Sometimes it's important to put our hopes in a complete stranger who lives in a distant universe.
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A hurricane of fire. Tall as the mountain, two fiery dots in its center. The heat could melt any steel, much less human skin. The sky was dark, except when the lightning blazed and thunders struck mercilessly. The earth shook, cracked, and crumbled to dust.
Heon ran like a deer hunted by a lion. His breath was short like a thorn was in his stomach. His big, round eyes widened even further as the brown irises mirrored the terrifying thing in front of him. His hands flayed uselessly while his feet moved with no grace. Only a matter of seconds later did he stumble and fall to the ruins.
This would be the death of him.
But Heon never thought about death. About the abstract idea of his soul ceasing to exist. Stripped away from his body, erased from the memory of the selective few people who knew, vanishing from the world altogether.
Perhaps, there was a different idea. Of a brand new world he had never heard before. Of life that he would get after he dies. Wistful thinking, at the very least. A ridiculous notion at most.
However, the only thing crossing his mind the moment he opened his bleary eyes was that he had died. He believed so. Else, how would he explain the vivid green plants and fruits hanging low above him? When the last thing he remembered was rivulets of blood sprouting from his arm, a geyser of nauseating sick red.
How naïve that he dared to think of this as his paradise. Heaven gifted to him after enduring a not-so-dramatic life as an ordinary person. He wanted to laugh.
The sound coming from his mouth was like a wheeze. Pathetic and certainly nothing near a laugh. Heon wondered if he was reincarnated as a dog or a frog.
An unlikely thing to happen, but he also had an inkling that this was his reality now. It was nothing more than an acceptance he didn't remember ever agreeing to. Like those conspiracy theories about the matrix, that every human's lives were only a simulation run by a higher being to test and see everything like a damned scientist.
Taking a deep breath, Heon turned to his side and pushed himself up until he was sitting on the grass-covered ground. Looking down at his hands, Heon's round eyes widened.
There, propelling himself up side by side with his slightly tan right hand was an abomination. His left hand, currently clenching, was black in color. As if he dumped his left hand into a bucket of dark paint, up to his wrist. The edge cracked like how a bolt of lightning shaped in a stormy night. In the middle of his forearm, a white line sewing his skin close, connecting his own hand and the foreign body part not of his own.
It was then that he remembered. That he accepted the new reality of his life. Someone had cut off his hand, slicing it mercilessly, before that cloaked man murder–
He didn't want to think about death now. Moreover, about his own death. He wasn't dead.
He wasn't. Funny how he convinced himself of that. However, even if he was dead, he was glad to have found himself in this afterlife – if it indeed was. He didn't know what this place was. Could it be his deserved heaven or a parallel universe like the cloaked man said? After all, the glaring evidence was mocking him without mercy. In the shape of his left arm.
Heon didn't know if having a forced amputation and remaining cripple was better than having someone operate on him to attach a dead body's arm to his own. If given a choice, he wasn't sure what he'd choose.
A twisted laugh escaped him. Heon realized that once again, he was glad not to have a choice. This way, he had no choice but to accept and move forward.
So, move forward, he did.
Staggering on his feet, Heon curiously observed his surroundings. He never took a walk in the forest with this many lush plants. It was definitely his first time seeing a wild cat that big. The more he walked forward, the more nervous he became. The forest grew darker, with taller trees and thick canopies. He wondered if he had taken the wrong direction and maybe he should turn around. He doubted he'd find a city, or at least any sign of other people, if he continued to walk down the single path.
However, apparently, he was too cautious, too worrisome in his loneliness. Not long after the doubt had settled in the pit of his stomach, Heon caught a glimpse of something red. Striding forward, Heon soon found what was hidden behind those green and thick bushes in the forest.
The red color he saw earlier was the roof of an abandoned house. It looked like it was about to collapse and crumble, but it was better than a tall tree with many creepy bugs circling it.
It was just his luck. The moment he saw the house, rain poured heavily from the sky. Dashing to the door – or some hole in the wall, he would call the door to grab any normalcy he might not have any longer – Heon caught almost instantly. There was a pungent smell inside. The owner probably abandoned the house for a fairly long time, perhaps even for years. The dust inside also didn't want to settle, dancing annoyingly in front of him just because he was breathing too heavily for once.
Once again, Heon reminded himself that it was a thousand times better than huddling under those trees in the forest.
Sighing in relief, Heon looked around in the dim rooms. He stalked toward the single chair in the corner of the room. Unfortunately, something stopped him before he reached his goal.
"Move and you'll die."
Scratched that something for someone instead. Heon gulped, his body froze as he felt the tip of something sharp pricking his neck. Right where a medical practitioner would touch to know one's pulse.
Terror crept in.
Although remaining still, Heon was panicking. Internally. He was holding his breath, too scared to take a lungful inhalation.
"What are you doing here?"
The voice said. Male, perhaps a teenager just like him. Difficultly, he peered down at the arm holding the sharp object near his neck. "It's raining."
"And that gave you the right to trespass on my house?" He said, sounding far too close behind him for his comfort. Heon could even feel the stranger's body heat on his back.
He spoke slowly in answer. "I don't know if it's your house. I thought it was abandoned. I'm sorry."
"Saying sorry is so easy. Even a child can do that. You should know that I don't like trespassers. In fact, I don't like humans. I hate them."
Heon didn't know what else to say. Did that mean that whoever held a knife against his neck was not a human? To hear that was a horror of its own.
"However, I will spare your life now. You may run while I count to ten. After that, I can't guarantee what I'll do to you."
The low chuckle that followed made the hair at the back of Heon's neck stand up. Goosebumps appeared as shivers ran through his body. He forced himself to remain silent. He nicked Heon's neck again, making a drop of blood dripping slowly from the tiny wound.
"So, you better run fast, my little deer friend."