I jolted awake—gasping, trembling, drenched in cold sweat that wasn't entirely my own.
For a second, I Couldn't breathe.
My hands were shaking. My heart thundered in my ears. But what scared me most wasn't what I was feeling.
It was the silence….
kind of silence that followed me from that dream…
The memory clawed at me immediately.
Those eyes.
Those goddamn eyes.
Just thinking about them made my vision blur. Made the world feel smaller.
I curled my arms around myself, naked and raw, my skin clammy against the bloody floor.
"What the hell did I just see…" I whispered…
There was no answer. Just the sound of my ragged breathing.
My voice was like a crisp…
The fact that I can speak again…
Move again…
The fact that I have a body…
I never felt so grateful for it…
For a moment, I was back there again—floating in the dark, in that suffocating silence, where I had no body, no eyes, nothing but thought. And then that light—that cruel light that wasn't salvation but revelation—burned into me.
I remembered trying to shut my eyes.
But I didn't have eyelids.
I remembered trying to scream.
But I didn't have a throat.
All I could do was watch—as those two massive, burning suns opened and stared straight through me.
Watching me.
And when I realized—truly realized—they weren't suns…
That they were eyes.
I shattered.
My soul, my mind, whatever I was in that moment—burst apart like fragile glass under a divine hammer.
Rie has seen many horrors in her pervious life…
She lived a very long time…
Yet none can even be compared to the terror she felt from those eyes…
Fear…
True primordial fear…
Her insides twisted.
she leaned over the edge of the bed and threw up. Not from sickness. From the sheer weight of the memory pressing on her chest like a mountain.
"F-Fuck…" I choked, wiping my mouth.
How many terrifying things could I survive in a single day?
Seriously. There had to be a limit. Right?
I cursed again, shakier this time, and finally forced myself to look around.
Trying to divert my mind…
The twin moons hung just outside my broken window, pale and glowing against the early morning sky. The faint shimmer of frost on the glass told me it was almost sunrise.
Morning.
Of course it was morning.
The world always looks its most peaceful right after you tear yourself apart.
I exhaled a breath I didn't remember holding and finally took in the rest of my surroundings.
Yeah.
The place looked like a massacre scene straight out of some forbidden cult documentary.
The whole room was soaked in blood. The floor was smeared with monster organs. Bone fragments littered the space between scattered blood prints.
A trail of claw marks led from the door to the bedpost like something tried to crawl its way out and died screaming.
"…Yup," I muttered. "If someone walks in right now, they'll think I summoned an ancient evil god and offered myself as a sacrifice"
I ran a hand through my hair—only to realize how matted and sticky it was. My skin was caked in dried blood. My fingers trembled as I looked down at myself.
Naked.
My clothes were torn into pieces as it scattered across the floor.
Like someone or something tear them apart…
But more than that—my body.
No wounds.
No bruises.
Not a single scratch.
Her missing limb were there as if they were never gone in the first place.
My flesh had regenerated flawlessly.
I blinked, then slowly looked down.
"Hm?"
Something caught my eye as my lips curled up on their own.
Right above my heart, across the softest swell of my chest, was a strange tattoo.
Dark. Twisting. Alive.
It pulsed faintly, as though it were breathing with me. Black thorn-like veins stretched from it like roots under my skin. The lines danced every time I looked at them too hard, twitching like they had a mind of their own.
I reached out with my will.
It moved.
Like a snake obeying its master, it slithered down my arm, curling softly around my wrist and then at my fingers.
A breathless smile touched my lips.
"…So, I really did it."
The mark of success.
My bond—carved into soul and body.