Chapter 4 (Part 1)
<47 days of hell>(3)
✧Parasitophobia✧
In a distant, ruined corner of the multiverse, I could see it—the multiverse itself, nearing its end, crumbling into dust. Universal erosion had already begun. I wasn't sure how much more I could delay its decay, but I did know this: one world-line would prevail.
"My Liege, preparations for war are required," came a gravelly voice from behind.
Accel's attention drifted back, his gaze settling on the speaker. After a brief silence, he nodded, replying simply, "I know."
"If you know, then perhaps you might consider acting like an emperor," the voice continued.
"Geez, alright. Understood," Accel muttered with a slight exasperation. He looked once more at the scarlet sky before retreating, thoughtful, and turned toward the path leading back to the castle.
✧
[49,000ᵗʰ times]
With a sharp gasp, Hoshino jolted awake, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. His body was drenched in sweat. Glancing around, he noted it was nearly midnight. His eyes swept the dimly lit room, tracing every corner and shadow, and there, lying ominously on the floor, was a file.
Hoshino hesitated, but after a moment, he reached down and picked it up, flipping it open. As he read, his eyes landed on strange, foreign symbols, familiar yet ungraspable. Time was slipping away—midnight was only minutes away. He checked the clock again, then once more: two minutes... one minute...
He began counting down the final seconds, a whispered countdown: fifty-six... twenty-seven... juu (十), kyuu (九), hachi (八), shichi (七), roku (六), go (五), shi (四), san (三), ni (二), ichi (一)... zero (〇).
The dim light from the single bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered violently. He felt it—the all-too-familiar, searing agony of death. Somewhere in the silence, the ticking of unseen clocks filled the air, gears grinding forward, then groaning backward, echoing with each creak into the depths of the quiet room.
[50,000ᵗʰ times]
Hoshino slowly opened his eyes. At some point, his red irises had turned pure black. He checked the time: five a.m. Rising from the bed, he made his way to the worn-out table, sat down in the broken chair, and gazed through the shattered window.
It was still snowing.
With a sigh, he opened the table drawer, pulled out a compass, and pressed its sharp point into his hand until he began to bleed. He removed the compass, watching blood drip from its tip, and wiped it on his tattered shirt, staining it with a fresh streak of red. Hoshino did this whenever he felt confused, finding the pain helped him focus his thoughts. Calmly, he licked the blood on his hand, then spat it out through the window.
He couldn't get used to dying.
Picking up a sheet of paper, he crossed off another set of four strokes, marking the fifth. Fifty thousand—the exact number of loops he had endured, the exact number of times he had regressed, and the exact number of times he had died in this orphanage. And that wasn't even counting the deaths he'd experienced in dreams that felt just as real.
With another sigh, Hoshino began to organize his thoughts but soon succumbed to exhaustion, falling asleep on the table.
A knock at the door woke him.
"Yes?" he replied, rubbing his eyes.
"Wake up, Hoshino!" came a voice from outside.
Hoshino got up and moved toward the door, pausing to recall who usually came around this time. He checked the clock: two p.m.
Ah. No wonder someone's here to get me.
He walked to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. A weary boy, about a year younger than Hoshino, stood there.
"Finally awake, huh? Better hurry, or you'll miss your chance to eat," the boy said, voice laced with impatience.
"Okay," Hoshino replied flatly.
The boy started down the hall, talking as he walked. Hoshino followed in silence, responding with little more than a quiet "I see" here and there.
The two arrived at the old cafeteria. Hesitating a moment, the boy entered, with Hoshino close behind. They made their way to a white table marked with their names, passing others similarly labeled for each child. Hoshino remembered the place once bustling with children, filled with laughter and noise. Now, in an orphanage that once held over ten thousand, only ten remained.
The silence didn't bother him; in fact, he found the quiet comforting.
He looked down at his meal—a piece of bread and a bowl of soup.
Time to eat.
He finished his meal and stood, overhearing two children at a nearby table discussing a foundation that was recruiting members. Hoshino quietly absorbed this information before heading back to his room. Once there, he noticed the broken window was wide enough to escape through. The only deterrent was the jagged shards around its edge, poised to slice anyone trying to climb out.
He checked the time. Three p.m.
Lying on the bed, he began to plan his next steps. Hours passed, and as he glanced at the clock, he saw it was nearly midnight.
Am I really going to do this?
With a resigned sigh, he got up, pulled on a blue hood, and packed a few scraps of food into a bag. Midnight had arrived.
Hoshino cast one last look around the room, his gaze falling on a file on the table. In a low voice, he muttered, "I'm going to end you when I come back."
