"I always wondered…"
Cold water pressed in from every direction.
A boy with white hair drifted beneath the surface, his small body sinking slowly into the endless dark. He wore a clean white high school uniform, its fabric rippling gently as if the water itself were breathing. His knees were pulled tightly to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, holding himself together as though he might shatter if he let go.
His eyes were red.
Not from blood.
From despair.
"Why is this happening to me…?"
Below him stretched a vast abyss. No floor. No light. Just depth that swallowed everything it touched. The deeper he stared, the more it felt as if the darkness itself was staring back.
"What did I do…?"
Tiny bubbles escaped his lips, drifting upward, breaking the silence one by one. His gaze never left the deep. His pupils trembled, reflecting nothing but blackness, as if the world had already abandoned him.
"All I want is…"
The water around him suddenly felt wrong.
From the corner of his vision, something pale shifted.
A hand.
White. Too white. Its fingers were long and thin, bending at unnatural angles as it reached toward him from the darkness. Then another appeared. And another. They crept closer, emerging from all directions, crawling through the water like spiders drawn to a dying prey.
Yet he did not look away from the abyss.
"…a normal life."
His eyelids slowly closed.
The hands lunged.
They wrapped around his arms, his legs, his torso, cold fingers tightening as more and more of them piled onto him. In seconds, his entire body was engulfed, the pale limbs folding inward, crushing him into a tight, suffocating sphere.
The bubbles stopped.
The water went still.
And the darkness claimed him.