[The Gray Zone - End of the Second Door]
I stood there, in the middle of a gray stone arena that reeked of death. Thick, black smoke was still rising from the corpse of my "old self," which I had crushed beneath my feet moments ago. That version of me—the one with the innocent face, the warm memories, and the human weakness. I killed him. I killed "Ray the student" with my bare hands. I wiped the blood (mine and his) from my face with the back of my trembling hand, leaving a deep crimson smear over my eye. My chest heaved violently, my lungs were burning, and my eyes were fixed on the void before me.
"Come on…" I whispered in a hoarse voice, raspy from screaming. "Where is it? Where is my prize?" In the First Door, when I tore myself apart and rebuilt my bones from nothing, the System rewarded me with regeneration skills. Now, after killing my "past," after crushing my heart and emotions… do I not deserve something? Is there no price for this pain?
One minute passed. Two. The silence was heavy, viscous, and provocative—as if the void itself was holding its breath just to mock me. Then, suddenly… [Bzzzt]. The familiar window appeared. But it wasn't the bright blue of power I was used to. It was gray, dull, the color of cold, dead ash.
[Stage Two: Completed.] [Evaluation: Pass.] [Reward: None.] [System Note: The fact that you are still breathing is your only prize. Keep walking.]
I read the words, and time froze. I felt a chill run through my veins, extinguishing the fire of battle despite the heat of the blood covering me. "None…?" I whispered in disbelief. Then I laughed. A short, broken, dry laugh that escaped my throat like the bark of a wounded, dying dog. "You call this a prize?" I threw my head back and screamed into the void, my voice echoing through the endless hall: "Do you think I'm an animal in a circus?! I dance for you, I kill for you, I tear myself apart for you… and then you throw me bones and tell me to 'keep walking'?!"
"BOOOOM!" I slammed my right fist into the stone floor with all my spite. The hard tiles cracked beneath my new strength, and sharp pebbles flew into my face, cutting my cheek. I didn't care. "Damn you! Damn your existence! Damn all of this!" I felt betrayed. The rage wasn't from the physical pain, but from the "hope" they had planted inside me, only to snatch it away at the last moment. They had deceived me with the illusion of progress.
"Creeeeeak…" The sound of heavy stone grinding interrupted my scream. The Third Door opened at the end of the dark hall. There was no darkness behind it. Instead, there was whiteness—a pure, blinding, and painful white. A light that looked like the flash of a nuclear explosion.
I stood up slowly, my joints popping. I spat blood that wasn't mine onto the ground. I looked at the open door. "You want to play dirty?" I growled as I walked toward it with heavy steps, leaving bloody footprints behind me. "Fine… I will cross your next hell… and I will burn you with it in the end."
I crossed the threshold. And the world was swallowed by white.
[The Third Door - The White Desert]
The moment I entered, the door disappeared behind me. The walls vanished. The ceiling vanished. I found myself in the "White Nothingness" once again. But this time, it wasn't a void. It was a desert. A white desert stretching to infinity in every direction. The ground beneath my feet wasn't soft sand. I knelt and touched the earth. It was crystals. White, coarse crystals, sharp as tiny blades. I tasted it with the tip of my tongue cautiously. Salty. And searing. "Salt…" I muttered, spitting immediately as the taste burned my tongue. "I'm in a desert of salt and dry acid."
The sky above me was as white as a shroud of the dead, with no sun, but the heat… My God, the heat was unbearable. It was as if I were inside a giant oven set to "slow roast." The air was so dry it felt like it was sucking the moisture directly out of my eyeballs.
I looked toward the distant horizon. I saw my goal. A small black speck looming in the whiteness. A dilapidated, ancient wooden door, standing alone out there. "The next door…" I began walking. The sound of salt crushing under my bare feet echoed in the silence of the desolate place. Crunch… crunch… crunch… With every step, the sharp salt crystals sliced the soles of my feet with micro-cuts, letting the salt and acid seep into the wounds. The pain felt like walking on hot coals, but I was "regenerating." My feet would heal, then get cut, then heal again. An endless cycle of agony.