He climbed through the window, feeling the glass shards bite into his hands, legs, and back as he pushed through. Blood seeped from his wounds, dripping onto the snow and staining it a dark crimson. Ignoring the pain, he took in the sight around him.
It was still cold outside.
I don't know how many months had passed, but it always seemed to be winter. Summer never came... The night though sky was as beautiful as ever.
Hoshino took a step, leaving his first footprint in the snow.
It had been a long time since I have walked outside. When was the last time i looked at the night sky? How old was i, even? I had been twelve when i first arrived here, but after countless loops, i was certainly much older. The irony made him smirk.
Is this really going to be okay?
He shook his head.
Why am I asking myself that now? I'm already deep in the forest.
He glanced back but continued forward.
I've come too far. It's already too late.
I lost my sanity, emotions, and sense of pain a long time ago.
"Freaking hell."
With that, Hoshino trudged onward into the night.
✧
Hoshino wandered deeper into the bleak forest, each step crunching through the thick, untouched snow. Silence hung in the air, heavy and cold, pressing down on him as he moved further from the orphanage. He barely registered his surroundings, his gaze unfocused, his mind as numb as the frozen landscape. But as he walked, something small flickered at the edge of his vision—a rabbit, snow-white against the endless white, with eyes that gleamed unnaturally black.
He paused, regarding the creature without interest. Cute, he thought absently. Oddly out of place. But then, without warning, its eyes flashed red, and it lunged at him, teeth sharp as razors sinking into his throat. The pain was immediate, a fiery burst as his skin tore, warm blood spilling onto the snow. Hoshino fell, feeling his body grow colder, his vision dimming.
Then, a blink. He was back in his spot, staring at the same snowy expanse as if nothing had happened.
Hoshino blinked again, frowning slightly. He looked around—no trace of blood, no rabbit. For a moment, he wondered if he had just imagined it. But then, as he moved forward, he caught sight of it again—the same rabbit, waiting for him a few paces ahead, eyes glowing a sinister red.
He sighed. This time, he tried to step back, but in an instant, the rabbit leapt at him, claws sinking into his chest, teeth tearing into his shoulder. He could feel his ribs crack under its impossible strength, his breath growing shallow as he crumpled into the snow, darkness closing in once more.
Then, he was back.
The rabbit was gone, but only for a moment. When he resumed his walk, he found it waiting again, as if it had been expecting him. With a blank expression, he kept walking, ignoring the creature. Yet it lunged again, and this time, tore into his side with a force that sent him to his knees. He barely registered the pain, only the strange warmth of his blood spilling out.
Loop after loop, he faced the rabbit again and again, each time with the same dull apathy. He tried outrunning it at first, breaking into a sprint through the snow. But every time, the rabbit appeared in front of him, its eyes burning a deep, unnatural red. And then came the others—more rabbits, all staring with the same crimson gaze. The first one struck first, its teeth sinking into his shoulder, and soon the others followed, tearing him apart in a frenzy. He felt his skin tear, his bones snap, each bite sending shockwaves through his body until he collapsed.
Then he was back, unharmed, and the snow before him lay undisturbed.
He attempted to climb a tree in another loop, scrambling up as high as he could. But just as he was settling onto a branch, he heard a soft rustling below. Looking down, he saw not one, but a dozen rabbits gathering around the base, all with blood-red eyes trained on him. One by one, they leaped up, claws digging into the bark, climbing towards him with unnatural speed. He closed his eyes as their teeth sank into his arms, tearing through muscle and sinew, pulling him down branch by branch.
In the next loop, he sighed and tried laying a trap, carving out a shallow pit and covering it with fallen branches and snow. He walked away, hoping to trick it, only to turn and see the rabbits already waiting behind him. They watched, unblinking, and then surged forward as one. He stood still as they closed in, feeling their teeth slice into his flesh, his blood hot against the cold snow.
Dozens of times he tried, dozens of times he failed. Once, he even tried reasoning with them, his voice flat, exhausted. But the rabbits merely watched, silent and unchanging, before they attacked, ripping him apart once more.
Soon, he gave up trying to escape, simply standing and waiting for the inevitable. In each loop, the red-eyed creatures would approach him, their tiny paws quiet against the snow. They would circle him, closing in, until one of them would leap at his face, sinking its teeth into his throat. As his vision dimmed, he would see the rest following, tearing him apart again and again. There was nothing left to feel, no fear, no pain—just the mechanical cycle of blood, snow, and darkness.
By the hundredth death, Hoshino simply walked forward, ignoring the rustling in the snow, indifferent as he felt them leap once more. The darkness came as easily as breath, carrying him back to the beginning, to the same quiet, endless forest.
