Waking up after nearly dying was starting to feel like a bad habit.
"Why is this happening to me?"
I groaned, eyes still closed.
Everything ached. Again.
My head throbbed. Again.
And judging by the hard, uneven ground beneath me—yea..., still not home.
I blinked slowly, letting the crimson sky come back into focus.
"Three times in a row…" I muttered, voice dry and cracked. "This is starting to get personal."
I sat up with a wince. My body was sore, but intact. No missing limbs. No gaping wounds. My hoodie was basically shredded, and one of my shoes was gone, but hey—small victories.
My eyes flicked to the corpse nearby.
Still there.
Still very much dead.
And still very much horrifying.
I sighed, rubbing my face with one shaky hand. "Okay. Good news: I'm not dead. Bad news: I still don't know where the hell I am."
I looked around again. Same endless crimson haze. Same scorched black ground. Still no people, no signs, no logic.
Just me.
And a pile of nightmares.
I stretched out my limbs one at a time, making sure everything worked. It did. Sort of. There was a stiffness in my joints, like I'd been left out in the cold too long. Or maybe that was just the trauma.
Either way, I was awake.
Still breathing.
And more confused than ever.
"Saved by that thing again..." I muttered, flexing my fingers. It still hurt, but it worked.
I sat up slowly, wincing as every muscle screamed. One crystal down. I couldn't keep wasting them. Whatever these things were, I needed to save them. Only use them when I'm about to die.
Which... seemed to be happening more often than I'd like.
I shoved the pouch deeper into my hoodie, gripping it tight for a second like it might vanish if I blinked. Then I forced myself up.
"Hm... might be useful" I picked up some items from the corpses of the cult members and made a medium sized pouch made out of a cloak of one of the cult members.
Maybe I should move around. Sitting here wasn't safe at all. And I doubt anyone will come here to save me.
The sky was still red. The air still heavy and still.
I started walking. No real direction—just away from the blood, the corpse, the memory of pain.
The ground cracked under my steps like burnt glass. It stretched out in all directions—dry, dark, lifeless.
I walk though the spiky rocks and kept praying I won't have to see another one of these monsters.
Eventually, I saw somethings. Trees.
If you could call them that.
Tall, jagged things—pitch black, like they'd been set on fire and frozen right before collapsing. No leaves. No branches. Just sharp spires clawing at the sky.
Every one of them was dead.
I stopped and stared, wiping sweat from my brow with a shaky hand.
"This place really doesn't believe in greenery, huh..." I mumbled.
No answer. Just silence.
I wandered for what felt like half a day—maybe more, maybe less. Time was weird here. The red sky never changed, and there was no sun to tell me anything. Just that same dead air pressing against my skin. My legs were sore, my throat dry like I'd swallowed sand. I kept hoping I'd stumble across water, or something close to it. But all I found were more dead trees, more cracked earth, and more silence. I muttered something under my breath—don't even remember what—and kept walking.
My back hurt. My limbs were stiff. I didn't even know how long I'd been out here. Hours? Days? Time didn't work here.
I rubbed my face and stared blankly into the crimson air.
"...I should probably figure out what this place even is," I mumbled. But I didn't sound convinced.
Nothing made a sound. But it is better than hearing one.
I wandered. No destination. Just… walking.... And more walking.
The sky never changed—still red, still dead. No sun. No clouds. No wind.
Just that suffocating red, like the whole world was bleeding out and didn't even care.
Eventually, I stopped near one of the gnarled trees. It looked like it had been tortured into shape. I reached out and tapped it.
Clink.
My hand jerked back.
That… that was not a wood sound.
Frowning, I picked up a broken branch nearby. It looked normal enough, like a regular chunk of wood. But it felt way too heavy.
I swung it against a rock.
Crack.
The rock split. The branch didn't.
My stomach twisted.
"What the hell is this place?" I whispered.
Everything here was... off. Wrong. Hostile.
Like the world itself hated me and wasn't even hiding it.
I kept walking, slower this time. Trying to keep track. Trying to stay alert. I wasn't doing great at either.
