Ren felt like he had been floating forever.
Everything around him had ceased to exist. The world, the cosmos, even the concept of space itself had turned black. He couldn't feel his hands or legs anymore. His body had already faded away, leaving only his consciousness drifting through an endless void.
He remembered being beheaded. The memory came back in fragments: Lu Changcheng's blade cutting through his neck, the sudden separation of mind from body, the overwhelming sense of his unwillingness to die like helpless prey. But that rage meant nothing now. The anger that had sustained him through his transformation was gone, replaced by something far worse.
He felt like he was fading away.
It was the strangest sensation, like being high on pain medication but remaining fully conscious. Not the sudden slip into unconsciousness that came with anesthesia, but a slow, inexorable dissolution. His awareness was dimming bit by bit, like a candle burning down to its last moments. Really slowly. Agonizingly slowly.
"I'm so scared," he whispered into the void, though he had no mouth to speak with.
"No, I'm so scared."
That was all he could feel now. Pure, undiluted terror. Not the cosmic fear he had wielded as a weapon, but something much more human and desperate. The fear of ceasing to exist, of becoming nothing at all.
Then something struck him like lightning.
Why did this feeling seem so familiar?
It was like he had experienced this exact sensation before. The floating, the fading, the slow dissolution of everything he was. But when? Where? His memories felt fragmented, scattered across lifetimes he wasn't sure belonged to him.
A voice rang inside his head, robotic and emotionless. It was the system voice he hadn't heard for what felt like ages.
[System: You Have Died]
[1st Memories Unlocked]
"What the fuck?" Ren's consciousness recoiled in surprise.
Before he could process what was happening, memories began to replay around him like a movie projected onto the darkness. Not his memories from this world, but something older. Something from before.
The scene materialized with perfect clarity.
A man sat slumped on a worn couch in a small apartment. He looked ghostly pale, with dark circles under his eyes that spoke of months, maybe years, of sleep deprivation and poor health. His clothes hung loose on his thin frame, and his hands trembled slightly as he unwrapped a convenience store sandwich.
"Fuck, I feel like dying," the man said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. He threw the sandwich onto the coffee table without taking a bite.
Ren recognized the voice immediately. It was his own, but from a lifetime ago.
Woof woof!
An orange Shiba Inu came bounding into the room, tail wagging with the kind of boundless energy that only dogs possessed. The animal was beautiful, with a perfect coat and intelligent eyes that seemed to understand far more than they should.
"Hey, Hailey, my girl. Do you miss me?" Past Ren said, his exhausted expression softening as he reached down to pat the dog's head. Despite his obvious fatigue, there was genuine affection in his voice.
Hailey licked his hand and panted softly, her whole body wiggling with happiness at her owner's return. She pressed against his legs, seeking more attention.
"I picked the right dog. You're really well behaved, girl." Past Ren scratched behind her ears, and for a moment, his face lost some of its haunted quality.
After a few minutes of attention, he stopped petting her and walked to the kitchen. The apartment was small and showed its age in every detail. The wallpaper was peeling in places, the carpet was worn thin from years of foot traffic, and the furniture looked like it had been bought secondhand from multiple different eras. But it was clean and organized, maintained by someone who took care of what little he had.
Past Ren filled a pot with water and put it on the stove, then pulled a chicken breast from the refrigerator. He began the careful process of boiling it, checking the temperature and timing with the precision of someone who had done this countless times before.
"Ha, if I showed someone my room and told them I'm a 5th years surgery resident at medical school, who would even believe me?" he muttered to himself as he looked around the shabby apartment.
"I rent this place because I can ride a bicycle to the hospital in ten minutes, but this place is really old."
The present Ren watching these memories felt a pang of recognition. He remembered this apartment, remembered the daily struggle of balancing medical school with basic survival. The bike rides to the hospital in all weather, the careful budgeting that made every purchase a strategic decision.
Past-Ren finished cooking the chicken and chopped it into small pieces, letting it cool before putting it in Hailey's bowl. The dog waited patiently, never begging or jumping, just sitting and watching with those intelligent eyes.
