It was a rainy day. Twenty-year-old Marsh, with pale eyes and dark circles underneath them, was completely absorbed in a video game. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.
Ring, ring.
The phone rang, but he was so lost in the game that he didn't pick it up. A few hours later,he finally finished.
"Finally, I cleared 100 floors," he said to himself. "I couldn't sleep last night just to complete this game. What time is it?"
He turned on his phone and his eyes widened. "Whoa, Mom... 12 missed calls."
He called her back. A man's voice answered.
"Hello?" the voice said.
"Hello, who are you?" Marsh asked.
"I'm from the city hospital. The person who owns this phone was in a car accident.
There were two people in the car, and they are seriously injured. Please get to the hospital quickly."
"Okay," Marsh said, his voice barely a whisper. The phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor.
He immediately opened the door and started running as fast as he could. It was around 7:00 PM, and the rain was pouring down heavily.
"It's not possible... it's not possible," he thought frantically. "Nothing can happen to them."
A chubby girl standing on the side of the road watched him run past.
"Marsh?" she called out, but he ignored her.
He finally reached the hospital, out of breath and drenched.
"Excuse me," he said to the front desk.
"Yes?" a woman replied.
"Where are the two people who were in a car accident?"
"They're in the ICU on the second floor," she said.
Marsh didn't wait for another word and took off running again
He reached the second floor, his legs burning and his lungs screaming for air. The hallway was long and silent, a stark contrast to the storm outside. He ran past closed doors and quiet rooms until he saw a sign: "Intensive Care Unit (ICU)."
He stopped outside the doors, panting, and pushed them open. The air inside was cool and smelled of antiseptic.
A few people were sitting in chairs, their faces etched with worry. In front of him stood a doctor, a man with a serious expression, talking to a nurse.
Marsh stumbled toward him.
"Excuse me, Doctor," he gasped, his voice cracking. "The car accident... the two people who were in the car... are they okay?"
The doctor turned to him . He looked at Marsh's drenched clothes and pale face.
"Are you a relative?"
"They're my parents"
A heavy silence fell. The doctor's expression didn't change, but it was enough. The hope Marsh had been clinging to, a tiny flame in the downpour, was snuffed out instantly.
The doctor placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry. We did everything we could, but the injuries were too severe. There was nothing we could do to save them."
The words hit Marsh . He staggered back, shaking his head. "No... no, that's not possible."
"They both passed away."
Marsh's world tilted. He saw the cold white walls, the fluorescent lights, and the blurred faces of strangers. But all he could hear was the doctor's voice, repeating the same words over and over.
They're gone... they're gone...
He stumbled from the hospital, the automatic doors sliding shut with a hiss behind him, a final, cold farewell to his old life. The rain plastered his clothes to his skin, but he didn't feel the chill. He felt nothing at all.
His legs carried him forward, but his mind was somewhere else, trapped in a loop of a doctor's somber words. He walked, a lost puppet on a rainy night, and stepped off the curb without a single glance.
SCREEEEEEECH
The sound tore through the drumming rain, a primal shriek of metal on wet asphalt. A horn blared, a monstrous roar that finally pierced the numbness in his head. He looked up.
Blinding headlights. A wall of steel.
In that single, stretched-out moment, a thought flashed through his mind. Not of fear, not of regret. Just a weary acceptance.
It's over.
Then, the world shattered into a symphony of crunching metal, breaking glass, and a final, crushing impact. Everything turned to a blinding white light, then to absolute, silent blackness.
"I'm going to die."
The thought was not a fear, but a sigh of relief. After everything—the loss, the pain, the emptiness—death was the only thing that made sense. My voice, or what was left of it, was just a whisper in the unfathomable darkness. I had no body, no senses, just a floating consciousness filled with the echoes of a life I no longer wanted.
This is death, I concluded. A perfect, silent void.
But then, a new sound cut through the silence.
Seven...
It was a voice, or perhaps more of a feeling, that resonated through the void itself. It was ancient and deep, not meant for mortal ears. It wasn't mine, and it broke the perfect stillness of my end.
Suddenly, a point of light appeared in the endless dark, shimmering like a distant star. It pulsed with a soft, ethereal glow, a beacon in the abyss.
"What is that?"
The thought came without a body, yet I felt myself move, drawn to the light like a moth to a flame. The voice continued to echo, a rhythmic, hypnotic chant.
Seven...
I moved closer, a bodiless wisp of existence propelled by an unexplainable curiosity. As I approached, the light grew, casting a soft luminescence on the shattered pieces of my former self that floated in the darkness. My own fragmented memories.
The voice was closer now.
Seven...
I reached out, or willed myself to reach out, and my consciousness touched the light. It was warm, like the sun on a forgotten day, and it pulsed with immense power. The moment of contact was a jolt, a profound shock that awakened something deep inside the darkness.
Ravana.
The word was a thunderclap in my left ear, a name that felt alien and yet intimately mine. It wasn't just spoken; it was etched into my very being, burning with a fire that was brighter than the light itself. The darkness around me recoiled, cracking and shattering as if a glass sphere had been broken. The silence was gone, replaced by a terrifying, beautiful symphony of chaos.
When he opened his eyes, it wasn't into a void, but into a blinding, painful light.
A loud, piercing sound filled his ears, not a whisper from the darkness, but a woman's cry. It was an assault on his new senses. He was wet, cold, and a strange, heavy pressure squeezed him from all sides.
What is happening?
He tried to scream, to protest, but all that came out was a high-pitched wail. His new body felt alien, small and utterly helpless. He was lifted by gentle hands and wrapped in something soft and warm.
Through the blur of his vision, he could make out a face—a woman, her hair damp with sweat, smiling down at him with tears in her eyes.