In the Demon Forest, the silence felt heavier than usual. The suffocating darkness of night had shifted into something else: a gray, weary light that filtered faintly through the canopy. It wasn't dawn's warmth. It was a dim pallor, enough only to reveal outlines and shadows, stretching long between the trees. The forest seemed to hold its breath, as if watching.
Two girls stood over my shirtless unconscious body, face buried in the dirt, my back was exposed to the chill air. Their eyes lingered not on the skin itself but on what marked it: a strange, intricate carving etched into my flesh; lines that twisted like a map of scars yet pulsed faintly crimson, almost alive. Slightly below lay something more foreign still: a thin paper seal pressed flat against my back, its edges clinging as though nailed there by unseen force.
Aria's lips parted slightly. Her voice was hushed, wary.
"I think… he's the one. The demon guy. They say he's got a strange mark on his back."
Liana folded her arms across her chest, her stance stiff as she leaned forward, her tone firm. "Of course he has to be. But why does he have that seal stuck to him?"
She crouched, lowering her hand toward it. The seal's faint symbols caught what little light filtered down, almost shimmering. But before her fingers could graze it, Aria's hand shot out and caught her wrist in a vice grip.
"There's a reason it's there," Aria warned, her eyes narrowing. Her grip trembled slightly but she didn't let go. "If I were you, I wouldn't tamper with it."
Liana frowned, but after a moment of silent tension she withdrew, shaking her wrist free. Still, her eyes never left the seal.
"But how is he still breathing after that stab wound? It's been hours, he should be gone. And look… " she gestured toward my side, where the blade had pierced through earlier, "his wound is completely healed."
Aria shut her eyes for a brief moment, her voice calm but edged with certainty.
"That's normal for him. What did you expect from a demon? They heal… unless the weapon was laced with spirit energy."
Behind them, Mira sat trembling. Her knees dug into the damp soil, leaving dark stains on her clothes. Both hands clutched the bloodstained sword that had done the deed, her grip white-knuckled as if releasing it would betray her guilt. Her shoulders quivered with every uneven breath.
"I'm sorry, guys…" Her voice broke as ears streaked down her face, dripping onto the blade. "I didn't mean to. I—I was scared. I thought he was coming for me next. Because I didn't think any of the students would come to save us since we are all enemies to the other, so I—" Her words collapsed into a loud sob. "So I panicked… and stabbed him."
Liana whipped around toward her, her tone sharp as steel.
"Are you going to keep sobbing all day?" She jabbed a finger toward my still form. "Look at him, he's alive. What we should be praying for is that when he wakes, he won't decide to kill us for real."
The words dropped like stones into the heavy air.
Aria's expression softened at the edges, though her eyes remained guarded as her eyes drifted to her wrist watch: it only displayed a red 15 on the black screen.
It's the fifteenth and we are stuck nowhere but anywhere. Aria's voice echoed inside her head.
She shifted her weight slightly, as if torn between distance and compassion.
"He saved us. Whether we like it or not, he did. The least we can do is stay and watch over him until he wakes. Bedsides, Player 1 hasn't spoken yet."
The girls' voices blurred, drifting like echoes, because I was somewhere else entirely buried in darkness. Not the kind of dark where shadows nest between tree trunks, but an absolute void. A suffocating emptiness; no ground beneath me, no sky above, no outline of my own body even when I raised a hand before my face.
Where am I?
The thought echoed inside my skull, nowhere else.
Is this… the afterlife? Hell? But even hell, I thought, should have torment, flames, something.
Here there was nothing. No sound, no light… just void.
A heavy despair pressed into me, sinking deep.
Maybe this time it really is the end.
I closed my eyes, surrendering myself to the abyss. But just as I did, a voice thundered through the dark: so sharp, so heavy, it seemed to vibrate in my bones.
[How pathetic. How pathetic.]
It rolled twice, low and cruel, from nowhere and everywhere at once. My eyes snapped open but the dark had not changed.
The voice chuckled, bitter and cold.
[Now you're done. You've achieved it.]
I stiffened. "Who… who is that?"
The reply came at once, mocking.
[Have you already forgotten? You and I are one.]
A chill threaded through me. I couldn't place the voice. I couldn't pull a name from memory. But something about it gnawed deep, as if I should know.
[There you were,] it sneered, [telling yourself you'd be a hero. That you'd save people. How naïve.]
The words stabbed sharper than any blade.
