"Why must we struggle for something that will disappear? Why must we defend something that will ultimately be destroyed?"
- Kamishiro Zen
***
"Ugh... my head... it hurts so much!"
The pain pressed not only in his head, but also spread throughout his entire body. As if every inch of him was experiencing unbearable suffering.
Zen tried to regulate his breathing, holding back groans as the pain continued to bite mercilessly.
"Well, that's only natural. I just got hit by a truck... but it's truly miraculous to know that I'm still alive."
As his thoughts began to clear, he slowly opened his eyes, and instantly, tension spread throughout his body.
What is this?
Zen looked around, and what he saw didn't make sense.
Not a hospital.
Not the street where the accident happened.
No paramedics.
No sounds of life that he usually heard.
Instead, he was in a dark, narrow, and dirty room. Its walls were smeared with stains that had dried, mixed with a fishy aroma that filled the air.
He raised his head, observing more carefully.
Throughout the room, overlapping pentagram symbols were painted, roughly scrawled on the walls and floor like something done in haste... or perhaps with malicious intent.
Zen swallowed.
"Where... is this?"
Uncertainty began to gnaw at his thoughts, but he tried to remain calm.
It wasn't as if this was the first time he had experienced something absurd.
However, this was something he had never imagined before.
"What is this? A demon summoning ritual? Or have I been kidnapped by a cult?"
In an instant, all the worst possibilities began to flood his mind.
He knew that he had many enemies, people who might not like him for various reasons.
However, being involved in a cult?
That was too far from his wildest guess.
Zen moved his arm slowly, trying to reach for something that could serve as a grip, but instantly he felt touching something thick.
The substance felt sticky on his skin.
Cold.
Fishy.
He lowered his gaze and saw it clearly.
Blood.
Blood that was still fresh, pooling beneath his body.
And worse yet, he woke up right on top of the pentagram symbol made from that blood!
Zen felt his breath catch.
"Someone, please tell me this is all just a joke."
His eyes widened, his pupils shrank to the size of needles, his hands began to tremble.
A cold feeling spread from his fingertips to the back of his neck.
However, before he could think further, his head hurt again.
Suddenly, a fragment of memory flashed through his mind.
Blurry. Chaotic. Incomplete.
Like an incomplete puzzle, scattered without a clear pattern.
Zen tried to grasp that memory, trying to piece together each fragment, but the more he tried, the blurrier the image became.
He groaned softly, lifting his body slowly.
It was then that he realized something that made his body immediately tense.
Zen looked down slightly, and saw something that shouldn't be visible in this condition.
Something hanging between his legs.
Zen wasn't wearing anything.
Not a single piece of cloth covered his body.
And worse yet, his skin was full of wounds.
Whip marks that left blackish-red lines.
Burns that carved terrible marks on parts of his body.
Scratch marks like wild animal attacks that tore small parts of his skin.
Zen felt his throat dry up.
"What happened to me...?"
He raised his hand, observing his body more clearly.
Was I tortured while I was unconscious?
But it didn't make sense.
Why would someone torture someone who had just been in an accident?
Or maybe... something else had happened?
Zen bit his lip, trying to control his thoughts that were starting to spin faster and faster.
That's right too. Isn't it trending news now about high school kids being summoned to another world?
What if I'm also experiencing the same thing?
Is it possible that I'm now in another world?
Zen tried to digest that thought, but the more he thought about it, the more absurd it sounded.
He shifted his gaze, observing his surroundings more carefully.
This room was dark, without any lighting whatsoever.
The cold air felt piercing against his skin, mixed with the fishy aroma that became more piercing every time he took a breath.
The walls and floor of this room were stained with something terrible.
Strange symbols were carved on its surface, drawn roughly and irregularly.
The dark red color that dried in the corners of the symbols made them look more gloomy.
Blood.
Isn't this like a demon summoning ritual?
Zen laughed slightly at his own thoughts, but his laughter sounded bland, without any humor at all.
"What if I have reincarnated and possessed the body of a demon child?"
Ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
But maybe that was the only way for him not to get trapped in panic.
Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it a form of self-escape.
Sometimes, absurd thoughts like that could indeed make someone feel a little better.
Even if only a little.
Really just a little.
Zen sighed long, then began to walk around the room, looking for something that could be used as clothing.
However, in this gloomy room, he only found dried blood stains on the walls and floor, mixed with symbols that felt increasingly strange.
There was nothing that could be used.
No cloth. No clothes. Only madness and horror slowly creeping into his thoughts.
"Maybe I need to look elsewhere."
His eyes again caught something he had noticed before, a wooden door that already looked worn.
Its wooden planks appeared cracked in several parts, as if they hadn't been touched for a long time.
It seemed like that was the only door in this room.
However, Zen hadn't decided to open it yet.
At least, until he found something to wear.
But after going around and still finding nothing, it seemed like the only choice he had was to open that door.
