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Eldritch Dimension
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"Monsters are real. And sometimes they win." — Stephen King
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The gacha wheel slowed, each tick of momentum fueling my dopamine rush to unhealthy levels
It passed Kratos template. Fuck.
Then it passed Punisher on Steroids. Damn.
Realistically, there was only enough momentum left for two of the better options: Penance Stare or Blacklight Virus. Both beautiful and capable of turning me into a walking nightmare in any world I landed in. The thought of acquiring the former did things to me….
Come on. Come on. Come on.
Ding ding ding.
The wheel stopped.
Before I could see what it landed on before my eyes could even focus on the result the eldritch bastard cackled.
A sound like breaking glass and collapsing stars filled the void, and then something slammed into my chest.
I looked down.
My body was floating in front of me. It stayed limp and empty, a meat suit with nobody home.
I was in soul form. A transulecent, ghostly version of myself hovering in the void.
What the fu—
Before I could process anything else, I felt it. A pulling force behind me so massive and inescapable, the universe itself had grabbed me by the scruff of my non-existent neck. It yanked me backward with the force of a thousand vacuums, and the void collapsed around me in a swirl of colors and screaming silence.
There was nothing and then everything at once.
I was falling.
Plummeting through the cosmos, a human shaped meteor with a death wish. Stars streaked past me in brilliant lines. Galaxies spiraled in the distance like slow-motion fireworks. I could see planets actual planets hanging in the infinite dark like Christmas ornaments.
And there directly below me Earth.
Or something that looked like Earth.
I squinted through the cosmic wind tearing at my incorporeal form. Was that... the moon? It looked wrong. Darker somehow, something was eating it. Shadows crawled across its surface, encroaching on the pale light like a slow-moving infection.
I didn't have time to dwell on the scene before me.
The atmosphere hit me like a flaming wall, and suddenly I was a shooting star screaming toward the planet's surface with all the grace of a brick thrown off a skyscraper.
This is going to hurt.
Can souls even feel pain?
I'm about to find out.
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Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan 1995
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The streets of the shopping district buzzed with life salarymen rushing home, students lingering outside convenience stores, tourists snapping photos. Just another evening in the city that never truly slept.
None of them noticed the boy.
He moved through the crowd like a ghost, keeping his head down, his threadbare clothes drawing no attention in a city that had perfected the art of ignoring the inconvenient.
He was fifteen, maybe sixteen, it was hard to tell with the malnourishment hollowing out his cheeks and the exhaustion bruising the skin beneath his eyes.
He was also, objectively, beautiful.
Not that he cared. Beauty didn't fill your stomach and it certainly didn't keep you warm. It just made people look at you in ways that made your skin crawl.
He paused outside a sweets shop, catching his reflection in the glass display window. Matted black hair that hadn't seen a proper wash in weeks. Sharp cheekbones carved by hunger rather than genetics. A jawline that carried no room for baby fat because baby fat required calories. And his eyes a striking violet that seemed almost unnatural in the glow of the shop lights.
He stared at himself for a long moment.
Maybe this is why.
The thought slithered into his mind unbidden, dragging memories he'd been trying to forget.
The orphanages and the headmaster…
The old man had always shown him favoritism, the extra portions at dinner, sweets hidden away just for him, a warm smile that lingered a little too long, and a hand on the shoulder that stayed a little too intimate .
None of the other children received such treatment. At first, he'd thought himself lucky.
Then he'd started noticing the way the headmaster looked at him.
The final straw had come three nights ago.
A summons to the headmaster's private chambers. Remedial lessons, he'd been told. Apparently, he'd failed an exam and needed extra tutoring.
Bullshit.
He'd never failed an exam in his life. The matrons had always praised him for being academically gifted one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dreary existence.
But you didn't argue with the headmaster. Not if you wanted to keep eating or if you wanted to avoid the special punishments reserved for disobedient children.
So he'd gone.
It was midnight. The hallways were dark and empty. His footsteps echoing against cold stone floors as he approached the headmaster's door.
He'd knocked.
The door had creaked open.
Inside, the room was bathed in candlelight, dozens of them, scattered across every surface, casting shadows against the walls. The headmaster sat on a plush chair near the fireplace, dressed in a silk robe, his face flushed with something that definitely wasn't scholarly enthusiasm.