After a bit of hundred loops, Hoshino finally snapped.He reached behind his back, his fingers brushing against the worn metal of his compass, his one constant through all these deaths. The rabbits were waiting, red eyes gleaming in the darkness. But this time, he wouldn't stand still.
As the first rabbit lunged, he slashed forward, the sharp metal edge catching its neck mid-air. Blood sprayed in a fine mist, dark against the snow, and he felt its warmth spatter onto his face. The rabbit's tiny body fell to the ground, its head barely clinging to its body, twitching as its life drained out onto the pure white ground. He took a slow breath, the scent of iron thick in the air, grounding him in a grim satisfaction he hadn't felt in ages.
In the next loop, he braced himself as another swarm of rabbits surged forward, each with that same murderous gleam. He was quick, his movements mechanical, like he'd been practicing for this moment across lifetimes. His compass glinted in the moonlight as he brought it down into the skull of another rabbit, feeling the dull crack of bone beneath his hand. The rabbit's body jerked in his grip, blood trickling out from the broken skull as it went limp.
But then the others attacked, clawing up his legs, ripping through his skin, gnawing at his arms until he fell to the snow, blood pooling beneath him. Darkness took him again.
Another loop.
The next time, he was ready, lunging before the rabbits could surround him. He struck fast, the compass slicing open the throat of one, its fur parting as warm blood spilled onto his hand. He twisted, slamming his boot down on another, feeling the soft crunch as its tiny bones gave way beneath him. But one by one, they leapt at him, tearing through his flesh, digging their teeth into his neck, his chest. He collapsed as the life drained from him, vision hazy as he watched his own blood seep into the snow before everything went black.
Loop after loop, he fought back, each time a mess of blood and bodies as he hacked his way through them. Some loops he barely managed to kill one; in others, he took down three or four before they overwhelmed him, his body collapsing into a heap of shredded flesh and bone, his breaths rattling in his chest. Every death was a brutal reminder that these creatures weren't merely animals—they were forces of pure malice, unrelenting and relentless.
Then came loop 152.
This time, Hoshino met their charge with a fury that he hadn't known he still had. He swung the compass with precision, severing the head of the first rabbit that leapt at him. Blood sprayed in arcs across his face as he moved, each strike fueled by sheer survival. Another rabbit's eye exploded under the metal point of the compass, a viscous fluid mixing with blood as it shrieked and thrashed. He kicked another away, hearing the crack of ribs as it hit the ground, its fur stained with the blood of its fallen kin.
The last few rabbits hesitated, their red eyes dimming as they stared at the carnage around him. But he didn't wait. Hoshino lunged forward, compass in hand, stabbing down with a brutal finality. One after another, he tore through them, his hands slick with blood, the snow around him now a sickening, dark crimson. The silence that followed was thick, broken only by his ragged breathing.
He stood in the center of the clearing, surrounded by broken bodies and torn fur, the metallic taste of blood sharp in the air. His hands shook, his clothes soaked, the weight of every death dragging on him like chains. Yet, in this moment, he felt something close to victory—a dark satisfaction that, after endless loops, he'd finally broken free.
Hoshino continued through the forest, stepping over the bloody remains of the rabbits he'd fought. The snow had begun to fall again, thick and heavy, covering the ground with a fresh layer that blanketed the carnage behind him. He walked on, feeling the weight of countless deaths settle like an old, familiar cloak over his shoulders. His breaths came out in visible puffs that vanished quickly in the frigid air, each step pushing him forward, onward.
Hours passed, and the trees began to thin, giving way to the base of a mountain that rose dark and jagged against the pale night sky. He looked up, the steep cliffs and rocky outcrops barely visible in the dim light, and felt the faintest pull—a strange, numbing curiosity. Without hesitation, he began to climb, his hands and feet searching for holds in the sharp, icy rock, his fingers numb and bloodied by the time he reached a narrow ledge halfway up.
Here, he found a cave, a dark hollow tucked away in the mountain's side. Without thought, he stepped inside, the chill less biting than the open air. He sank down against the rough stone, his back to the wall, and closed his eyes, hoping to sleep, or at least to let his mind slip away for a while. But moments later, a sharp, searing pain burst through his leg. He looked down, blank eyes meeting the fangs of a coiled snake, its venom spreading warmth through his veins, a painful contrast against the cold.
Before he could even react, darkness took him again, and he found himself back at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by the blood-stained snow, the red-eyed rabbits already staring up at him.
With mechanical precision, he tore through them again, their blood staining his hands, the crunch of bone and fur underfoot like a morbid rhythm. When the last rabbit lay still, he resumed his climb, his steps as steady as before, undeterred by the loop. Higher and higher he went, until he found another cave, this one larger, its entrance framed by rough-hewn stone that seemed to promise a deeper, safer refuge.
