24th awakening
Lin Moyan's eyes snapped open to a corridor pulsing with grotesque life. Jagged alcoves along the walls housed hundreds of beating hearts,
each one slick with sweat and scarred in crude letters
"L.M. – Cycle 001,"
"L.M. – Cycle 002,"
all the way to "L.M. – Cycle 999."
The air thrummed with their synchronized drumming, as if the dungeon itself were a maddening organism. In his hand, the black dagger throbbed in time with the hearts.
A whisper slithered through the arteries around him: "Choose your sacrifice."
He raised the blade, breath catching. Without hesitation he lunged at the first heart. Marble shards and black ichor spurted in a geyser. The chamber screamed... a high, keening wail that tore at his ears. Pain bloomed behind his eyes as a memory flooded in: himself as a boy, kneeling before clawed hands that ripped out his tongue. He choked on the vision, ash scattering behind his eyelids.
25th awakening
When he awoke again, his world was shrouded in darkness. His scream died on his lips as blind panic seized him. He groped along the throbbing line of hearts, fingertips slick with moisture. One heart pulsed hotter, more insistent than the rest:
"L.M. – Cycle 050."
He pressed the dagger into its flesh. The heart seethed beneath the blade, then stilled.
An image flashed behind his eyes: Xiao Lan, alive in another life, cradling his sister's broken body as sorrow weighed down her shoulders. A cruel laugh echoed as the dungeon mocked him:
"You failed us here first."
He felt his fingers twist and rot, bone dissolving to dust.
26th awakening
He woke again to find the hearts still beating... but he refused to touch them. The walls shuddered, and the arteries peeled back, twisting into a bridge of bleached bone that spanned a yawning chasm of shadow. At its center crouched a child-sized version of the shadow beast, chewing on a severed finger with wet relish. It looked up at him with his sister's voice:
"Dà gē…play with me?"
Lin took a step back. The bridge snapped into rows of jagged teeth, and he plummeted into emptiness.
27th awakening
When he stirred the next time, he was running across that bony bridge, each step measured against the beast's mocking giggle. The creature grew taller with every footfall until it towered above him like a twisted colossus. At the far end stood a door of skin, its surface mapped with his sister's face pale lips parted in a mournful smile.
"Don't open it,"
Xiao Lan's voice warned in his mind. But desperation won. He yanked the door open... and a skeletal form lunged out, ribs scraping his lungs as it collapsed against him. Darkness claimed him.
28th awakening
He awakened once more, back at the bone bridge... but this time, as he sprinted, he kicked the skin‑door shut and leapt off the edge before the creature could seize him. The grotesque child-beast howled as the bridge dissolved, leaving two paths: a staircase glowing with pale light, and a tunnel dripping with blood.
Xiao Lan materialized at the top of the stairs, shaking her head.
"He wants you to go up."
Lin looked to the dripping tunnel instead. He plunged into its darkness.
The tunnel opened into a circular arena lit by a single, sickly lantern. At its center knelt a shivering boy... himself, from Cycle 001... eyes wide with terror. Above, the fetal god's voice rolled like thunder:
"Kill him. Take his place."
The boy looked up, tears tracing clean lines down his cheeks.
"Please," he whispered. "I don't want to die again."
Lin's hand trembled on the dagger's hilt. Compassion warred with survival.
He hesitated—and the boy sprang forward, driving the dagger through Lin's ribs. Warm ichor pooled beneath them as the younger self crooned,
"Thank you. Now I get to be real."
Lin's vision blurred, the arena tilting, life draining away.
29th awakening
His next awakening left him curled around a lifeless body. In the spreading blood, words formed:
SACRIFICE = MEMORY.
He stared, mind reeling, as the walls cracked. From each fissure crawled another Lin... nine hundred ninety‑nine of them.... eyes shining with desperation.
They swarmed the arena, their mouths open in a collective cry:
"We want to live!"
Each pressed forward, urging him toward the dagger still slick in his hand.
Lin's breath came in ragged sobs. He raised the blade and drove it into his own chest, heart first. The chamber shook, a horrible keening rising as black light flooded every surface. From the shadows, the fetal god emerged... umbilical chains snapping free, eyes blazing with ancient hunger.
"No! That's not how it works!" the deity thundered.
A supernova of darkness and blood burst across the arena, and then...
FADE TO STATIC