"I just want to go home!"
A voice, broken and raw, escapes his lips—raspy like wind scraping through hollow ruins.
But the world offers no reply.
Only silence answers him.
Colder than any cruel rejection.
Colder than death itself.
Teary-eyed, the young man looks around.
His gaze trembles, shifting from one lifeless body to another.
Corpses lie scattered like fallen autumn leaves, once full of motion, now stilled forever—
and the creatures...
gnawing, feeding,
devouring what remains.
He gulps. A dry, shallow sound.
"Am I... already dead?"
Aarav once thought his life was the very definition of suffering—
a cruel hand dealt by fate, cursed and hopeless.
But now?
Now he watches a middle-aged man, still alive, screaming in raw, primal agony—
his insides torn open,
his flesh bitten by hideous, snarling things.
They munch greedily, yet the man... he clings to life.
How? Why?
Every second is torment, yet he refuses to let go.
And Aarav...
Aarav begins to question everything.
His beliefs.
His pain.
His very idea of what it meant to suffer.
Because compared to this—
had he ever truly suffered at all?
The city—if it could still be called that—is crumbling.
Not in moments, but in essence.
It is a ruin draped in silence,
where once there might have been laughter
now there is only the gnashing of teeth
and the scent of decay.
Aarav walks.
Bare feet on broken stone.
Tattered rags hang from his bruised body.
The sky above is painted in unnatural shades of crimson,
like it bled from the heavens themselves.
And he looks...
at his hands.
Stained in red.
Not from the sky,
but from something far more damning.
"I'm not any different from these monsters, am I?"
Looking forward, Aarav trudges through the cursed ruin—each step heavy with both hope and dread. Once a towering stronghold, this place now lies broken: a graveyard of corpses, monstrous figures, and death itself. The oppressive silence clings to every crumbling corner, suffocating all who dare to walk there.
"Where are you going?" a gentle voice calls out, its tone warm and inviting—a sound that seems to echo not from the ruins, but directly within his mind.
For a heartbeat, Aarav feels a spark—a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, someone or something is reaching out to him. He stops. His eyes narrow, then he scowls.
"It's not possible!" he mutters, disbelief heavy in his tone.
"Why not? Come here!" the voice insists, its calm command stirring something deep within him.
Aarav's expression deepens in grimness—not out of anger at the reply, but at the eerie silence that follows, as if no one speaks at all; as if his own thoughts are read like an open book. He takes a slow step back, his mind racing—and in his stumble, something catches his eye.
He turns his head in cautious curiosity. In that split second, his heart lurches, and before he can brace himself, he screams, "Agahhhh!" The cry tears through the silence as terror overtakes him.
"He falls— Hands scraping against the jagged, blood-smeared stone, breath caught halfway between a gasp and a scream. And then, he sees it.
An eldritch horror looms before him.
It stands tall, almost regal in its menace. Not humanoid, not even close. Its form is twisted—like an amphibian birthed from a nightmare. Its skin glistens like wet glass, translucent, revealing organs pulsing within. A sickly bluish glow hums from its core, illuminating the fog like a cursed lantern in the dark.
Aarav staggers to his feet, terror gripping every fiber of his soul. He tries to run—legs scrambling, arms swinging—but the light around him fades, swallowed by an unnatural darkness.
Everything vanishes... Everything, except for two things— The creature. And him.
The young man runs, but the ground betrays him. He's not moving. His body trembles with effort, but he remains rooted, as if time itself refuses to let him flee.
"Don't be scared! Soon it'll be over."
A voice—softer than a whisper, colder than death—echoes within his mind. His breath catches.
"There's no point of resisting, human! Accept your fate."
The words seep like poison into his bones. If he could, he might try to laugh—a bitter, ironic laugh at the absurdity of being greeted first by a monstrous, devouring fiend. But fear has claimed every piece of him—his breath, his thoughts, his will. All that remains is a single instinct:
Escape.
But the horror closes in—step by step, slow, inevitable. And he? He remains frozen in place. Struck still. Despite his desperate struggle.
Horror coils inside his chest. Despair gnaws at his sanity. And a fragile will to live burns within him… Yet the distance between him and that fiend is shrinking.
And all he can do... is watch."
"Hey... are you alright? Hey—what happened?"
The voice called to him gently.
Soft.
Like sunlight dancing on morning dew, like a symphony played on a distant flute.
His vision blurred.
"A… café?"
The word escaped his lips like a whisper to no one.
The fog in his mind slowly began to clear, and in its place, color returned.
A tune—faint, familiar—whistled past his ears.
And suddenly… tears.
Tears fell without reason.
Everything shimmered, bright and warm.
The walls were painted in laughter.
The windows spilled sunlight.
It was too beautiful—too peaceful—like the world itself was caught in a fairytale.
Then, her.
A girl.
Short, fluffy hair gently brushing against her cheeks as she moved,
lashes thick like brushstrokes on porcelain eyes.
If he had to choose one word, just one—it would be "beautiful."
"Aarav... are you alright?"
Her voice trembled with concern.
It struck something deep within him, something ancient, fragile.
But the tears didn't stop.
And neither did the confusion.
"Why...? Why the hell am I crying?"
She stood, flustered.
Leaning in, she dabbed his face with a handkerchief, gentle as if afraid he'd break.
"I'm fine!" Aarav choked. "I... don't know what just got into me. Thanks for... for having me, by the way."
Time drifted like a leaf on a quiet stream.
They walked together afterward, the café fading behind them.
The sun was setting—gold pouring through the clouds,
each ray stretching lazily, like the world was in no rush to move on.
"Your presentation was great!" she said, breaking the silence.
"Ohh... thanks," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck.
They walked in soft flutters of silence, words tangled in their throats,
eyes darting toward each other and away—again and again—
as if their hearts were saying things their mouths weren't brave enough to.
Then, as if pulled from memory, Aarav stammered,
"Ohh—about the question I asked you before…"
His voice cracked.
They turned to each other, cheeks burning.
"I... are you too?" he asked, the words clumsy, unsure.
She nodded softly.
Shy.
Hiding her face behind a blush.
She reached out,
took his hand,
and stepped closer.
"Aarav..."
Her voice barely a whisper now,
"Would you...? Would you date me?"
And then—
His heart dropped.
Eyes widened.
His breath caught in his throat.
It shattered.
Reality cracked like glass underfoot.
Memories came—flooding, screaming.
Nothing made sense.
The air turned thick.
The sky lost its color.
"Is this real...?"
His limbs shook.
His mind broke.
"What is this...? What are you?!"
"STOP! STOP!!"
The dream burned.
The warmth collapsed.
And Aarav—he hadn't gone anywhere at all.
He was still here.
Still trapped.
The monster had swallowed him whole.
Wrapped in a cocoon of flesh and delusion.
Feeding him memories that weren't his, feelings that never lived.
But something inside him refused.
He clawed.
He screamed.
He rose.
Out of the corpses.
Out of its stomach.
He emerged not as a victor, not as a hero—
but as a man drenched in despair.
No triumph.
No light.
Only pain.
The rain followed.
But it was not water.
It was blood.
A red mist falling from a sky painted in grief.
And Aarav looked up.
Tears pouring again.
Not because he was free.
But because in that moment—
He remembered how much he missed home.
A home that felt so far away,
it may as well have been a dream too.