After what felt like an hour of walking under that hellish heat, I arrived. I stopped in my tracks, frozen in shock. I tilted my head back until my neck ached. "Are… are you kidding me?"
The door… wasn't on the ground. It was hanging in the sky. Floating in the white void with no supports, no chains, and no way to reach it. Ten full meters separated me from it. Ten meters of empty air. No ladder. No rope.
I looked around frantically, searching the vast desert. "A stone? Wood? Bones? Anything!" Nothing. Only whiteness. The desert was perfectly flat like a mirror, devoid of any terrain or materials. I was alone… with a door floating above me, mocking my helplessness.
And suddenly… "The Hunger" hit me. It wasn't ordinary human hunger, like the growling you feel before lunch. It was an "internal predation." I fell to my knees, biting my lip until blood flowed. I realized the catastrophe. The [Frenzied Regeneration] skill I was so proud of… had now become my greatest curse. The heat of the salt and acid was constantly burning my skin and damaging my cells, and the skill was frantically trying to treat and repair it. But healing needs "energy." It needs "fuel." And I… was empty. I hadn't eaten since… since when? I didn't know.
"Aaaagh…" I moaned, clutching my stomach as it cramped painfully. I felt my body starting to "eat itself." Literally. I felt my abdominal muscles melting and decomposing to feed my heart. My little remaining fat burned away in seconds. I looked at my hand; it was withering before my eyes. The skin sagged, losing its vitality, and the bones protruded with terrifying clarity. I was eroding from within. My body was devouring itself to stay alive. I would die of hunger and exhaustion before I could even think of how to climb to that damn door.
"I must go up…" I looked at the high door. It seemed as distant as a dream. "How? How do I get there? No ladder… no wood…" I squeezed my exhausted brain. I remembered the damn System sentence that appeared when I entered, which I didn't understand then: [Warning: Barren environment. Nothing grows here… except you.]
"Except… me…" I repeated the sentence in a raspy whisper. A cold shiver ran down my spine despite the scorching heat. I looked at my body. I looked at my left leg. It was still thick with the flesh and strong muscles I had built in the First Door. The bone in it was strong, thick, and hard as steel.
I imagined its shape… severed. I imagined myself placing it as a ladder rung. Then… I imagined its taste.
"No…" I shook my head violently, slapping my face to wake up. "Impossible. I'm not insane. I am not a monster." But my stomach screamed again—a sharp, violent convulsion that made me vomit bitter yellow bile onto the white salt. Hunger was tearing through my insides with real claws. I am the only "material" here. I am the wood, I am the stone, and I am the flesh. I am the food… and I am the builder.
I unsheathed my fingernails—those nails that had grown sharp as blades and black claws. I placed my trembling hand on my left thigh. I touched the warm skin. I felt the pulse beneath it. Saliva pooled in my mouth against my will, thick and viscous. The scent of my blood began to fill my nose even before I cut myself… a metallic, sweet, and terrifyingly tempting smell.
I looked at the white sky and let out a muffled, desperate, and hateful scream: "Is this what you want?! Huh?! Is this the entertainment? To turn me into a monster that eats itself?" No one answered. The hanging door remained silent.
I lowered my gaze to my thigh again. Madness began to crawl into my mind, staining my vision red. "Just… one piece…" I whispered to myself like a madman, my voice trembling. "One piece… one bone to stand on to get closer to the door… and a piece of meat to silence this hunger that is killing me."
I dug the first claw into my flesh. Slowly. It pierced the skin. Hot blood sprayed onto my face, warm and delicious. I didn't close my eyes. I didn't scream in pain. I was staring at the open wound in awe, a strange glint in my eyes. The soft, red meat appeared from under the skin. It… looked delicious. More delicious than any banquet I had ever eaten in my life.
I opened my mouth. And now… let the feast begin.