"Hot, hot. Painful—so painfully hot."
"Ah—ahh. It hurts. Please stop. Someone—anyone—can someone help me?"
Suddenly—"RAAAAAAAH!"
A sound not even beasts could produce.
As if the devil himself were screaming.
He opens his eyes slowly, irritated by the deafening noise.
But when he does, all he sees is—
Monsters fighting, tearing each other apart over a human leg.
A monster devours the fetus straight from a pregnant woman's womb, laughing loudly as it does so, while the woman tries to strike it with her weak hand—so weak it barely makes the creature feel a thing.
Shredded remains.
Mangled corpses scattered everywhere.
The monsters smile as they rip bodies apart, as if savoring the act.
The wet sound of chewing fills the air.
The stench of rusted metal hangs heavy.
He frowns slightly, his breathing quickening with restrained rage. Hatred. The intent to kill.
Then the frown suddenly fades.
As he lowers his gaze, scanning the scene, a strange sensation strikes him.
"My pulse… why can't I feel my heart beating?"
He wonders about the heartbeat he cannot sense.
Then—he feels something warm soaking his waist.
When he looks down, he sees his entrails scattered across the ground.
There is a massive hole in his body, from which his organs have spilled.
Suddenly, he feels a pulse—but it's in a strange place.
"What is this? Am I about to awaken some power in my hand for it to throb like this?"
He raises his gaze to his hand and sees something he never expected.
His heart… resting in his palm.
He vomits blood against his will, yet somehow steadies himself and remains standing. Pain drills into his skull. Cold sweat pours down his forehead.
The blood does not gush—it flows silently, staining everything around him.
He runs his hand through the gaping hole and tilts his head thoughtfully.
"Oh. What is this place? Strange… did I do this to myself? And why do I feel like I… belong here?"
His mind is close to burning from the strain of thought.
His breaths grow rapid and shallow.
A sudden, splitting headache surges through his head. When he opens his eyes, he sees a bizarre entity formed of fire—black fire that devours everything it touches.
Yet when it touches the hole in his body, it does not consume him. The entity stops and stares at him with a wide smile.
His mind feels distorted here. Suddenly, a searing pain erupts from his chest.
He failed to tend to his wounds—and now he is paying the price.
His voice is broken and shallow.
"D-damn… what an idiot." He spits blood. "Cough… damn it. How am I even still alive after injuries like this?"
His vision begins to blur. He is losing consciousness.
But before he blacks out,
he hears something faint.
"Welcome. Did you enjoy hell? Does it hurt, my dear?"
A gentle female voice—utterly out of place in this agony.
Though he is dying, his abdomen pierced, his mind refuses to settle.
"What does this mean? Damn it—can't I get a few extra minutes to understand what's going on?"
Unfortunately, there are no miracles to save him.
The last thing he sees is that entity, its black flames growing more and more, like pitch darkness—seeming to absorb light rather than emit it.
But there is another sensation… is it… calling to him?
Before he loses consciousness, he hears a whisper like a soft spring breeze:
"Amazing that you didn't lose your mind. You truly are the most fitting one. Will you choose me? I've been waiting for you for a very, very long time."
All that remains echoing in his mind is the entity's laughter, ringing like a bell.
Suddenly, everything vanishes into darkness.
The sensation of his heartbeat returns on its own, and his consciousness begins to drift back slowly.
He is sitting in his dull, cramped room.
The smell of wood mixed with paper fills his nose, blending with the scent of rain-soaked earth.
A wooden bed, nearly falling apart. The lingering smell of yesterday's rain.
Yes. One of the commoners' houses near the border districts, by the walls—while the nobles live at the centers of the walls, where it is safer.
Not that it matters to him, even though he despises the cursed class divide rooted in this world.
Suddenly, a strange feeling overtakes him. Steam seems to rise from his head, his features vacant and lost—like a body without a soul.
As if he still hasn't fully awakened from the nightmare.
His dark brown eyes are half-closed. His mouth slightly open. Black hair hangs loosely over his forehead.
As his awareness gradually returns and he regains control of his limbs, he slowly lowers his gaze.
He finds himself sitting at his battered wooden desk. On it lies a book with worn pages, open—though his vision is still blurry.
When his sight clears, his eyes widen in shock. He is… holding a pen.
And what fills the book are not words, but symbols and incomprehensible scribbles.
He thinks aloud,
"Huh? Interesting. Was that hell just a dream? But the sensation… it was real. Damn it, my head itches. Why did I die before getting any answers?"
His mind searches for an explanation.
He feels as though something is missing—something broken in this day.
He slowly touches his face and feels his mouth curve into a smile against his will.
That expression—perhaps it can't even be called a smile. Just the corner of his lips lifting, strangely unsettling.
As his mind tries to tie the threads together—
The door to the room opens, snapping his train of thought and pulling him back to reality.
A woman in her forties enters. Her black hair and features closely resemble his—dark brown eyes tinged with black. She wears an old but clean brown dress, a warm smile never leaving her face.
"Good morning," she says.
She pauses, then her expression tightens slightly.
"Didn't I tell you more than once to sleep on the bed instead of the desk? Did you get lost in reading and forget yourself again?"
He lifts his face and looks at her with the blank expression of someone who just woke up.
But his mother doesn't stop. She continues, her gaze gentle with a hint of mild scolding.
"You need proper sleep to build your body. Staying up late is why you're still short and skinny while your peers are bigger than you."
As usual.
Despite her kindness, his mother's bluntness feels like arrows piercing his heart with every word.
Anas thinks to himself:
"Why do all mothers praise their children—even if they're terribly foolish and physically weak—except mine?"
But the truth is painful, and reality shows no mercy.
He truly is physically behind his peers. He knows it even before his mother says it.
He shows no irritation at her words.
He speaks as he casually closes the book so she won't notice the strange scribbles.
"Good morning, Mom."
He stands and stretches slightly, then adds,
"Yes, I know. But wouldn't it be better if you knocked before coming in?"
His mother smiles, narrowing her eyes a little.
"Alright, alright, my little one. Direct as always. But I don't need to knock—I'm your mother."
She pauses, then continues,
"But maybe I'll knock when you get married."
She sighs softly, then adds before leaving,
"Perhaps you should be grateful to that girl. At least she hasn't abandoned you, even though you always try to push her away."
She stops at the doorway and says suddenly, in a serious tone,
"It's better for you to look for work and think about starting a family instead of staying in your room all day."
She leaves, having dropped something like a bomb into his head.
Yet this time, her words don't affect him.
His entire being is filled with an unfamiliar heat, and the only thought occupying his mind is:
"What does all of this mean?"