He'd patted the seat beside him.
"Come, my little lamb," he'd said, his voice thick and honeyed and wrong. "We have much to go over tonight."
…
The boy had run.
He didn't remember how he'd gotten out of the building. Didn't remember how he'd scaled the fence or which streets he'd taken. He just remembered running and running until his lungs burned and his legs gave out, until he collapsed in an alley somewhere in the city and realized he had nowhere to go.
That was three days ago.
Now he wandered, starving, exhausted, jumping at every shadow, flinching at every older man who glanced his way.
He turned away from the sweets shop window, his reflection dissolving back into the glass.
Keep moving, he told himself. Just keep moving.
——————————————
Four days.
Four days of running, hiding, and slowly starving to death in a city that couldn't care less about one more homeless kid.
It wasn't that I hadn't resolved myself to steal. Desperation had killed my moral compass somewhere around day two, when the hunger pangs became less of a suggestion. I'd been ready to swipe an onigiri from a convenience store, snatch a bento from a distracted salaryman anything to stop my stomach from eating itself.
But I couldn't.
Because I was being followed.
I noticed them on the third day. Two men, big and strong, dressed in suits that looked expensive. They had the kind of faces that suggested they'd broken bones for a living and hadn't lost a minute of sleep over it.
At first, I told myself I was being paranoid. Just two businessmen who happened to be walking the same direction. A coincidence and nothing more.
Then I changed routes.
They changed routes.
I ducked into a department store, weaved through three floors, and exited out a side entrance.
They were waiting outside, anxiety welled up inside of me.
They're not following me, I realized with dawning horror. From that moment on, I made it my life's mission to stay in public areas. Crowded streets, busy train stations. I even slept near a police station one night, curled up on a bench within eyeshot of uniformed officers who glanced at me with annoyance but at least kept the shadows at bay.
The men in suits watched from a distance, with smug looks as if they knew it was only a matter of time.
It happened on the fourth day.
I'd been standing outside a ramen shop, torturing myself with the smell of pork broth and soy sauce wafting through the door. My legs were shaking whether from hunger, exhaustion, or fear, I couldn't tell anymore. Probably all three.
I didn't even see them approach.
One moment I was staring at a bowl of tonkotsu through the window, imagining how warm it would feel sliding down my throat. The next, a massive hand clamped over my mouth while something cold and metallic pressed against my neck.
Stun gun, my brain registered.
I woke up in hell.
My eyes fluttered open to darkness, the air thick with the smell of bleach? And something else something metallic and organic that I didn't want to identify. My wrists were bound behind me, rope biting into my skin and my ankles were similarly restrained. I was sitting on cold concrete, my back pressed against rusted metal bars.
Panic clawed up my throat, but I forced it down.
Where am I?
My eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light filtering in from somewhere above a single flickering bulb dangling from a wire, casting scary yellow shadows across the space.
The orphanage basement.
I recognized the entrance, the heavy iron door we'd always been warned never to approach. The matrons had said it was off limits and dangerous, they claimed structural damage along with something about a collapsed tunnel.
I knew better now, they were all lies.
Because the basement wasn't collapsed at all. It wasexpanded. Tunnels branched off from the main cavity disappearing into darkness. And lining the walls, stretching into the shadows... were cages, dozens of them.
My stomach lurched as my eyes swept across the rows, most were empty, but some... some weren't.
I recognized my friends faces.
Yuki. She'd been "adopted" eight months ago. A nice couple from Osaka, they'd said. She'd sent letters for the first few weeks, talking about her new room and her new school and how happy she was.
She was curled in the corner of her cage now, knees drawn to her chest, eyes vacant and hollow. One of her arms hung at an angle that arms weren't supposed to hang.
Takeshi. "Adopted" a year ago. He'd been my age, loud and obnoxious, always stealing extra bread from the kitchen. The matrons had called him a troublemaker.
He wasn't making any trouble now. He wasn't moving at all. I couldn't tell if he was sleeping or...
Oh god.
Oh god oh god oh god
"Ah. My little lamb has finally woken up."
The voice slithered out of the darkness like oil seeping through cracks.
I knew that voice. I'd heard it in my nightmares every night since I'd run.
