom.
I remember his words about wanting friends and wanting to be free.
I know him. I remember him. But I cannot remember his name. Even my memory was compromised.
"Long time no see."
Now the question remained. Was he real, or just another monster wearing the only face that could make me hesitate?
***
Chapter 4: Fated Reunion (1) has been Rewritten.
If you come across anything in this first nightmare that was already explained here or is inconsistent to the explanation provided here then that chapter has not been rewritten yet.