Eventually, I found a narrow space between two boulders. Only one way in or out. That felt... safer, maybe.
I didn't have a tent. Or tools. Just… sticks.
I jammed them into the ground around the gap, one by one. They were stupidly heavy, like metal bars pretending to be wood.
But they held.
Barely.
I looked at it when I was done. A pathetic little fence. Like a kid's version of a fort.
But it was something. And it was mine.
My throat burned. I needed water. Or something close to it.
So I wandered again. The ground cracked under my feet. No plants. No bugs. Just sharp air and twisted trees.
Then I saw it—a black puddle in a shallow dip. Still. Oily.
It smelled... like rot.
I stared at it. Then down at the bowl-shaped rock I'd found earlier.
"This is gonna suck," I muttered, and scooped some up.
Back at the shelter, I sat by a tiny fire I barely managed to light using scraps from the basement.
I placed the bowl near the flames. Watched it bubble. Tried not to gag from the smell.
No footsteps. No wind. Just crackling wood and my own breathing.
I missed noise. People. Street sounds. Even the stupid hum of a refrigerator.
Now, I had this. A fire. A stink. And whatever this liquid was.
Eventually, I picked up the bowl.
Hesitated.
Then drank.
Warm. Bitter. Wrong. But it didn't kill me. Yet.
So I drank more.
And then—
Pain.
Like something reached into my chest and twisted. My bones screamed. My hands bent wrong. My brain felt like it was cracking in half.
I hit the ground, writhing. Eyes wide. Mouth open, but no sound came out at first.
Then I screamed. The pain was too much for me to even reach ones of the crystals.
Then—tick.
Like a clock, clicking behind my ribs.
And everything stopped.
The pain… paused. Like someone yanked it back just before it broke me.
I was still here.
Barely.
I don't remember falling asleep. But I must've.
Because the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes again.
Same sky. Same silence.
I sat up slowly, blinked at the dead fire.
"…was it a clock?," I muttered. Why did I hear the sounds of a clock all of a sudden? But nothing make sense in this place so far.
Hunger hit next. I have no idea how long I was unconscious.
It didn't ask nicely. It tore at me. I curled over a bit, teeth clenched.
No food. No scraps. Just me and the emptiness.
I looked at my fence. Looked at the stick I'd sharpened yesterday.
Didn't want to go out there. But I had to.
So I went.
The world outside was worse than I remembered. Everything still looked like a horror painting.
And then I saw something move.
Not big. Not fast. Just... crawling. Too many legs. Skin glinting like wet rock.
I crouched, instinctively. My heart did a little drum solo in my chest.
That thing might be food. Or it might eat me.
I stepped forward—quiet, slow.
Crack.
Root.
The thing snapped its head toward me. Its mouth opened sideways.
I ran.
Didn't even think—just turned and sprinted. But something was off.
I was fast. Too fast.
My breath didn't hitch. My legs didn't burn.
I slowed, confused. Looked down at my hands.
Stronger. Quieter.
...Different.
It charged me. I raised the stick. Waited.
It lunged. I stepped to the side—barely dodged.
Its claw cut my arm, but I was already moving.
And this time, I didn't flinch. I stabbed the stick forward, right into its mouth.
It bit down—bad move.
I shoved harder. The end splintered deep inside. The thing spasmed, then dropped like a sack of bricks.
I stood over it, shaking. Not from fear. From... adrenaline.
Still alive. Still me.
Somehow.
Dragging it back nearly killed me. It weighed like fifty bowling balls and smelled like death's armpit.
I collapsed next to it, gasping.
Fire. Still warm. Lucky.
I got to work. Stripping it felt like peeling a wet couch.
But hunger was louder than disgust.
I skewered meat chunks and held them over the flame.
They didn't smell better cooked.
I bit one.
Rubber soaked in ashes.
Swallowed it anyway.
"Tastes like a tire fire and depression," I muttered.
Then took another bite.
This was life now.
Not winning. Just surviving.
One horrible meal at a time.