Chapter 5.
Ryan stirred.
His eyes barely opened—sluggish and heavy, as if waking from an endless, suffocating sleep. He was lying on the ground. But this place… it was strange.
Vast. Empty. And drowned in pure darkness.
He couldn't see a thing. It was pitch black—thicker than any night he'd ever known.
And then… he felt it.
Water.
It was all around him, from his feet up to his waist. But something was off. The sensation was there—he could feel it, he could even see it somehow, shimmering faintly in the dark—but he wasn't wet.
Not even a little.
His body remained completely dry.
"Huh…?" Ryan groaned softly, sitting up, groggy and disoriented. He blinked slowly, struggling to focus. His mind felt hazy, as if he still hadn't fully awakened.
"Where… where am I…?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
His hand brushed the surface beneath him—liquid. Definitely liquid. But again, no moisture clung to his skin.
It made no sense.
And that realization snapped him out of his stupor.
His eyes widened.
"W-What is this? Where the hell am I? There's water everywhere… but I'm not getting wet! What is this place?!"
Confusion twisted into panic.
He placed a hand against his temple, feeling a wave of dizziness crash through him. Then, forcing himself to his feet, he looked ahead.
Nothing.
Just more darkness.
Swallowing hard, he began to walk. The water—if it was water—rippled silently beneath each step, but made no sound, no splash.
And then… he heard it.
A sound—low at first, distant and hollow. But it grew quickly.
It wasn't just a scream.
It was millions of screams. Billions.
Agony beyond comprehension, echoing through the void like the cries of countless tormented souls. The very sound felt alive—writhing with rage and pain and madness. It surged through the darkness like a tsunami of despair.
Ryan's eyes went wide in horror.
The screams tore through the air, vibrating violently through his skull, threatening to split it apart.
He covered his ears, but it didn't help.
The sound was inside him now.
Too much. Too loud.
"What is that sound?! It's going to tear my ears apart!" he screamed, stumbling back in terror.
But it didn't stop.
His body couldn't take it—he collapsed to the ground, hands still clamped over his ears, trying to block it out, trying to make it stop.
And then, desperation took over.
He jumped to his feet and ran—blind, terrified—through the bloodless water, the haunting screams chasing him like death itself.
"Noooo… Stop this sound…!"
But as he ran, he suddenly tripped over something solid. Hard. Heavy.
He crashed to the ground with a cry, hitting the surface hard.
Then—silence.
The sound vanished as suddenly as it had come.
The void went still.
Ryan lay there, gasping for breath, his entire body drenched in sweat. His muscles trembled. His lungs burned. He didn't move. Couldn't move.
And then—light.
Faint at first, but growing.
A dim red glow began to bloom above him, slowly spreading across the sky.
Ryan looked up, blinking rapidly.
The darkness began to part.
And for the first time… he saw it.
A sky.
But not a normal one.
Blood red and gray—twisting like storm clouds before the end of the world. It pulsed with an eerie glow, revealing more of the world around him.
He looked down.
And froze.
The thing he'd tripped over…
It wasn't just anything.
It was a human head.
Lying still beside it—severed and pale—was a hand.
And the surface beneath him?
It wasn't water.
It was blood.
Thick, crimson blood—flowing endlessly, covering the land like a sea. Not the blood of one, or a few. No… this was the blood of billions.
Ryan recoiled in horror, yanking his hand away from the severed limb and scrambling to sit up.
But that wasn't all.
The light continued to grow.
And the truth was revealed.
The land—if it could even be called that—was a field of death.
Bodies.
Countless bodies.
Severed heads, torn limbs, twisted torsos. Corpses spread across the horizon in every direction, piled upon each other in a grotesque, unending landscape of death.
As far as his eyes could see… there was nothing else.
And then, the stench hit him.
Rancid. Overwhelming.
It made his stomach churn and bile rise in his throat. The air became thick with decay—rotting flesh and blood and death. A scent strong enough to strangle him where he sat.
Ryan's whole body trembled.
"Wh-What is happening to me…?" he whispered, voice cracking. "W-Where the hell… have I ended up?"
Terror consumed him.
His legs gave out.
He couldn't stand—only crawl. He dragged himself backward, away from the corpses, away from the blood, away from the horror.
But then—he bumped into something.
Solid. Cold.
He stopped.
Heart pounding, he forced himself to turn around—slowly, reluctantly.
And there it was.
The rotting corpse of an old man.
The flesh had long since melted away, leaving only leathery skin, bone, and decay. The body was ancient—centuries, maybe millennia old. Just a husk now… a skeleton wrapped in death.
Ryan's scream echoed across the blood-soaked land as he scrambled away from it.
But before he could move far—
The ground trembled.
A vibration. Subtle at first.
The sea of blood rippled. Then quaked. The world itself began to shift, as if something massive was stirring beneath it.
And then… the corpse moved.
Its eye—dry, rotted, dead—opened.
And stared straight at him.
Then—it spoke.
"Save us…"
Ryan's breath caught in his throat.
His heart nearly stopped.
The voice was a whisper, but it carried the weight of eternity.
And then—every corpse… every body… every severed head and shattered limb—began to speak.
"Save us… Save us… Save us…"
The land shook violently now. A full-blown earthquake.
And then—a roar.
A monstrous roar.
It echoed from the distance like the scream of a god gone mad. A sound so terrifying it could stop a heart. The corpses shrieked louder, their pleas turning to wails, their voices shaking the very ground.
Ryan looked up—eyes wide with dread.
And then… he saw them.
The Curses.
Monstrous. Massive. Inhuman.
They towered above the corpses, their grotesque bodies twisted and malformed—beasts from the deepest abyss. Creatures born of nightmares, dripping with malice and hunger.
And they were feeding.
One of the monsters grabbed a child's severed head in its mouth. As it bit down, the child's eyes turned to Ryan—pleading.
Begging.
And then… the Curse noticed him.
It dropped the head.
And grinned.
Eyes glowing with hunger, it let out a bloodcurdling roar—and charged.
Straight at Ryan.
End of Chapter
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