He stepped inside, the darkness swallowing him as he settled onto the cold ground. But as he closed his eyes, he heard a low, resonant growl that filled the cave, echoing off the walls. He looked up, and saw two gleaming eyes, yellow and unblinking. Before he could move, the bear lunged, its claws tearing into his chest, ripping through flesh and bone with merciless efficiency. Hoshino felt his body crumple under the weight, his vision blurring as he sank into the snow, breath rattling in his chest until everything faded once again.
Back at the base, he awoke to the familiar scene. The rabbits were waiting, their eyes gleaming red in the darkness. Without hesitation, he killed them once more, his movements swift and brutal, as if each loop only sharpened his efficiency. Blood pooled at his feet, staining the snow until it was nearly black in the dim light. When the last rabbit had fallen, he turned back to the mountain, beginning the climb anew, his gaze fixed on the distant summit.
This time, he ascended higher than before, scaling the icy cliffs with numb hands, pushing past exhaustion and cold. The wind howled as he reached the top, where he found a small, shallow cave that barely offered shelter from the freezing air. He lay down, pressing his back against the stone, feeling the cold seep through his body. His eyes closed, but sleep was elusive, slipping away as the bitter cold tightened its grip.
Eventually, his breathing grew shallow, his limbs heavy and unmoving. He barely registered the slow numbness that spread from his fingers to his chest, his heartbeat slowing, each beat fainter than the last. As his consciousness slipped away, he felt himself frozen in place, a lifeless figure amidst the snow and ice.
And then he was back again.
The rabbits surrounded him, silent and expectant. He killed them with the same detached ease, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as he finished the task. This time, he decided against climbing. The mountain's traps held no mystery for him now, only an endless chain of deaths that looped back to the same starting point. Instead, he turned his back to the peak and began walking, his steps deliberate and unhurried, vanishing into the forest's shadows.
The night stretched on as he continued forward, pushing through the snow-laden branches and the biting wind. He kept his pace steady, each step marking time in a world that never changed. Hours passed, though it was hard to tell in the constant, frozen darkness. The trees loomed around him, silent witnesses to his endless journey, their branches heavy with snow that occasionally slipped and fell with muffled thumps, marking the quiet emptiness of the forest.
But he felt no fatigue. The cycle had worn away any sense of exhaustion, replaced by an unyielding apathy that propelled him forward. There was nothing to anticipate, nothing to dread. Only the cold, the dark, and the steady crunch of snow beneath his feet.
As dawn's faint light finally began to seep through the trees, he felt something close to relief, though the feeling was hollow and distant. The pale gray light brought no warmth, but it painted the forest in shades of silver, casting long shadows that stretched across the ground, blending with the snow.
He walked until he reached a clearing, the ground beneath him untouched, unmarked by blood or footprints. Here, he paused, his gaze fixed on the horizon, where the sun was just beginning to rise, casting its dim light across the sky. For a moment, he stood still, feeling the weight of the countless loops pressing against him like a second skin, a reminder of the cycle he could not escape.
✧
Alexei Volkov had faced death more times than he cared to remember. Working for the Foundation had peeled away any illusions he had about the world, each mission further warping the boundaries of reality he had once taken for granted. His first brush with horror came with an entity they called The Whispering Skin , a parasitic force that fed off sound, thriving in silence yet instantly lethal to anyone who made the faintest noise. The mission had been straightforward: retrieve an artifact buried deep within an abandoned school in Volgograd. But as soon as they'd stepped inside, every whisper, every breath seemed amplified, and the skin on his teammates' faces began to peel away, as if alive, whispering secrets in low, guttural voices until nothing but bones and blood remained. Alexei barely escaped, fleeing into the biting cold outside, his own skin twitching with a thousand invisible murmurs that seemed to haunt him for weeks after.
The next mission brought him face-to-face with Kuroi me(黒い目), an eldritch creature rumored to haunt the dense forests of Belarus. The creature moved through the trees like a shadow, silent and untraceable, its eyes glowing a deep, unnatural green. He and his team were supposed to capture it alive, to bring it back for further study. But as the night wore on, they realized they were the ones being hunted. He'd heard the desperate screams of his teammate, Li Wei, just ahead of him, only to see her body fall from the treetops, impaled by its antlers, her eyes wide in a silent scream. By dawn, Alexei was the only one left, running for his life with blood freezing to his hands and face, the haunting cries of his team echoing in his ears like ghosts he could never outrun.
