"Told you! I knew we would find this rat here." The voice shattered the tranquil atmosphere, causing Ethan's heart to stutter in his chest.
He turned slowly, desperately hoping his mind was playing tricks on him. The setting sun cast long shadows across the riverbank, and within them stood three familiar silhouettes: James, Donald, and Jack.
Their figures were backlit by the dying light, lending them a demonic aspect that seemed fitting to Ethan's eyes.
His gaze darted around frantically, seeking an escape route. But the riverbank offered no refuge - the steep embankment on one side, the deep water on the other, and his tormentors blocking the only path back to the street. The isolation that had minutes ago been a comfort now became a trap.
"What's wrong, Ethan?" Jack's voice dripped with false concern. "Calm down. We just want to talk." His laughter echoed across the water, a sound devoid of warmth. "Donald, start filming. We want to share this moment with everyone."
Donald's phone emerged, its lens gleaming in the twilight like a malevolent eye. His usual smirk played across his features as he positioned himself for the best angle.
Jack stepped forward, his shadow falling across Ethan. "Mr. Ethan, you have two options." He spoke with the tone of someone who had no empathy. "Either take your pants off and let us record you, or..."
"Well, you know what happens."
Ethan's mind raced, his throat constricting with fear and humiliation. The choices before him weren't really choices at all - they were different forms of torture, carefully designed to strip away whatever dignity he had left. But somewhere in the depths of his despair, a spark of defiance flared.
"Help! Anyone! Help me!" His voice carried across the water, startling a group of birds into flight. The cry echoed off the opposite bank, returning to him like a mockery of his desperation.
"This bastard-" Jack's face contorted with rage. "Get him!"
What followed was a symphony of violence.
James and Jack descended upon him like wolves, their fists and feet finding their marks. Ethan's body crumpled under the assault, the ground rising up to meet him with brutal force. Each impact drove the air from his lungs, replacing it with grunts of pain that seemed to come from somewhere far away.
"A rat will always be a rat," one of them spat - Ethan could no longer tell who was speaking. The words reached him through a haze of pain.
"You no longer have the option," another voice declared. "We'll beat you senseless, then take your pants off anyway."
Donald continued filming, his smirk frozen on his face like a mask. But as the beating continued, something in his expression began to change. Perhaps it was the way Ethan's body moved with each impact, like a ragdoll in a storm.
Perhaps it was the amount of blood now visible on their victim's face. Whatever the cause, the smirk began to fade, replaced by something approaching concern.
"H-Hey," Donald's voice cracked. "He's gonna dro-"
The warning came too late. One final kick sent Ethan's body rolling toward the river's edge. There was a moment of weightlessness, a brief sensation of falling, and then the shocking embrace of the river swallowed him whole. The cold hit him like a physical blow, driving what little air remained from his lungs.
"H-He fell into the river," Donald stammered, his phone trembling in his hands. The reality of the situation suddenly crashed down upon them all.
"He's gonna die."
"Grab him!" James's voice cracked with panic, the bravado of moments ago evaporating like mist. "Quick!"
Jack, being the closest, lunged for the river's edge. Through the churning water, he could see Ethan's hand breaking the surface, fingers spread wide against the darkening sky. Jack stretched out, his body extending as far as he dared, fingers reaching for redemption.
Their hands touched - a brief moment of connection. But in that touch, Jack felt something change. Ethan's fingers, instead of grasping for salvation, locked around Jack's wrist with unexpected strength. Through the pain and the ice-cold water filling his lungs, Ethan's mind achieved a terrible clarity.
The river's current, always strong, now seemed to pulse with dark purpose. Jack thrashed in panic as he was pulled forward, his free hand scrabbling for purchase on the muddy bank. "Let go!" His voice cracked with genuine fear. "You're going to kill us both! I promise I won't bully you anymore!"
Beneath the surface, Ethan's lips curved into a smile that no one would see. The cold water had numbed the pain of his beating, leaving his mind crystalline in its focus. Jack's promises meant nothing now - they were just more words, as empty as all the others that had come before.