[The very people you tried to save are the same ones who come for your life. Look at yourself now. What have you accomplished? Not even an atom's worth. That is why you're here. That is why you sink in total darkness and emptiness.]
The words proved the speaker knew the one who stabbed me, yet I couldn't bring myself to care anymore.
Suddenly, a wave of heat tore through me, surging under my skin. It was as though fire had been poured into my veins, raging without a flame. My breath caught, teeth gritting against the burn.
I clenched my teeth, trying to swallow the scream clawing up my throat. But the heat… it was unbearable. It tore through me like molten metal poured into my veins. My resolve snapped.
I screamed.
I screamed until my throat shredded, until the sound ripped raw from my chest.
The burning only grew fiercer. It was unlike anything I had ever endured; too wild, too merciless. Then, through the blaze, I saw it.
Flames seething, alive licked upward from a bed of blackened charcoal. The coals glowed faintly, rusted, but refused to burn away, feeding an endless fire. And within the blaze… a glimpse of something monstrous. Red skin streaked with black stripes, muscle and shadow interwoven, thick heavy shackles roaring with flames but never burning away wrapped around a body that pulsed with rage itself.
The voice thundered, almost amused. [You can't even withstand a quarter of what I endure in a micro-microsecond.]
Through ragged gasps I forced words out, broken, chopped. "Y-Your… the cursed… Demon... Vanik... shur!"
The voice hushed, the silence pressed like a weight as the fire hissed. My screams filled the gap, torn out of me as the searing heat threatened to consume what little was left.
And then suddenly I was back in darkness. The flames were gone, the burning gone. Only void again.
I collapsed into it, wheezing, desperate for breath I could hardly feel. My body… it was gone; limbs, chest, voice nothing seemed to belong to me anymore.
The voice returned, colder, cutting.
[What have you learned in all these years?] the voice asked, sharp as a blade carving through the void. [Tell me… what about yourself?]
My words still came out in broken breaths. "…How… about you… leave me alone."
[You've lived with nothing,] the voice pressed. [No goal, no desire, no inspiration, just emptiness. And then, one day, you decided you wanted to be a hero. You tell yourself you'd save people. Change what you'd done. But where has that gotten you? Was it even worth it?]
The words sank into me like poison, spreading through my chest.
Memories stirred faint echoes of me, younger, declaring to my Grandma with all the stubbornness I could muster that I wanted to save people. That I wanted to change what people thought of me. That I would make up for my mistakes.
I don't truly remember when I said those words. Perhaps I never did. Perhaps it was only Vanik'shur, twisting my thoughts and stitching lies into my memory.
But here, in this abyss, those words felt thin, brittle.
I chuckled bitterly. "Do I even need that anymore? I've already saved people. Who even knows if I'll ever get to see my parents again? And if I did… would they even accept me? Why even bother? I'm… I'm done with the world."
The silence pressed heavy, but in Vanik'shur's mind thoughts smashed into each other like cars in a chaotic collision, spinning, shattering, colliding again.
[This punk… does he think I'm here to console him for his failure?]
[Who does he think I am? If he had grown stronger, I'd have ended his life here and now then take his body and be done with it. But he is so pitifully weak, so fragile, that if I took over now I'd burn his shell of a body to ashes before I could even use it. What a pathetic society producing things like this worm.]
The voice broke into jagged laughter, cold and malicious.
]Ha… ha ha… ha ha ha ha. I see it clearly now. You were never anyone's hero. You are nothing but the demon everyone despises, the one that slaughtered half of every generation at birth. The one no one loves, but everyone hates. You will never be needed. You will never be anyone's hero.]
The words echoed like daggers striking stone.
"Yeah…" My voice trembled, fading as my limbs stiffened with cold. "Maybe you're right. I… I've finally accepted it."
I didn't fight back, I couldn't. My body seemed to drift deeper into the void, farther and farther, though his voice still reached me, relentless, gnawing.
Inside the dark, another thought stirred but it wasn't mine.
[It's not working. I may have healed his body, but if his resolve is gone, he won't return. That's something I've never understood about humans: when they had nothing, they clawed to live. But now, when I thought this one had a reason, something to prove… he gives up.]
The tone curdled with contempt.
[Is it because he saved those four girls? Does he think that alone proves he's a hero? Hmph. How pathetic. Everything about him makes me wanna puke. The sight of him, the stench of him, how worthless. How was this frail, spineless creature chosen as my vessel, when all the others, stronger and more capable, died the moment I touched them?]
Vanik'shur's thoughts sharpened, seething. [What is it about humans that I still don't understand?]