Another mission had him encountering The Endless Hunger, a creature from the darkest myths of Scandinavia, lurking deep in the fjords. The creature could mimic the voice of anyone it had eaten, luring people with the familiar tones of their loved ones. The Foundation had lost an entire team there before sending Alexei and a new squad. As they descended into the dark, icy caves, the voices began—loved ones, teammates long gone, calling their names, promising warmth in the frigid blackness. He remembered the trembling figure of his team leader, Francesca Moretti, as she reached out toward a voice that sounded like her late husband's, only for something to burst from the shadows, a maw that was all teeth and darkness, pulling her into the abyss. He'd been the last to leave, staring into the void as it whispered his own mother's voice back to him.
After those missions, Alexei found himself isolated within the Foundation. No team wanted to work with him; he was the survivor, the lone one who always returned. Rumors spread that he was cursed, that any mission with him was doomed. He didn't care. The horror had hardened something in him, numbed the very idea of attachment. He'd already seen his teammates' faces turn to ghastly masks of terror, their limbs torn apart, and heard their final screams echoing in places too dark and cursed for any sane person to tread.
But then, after a long stint of inactivity, something inexplicable compelled him to visit the snowy forest just beyond the Foundation's base, a place untouched by missions but rumored to hide things darker than any myth. The forest was quiet, too quiet, the kind of silence that clung to your skin and whispered to your nerves. He felt an unnatural chill settle over him, colder than any winter he'd felt, as if the forest itself were breathing, waiting. With each step, snow crunched beneath his boots, yet he heard other footsteps, lighter, distant, trailing him like shadows he couldn't shake.
The memories of his teammates began flooding back, more vivid than ever. He saw Li Wei's blank eyes, her body impaled, heard Francesca's voice, pleading in the dark, and smelled the faint scent of blood mixing with the freezing air. His mind started slipping, the boundaries between reality and nightmare blurring. Shapes seemed to shift in the trees, figures wearing the faces of his lost comrades, blood dripping from empty eye sockets, mouths frozen in silent screams. The forest grew darker, the shadows longer, swallowing up any sense of direction until he felt like he was wandering in an endless void.
He stopped in a small clearing, his breath visible in thick, white puffs that dissipated too slowly. But as he tried to steady himself, a figure emerged from the trees—a creature wearing the tattered remnants of his teammate Pavel's uniform. The face was wrong, contorted into a grotesque imitation of humanity, its eyes pitch black, and its mouth stretched in a grin too wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth. He stood frozen as the thing came closer, Pavel's voice hissing through gritted teeth, whispering things he'd only shared in the safety of their bunk, twisted memories now twisted into accusations.
The visions didn't relent. As he stumbled back, he tripped over something half-buried in the snow—Francesca's severed head, her dead eyes staring up at him, lips moving as though still alive, calling his name, cursing him. He scrambled away, hands sinking into the cold, wet snow as he tried to claw his way back to his feet. Around him, more figures appeared, all wearing the faces of the dead. Blood dripped from their wounds, staining the snow in crimson patches as they watched him with dark, empty eyes, expressions twisted with betrayal.
In that moment, Alexei realized that he would die here, not by the claws of some beast or the malice of an eldritch entity, but by the weight of his own survival, the memory of every death he'd witnessed. He was haunted, hunted by the souls he'd left behind, shadows and whispers that would never let him go. The forest had become his own personal purgatory, a place where the horrors of the past and the silence of the present wove together, closing in around him.
As the spectral figures closed in, he felt his own sanity cracking, fracturing like the brittle ice beneath his boots. The world spun, and for a brief moment, he saw his reflection in their eyes—a man hollowed out, emptied by survival, every death he'd witnessed filling the void inside him with cold, creeping darkness. He knew, with the finality of a curse, that there was no escaping this forest, no redemption to be found.
✧
Ji-hyeon Lee had known terror in ways words could scarcely convey. She'd been with the Foundation for years now, but unlike most, she'd encountered only two entities. The first had been called Sairensu u~īpā(サイレンス・ウィーパー), a twisted apparition that only emerged in complete darkness, its form a wavering silhouette that seemed to weep blood. During her first encounter, Ji-hyeon had been paired with three teammates. Their mission: to locate a missing researcher trapped in an abandoned hospital in Seoul. But as night fell, the hospital lights flickered out, plunging them into pitch darkness. A muffled sobbing filled the hallways, accompanied by the wet splatter of tears hitting the cold tile floors. Her teammate, Takumi, moved to turn on his flashlight, but the second the beam broke through the darkness, the entity shrieked, its thin, claw-like hands tearing through him, leaving behind a mass of twisted flesh and shattered bones. Ji-hyeon stood frozen, watching in horror as her friends were picked off one by one, knowing any movement, any light would summon her death. She had escaped, but not without scars that would linger in the empty echoes of her mind.
