"This world is shit."
The words slipped from his lips like spit off the edge of a dying cigarette. They weren’t loud. They didn’t echo. They just... fell, like everything else.
"It doesn’t deserve . I’m too good for it. It’s boring, uneventful, corrupt... and way too materialistic."
He stood on the lip of the bridge like a drunk on the edge of a barstool, looking down at the void below. Not just water. Darkness.
He sighs "What am I doing? Do I really want to do this? What if that’s it, just darkness after I’m gone... What if nobody rembers, Nobody cares... If it’s not just darkness and it’s like Heaven and hell, then I’m definitely, not even seeing the gates of heaven"
Silence... not a single noise heard from any creature... the salty lake below him had nothing to offer either, Total silence...
"Because I’m not that religious... y’know? Kinda like on the atheist side. I an there is a possibility of a God is what I believe but I think it’s too much of a drag to be praying.. doing all that... because like, why would a God want my prayer? You get what I’m talking about bro?"
He looks beside him, to his left a Pidgeon stood, staring into the blank of space with zero to no movents
"Yeah.. y’know what I’m talking about"
The bird takes flight into the night sky , he looked up, tracing it’s movents with his eyes till they land on the subtle glow of the moon
The moon—if you could call that pale, useless orb a moon—hung like a dim bulb in a flickering bathroom. No glow. Just a dusty sar across the sky, too tired to shine. It stared down at him, blank-faced, offering no light, no guidance.
He scoffs "Talking to a bird.... silly"...
"I might as well just..."
He lifted one leg over the railing. The wind licked his coat like it wanted a piece of him too.
"Nah, I’m much too precious to volun-kill myself"
He tries to descend from the bridge and his ’plans’
Then, suddenly—
CRACK.
Lightning split the night in half, shattering the air right next to him. Reflex stole his balance. His foot flailed.
"Oh shit—"
Then gravity did what gravity does best.
He fell.
And not with grace.
He didn’t even scream. He was too busy bracing for the cliché—y’know, the part where your whole life flashes before your eyes?
But when he waited for it—nothing.
No baby photos.
No school fights.
No sumr sunsets.
Not even a ntal slideshow of his ’Adult activity research’ history.
Just... blank.
"Wait... this ain’t right."
His mind scrambled through fog. He tried to rember sothing, anything—nas, places, his mother’s voice, the taste of ice cream—but his brain was static.
His eyes clenched shut as he dove toward the water.
"FUCK, I should’ve lived better!"
Then ca the hit. Not a splash. Not a gentle break.
THWACK.
Water doesn’t welco you at high speeds. It’s concrete in disguise. His ribs shrieked. His back scread. His lungs imdiately decided to quit their job and file for early retirent.
Blood slipped from his mouth like an apology, bubbling against the surface before being swallowed by the sea.
And as he slowly began to sink, weightless and wrecked, he whispered:
"I should’ve appreciated my family more...
Made more friends... had a girlfriend or two..."
A dark laugh gurgled out.
"Hah... the regret. What a hypocrite. I talk shit about the world, and now I wanna mourn it?"
He closed his eyes.
"Guess I’ll go out quietly..."
...
...
"...My back hurts."
The silence answered him. A watery embrace.
"Dying is just... SO FUCKING COLD!"
So much for going out peacefully.
What started as solemn death beca a slapstick panic. His legs kicked like a toddler learning to swim in soup. Arms flailed. His coat, now soaked, clung to him like betrayal.
"Shit–SHIT–GET OUT!"
His eye cracked open—and imdiately regretted it. Salt water punched him in the cornea like a boxer with seaweed gloves.
"AAUGH. FUCKING—MY EYE?!"
He flailed around, half-drowning, half-trying to wipe ocean from his sockets. He waved one hand in blind desperation, feeling like a clown auditioning for an underwater play.
There had to be sothing—anything—a rope, a rock, a kindhearted rman with biceps and a rescue complex.
"Co on... sothing... give sothing..."
And then—his fingers brushed sothing.
Rough. Solid. Cold. Like leather wrapped in nightmares.
Hope surged through him like caffeine. Adrenaline replaced despair. His fingers clutched tighter, trying to climb.
His eyes opened again, burning with salt—but this ti, he pushed through the sting.
He regretted it instantly.
