Cuurrr...
Something struck the surface of the water at high speed, creating a massive wave that sent the water into chaos.
In an instant, the world turned dark.
At the same time, Rayne began to regain consciousness. His body shivered, his throat was dry, and around him came only the faint creak of wood.
He opened his eyes—darkness.
The air was damp and heavy. The box he was hiding in now rocked gently, floating on something that moved.
Then he realized.
Water.
He was on water.
Rayne held his breath, then screamed as loud as he could, pounding the wooden wall with all his strength.
"HEY! HELP!" No answer.
His chest burned; the air inside the box was too thin, every breath felt like stealing oxygen from himself.
He kicked, scratched, but the thick wood did not move.
Water dripped through the cracks, making a tik… tik… tik… sound—like the ticking of time warning him it was almost up.
His hands bled, his nails broke, but he kept hammering the wall.
"Open… open…"
His voice was swallowed by the roar of the current outside.
Outside, the world was silent.
Only the sound of the current flowing beneath a dark ravine.
The sky above was covered by rock and storm clouds, making the water look like a living shadow.
Thunder struck far in the distance, flashing light for an instant across the water's surface—just enough to reveal how tall the cliffs surrounding him were.
The box kept drifting, hitting rocks, spinning, then slowly being drawn into a stronger current.
Rayne pounded again, screamed again.
"I'M HERE! HELP!!" But… the sound of water devoured everything.
His face was now wet with the blood from his hands, and he could no longer move either of them.
Rayne kicked hard—once, twice—until the wood cracked.
The current grew wilder, shaking the box like a toy in the hands of something unseen.
"No… no… no!"
He kept kicking until the wood shattered and water burst in, drowning his body.
The last of his breath escaped his lungs as he tried to swim out of the wreckage.
The river swirled strangely.
Its current did not flow in one direction—but two.
The surface flowed east, while the riverbed pushed west, creating forces that collided against each other.
At their meeting point, the water spun into a massive vortex that pulled in anything passing above it.
That rare phenomenon was known among the ancients as the Two-Way Current.
Rayne tried to swim upward, but his body was pulled down.
He spun, slammed around, dragged into a tightening whirlpool.
His eyes burned from the current and the mud; his chest felt like it was on fire from lack of air.
"No… help…"
His voice vanished, cut off by the current.
Yet, within the crushing pressure, his mind stayed alive—refusing to fade.
He began to see shadows among the bubbles: his mother's face that never looked at him, his father's back walking away, his sister's mocking smile.
All appeared and vanished like light reflected on water.
Rayne tried to reach for those shadows, but his fingers only pierced the dark.
He no longer knew if he was even alive.
The water now felt like liquid metal—heavy and cold—crushing his joints one by one.
His collarbone cracked, his skin tore, but his mind didn't die—it kept fighting, for no reason he understood.
"Why…" he muttered, his voice barely audible. "Why was I born in that place…?"
And the current answered with silence.
His body spun rapidly toward the vortex's center, then was sucked down—into pitch-black darkness.
The last light from the world above vanished—not extinguished… but devoured.
---
The pressure around him changed. The water was no longer water.
It felt as if his body was being crushed, folded, then dropped into something else.
Another world—perhaps that was the most reasonable assumption for now.
Here, there was no direction, no color, no sound except for the fading beat of his heart.
Even that was slowly disappearing.
Rayne looked down—there was no down.
He looked up—there was no up.
He was floating in the middle of something cold and heavy, as if swallowed by a liquid that allowed no light in, no breath out.
Strangely, he felt as though his body was falling from above, yet he wasn't plunging downward, but descending slowly, as if some unseen force was holding and lowering him gently.
Rayne wanted to scream, but no voice came out.
He kept screaming without sound—until his throat no longer remembered how to cry.
In the darkness so deep he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed, once again he saw the faces of his family—or perhaps… they were no longer them.
Rayne stayed silent, no longer hoping.
He realized, maybe it was better this way.
The world above was quieter than this place.
In that silence, he heard something.
Not a sound.
More like a slow pulse from the bowels of the earth far beneath him—thump… thump… thump…
It wasn't coming from outside, but from within his own body, as though something was trying to tell him something through his heart.
Rayne looked down, and his eyes—or whatever was left of them—saw a faint shape moving below.
At first small.
Then larger.
Then… too large.
He wanted to run—but there was no ground.
He wanted to scream again—but there was no voice.
The only thing he could do was watch as thousands of eyes below stared back at him.
{DING!...}