The creature's hand closed around my throat before I could breathe. Its grip felt like hot metal pressed into my skin. I clawed at its arm, but my nails scraped uselessly across its melted flesh. It lifted me off the ground with one arm like I weighed nothing at all.
I kicked desperately. My legs dangled in the air as the world blurred. The room smelled like smoke and blood and the sour rot of whatever this thing had become.
My lungs burned.
My vision darkened around the edges.
The monster dragged me closer. Its jaw opened unnaturally wide, skin stretching like wet cloth. Its teeth were cracked and uneven. Its breath was thick and wet against my cheek.
I thought that would be the end.
That I would die before I even understood what killed my family.
Then it threw me.
My body hit the far wall so hard that every bone inside me felt like it shattered. Pain exploded through my ribs. Something in my back cracked sharply. I fell to the floor in a twisted shape I knew was wrong. My limbs bent at angles no human body should bend.
I tried to move, but nothing obeyed me. My body was broken. Completely. My breath came out as a thin whine.
The creature approached slowly. The sound of its feet squishing against its own melted skin made my stomach twist. It crouched beside me and stared at my face with hollow hunger. It pressed its clawed fingers into my shoulder and tore a chunk of flesh away as easily as peeling fruit.
I screamed until my throat ripped.
Blood pooled under me. My vision flickered. I felt myself slipping into the dark.
Then it bit me.
Its teeth sank deep into my side and tore something vital loose.
Pain so sharp it did not even feel real.
My heart stumbled.
My breath stopped.
My vision dimmed until the world became a fading smear of color and shadow.
I thought of my family lying behind it.
My dad's empty eyes.
My mom's final reaching hand.
My sister's coloring book on the floor.
And something inside me snapped.
Something deep.
Something that had been waiting.
Something that refused to die.
Words tore out of me in a voice that did not sound human.
"I AM NOT DYING LIKE THIS."
My chest heaved with a violent force.
My heart slammed back to life.
Blood surged through my veins like boiling water.
The monster jerked back as light burst across my skin.
My bones cracked.
Then cracked again.
Then snapped violently into place.
My twisted arm straightened.
My shattered ribs pulled themselves back together.
My torn flesh stitched itself from the inside out.
My body glowed faintly like embers under skin.
I rose from the floor.
The monster hissed, stepping away slowly as if it finally understood that something was wrong.
I stood fully in front of it now.
Breathing steady.
Skin whole.
Blood drying on the ground behind me.
A heat pulsed through me, not physical heat but strength. Heavy, powerful, coiled strength that sat under my skin like a beast waking up.
My fists clenched.
My muscles flexed with new weight.
Every breath felt like it filled me with more force than I had ever held in my life.
My regeneration had awakened something.
My first attribute boost.
Strength.
Real strength.
Bone deep.
Enough to shatter.
I stepped forward.
The floor cracked beneath my foot.
The monster lunged at me with its claws.
This time I caught its wrist mid swing. My fingers closed around its melted flesh and the creature froze, confused that it could not move.
Its arm trembled inside my grip.
I squeezed.
The bone inside snapped with a loud crack.
The creature shrieked.
I yanked it forward and drove my forehead into its face. Skin and blood splattered across the wall. The impact rattled my skull, but I barely felt it.
I moved on instinct.
Rage was my guide.
The memory of my family was my fire.
The monster scrambled back, dragging its broken arm. It swung its other hand toward my throat but I ducked under it. I drove my fist straight into its stomach. The hit sank deep, far deeper than I expected, like punching into soaked clay.
The creature folded over.
I grabbed its head and slammed it into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each slam echoed through the ruined house. Dust rose in clouds. The floorboards cracked. The creature's malformed skull began to dent under the impact.
It clawed wildly at my face, but its hands shook. It tried to stand but its legs buckled. It tried to attack but its strength was fading fast.
Not mine.
Not anymore.
I lifted it by the throat.
Its melted skin tore slightly under my grip.
It gurgled.
It struggled.
Its legs kicked weakly.
I looked into its ruined face.
Into the hollow emptiness where humanity used to be.
My voice came out low and shaking.
"You killed them."
The creature gnashed its teeth.
It writhed like a dying animal.
"You killed my family."
I squeezed tighter.
Its breath choked into silence.
"I am not letting you live in the same world they died in."
The monster opened its mouth in one last desperate hiss.
I drove my fist straight through its chest.
Hot blood burst across my arm.
The creature jerked violently.
Its body collapsed around my hand and sagged to the floor, every spark of false life draining out of it.
Silence returned.
Not the calm silence of the world before.
A heavier one.
A cold one.
I stood over the corpse, chest heaving, blood dripping down my fingers.
My regeneration slowed.
The glow faded.
But the strength stayed.
A weight under my skin that reminded me the world had changed.
That I had changed.
I turned toward where my family lay.
My knees weakened.
My breath caught.
I knelt beside them, shaking as the adrenaline faded and the grief rushed in full force.
My voice cracked.
"I am sorry. I am so sorry."
I touched my sister's small hand.
It was already cold.
Something inside me shattered again, but this time it did not break me.
It sharpened me.
I wiped the blood from my face and stood.
Not as the boy I was yesterday.
As someone who had survived death itself.
Someone the world would not break easily again.
Outside, the sky trembled with distant screams and explosions.
Something enormous was beginning.
The quiet days were over.
And I was not the same Yen Yoshida anymore.