It wasn’t rope.
It wasn’t a ledge.
It wasn’t salvation.
It was...
An eye.
Blood-red.
Alien.
Hungry.
It stared straight into him—through him—as if dissecting his soul mid-scan.
His hand had landed on what might’ve been its nose? Or snout? Or whatever nightmarish equivalent sharks had in horror movies.
It grinned.
It grinned.
Its mouth stretched wide, showing jagged teeth like glass shards arranged by a sadist. Rows of them. Endless. The kind of smile nightmares would sue for copyright over.
"What the f—"
His words dissolved as his vision blurred. Everything stretched and twisted. His limbs numbed. His chest burned. And then—
Darkness.
...
After a while...
Eyes opened.
But the water didn’t move.
Sothing else did.
Blood floated in strands like torn silk, drifting past a beast’s corpse so massive the ocean itself seed reluctant to touch it. Its limbs were twisted, its jaw slack, its eyes—well, eye—still faintly glowing. That monstrous thing he saw right before blacking out, now very, very dead.
The sea had gone silent. Not peaceful. Not calm. Just... waiting. Like even the tides were holding their breath.
His eyes drifted. Slowly. As if pushed by a current that wasn’t there.
And there—
Standing over the creature like a monunt of judgnt—was a figure.
Tall enough. Familiar. Still.
Dripping red, but upright.
Wait... is that—?
It was him.
Or—his body, anyway. Sa soaked coat. Sa hunched stance.
Except now it looked... composed. Powerful. Like soone who had chosen to be there, not soone who got thrown in by life’s cruel joke.
Then the figure spoke.
"What is this place?"
But the voice was wrong.
It crawled into the ears, deeper than it had any right to.
Not his. Not even close.
Before he could process it—
Darkness.
Eyes open again.
No water this ti.
No floating. No beast.
Just pain and cold and—
Blood.
So much blood.
He jolted up, his breath tearing through his throat like it was escaping a prison.
His hands clutched the ground, but it wasn’t concrete. It wasn’t a bridge.
It was... ash. Cracked stone. Dirt soaked in war.
And the ground...
It felt farther away than it should’ve. His knees weren’t where they were supposed to be. His elbows bent at weird angles. His body moved different.
Like this one wasn’t made for him.
"What the hell..."
He glanced down.
A puddle of blood stared back at him—and the reflection?
Not his.
The face staring up had sharper features, taller fra, pale skin, hair redder than mory allowed.
This was not his body.
This was not his life.
He slowly raised a hand.
The figure in the blood did the sa.
"Ohhh shit."
Even his voice was wrong—grittier, like it had history. Like it had scread through battlefields and smoked a lifeti of regrets.
He sat up fast, head swiveling, trying to find answers in a world that didn’t offer any.
What he saw instead?
Ruins.
The sky was bleeding. Literally.
The moon, shattered and red, hung like a dying eye, dripping crimson across the atmosphere.
Burned-out buildings leaned like old drunks. Craters the size of small countries carved the landscape. So structures had been fused with sothing—tentacled, twisted, breathing even in death.
Bodies.
Humans. Monsters. Half-things.
All torn, scattered, lted into the dust.
So were still twitching.
Others stared with wide eyes at nothing at all.
It looked like war.
But older. Ancient. Like the final pages of a history book written by ghosts.
And the air...
The air was thick. Not foggy, but haunted. Every breath he took felt like inhaling secrets. He stood up—awkwardly, legs shaky, knees unsure of their new height.
His balance was off. He felt... stronger? Lighter? Heavier?
All at once.
He reached for his chest instinctively and felt hardened muscle.
This body wasn’t his. But it was built for war.
"Okay. Okay. Chill. Don’t panic. You’ve read enough manhwa. You’ve got this."
He turned—
And froze.
Sothing was staring at him.
Not from afar.
Not down a hallway.
Not across a field.
Two feet away.
Right there.
Silent.
Watching.
Unblinking.
It didn’t breathe. It didn’t twitch.
It was like a statue made of bone and shadow, with eyes like dying stars.
He took a step back—slowly.
Carefully.
And that’s when it happened.
STAB.
He didn’t even see the blade—just felt it.
Slid clean between his ribs like it belonged there.
His breath caught.
He gasped.
Red ran down his lip and—
To be continued.
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