Honestly, there was so much happening all at once that I no longer knew what I was supposed to be surprised by. First, I’d been dragged out of the lab and back into the very forest where everything had started — the exact spot where I’d first appeared.
And now, to top it all off, my powers had just... vanished? I an, seriously, what the hell was going on here? Each new twist felt like so cruel joke, a test to see just how far my sanity could stretch before snapping.
Those thoughts barely had ti to form before they were swallowed by the urgency of the mont. It’s not like I could afford to stop and process everything — the world didn’t seem willing to give even a second to breathe.
Those creatures — doglike, but far too twisted to really be called that — kept coming closer. Their split-open bellies, lined with rows of teeth, seed to grin hungrily with every step. The sound of their claws scraping against the ground was steady, almost rhythmic, like a clock ticking down my sentence.
For the first ti, I felt that my arm would be the least of my worries if they decided to rip sothing else off . That absurd thought led to an even worse one: would I even survive without my head? No. Definitely not. Not in the state I was in now.
In any case, I had no solid way of knowing just how far my powers had been erased. But given that I was standing in the sa forest where I’d opened my eyes for the very first ti, I figured I was still weeks away from being able to summon my Alter Ego again.
My regenerative ability, for instance, had only manifested after I’d taken the heart of one of those creatures — which ant that, right now, I probably only had the most basic skills I’d started with back when I first woke up in this place.
The problem was, the mutant dogs in front of didn’t seem interested in giving the ti to confirm that theory. Their twisted bodies moved in silence, except for the wet sound of their paws against the soaked ground and the low growls vibrating in the air.
The mont one of them lunged at , its belly gaping like so grotesque wound, I didn’t have ti to think — I just reacted on pure instinct. To be honest, back then I was incredibly fragile, almost defenseless.
My powers were practically nonexistent and, though my physical strength was above average, that advantage only mattered compared to a normal human. And yet, even at such an early stage of my life, I carried sothing different — an anomalous ability I never had to earn, steal, or learn.
It was simply born with , an inevitable mark of my existence. From the very first mont I opened my eyes, I instinctively knew how to use it, even if I didn’t fully understand its scope or consequences back then.
The thought had barely ford when everything happened — fast, instinctive, unstoppable. In seconds, a perfectly golden circle opened up from , expanding until it reached about a ter in radius. The light that made it up seed alive, pulsing, almost liquid.
In an instant, the circle engulfed the anomalous dogs, and their movents stopped abruptly, as if ti had been ripped away from them. Outside it, everything remained the sa — the wind still stirred the leaves, the branches creaked faintly, and the air still carried the damp sll of earth.
But inside my circle, the world was frozen, locked in an almost oppressive silence. Only I could move within it, and the sensation was as strange as it was powerful — as if I had torn through the fabric of reality and created a small bubble where I was the sole master of ti.
Apparently, not all of my powers had vanished — just the ones I hadn’t yet acquired at that point in ti. Setting that aside, I moved among the frozen dogs. One by one, with chanical precision, I struck exactly where their hearts should have been, tearing them out without hesitation.
That’s when I noticed sothing: the hearts were completely colorless, pale and opaque, like nothing more than ghostly remnants of what should have been beating organs. In short, none of those monsters gave regenerative ability — as if sothing, or soone, had deliberately drained their essence before I got to them.
In the end, I just sighed and accepted the situation. It’s not like I had many other options: (Alright... let’s see what exactly they were feeding on)
With that thought, I stepped away from the fallen bodies, trying to escape the tallic stench still clinging to the air. Slowly, I approached the spot where the creatures had been monts earlier.
When I got close enough to see what they’d been devouring, my eyes blinked in disbelief, my head tilting slightly as if the small motion might help make sense of what I was seeing.
Honestly, for a second, I thought my mind was playing tricks on — that what I was seeing was nothing but a cruel mirage. But no. The scene was far too real to be a hallucination. There, on the blood-soaked grass, lay Laura and Victor.
Their bodies were unrecognizable, torn apart in a way that made my stomach churn, as though dozens of those creatures had decided not just to eat them, but to turn every muscle, every fiber of flesh, into a grotesque feast. The tallic stench of blood hung heavy in the air, and for a mont, it felt like the entire world had gone silent.
Laura was still wearing her white lab coat, now heavy and clinging to her body, soaked through with blood. The fabric was torn in several places, hanging in jagged strips that revealed parts of her torso and arms.
The exposed skin was covered in bruises and deep cuts, and in so places, I could see the pale glint of bone, as though teeth had sunk into her over and over again. The tallic sll of blood filled the air, making the whole scene suffocating.
The coat swayed faintly with the breeze, clinging to her body as if trying to hide what little skin and muscle remained. Her face was so pale it looked carved from wax, and yet her half-lidded eyes and parted lips still carried the desperate illusion of life — as if, sowhere deep inside, she was still fighting to take one last breath, too weak to turn it into sound.
Victor lay nearby, flat on his back, his chest heaving in ragged, uneven intervals, each breath its own battle. His once-formidable armor was scratched and ripped in critical spots, exposing flesh beneath twisted tal.
