The world around Ren blurred as the sword pierced his body. It tore through his ribs and drove straight into his heart, his body buckling under the metal lodged deep within him.
He couldn't breathe no matter how hard he gasped; blood poured from his mouth, staining his bottom lip as it dripped to the floor.
But the corpse wasn't done.
It twisted the broken blade inside, a sickening scrape of metal against bone and flesh. Ren wanted to scream, but his throat was clenched shut, suffocated by the built-up blood.
Then the corpse wrenched the sword free.
Ren's body lurched as the blade slid out, his blood following in thick streams. Before he could even process the relief, the rusted metal pierced him again, puncturing through his stomach.
Then another
And another
He had lost count.
The count of how many times the blade ran through him. His collapsed body twitched to the floor, drowning in a pool of his own blood.
"How much longer?" Ren thought, staring up at the corpse with bloodshot eyes. "When will you stop? Haven't you seen I've had enough..."
The corpse continued with its tortuous act.
"That's right...you can't hear me. Even if you could...I know you wouldn't listen, would you?"
Over and over, the corpse struck down, Ren's body becoming unrecognizable.
"I hate it...I hate this body. This useless, pathetic body! It's mine, but it doesn't listen. It never listens...I tell it to run, it collapses. I tell it to fight, it trembles. I tell it to endure, it breaks. And when I just want it to fucking die! It won't..."
Then—
A familiar soft voice spoke to him.
"You poor, little soul."
"I hate myself! Waking up...breathing...just to endure another cycle of torture? How every time I think. How every time I try. It never works...I always fail. Every single time!"
"You've tried so hard for so long. You've been carrying all this pain by yourself."
"What's the point? Why even go on?"
"There is no point..." The voice was getting louder in Ren's mind. "You're right, little one. There's no reason to keep going when it only brings more of the same.
"I don't want to keep waking up. I don't want to feel this anymore...It never stops! I can't take it anymore! I can't—"
"You don't have to keep waking up. You can rest. You can let go."
"I-I don't care anymore! Please..."
"It will end. You poor soul, I will make it end...All you have to do is give in. Let the darkness take you, and everything will finally be quiet.
Ren felt his eyes growing heavy. This is what he has been waiting for his whole life. To break free from all the pain and suffering of living. He could picture it—letting go. Letting the darkness swallow him completely.
Then—
The feeling of being constantly stabbed went away.
"The pain? It stopped?" Ren thought to himself. "That voice...the darkness...it really will save me."
Just when Ren thought the pain was gone. That he might have been saved.
More pain
More agony
But it wasn't the pain of being stabbed. It was the pain of regenerating. His body—broken beyond recognition—was beginning to mend. It was a pain he came to know very well but never got used to.
Ren's eyes jolted open as he managed to push himself up, using his trembling hands to steady himself against the stone floor.
He looked up, the corpse standing right in front of him. The one that had torn into him, over and over again, with its broken blade. But there was something in the corpse's expression that wasn't there before.
The hollow eyes—once lifeless and cold—looked almost regretful. Sad, even. It was as if the thing was somehow aware of what it had done, aware of Ren's suffering. It no longer looked like a threat. It looked conflicted, lost.
It made no sense to Ren. Why stop attacking now? Then, the voice returned.
"Don't worry, little soul. Give in. Sleep. Rest. Break free from the torment."
The corpse's hand trembled, the blade falling from its grasp.
Suddenly, Ren knew.
His stomach dropped.
"That voice...you hear it too?" Looking the corpse right in his hollow eyes. "It's in your head, forcing you to obey. Every word, every whisper, telling you exactly exactly what to do. And I almost fell for it. I—"
His fists clenched tighter, fingernails digging into bloodied palms.
"I told myself I never would. I promised I wouldn't listen. But...I still almost gave in. Why am I so damn gullible! To think such I could find peace in empty words."
"You poor soul, there is no need to think anymore. Let the—"
"No! Get the fuck out of my head!" Ren cut the voice off. "I almost—no...I did. I fell for it. But...not anymore."
"Little soul, don't you see? You don't have to fight anymore. The pain will end. The loneliness will end. I can take it all away."
Ren took a step back, his shadow stretching long behind him.
"You don't take anything away. You bury it! You drown it! You feed on it!"
"Let me carry your burdens..."
The horrifying images seared into Ren's mind came back.
The corpses hanging from the trees.
The sight
The sound
The agony
The suffering
Lifeless, they hung for eternity.
This voice, whatever or whoever it was, crept into every single one of their minds.
"You don't want to carry it. You keep it. Pain. Fear. Hate. You thrive on it."
He looked back at the corpse one last time.
"I understand now," Ren said gently. "It did this to you. You didn't want it. You didn't deserve it... any more than I did."
Deep in the back of his mind, he couldn't feel complete sympathy for the corpse, considering what it did to him just moments before. But he understood now.
"Everything in this forest...That voice, it controls everything here."
And then he turned, the corpse's hollow eyes watching as Ren walked off.
Outside of the ruins, the night was quiet as Ren stumbled forward. He didn't know how long he had been walking. Eventually, in the distance, a shallow cave cut into a cliff came into view. It was shelter, and that was enough for Ren.
He stepped inside without a word, blinking quickly to adjust to the dark. The cave air was cold, chilled by the night. Walking deeper into the cave, sat along the stone wall. He thought the ruins would finally give him a chance to breathe.
But for the first time since this all began—since the wolves, the corpse, the blade, the voice—he was still.
The silence hit harder than any wound.
His eyes drifted down to his hand, the lines of his palms unseen beneath the grime and blood. He turned them over as if looking for something that might still make him human.
There was nothing.
No words
No breath
Just a slow, crushing weight settling in his chest.
"What am I even doing anymore?"
The question didn't come with an answer. Just the thought of a thousand moments he hadn't fully processed. Because he hadn't had time to. Because the world hadn't let him.
But now, it had stopped.
And so he broke.
Ren's shoulders shook as the first sob slipped out—quiet, startled. His breath caught. He gritted his teeth and tried to swallow it down, but the flood had already begun.
The dam shattered.
And Ren wept.
He buried his face in his hands, the cries shaking his body violently. The sound was raw—scraped from the darkest parts of him. The tears dripped down his dirt-streaked face and through the gaps of his fingers.
He didn't cry just for the corpses, or the voice, or the pain.
He cried because he didn't know how to be alive anymore.
He cried because the only thing worse than dying in this cruel world was living in it.
He cried because every part of him hurt—and not just his body but the part of him that had to keep dragging that body forward.
And in that cave, alone with the echo of his grief, he whispered. "I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this…"
His voice cracked mid-sentence, breaking into more sobs. His chest heaved as he clutched his sides, trying to hold himself together as everything inside him tried to fall apart.
"I want to stop. I want it all to stop."
But deep down, he knew it wouldn't.
He knew the voice would return to feed on these exact thoughts.
He knew the pain would, too.
And worst of all, he knew that despite everything, he'd still get up tomorrow.