In a dark, endless world, where shadows are limitless and the night never ends, there existed a place saturated with the atmosphere of death. Nothing but the darkness filled the horizon, dense in every corner, as if it were a lost soul. This place was home to creatures of death—wandering, restless spirits, aimlessly drifting in an eternal mist of unending pain.
The endless black forests stretched on, with twisted trees swaying in a cold breeze. Their shapes were distorted, like twisted versions of life itself, immersed in deep darkness, as though they were burning in a long, silent fire.
The scent of death permeated the air, and there was no escaping it. It was as if the very air itself was contaminated with the decay that plagued this place. The ground was soft yet sticky, blending with the smells of rot and blood, and the only thing that rose in this place was the silence that floated in the darkened space—an exhausting, heavy, cold silence, as if the world itself had lost hope in existence.
But in this void, where there was neither life nor hope, something strange emerged. A small white flame, the size of a seed, suddenly appeared at the heart of the darkness. At first, it was just a tiny point of light, then it slowly began to grow, expanding in every direction, as if it were defying this eternal darkness that enveloped the universe.
As this white flame spread, the darkness began to recede, as though it feared approaching the pure fire, attempting to flee from it, but there was no escape.
The fire continued to spread, as if it were searching for something in this blind world. With the expanding flame, something else began to emerge within it—a small entity at first, resembling an infant. No sound, no movement, only the surrounding darkness enclosing this small being, who was, in the beginning, just a dot in the ocean of darkness. But as time passed, and the flame expanded, this entity began to grow.
At first, it was a tiny baby in the middle of the fire, filled with cold light. Then it transformed into a child—still small, but with strange, unclear features, as though they were shaped by smoke.
As the flame grew larger and larger, this entity continued to evolve. It turned from a child into a young man, a young man in the prime of his strength, but he was unlike anyone else. His body was cloaked in this strange light, and as he grew, the light gradually weakened, as if the energy that had been birthed inside him was starting to fade, as if the darkness was reclaiming part of itself. And when the flames finally disappeared, the darkness returned to envelop the place. But from within this darkness, amidst its shadows, stood the young man.
He was a young man with snow-white hair, and eyes so deep and black that gazing into them made you feel dizzy, as if they were pulling you into an endless abyss. His eyes were wide open, but they reflected no hint of natural life. They were eyes of brutality, expanding in a terrifying way, as if they were spinning in an endless orbit.
It was him—the same young man who sat atop the mountain of corpses, no one else. He had gone through a new experience, the nightmare that brought him back from death to an even more brutal and blood-soaked world. He was no longer just a walking body, but an embodiment of death itself—the one who was torn between worlds, condemned to live in a realm of chaos and death, with no beginning and no end.
...
Everything around him was still. The darkness surrounded him harshly, but within him was a voice louder than everything—destructive screams roaring in his mind, crashing through his emotions like waves crashing against a ship in a deep storm. The hell he lived in was more than just a physical struggle with the world—it was an internal battle with himself. His heart raced, but his mind was racing against time and the dark reality that had become his eternal prison.
"Why?! Why didn't I die?!" The words fell from his lips like bullets, each word cutting into his mind. His voice was broken, a tool for the madness that had taken control of him. His breath faltered, and his eyes narrowed as if the place had become too narrow for him to exist in.
He sat in the dark, knees on the ground, hands on his head, as the entire world seemed to collapse around him. He was in deep shock, as if his mind could not comprehend what had happened. He had believed his death was imminent, that he had reached the point of no return, the ultimate surrender, where the only end he desired was death.
"Why the hell? Why can't I leave?" he whispered to himself, the madness creeping into his features more than ever before. He gasped for air, as if the world he had wanted to swallow him now fought back with all its
strength. It was as if the world itself refused to let him go.
...
He had thought death was the solution, the only rest he could have after all he had endured—after all those wars, massacres, and betrayals. He thought the world would finally grant him the peace he had longed for all those years. But when he thought he was on the brink of death, he found himself here, alive, in a place he didn't understand or know how he got to.
His hand was still on his head, as though trying to hold his mind together, but his thoughts were unraveling. Madness was slowly creeping through his limbs, invading his heart and mind. He tried to breathe deeply, but couldn't. He felt something inside him shatter, as if something essential had been ripped away from his being all at once.
"Why...? Why am I still here?" His voice was hoarse, choked between rage and despair.
"I fought... I suffered... I bled until my blood dried, and endured enough pain to erase my very existence... but I'm still here?"
His eyes were wide, staring into the void as if searching for an answer, but no one answered him.
"Even death... even death rejected me?!" A twisted laugh, half-madness and half-bitterness, escaped his trembling lips.
"What kind of curse is this?! What kind of cruelty is this?! Even hell won't welcome me!"
He knelt on the ground, his fists trembling, his breath cut between pain and frustration.
"It's all over... it was supposed to be over!!"
But the world, as if mocking him, continued to make him breathe, suffer, and feel everything... even after he had abandoned it all.
"Didn't I deserve death?!" he asked himself, his voice full of protest, as if he wanted the world to acknowledge his madness—that what he was living through was unbearable. "I wanted death more than anything else... I thought I was finally going to get what I wanted, that I would rest... but I'm still alive!" He screamed into the darkness, as if rage was consuming him from within. He wanted nothing more than for it to end, to escape from this miserable existence.
His eyes boiled with madness, despair, and uncontrollable anger. He had thought that this earth would not take him with it, and that he would remain trapped in this hell forever. This nightmare that never ends.
"Why?!" He repeated it in a cracked voice, as if the question itself had become part of his existence. "Why can't I be granted the right to leave?"
At that moment, a scream burst from deep within him, panting, broken, distorted.
A scream that was the expression of everything he had endured, every moment of torment he had gone through, and every second of pain that continued to tear at his soul, leading him to this supposed end, which in the end turned out to be just the beginning of another hell.
The young man was kneeling on his feet, his features twisted, his eyes filled with hatred and tears that burned his heart.
This existence forced upon him was worse than death. The pain devoured him, and the world around him began to transform into fog.
There was nothing left to feel but pain, anger, and fear. He felt as though he were in a never-ending whirlpool.
"I don't want to live in this cursed world!" he screamed at last, his voice echoing in the air, but he realized that these words no longer held any power. He screamed into the darkness, but he knew he wouldn't get any answer.
Death was all he had wanted, and he thought the world would finally show him mercy. But instead, here he was, trapped in this eternal nightmare, screaming into the void, in a world he could neither understand nor escape from.