"There you go, girl. Fresh chicken again tonight." He set the bowl down and watched with satisfaction as Hailey approached her food with dignity, eating at a measured pace rather than wolfing it down.
Past-Ren glanced at the clock on the microwave. The digital display read 4:00 AM in harsh red numbers.
"Fuck, I have to clock in at 8 AM. Should I even bother sleeping?" He ran his hands through his hair, weighing his options. Four hours of sleep versus staying awake and being functional for surgery. It was a calculation he made almost every night, and there was never a good answer.
He started walking toward the bedroom, Hailey following at his heels. The dog seemed to sense his exhaustion and stayed close, offering what comfort she could.
Then the sharp pain hit him like a freight train.
It started in his chest, a crushing sensation that felt like someone had wrapped steel bands around his ribs and was tightening them with each heartbeat. Past-Ren doubled over, gasping for air that wouldn't come. His vision began to blur around the edges as his world started spinning.
"Fuck, so the heartburn I've been feeling isn't indigestion," he wheezed, one hand clutching his chest while the other reached out blindly for support.
"It's a fucking heart attack."
Hailey began barking frantically, sensing that something was terribly wrong. She circled around him, whimpering and trying to get his attention, but Past-Ren was already falling.
His consciousness faded to black before he hit the floor.
The memory shifted, and suddenly Ren was experiencing the aftermath from the inside.
He felt like he had been floating forever.
Everything around him had ceased to exist. The world, his apartment, even Hailey's worried barking had turned to absolute silence and darkness. He couldn't feel his hands or legs anymore. His body had already faded away, leaving only his consciousness drifting through an endless void.
"So this is death," his mind whispered into the nothingness.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. He was dead. Really, truly dead. The heart attack had killed him, and now he was... where? What happened after death? Was this it? An eternity of floating in darkness, slowly losing pieces of himself until nothing remained?
His mind began racing, panic setting in as the full implications crashed over him.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die.
The thought repeated endlessly, becoming a mantra of desperate denial. He had so much left to do, so many things he wanted to accomplish. Medical school wasn't finished. Hailey needed him. He had plans, dreams, hopes for the future. This couldn't be the end. It couldn't be.
SPLASH
The sound echoed through the void like thunder. Suddenly, Ren felt himself falling, plunging downward through darkness that had weight and substance. He hit something liquid with tremendous force, the impact driving all thought from his mind.
"Ekk!" The sound escaped him as he sank deeper and deeper into whatever he had fallen into.
He was drowning. Actually drowning, in some kind of liquid that felt wrong against his skin. It was too thick, too warm, and it moved around him with an intelligence that made his skin crawl. He flailed desperately, trying to swim upward, fighting against the substance that seemed to want to pull him down into its depths.
Ren swam up with all his might, kicking and clawing his way toward what he hoped was the surface. His lungs burned for air he wasn't sure he needed anymore, but the instinct to breathe was too strong to ignore.
He broke through the surface with a gasp, treading water while he tried to get his bearings.
"What the fuck, where am I..." The words got stuck in his throat as he took in the scenery around him.
The liquid he had been sinking into just moments ago was not water. It was not anything that should exist in any sane universe. The substance was black and slightly transparent, and as he looked closer, he could see what it was made of.
Human souls.
Countless human souls, melted and liquefied into this ocean of the dead. When he said countless, he meant it literally. This place was like an ocean, stretching to every horizon, and it was composed of what had to be more than a trillion human souls all blended together into this horrific soup.
Each soul retained just enough individuality that he could make out faces, hands, pieces of bodies floating in the liquid. They moved with their own current, reaching out toward him with desperate fingers, their mouths opening and closing in silent screams or pleas for help.
Then Ren realized something that made his blood run cold. He looked down at his own hands.
They were black and transparent too.
"Fuck, so this entire ocean is made of human souls," he whispered, the full horror of his situation crashing over him. "And I'm one of them."