Even though he didn't know what awaited behind it.
Even though there was something inside him that said he shouldn't open it.
Still, he had to do it.
Zen walked toward the door, extending his hand to the doorknob that was cold and dusty.
Just when his fingertips touched the doorknob, a strange cold air enveloped his body.
His whole body shivered.
Cold sweat suddenly soaked his skin.
There's something behind this door.
What is this?
What's behind this door?
That thought just crossed his mind, but Zen tried to ignore it.
Doubt would only make him more trapped in fear.
Without wasting any more time, he turned the wooden doorknob and pulled it.
The door opened.
However, at that moment, a very foul smell immediately assaulted his sense of smell.
Zen flinched.
The air around his body felt heavier.
His gaze fell on the corridor that stretched before him.
Dark.
Endless.
And the foul aroma that filled the room increasingly tortured his lungs.
"Ugh..."
Zen felt such strong nausea, his head suddenly felt heavy.
If he wasn't careful, he could immediately vomit all the contents of his stomach right then and there.
That was really an unpleasant smell.
That smell was even worse than rotting rat carcasses or organic waste that had been left to rot for days.
The air here felt like poison.
Disgusting.
Destroying the peace he was trying to maintain.
However, even though he didn't want to do it, Zen knew he had to adapt.
If not, he wouldn't be able to go any further.
He took a slow breath, trying to accustom himself to the air contaminated with this terrible smell.
The only thing he could do now was keep moving.
And see for himself what was at the end of that corridor.
After standing still for about three to five minutes to get used to the air in this place, Zen finally began to take the first step.
He tried to cross the boundary between the room full of terrible symbols and the dark corridor with such a piercing smell.
"Should I walk through this corridor alone? Without lighting, without protection, without a mask... Damn, if only I had night vision ability and cloth to cover my nose."
Zen stepped forward, slowly but surely.
The walls around the corridor felt cold when he touched their surface, trying to find something that might be a clue, whether it was a secret room or an exit.
His steps weren't always stable.
Occasionally, he stumbled due to lack of lighting, but he still tried to maintain his balance.
Currently, there were two things that were his priorities: clothes and an exit.
Zen had to get one of those two things.
And it would be better if he could get both.
After walking for quite a while, the corridor finally branched.
He stared at the two available directions.
"Right leads to heaven, left leads to hell... Well, I already know which one I'll choose."
Without hesitation, Zen chose the path to heaven and continued walking until finally he felt something different.
The wall beside him no longer felt like hard cold stone, but wood.
He stopped for a moment, feeling its surface more carefully.
Sure enough, it was a door.
Zen reached for the knob and turned it slowly.
When the door opened, a very foul smell attacked him again.
However, this time it was different.
He didn't just feel nauseous.
He had vomited.
He couldn't hold it back, what he saw behind the door immediately destroyed the boundaries he had maintained so far.
Zen jerked backward, his body trembling.
His eyes stared at the contents of that room with amazement that couldn't be explained in words.
A woman's body that was torn apart. No matter from which angle you looked at it, it was the body of a golden-haired woman that had been cut into pieces. Even her face had been cut diagonally, and thick red puddles were visible beneath those pieces.
Some organs from her body were also scattered on the floor.
What was striking about the woman was only her long golden hair that was already stained with blood.
Zen might have been used to seeing corpses like this in movies, he had even seen worse. Whether using practical effects or CGI, Zen was used to it.
In fact, Zen had been at a point where he felt fine seeing various kinds of deaths.
Zen had watched quite a lot of horror and thriller genre films.
So, he should have been able to get through something like this.
However, the reality was not.
Fiction remained fiction, and reality ultimately remained reality.
He couldn't stand seeing the madness before his eyes.
Zen tried to calm himself, taking deep breaths even though the air around him felt like poison.
Zen strengthened himself and tried to get up, before finally he closed the door quickly, trying to erase the terrible image from his thoughts.
But he knew.
Whatever he had seen could not be forgotten just like that.
After getting out of this place... maybe he would lose his appetite for several days.
Maybe more than that.
What he saw today would haunt him.
Ssssstt... Ssssst...
When his thoughts were still haunted by what he had just seen, from the distance, from within that endless darkness, Zen heard the sound of something gently rubbing against the floor surface.
Occasionally there were sounds of panting breath, making the atmosphere even more tense.
Is there someone else still alive besides me? Zen thought.
However, even though that thought was correct, his fear still didn't disappear.
Zen remembered an iconic sentence from one of his favorite novels.
"The dramatic moment in life is when you hear footsteps on the stairs coming toward you, and you don't know whether they mean good or evil."
Yes, that was a sentence from the Sherlock Holmes series. More precisely from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Although slightly different, Zen felt the same thing.
He didn't know what would emerge from that darkness.
Would what emerged be the Savior?
Or a Devil?