The headmaster emerged from one of the tunnels, his footsteps echoing against the concrete. He looked exactly as I remembered patchy beard clinging to a weak chin, nostrils so large you could lose spare change in them, and a face that resembled a pig who'd somehow learned to wear human skin.
He was smiling.
That same fatherly smile he'd used when he'd slipped me extra sweets.
"You gave us quite the chase," he said, stopping in front of my cage. He crouched down, bringing his face level with mine, and I could smell him cologne and sweat and something rotten underneath. "Four days. Impressive, really. Most of them don't last two."
I tried to speak, but my throat had closed up, vocal cords paralyzed by a fear so primal it bypassed thought entirely.
"I have to admit, I was worried." He tilted his head, studying me like a butcher examining a cut of meat. "You're one of our finest products, you know. Those eyes... that bone structure... do you have any idea how much you're worth?" He chuckled, a wet, sloppy sound. "Of course you don't. You thought you were just an orphan, another unwanted child the world had forgotten."
He reached through the bars and grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze.
"Let me educate you," he whispered. "This orphanage? It's not a charity. It's not a home. It's a farm. And you, my beautiful little lamb, have been bred for market since the day you arrived."
Tears spilled down my cheeks. I hated showing weakness but I couldn't help it.
"The sweets I gave you? Were just a careful calculated nutrition to keep your skin clear and your features sharp. The education? So you'd be articulate for the buyers who prefer... conversation with their purchases. The favoritism?" His smile widened, revealing yellowed teeth. "I was grooming you for the premium auction. You were supposed to be my masterpiece, my retirement fund!"
He released my chin and stood up, brushing off his knees.
"But you ran." The warmth drained from his voice, replaced by something cold and hard. "You ran. Do you have any idea how much paperwork that caused? How many buyers I had to reschedule? How much money you cost me?"
He snapped his fingers.
The two men in suits materialized from the shadows, flanking him like obedient hounds.
"Normally," the headmaster continued, "I would simply discipline you and put you back on the market. A few scars can be hidden and broken bones heal over time. But you..." He sighed dramatically. "You've seen the basement and the other products, in other words you're compromised my forsaken little lamb."
He turned to the men.
"Damaged goods, begin the process."
One of the men stepped forward, pulling something from his jacket. A long serrated knife.
"Wait-" I finally found my voice, cracked and weak as it was. "Please, I won't tell anyone, I'll do whatever you want, please-"
The headmaster paused at the tunnel entrance, glancing back over his shoulder.
"Oh, I know you won't tell anyone," he said gruffly. "That's rather the point."
He disappeared into the darkness.
The man with the knife smiled.
What followed was... educational.
I learned that human bodies contain more blood than you'd expect. I learned that pain has layers sharp and dull, burning and freezing, all of it blending together into agony that made thinking impossible.
I learned that screaming doesn't help. But you do it anyway, that begging doesn't help either. But you do that too.
Mostly, I learned that hope is the cruelest thing of all. Because even as they carved into me, even as my blood pooled on the concrete beneath the cage, some stupid, stubborn part of me kept believing someone would save me.
Someone will come.
Someone will stop this.
Someone...
No one came.
The man with the knife worked habitualy, taking his time, occasionally pausing to wipe his blade clean before continuing. His partner watched with bored disinterest, checking his phone between my screams.
It was apparent this was routine for them.
I was just another product being decommissioned.
At some point, my vision became distant and fuzzy, as if it was happening to someone else and I was just watching from very far away. My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in from the edges.
So this is it, I thought. This is how I die.
Not peacefully in my sleep like old men in movies or heroically saving someone I loved. Just... bleeding out in a cage in a basement, killed by the lowest of the low and discarded as a defective product.
I never even had a chance, did I?
The thought should have made me angry. Should have filled me with righteous fury, a final stand of defiance before the end.
But I was too tired for anger.
Too tired for anything except one last, bitter observation:
I hope someone burns this place to the ground someday.
I hope someone makes them suffer the way they made us suffer.
I hope-
The knife found something vital.
The world went black.
Above the city, unnoticed by the late-night crowds, a streak of light tore across the sky falling, falling, falling toward a basement where a boy had just taken his final breath.
And in the void between worlds, Dmitry Cole opened his eyes.
Finally, he thought. Let's see what we're working with.