The second entity, Kage o musaboru mono(影を貪る者),or Devourer of Shadows, —was far worse. Rumored to haunt the secluded forests of Jeju Island, this creature didn't merely kill; it consumed memories, hollowing out minds and leaving its victims alive but lost in a trance of forgotten life. Ji-hyeon had gone in with a small team, all trained in psychic resistance and well-armed, but none of that mattered. As they made their way deeper into the forest, the air grew thick and cold, and the trees themselves seemed to bend toward them, branches creaking under an unnatural weight. Suddenly, she felt a pressure in her head, her memories warping, slipping from her mind one by one. Her mother's face blurred, then disappeared; her brother's laughter faded into silence. The worst was seeing her team member, Renata, who she'd grown close to over the years, stand up, eyes vacant, skin gray as ash, and begin to laugh—a hollow, empty sound devoid of any joy. Renata's last memory, twisted and gone, was a shadow of who she once was, yet Ji-hyeon was forced to leave her there, consumed by her own lost life.
By the time she'd managed to flee the forest, her mind was fragile, a kaleidoscope of fractured memories pieced together with jagged edges. The creature, a shifting form in the shadows that followed her every step, let her go but not without a final mark. She felt a tearing sensation down her back, a fiery pain that seared through her spine. She collapsed just beyond the treeline, clutching at her shirt where blood began to seep through the fabric, staining it deep red. She didn't dare look back, afraid that if she even caught a glimpse of it, the fragments of her memory she clung to would disintegrate entirely.
She staggered into the early morning light, the pain in her back throbbing with each step. The Foundation had sent an extraction team, and they hurried her back to headquarters in Seoul, but she spoke to no one. Her face was pale, eyes hollow, with a haunted look that no words could alleviate. She could still feel the pressure in her mind, as if something had left its mark, burrowed deep into her consciousness, waiting to drag her back into that forest whenever it wished. The scar on her back, a reminder of her own survival, burned as if it held memories of its own, fragments of the horrors she'd left behind.
When she finally returned to her cramped apartment, the place felt alien, its familiar objects strangely out of place. She drifted through the space like a ghost, shedding her bloodied clothes and collapsing onto the bed. Her back stung, the wound throbbing with each beat of her heart. She lay there, eyes open, staring at the darkened ceiling, feeling as if shadows moved in every corner, as if the creature still lingered, watching her from the edges of her fractured memory. Exhaustion won over paranoia, and slowly, she closed her eyes, sinking into a sleep that offered little peace, haunted by fragments of a life she struggled to remember.
✧
Michael Thompson had seen his fair share of terrors in his brief time with the Foundation, but nothing had prepared him for Ygaruth, the Abomination. A colossal, twisted horror that defied all natural order, Ygaruth was said to have been born from elemental chaos, a creature that warped the boundaries between life and nightmare. Its form was an impossible blend of familiar and grotesque—a forty-foot monstrosity with a humanoid torso and a lower body that rippled with masses of writhing tentacles. One of its arms ended in a massive crab claw, sharp enough to slice through steel, while the other split unnaturally, one side forming a massive tentacle and the other a distorted, muscular human arm. Its face, if one could even call it that, was an amalgamation of sensory organs where a head should have been, and its mouth lay gaping in the center of its chest, a cavernous maw lined with teeth that seemed to spiral inward like a vortex.
The mission had been simple on paper. Michael and his team were supposed to observe Ygaruth's movements, document any patterns, and remain out of sight. But as they soon discovered, the Foundation's intelligence on this entity was tragically incomplete. The horror they had been told was stationary had begun to move, its lumbering steps shaking the ground as it left a trail of twisted, unnatural plant life in its wake. Michael could feel the vibrations under his feet even as he hid in a ravine, his heart pounding as he watched the creature's distorted silhouette rise against the night sky.
Their first night was a nightmare of restless whispers. Ygaruth emitted a low, constant hum that resonated through the air like a warning, a vibration that seeped into the bones and lodged there. Michael could feel it, this thrum of raw, ancient power, resonating through his skull as he lay on the cold ground, too terrified to close his eyes. His teammate, Dalia, tried to reassure him, but her voice quivered, each word underscored by the faint crackle of nerves stretched to their limit. Sleep became impossible as the hours dragged on, the dread creeping into every corner of his mind.
