"Why? Why? I don't want to die here!" Xen cried out to the stormy sky.
He lay helpless on the ground, blood seeping from his back, pooling beneath him as the rain continued to fall. The cold, relentless drops splattered against his face, mixing with the blood and dirt. At that moment, he seemed utterly powerless—nothing more than a broken body at the mercy of the storm.
An overwhelming instinct to survive surged within him, forcing him to crawl forward a few centimeters, each movement a desperate plea for life. But before he could make any progress, a violent cough wracked his body, and a mouthful of blood spilled from his lips, staining the ground beneath him.
"Sorry, Jack… Your older brother can't pay the fee anymore," he thought, the words a bittersweet whisper in his mind as his vision blurred. His heart, already battered by the weight of exhaustion and injury, finally fell silent.
One hour later...
"I heard a Mimic appeared around here. Is that true?" asked a man clad in black, his expression severe, his voice as cold as the storm above them.
"Yes, sir. He attacked a child," the restaurant owner replied, his face pale and shaken, pointing toward the lifeless body on the ground.
The man pulled out his phone and checked Xen's profile, his fingers moving with practiced ease:
Name: Xen VorinAge: 13History: Lost his parents at age six. Worked multiple jobs daily to cover exorbitant hospitalization fees. Frequently visited the hospital but never fully recovered, always insisting he was fine.
The man's face remained impassive as he signaled to his men to clean up the scene. The body would be dealt with, and the mystery of the Mimic would be solved in time.
Xen's world slipped into darkness.
Xen woke up in a pure white room—doorless, windowless, and eerily silent.
His mind struggled to process the sudden shift in reality, his senses overwhelmed by the sterile emptiness that surrounded him. Panic flared briefly, but his rational mind quickly took control. He was alive—somehow. But this place… it wasn't the hospital, nor was it the familiar streets of Sunset Village.
"Where am I?" he thought, his heart racing as he instinctively measured the room with his body.
The length: 7.23 meters. The height, estimated by eye: 3.45 meters.
7.23 × 6.0 × 3.45 = 149.661 cubic meters.
An average child needs about 8 liters of air per minute, or 480 liters per hour. Since 1 cubic meter holds 1,000 liters of air, he had approximately seven days' worth of oxygen. But… there was no water.
His mind was already calculating the space's resources when his thoughts were interrupted by a strange sight—a rainbow-colored cat sitting in the corner, its vivid hues an anomaly in the otherwise sterile space.
"Hello there, how are you today, kitty?" Xen greeted it, his voice a playful attempt to break the silence.
The cat, however, did not respond as Xen had expected. Instead, it suddenly morphed, its form shifting and twisting until it became a humanoid figure—one that looked exactly like Xen himself.
"Hello, Xen," the figure said, its voice resonating deep within him, striking a chord in his soul.
"Am I dead? Also, who are you?" Xen asked, his words betraying the confusion he felt.
"You are dead now. If you want to come back to life, you first need to fulfill the obsession they had in life," the figure replied. "Second of all, I am Eternis, the source of imagination. If you're wondering more things, ask me next time I see you."
Before Xen could process the full weight of Eternis's words, the world around him shifted in an instant.
He was no longer alone in the white room.
Xen found himself seated on a worn-out sofa, flanked by two unfamiliar men. Their presence was strange, unsettling, yet oddly familiar, as if the situation itself was a puzzle piece he was meant to fit into.
"Complete the obsession of the original owner, is this now?" he thought to himself, the realization dawning on him like the first light of day.
One of the men spoke up, his voice stern and urgent.
"Detective Carl, we need your help."
Xen tilted his head, taking in the man's appearance. The man was dressed in a suit, his face hard with resolve, though there was something else in his eyes—something that suggested desperation.
"You guys are the police?" Xen asked, his voice now carrying an unfamiliar confidence, a calmness born of his strange situation.
"Yes, Detective Carl. You're the best investigator we could find in Sunset Village," the other man replied, his tone respectful yet laced with a sense of expectation. "We need you to solve a series of disappearances."
Xen leaned back slightly, his mind already beginning to analyze the situation. The pieces were starting to fall into place, but there was more at play here than a simple case of missing people. There was a deeper mystery, one that tied into his own life, and perhaps his death as well.
"That… will be one of the keys for me," Xen thought, a glimmer of understanding passing through him. Solving this case—unraveling the obsession of the one who had once occupied this body—was the first step toward his return.