The thick, endless dark was Aurex's new world. It swallowed everything, leaving him suspended in a void that was too vast, too empty. He tried to move, but his limbs were useless, his body a prisoner in this suffocating silence. He knew he wasn't alone, yet he was utterly isolated. Then, the pain came.
It didn't ease in; it ripped through him like a thousand knives, slicing into flesh he couldn't see, tearing at nerves that screamed without sound. He tried to move, to cry out, but his body remained unresponsive. The scream that finally tore from his throat was raw, primal, and devoid of any pretense. The pain consumed him, an all-encompassing agony that eclipsed everything else. His voice, hoarse and desperate, echoed in the void, "Is there someone? Please, someone?" But only the unrelenting pain answered.
The agony was a relentless drill, pouring deeper and deeper into his very being. He lost all sense of time, unable to recall when it began, only that it never ceased. His mind, clinging to a desperate need for anchors, began to count: one… two… three… Seconds bled into minutes, minutes into hours, and hours into days and days into weeks and weeks into what felt like an eternity. The darkness remained, thick and unyielding, and with it, the terrifying question: was he blind, or was this place truly that empty? Every passing moment intensified the suffering, a creeping tendril of agony that burrowed deeper into his core. There was no movement, no change, just a haunting stillness punctuated by the silent, burning scream trapped within him.
As days bled into weeks, his voice gave out. The endless howling had ravaged his throat, leaving it raw and destroyed. Now, only silence emerged when he tried to scream. But the pain didn't need sound; it was a pervasive presence, pulsing through every inch of his body. Sometimes it was a sharp, sudden stab; other times, a slow, smoldering burn that promised no end. Then came the beatings, invisible fists pummeling him from all sides, relentless, cruel. He had no idea who inflicted this torment, or why, or how long it had been. All he knew was the pain, the darkness, and the chilling dread that this torment might never cease. Even tears had become a forgotten luxury.
The burning sensation, as if his body were being boiled down and then reassembled, stretched on for so long that pain transcended its sharp edges. It became a dull, endless roar through every nerve, a part of him, woven into his very being. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the searing heat vanished. A fleeting whisper of hope stirred, was it over? Had he finally succumbed to numbness?
But then came the scream.
A sound so deafening it bypassed his ears and slammed into his bones, his mind, every fiber of his existence. It wasn't just noise; it was pressure, a crushing force that pulverized his body into something unrecognizable, the blackness was absolute, a suffocating shroud. He couldn't move, couldn't scream, his throat raw from silent howls. Invisible power pounded him, a relentless rhythm of agony. Every nerve ending screamed, a symphony of fire and ice. He yearned for an end, for unconsciousness, but the pain, sharp and unending, kept him tethered to the suffocating void.
Something was meticulously crushing and rebuilding his body, then crush it once more. The cycle was endless, relentless. He saw nothing, heard nothing else, only that scream, a terrifying, all-encompassing shriek that promised to never cease. And through it all, the oppressive darkness remained, so absolute he questioned if he still possessed eyes.
Then, a whisper in the thunder. After an eternity, weeks, perhaps months, of being torn apart and rebuilt under the weight of that monstrous scream, something shifted. He focused, pushing through the agony, the ringing in his skull, the suffocating darkness. And then, finally, he caught it.
A single word, buried deep beneath the endless scream. Spoken so slowly, so powerfully, it made his heart, if he still had one, stop when he recognized it.
"Remember."
His breath hitched, a phantom gasp in a body he no longer felt. What did it mean? What was he supposed to remember?
Yes. That was it.
The word echoed, "Remember… remember…" until it shed its whisper and became a command, a relentless demand clawing through the chaos in his skull. And through the pain, through the creeping madness, a single, chilling thought surfaced:
The Ten Rules.
They had been drilled into them back in the town, day after day, over and over. Smiling, obeying, silence. Rules burned into their bones like scripture. Was this about that? Was the voice forcing him to recall them? Or was it something else, something those rules were hiding? He yearned to scream, to curse, to demand answers, but his voice was long gone, devoured by the pain. The more he fought to think, the harder it became. His mind, like the rest of him, was crumbling. Still… one question clung on, stubborn and raw:
Why?
Why him? Why this? And what would happen if he did remember?
Something shifted again. It wasn't the pain; that remained a constant, suffocating presence. But for a fleeting moment, the darkness around him pulsed, as if it breathed. Then, a memory slammed into him with a weight more real than the void he inhabited.
He saw himself again, barefoot, younger, sitting at a sun-drenched kitchen table with his real family. Sunlight, warm and true, spilled over them. His father was telling silly jokes; his mother was feigning annoyance while her lips twitched with suppressed laughter. And him, he was smiling. Not forced, not mechanical. Just… smiling, because it felt natural.
In that instant, he remembered how to smile.
His lips, if they still existed, tried to form that shape. But it wasn't about muscles; it was deeper, a memory carving itself into his very being, attempting to awaken something long buried. And the moment he tried to smile like he did back then,
The crushing voice returned. Louder. Angrier. Screaming. The void around him began to tremble, as if it detested his defiance, as if it wanted to rip that memory from him, to erase it entirely. But he held on. Because for the first time in what felt like an eternity… he felt alive. The darkness started to disappear.
And somehow… he could still see.
The sky above was a bruised grey, crisscrossed with strange, crimson veins, like cracks in the very heavens. The air felt wrong, thick, electric, as if it actively repelled his presence. And the sound… a wet crunching, legs skittering, mandibles grinding.
He looked down, or rather, tilted what remained of his head, and saw them. Ants the size of dogs, swarming over him, gnawing on the pieces. Not just flesh. Bone. They weren't eating food; they were devouring him. Yet, he felt no pain anymore. Only a chilling realization.
He had no body. Just half a skull and a single, staring eye.
But he was awake. Somehow, impossibly… he was still alive.
He wanted to scream, but there were no lungs. He wanted to move, but there were no limbs. He wanted to die, but even that was denied to him. So, he simply stared up at that broken sky and whispered in his mind:
Why am I still here?
The monstrous ants continued their feast for what felt like endless hours, meticulously consuming every last vestige of his regenerated form until only the half-skull and its solitary eye remained. He existed as this fractured remnant, a silent witness to his own slow disintegration. Then, a subtle shift in the oppressive darkness around him. A faint, almost imperceptible warmth began to spread from the hollow of his skull, a sensation that was both alien and achingly familiar. It was slow, excruciatingly slow, but unmistakable. He could sense the intricate dance of regeneration beginning again, a painstaking reconstruction of flesh and bone from the void, agonizingly molecule by molecule. The suffering was far from over; it was merely entering a new, prolonged chapter of agonizing rebirth.