The creature's presence defied all sense of reality. Michael saw it clearly for the first time the following day, its form framed by an eerie dawn light. Ygaruth's torso seemed almost human-like at a distance, but the twisted mass of its tentacle-like legs stirred with unnatural fluidity, each tendril moving independently, like some nightmare sea anemone. The sheer size of it was overwhelming, and his instincts screamed to run, to flee from this abomination that had no place in the natural world. But he remained still, rooted in place, barely able to breathe as it turned its head—or what he assumed was its head—toward him, those unblinking eyes scanning the horizon with a hunger that transcended mere survival.
As the days stretched into a week, they lost one member after another. Their first casualty was Carter, taken by surprise when one of Ygaruth's tentacles shot out, ripping through his body like wet paper, the remnants left tangled and discarded. The Foundation had provided them with basic weapons, but nothing could match the raw, monstrous strength of Ygaruth. They watched helplessly as Carter's shredded remains lay sprawled across the ground, his face frozen in a grotesque scream that would haunt Michael's dreams forever.
The rest of the team began to unravel. Hunger gnawed at their bellies, and sleep deprivation frayed their nerves. Ygaruth's presence seemed to warp time and space around it; distances became unreliable, and the forest they hid in took on an unnatural stillness, as if the very earth had given itself over to this abomination. Michael's once steady hands began to shake as he grew increasingly desperate, the mission slipping from his grasp as survival became his only goal.
Then came the night when Ygaruth spoke. Its voice was a guttural sound, low and reverberating, each word laden with malice that pulsed through the air. Michael couldn't make out the language—it was a harsh, ancient tongue that scraped against his mind like broken glass. But the intent was clear. It was aware of them, amused by their pathetic attempts to remain hidden. His heart pounded as he tried to suppress the primal urge to scream, but the others weren't so lucky. Dalia snapped first, her terror spilling over as she bolted from their hiding spot, her scream echoing through the darkness. Ygaruth turned, one massive eye swiveling to lock onto her, and with horrifying speed, the crab-like claw descended, silencing her forever.
Michael felt his mind slipping after that, the relentless horror taking its toll. He had watched his team torn apart, seen their blood stain the earth beneath Ygaruth's monstrous steps, and still, he was forced to continue, knowing there was no escape. The mission was no longer about observation; it had become a game of endurance, a question of how much more he could endure before he broke.
One night, the creature's humming seemed to penetrate his mind more deeply, a low vibration that echoed in his skull. He could feel it seeping into his thoughts, twisting his memories, reshaping them into images he could barely comprehend. Faces of his family, memories of his childhood—they were all distorted, writhing and bleeding under Ygaruth's influence. His mind had become a battleground, a twisted landscape of horror that he could no longer differentiate from reality.
In his final moments, Michael attempted one last act of defiance. He charged at Ygaruth with the last weapon they had, a pitifully small grenade, his scream echoing through the forest as he hurled himself forward. But Ygaruth's tentacle intercepted him effortlessly, wrapping around his body and lifting him high into the air. For a brief moment, he hung there, staring into the void of its many eyes, feeling the creature's malice pour over him like a wave. Then, with a sickening crunch, he was pulled into the creature's gaping chest-mouth, his body torn apart by rows of spiraling teeth.
In his final, agonizing seconds, as his consciousness faded, he saw glimpses of others who had failed before him, spectral figures trapped in the darkness of Ygaruth's being. Their souls were bound to the creature, echoes of their lives twisted into eternal servitude, screaming silently within the abomination's endless depths.
✧
Anaya Patel joined the Foundation hoping to make a difference, even if it was in the darkest corners of the world. But by the end of her first year, she'd become more a subject than an agent. Her superiors claimed her transformation was "necessary." The experiments were relentless, bordering on sadistic, with doctors and scientists subjecting her to various forms of induced pain to test her resilience. They took her to the brink of death repeatedly, observing as her organs regenerated, her skin mending itself in seconds as her flesh knitted back together. She was forced to experience drowning, suffocation, even slow poisoning, only to be revived each time. Her cries went unheard; each agonizing resurrection chipped away at her humanity, replacing her fear with a numb acceptance. By the time they were finished, she had lost count of how many times she had died, her pain absorbed into a twisted sort of knowledge—that she could die, but only up to 5,000 times.
Her second year brought her face-to-face with something far more malevolent than sterile experimentation. She was assigned to investigate an entity known as Léiguǎn(雷管). The files were scarce, vague warnings laced with mentions of unimaginable pain. Léiguǎn, they said, was a sadistic force, thriving on the agony of its victims. It was a shadowy, monstrous figure, an ethereal being that seemed to materialize from thin air. It stood over six feet tall, with an indistinct form that flickered between shadows and a warped, skeletal body. Its face was an empty, grotesque mask, with pits where eyes should have been and a mouth that seemed to stretch endlessly. It had no defined shape, just an unsettling mass of darkness punctuated by the occasional glint of sharp, unnatural teeth and twisted claws. Each movement it made was accompanied by a crackling, static hum that seemed to bore into her skull.
