Staring hollowly at the ground, Asher trudged down the street. The city was buzzing around him with cars honking, people blabbering but none of it hit his ears. He was trapped inside his own head.
Sure, he'd died, gotten thrown into another world, and gave up on ever seeing Earth again. He'd accepted that.
But coming back here, finding out what happened to his parents, and learning how they died... it left a bleeding hole in his chest.
They died as mangled, mutated test subjects that were turned into hideous meat inside some underground lab.
He kept walking on autopilot until the noise faded away. When he finally looked up, he was standing in a dead-end, garbage-strewn alley. He slouched against a brick wall and slid down to the cold pavement.
Out of nowhere, a stupid memory hit him: his mom screaming at him for leaving his mud-crusted shoes in the front hallway.
A dry laugh rasped out of his throat, but it cut off halfway into a sob.