His open wounds still smoked faintly, releasing a tallic sll mixed with sothing burnt, as though they’d been made just monts ago. His jaw was clenched tight in silent effort against the pain, and bite marks crossed his neck — deep, uneven, dangerously close to his windpipe, where the smallest wrong move could have made the blood gush out.
The tallic stench of blood mixed with the rancid odor of the fallen creatures around , creating a heavy miasma that clung to my skin. A chill ran down my spine, as though sothing unseen had just passed behind .
There was sothing deeply wrong about that scene — not just because of the carnage spread across the ground, but because I knew, with absolute certainty, that Laura and Victor weren’t supposed to even be alive when I found them. And yet, there they were, their twisted bodies still trembling, as if refusing to accept death itself.
Laura turned her head with effort, her neck muscles trembling, and her glazed-over eyes t mine. For a mont, I had the clear impression she wanted to tell sothing — a warning, maybe a final word — but what escaped her lips was nothing more than a faint sound, almost a sigh, laced with the tallic taste of the blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
Beside her, Victor tried to move one arm, the motion slow, like he was wading through mud, but he was cut short by a violent spasm that arched his body in pain, forcing a guttural groan out of him that echoed in the silence.
Sothing inside seed to crack at that mont — a dull snap, like sothing breaking in my mind. A wave of rage surged up through my chest, mixed with a suffocating urgency and a strange sense of déjà vu that prickled the back of my neck.
I had seen sothing like this before... sowhere, soti, though my mory refused to show exactly when or where. My thoughts beca a whirlwind; nothing made sense.
Why did I feel like this scene wasn’t new? Laura and Victor... they weren’t supposed to be hurt like this. I rembered saving them, rembered it with painful clarity — every detail etched into my mind. So why did it feel like I was reliving sothing that should never have happened?
And yet, the feeling just wouldn’t go away. The more I looked at the scene, the stronger the strange sense of déjà vu beca, as if so part of had already stood here before. From the very beginning, I’d thought all of this was just a dream — one of those vivid ones that feel so real you wake up drenched in cold sweat.
I could clearly recall the mont I’d touched the thin glass just before being brought here, and that’s exactly why I’d assud the anomaly was distorting my perception, making see things that weren’t there.
But... is that really the case? Is this all just so fleeting dream? As much as I wanted to cling to that comforting thought, sothing — an uncomfortable, suffocating intuition — told that wasn’t the whole truth.
Even as that storm of thoughts raged in my head, the world around shifted once again. The change was so sudden I didn’t even notice the exact mont it happened — I just found myself sowhere else.
I looked around, searching for so kind of landmark, but there was no horizon at all. In fact, there was no visible end anywhere: space stretched endlessly in every direction, infinite and claustrophobic at the sa ti, like I was trapped inside an endless repetition of itself, a mirrored reflection multiplying forever.
And no matter where I looked, the only things visible were massive black pillars, rising like endless colossi, vanishing both into the sky above and the abyss below. The ground — if it could even be called that — was a sticky, muddy mass of deep black, clinging to every step I took. Googlᴇ search novelꞁire
There was an almost living feeling to that muck, as if sothing was shifting beneath its surface. Above, the sky mirrored the sa pitch-black tone, with no horizon or landmarks, creating the disturbing impression that this place was the sa in every direction, an eternal prison where nothing changed no matter where you turned.
Of course, the place wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. Though I can’t say for sure where it is, I’m almost certain I’ve been here before — probably when that shadow in the facility swallowed , or sothing very much like it.
The strange part was that leaving this place wasn’t actually difficult; if anything, it was almost too easy. Honestly, I felt like whatever this thing was, it had a better chance of catching if I were out there rather than in here — wherever “here” actually was.
Then sothing different caught my attention in the mud beneath my feet. The cold, sticky black sludge began to move, forming slow, lazy whirlpools a few feet away — as if the ground itself was breathing.
The air grew heavy and damp, and a sharp, earthy stench of rot spread around . First ca the bubbles, swelling and popping with a hollow, wet sound, like sothing was trying to break through the surface. Then two shapes began to erge, slowly, as though being spat out by the earth’s guts.
They rose little by little, as though dragged out of a nightmare and into reality. First ca the arms — thin, slick with dark mud dripping in slow, heavy strings — then the faces. Faces I knew well.
Emily and Laura. But there was sothing wrong with them. Their eyes were open, locked on , yet they showed nothing. No emotion, no pain, not even the faintest trace of awareness. It was as if they were just... empty, hollow shells of themselves.
The mud slid from their hair in thick strands, dripping slowly from their chins and forming tiny puddles on the ground. Their mouths opened and closed in eerie silence, as if trying to scream but unable to force the sound out.
They said nothing. They stayed there, kneeling, motionless, their bodies trembling and lting, as if at any mont they’d collapse under their own weight and dissolve back into the damp, fetid muck that had birthed them.
User Comments
0 comments from readers