His neck was taut, the rope biting deep into the delicate flesh with a cruel, unyielding pressure. Damian's arms flailed uselessly, fingers scrambling at the constriction, but no matter how he pulled or clawed, his efforts were futile. The rope had him in its grip, tighter with every strained breath.
Panic surged in his chest as he fought for air, but with each shallow gasp, the darkness began to creep in-slow and relentless, as if it were a living thing, hungry for his soul. His fingers slowly lost their strength, curling into limp, useless fists. His heart began to falter, its frantic rhythm slowing, weakening with each passing second. And then, at last, it stopped.
Damian died at age 18.
Cause of death: Suicide.
…
The void was suffocating.
Darkness. Endless, suffocating darkness.
His body was gone-no arms, no legs— nothing but the cold weight of his own consciousness, trapped in a place that had no form, no purpose, no escape. No sound.
No light.
"Is this hell?" His voice was a whisper, swallowed by the emptiness. No answer
came.
His thoughts were spinning, trying to grasp at something-anything. 'Where am I? What is this place?'
A sound broke through the stillness, jagged and out of place.
Clank.*
The noise reverberated through the void, like metal scraping against metal. His pulse quickened. He spun around, but there was no change. The darkness remained, an inky abyss with no edges, no horizon. The sound continued, clanging, grinding, closer now, as if something was moving toward him.
Clank. Clank.*
Louder. Faster. Like the approach of something horrific. Then-another sound— human. A scream. It started low and agonized, then grew, filling the void, twisting in desperation until it cracked, then faded into an awful silence.
"What the hell was that?"Damian gasped, his throat dry and raw. "Where's that coming from?"
The scream wasn't the only thing now.
There was something else-something foul, cloying in the air. The stench of decay.
Rank, putrid, as if the very essence of death had seeped into the fabric of the void. He recoiled, but his body was gone—he could do nothing but breathe it in, forced to choke on the odor of death. He gasped, but there was no air—no lungs to fill.
"God, what is that?" he choked, but the foul odor only worsened, thickening in the air like a dense, invisible fog. "Did I-did I shit myself after I died? Is this... my punishment?!"
The thought was nauseating, but it didn't stop there. What was worse than the smell was the weight.
A heavy, oppressive weight that pressed down on him, crushing the very air from his lungs. He felt it, slowly at first, then with increasing intensity. It was as though something-someone-was lying on top of him, suffocating him, pinning him to the darkness. His pulse hammered in his skull, his hands reaching up in vain to push away the unseen pressure, but it only grew stronger, suffocating him deeper.
"What is this?" He gasped, but there was no answer. Only the weight, the suffocating grip of nothingness
Then came a voice. A sharp command that cracked through the air like a whip.
"Get up, soldier! We've got this bitch by the hair!"
Damian's eyes snapped open. His breath hitched, his heart stumbling in his chest.
The world before him was not the darkness he had expected. No, it was far worse.
The ground beneath him was a wasteland, strewn with twisted, mutilated bodies. Flesh and bone scattered like discarded trash
across the scarred earth. Some corpses were human, others grotesque amalgamations of man and beast-freakish things, half-formed, barely recognizable.
But all of them were dead. All of them broken. The sky above was an unnatural crimson, streaked with black smoke, as though the heavens themselves were on fire.
"W-where am I?" Damian gasped, his voice trembling.
Before he could process what he was seeing, a soldier beside him was torn apart.
A snap of bone, the sickening wet sound of flesh being ripped, and then-his head exploded in a shower of blood and gore.
Eyes popped from their sockets, spraying blood in every direction, staining the air. His body crumpled to the ground, leaving a grotesque puddle of red.
Damian staggered back, his mind failing to grasp the nightmare unfolding around him.
His feet slipped in the blood-soaked earth, his heart racing in his chest.
"C'mon, soldier! MOVE!" a voice bellowed in his ear, snapping him from his shock. A hand gripped his arm, pulling him forward.
It was then that he saw her-her. The source of the carnage.
Above the chaos, hovering in the crimson sky, a woman-cloaked in black, adorned with chains. But these chains weren't just chains—they were made of bone and blood, curdled together, twisting in the air like living creatures. Each chain crashed down like a hammer, tearing through soldiers, ripping them to shreds, their screams swallowed by the darkness.
She had long, flowing hair-half white, half black-and her eyes were yellow, like molten gold, glowing with an unnatural light. Her skin was ghostly pale, the color of death itself, and from her back extended two pure black wings, their dark feathers absorbing all light around them
She raised her hands, and the chains responded, slithering through the air, crashing down like hammers onto the soldiers below. They died instantly, their bodies crushed, split apart with a sickening crunch. One man's chest was ripped open in a single sweep, his heart torn from his ribcage and tossed aside like a broken toy.
Damian's legs trembled beneath him. His mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening, but there was no sense.
There was only death.
Should I run? I can't stay here. I'll die... but I already did, didn't I?
His mind spun, the questions multiplying, but the panic was growing-thick, suffocating. He froze, heart pounding. If he died once, what was stopping him from dying again? Was this some twisted mockery? Some eternal torment? Would this nightmare never end?
A fox-faced soldier grabbed him by the arm, shaking him roughly.
"At arms, soldier! We need to take out the last heart!"
"M-me?" Damian stammered, his mind a blur of panic. "I can't—!"
But the fox-faced soldier didn't listen. He dragged Damian forward, pulling him through the sea of blood and corpses.
Casimir's feet moved without his consent, his body stumbling forward, propelled by some unseen force. His mind screamed to stop, to turn away, but it was as if his body had already been taken over.
They reached her-the woman. She was a towering figure amidst a sea of death, her chains lashing out, severing limbs, crushing skulls. Casimir could taste the blood in the air, thick and metallic, the very essence of destruction swirling around them.
"Hit the heart!" someone screamed.
"Ready. FIRE!"
Damian didn't know why, but he found himself throwing weapons. Spears, knives, whatever he could grab, all of them flying toward the red heart that pulsed at the center of the chaos, glowing with a sickening intensity.
His grin twisted, unhinged. He had to hit it.
He had to. It was fate. His body was consumed by a feral hunger to strike, to kill.
Every instinct screamed at him to destroy the heart, to end this nightmare.
But as the weapons flew toward their target, a chain-a massive chain of bone-snaked through the air, its jagged edge gleaming with malicious intent. Damian turned, his body frozen in shock as it lashed out, the razor-sharp edge slicing through his throat in a single motion. Blood sprayed outward in a torrential wave, soaking his face, his eyes, his soul. His body crumpled, a limp ragdoll, falling into the red waste underneath him.
And just like that—he was dead.
Again.