Anaya's first encounter with Léiguǎn was in an abandoned underground lab. The air felt dense, thick with the entity's malevolent energy. The second she stepped into the room, a wave of nausea hit her, a visceral reaction that she couldn't control. The creature loomed at the far end of the room, half-hidden in shadows, but she could feel its eyes—if it had any—boring into her, probing her every thought, every fear. She fought the instinct to run, knowing that it would follow her, that it would enjoy the chase. She stood her ground, her heart pounding as she whispered the standard Foundation greeting, but her voice cracked under the weight of its silent gaze.
The first night, she learned the full extent of its power. She hadn't meant to sleep, but exhaustion claimed her. She awoke to a sensation unlike anything she'd experienced, even during the Foundation's experiments. It felt as if every cell in her body had exploded simultaneously. Tiny bursts of agony radiated from her skin to her bones, each cell a small grenade tearing her apart from the inside. She screamed, writhing on the cold ground, her fingers clawing at her flesh as if she could somehow release the pain. But there was no escape; the explosions continued, relentless, unyielding. By the time it stopped, she was soaked in sweat, her voice hoarse from screaming. She lay there, numb, her body twitching involuntarily as the aftermath of the pain lingered.
Léiguǎn appeared to her again the next night, as if summoned by her suffering. It floated closer, and she could feel its icy breath on her skin, a chilling reminder that her pain amused it. She dared to ask why, her voice a broken whisper, but it merely tilted its head, an unnatural, slow movement that sent a shiver down her spine. She realized then that it didn't want to answer, that her suffering was the answer, a source of its own twisted pleasure. As the days bled into nights, the detonations became a nightly ritual. She tried everything to stay awake—biting her lip until it bled, digging her nails into her arms, even begging herself to hold on for just one more minute. But exhaustion was her inevitable captor, and each time she succumbed to sleep, the torture resumed. The detonations grew worse, each one more intense than the last, leaving her body a trembling wreck. She would wake to blood seeping from her ears, her muscles spasming uncontrollably.
In her desperation, she began speaking to Léiguǎn, pleading with it, bargaining, anything to make it stop. It would listen, but only in silence, its hollow gaze fixed on her with an almost childlike fascination. One night, she asked if it had ever experienced pain, and for a moment, she thought she saw something shift in its expression, a brief flicker of understanding—or perhaps it was merely reflecting her own terror back at her. Whatever it was, it vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by a sinister grin that stretched across its featureless face.
The entity's torture wasn't confined to the physical. It crept into her mind, twisting her memories, dredging up her worst fears and amplifying them. She would see flashes of her past, warped and distorted—her parents' faces twisted in agony, her childhood home consumed by flames, friends she'd lost to the Foundation staring back at her with hollow, accusing eyes. Each vision left her shaken, and each time she dared close her eyes, Léiguǎn would be there, watching, waiting for her to succumb.
There were moments when she thought about giving up, about letting the detonations take her. But the thought of dying, only to return to Léiguǎn's mercy once more, kept her fighting. She counted each detonation, marking the minutes with the ticking pain, trying to distract herself from the overwhelming agony. On the rare nights when the detonations didn't come, she was left in an unsettling silence, her body braced for pain that didn't arrive, her mind haunted by the knowledge that it was only a temporary reprieve.
She attempted to fight back one night, using a flare gun she'd hidden in her bag. When Léiguǎn appeared, she aimed and fired, hoping the light and heat would have some effect. But the entity only laughed, a deep, guttural sound that resonated through the room, chilling her to the bone. The flare passed through it, as if it were made of smoke, and it moved closer, its breath icy against her skin, its amusement evident. It enjoyed her defiance, savoring her desperation.
The detonations resumed with even greater force after that, each one a punishment for her rebellion. She felt as if her very soul was being torn apart, each cell a tiny universe collapsing in on itself. Her screams echoed through the empty halls, a symphony of agony that seemed to feed Léiguǎn's twisted pleasure.
By the end of her second year, Anaya was barely a shadow of who she had once been. Her skin was pale, her eyes hollow, and her body bore the scars of countless detonations. She had died hundreds of times, each death a reminder of her mortality and the limits of her immortality. She moved through the Foundation's halls like a ghost, her mind fractured, haunted by the specter of Léiguǎn and the endless torment it promised. She knew that as long as she was bound to the Foundation, there would be no escape, no peace—only the silent laughter of the entity that waited for her in the shadows, ready to claim her soul, piece by agonizing piece.
✧