His grip tightened further, fueled by years of accumulated rage and helplessness. The river's current seemed to respond to his will, pulling them both deeper into its dark embrace. In that moment, as the water closed over their heads, Ethan's mind focused on a single, burning thought.
"Vengeance."
The word echoed in his consciousness like a curse. The river accepted it as both, its waters rising to claim what was offered. In the growing darkness, two figures struggled in its depths, their forms gradually becoming indistinguishable. Predator and prey, victim and tormentor, their roles now blurred by the river's impartial judgment.
On the bank, Donald's phone continued to record, capturing the moment when childhood cruelty crossed an invisible line into something far more terrible - and irreversible.
As the water closed over his head again, Ethan's thoughts turned to his parents. Their faces floated before his mind's eye.
His mother's tired smile as she worked double shifts to make ends meet, his father's calloused hands from endless hours of manual labor.
'My life is flashing past me? Isn't that what people said will happen, when you are about to die?''
'Mum, Dad, I'm sorry,' he thought as the river pulled him deeper. 'I wish you a better son and a better life.'
Jack's struggles were growing weaker with Ethan, his movements becoming sluggish in the cold water.
Ethan could feel his own consciousness fading, but he maintained his grip.
The river carried them both, two bodies intertwined in a deadly embrace, further from the river bank, further from help, and most importantly further from the world that had brought them to this moment.
Darkness enveloped Ethan as his grip on Jack's body weakened, both of them sinking deeper into the river's cold embrace. His last thoughts were of his parents, of regret, of a life lived in perpetual torment. Then, nothing...
...
A groan escaped his lips as consciousness returned, his body feeling simultaneously familiar and foreign. Ethan's eyes fluttered open to see tree branches swaying above him, sunlight filtering through leaves that seemed just a bit too vibrant to be natural.
"I'm still alive?" he muttered, pushing himself up slowly.
But as he glanced around, he realized something was terribly wrong. This wasn't the riverbank where he'd dragged Jack into the water. This wasn't anywhere he recognized at all.
The forest around him was dense with abnormally large trees.
"Where am I?"
He couldn't recall any place like this around where he lived.
Then the memories hit him all at once, making him double over with a groan.
But these weren't his memories or rather, they weren't the memories of Ethan Brandon, the bullied high school student who'd chosen revenge over pitiful survival. These were the memories of another Ethan Brandon, one who lived in a world far different from his own.
The assimilation of memories was painful, each new piece of information sending spikes of pain through his skull.
This body, the other Ethan Brandon, had been what they called "talentless" in this world.
In a society where supernatural abilities were the norm, being talentless was a death sentence of a different kind.
Instead of school bullies, Ethan had faced something worse. The military used those who were considered talentless as cannon fodder.
Ethan had transmigrated and became a cannon fodder. Before, Ethan could curse the military, or curse the situation he fell into, the memories flooded in once again.
The terrible training they'd received at the military, was barely enough to ensure a decent chance of survival against the beasts that threatened their city.
The way some of the talented people looked down on them, not even bothering to learn their names because they weren't expected to survive long enough to matter.
The mission the old Ethan had been sent on was a simple reconnaissance task, they'd said. He just had to check the forest within 500 meters of the city walls, along with his team.
Nothing too dangerous.
Ethan looked around at the carnage surrounding him.
Four bodies lay scattered nearby, they were his former teammates. Their uniforms were torn and bloodied, faces frozen in expressions of terror and pain. Nearby lay the massive corpse of what he now recognized as a Shadowfang Wolf, a low-tier beast, its grey fur matted with blood from multiple wounds. The beast had died from blood loss, its life seeping into the forest floor along with its victims'.
"Even my other self managed to take revenge before dying," Ethan smiled wryly, noting the spear still lodged in the wolf's throat. Then his eyes widened as something unprecedented appeared in his field of vision.