"Forgive... me... Ah! Mercy..."
The words died in his throat, choking him. Like a mangled heap of flesh, Ruhan slumped onto the mud-slicked ground.
A hot stream of blood gushed from his split forehead, mingling instantly with the freezing rain.
The sky had broken open, unleashing a torrential downpour as if nature itself sought to bear witness to this cruelty.
It was over. The flame of his life was sputtering out. His body had endured such demonic torture that his nerves had gone numb.
Every breath felt like inhaling shards of glass. Through the gaps in his shattered ribs, blood bubbled and frothed.
Face buried in the muck, he peered ahead with blurred vision.
Pitch-black darkness swallowed everything. The howling of the storm sounded like the footsteps of Death itself.
Suddenly, lightning tore across the chest of the clouds, and in that ephemeral flash, a silhouette loomed.
The man stood there. Tall, his unkempt hair whipping in the wind. Ruhan's retinas were so damaged that he couldn't make out the man's expression clearly.
Yet, the lightning revealed one thing—he was smiling. A twisted, cold smile hung at the corners of his lips.
"Stopped already?"
The man's voice was low, yet it pierced through the cacophony of the storm, stabbing into Ruhan's ears.
He didn't scream, didn't curse. His tone held a weary disappointment, like a teacher scolding his worst student.
"The blood of the Ahmed clan... yet here you are, dying like a maggot in a sewer. Killing you feels almost beneath my taste."
Ruhan had no strength to answer. His eyelids grew heavy.
In the dim light, he saw it—dangling from the man's left hand was a severed wrist. It was Ruhan's.
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
The man took a step forward.
"Where did all that arrogance, that stubbornness go? Or do you need a little more... 'affection' to open your mouth?"
He was coming closer. One step, two steps, three. In his right hand, he gripped a massive battle-axe, arcs of purple lightning slithering across its blade like vipers.
Ruhan's heart hammered against his ribcage like a wild horse. Seeing death approach, a primal force awoke in his dying cells. The will to survive.
One of Ruhan's legs was bent backward at the knee, the bone protruding through the flesh.
But fueled by a surge of adrenaline, he dragged his broken body, clawing at the mud, trying to crawl away. He had to escape. At any cost.
There! Through his hazy vision, he saw someone standing under a distant tree. Clad in white.
Help! Finally, someone had come!
A tide of hope flooded his chest. The agony in his brain scrambled his senses. For a moment, the brutal present was wiped away, replaced by a golden past.
***
"Ruhan! Run faster! You can do it!"
The sun was blazing. Seven-year-old Ruhan was running across the grass, clutching a wooden toy sword.
Standing ahead was Linara. She wore a white frock, her silver hair dancing in the breeze.
Ruhan reached her, panting heavily.
"Did... did I win?"
Linara giggled. Her laughter sounded like the spring wind. She wiped the sweat from Ruhan's forehead.
"You know you'll win. Didn't you say that when you grow up, you'll be the strongest warrior in the village? That you'll protect us all?"
Little Ruhan puffed out his chest. "Yes! I promise. No one will dare to touch you. I will be the pride of the Ahmed clan!"
"Really?"
"Really! I will never lose, Linara. Never."
***
"I... I won't lose..."
Ruhan mumbled, stretching his hand forward. He thought he was reaching out to Linara.
There she stood, in white. Reaching out to save him.
"I knew... you would come..."
Ruhan collapsed at the feet of the figure, wrapping his arms around the person's legs. A strange peace washed over him. He was saved.
But... the touch was too hard. Too cold. It didn't feel like a human leg; it felt like a pillar of stone.
"Who was supposed to come, eh? That lover of yours?"
From above, the mocking voice of the demon drifted down.
"You're seeing things, Ruhan. No one came. No one is coming."
In an instant, the memory of the golden sun shattered like glass. The darkness, the storm, and the metallic stench of blood returned.
Ruhan shuddered. This wasn't Linara. In his attempt to flee, he had crawled in a circle, straight back to the executioner's feet.
"You seem to love me quite a bit. Falling at my feet like a devotee!"
The man crouched down. With a sudden jerk, he drove a sharp knife deep into Ruhan's stomach.
"Argh!"
He didn't even have the strength to scream. A clot of blood gushed from his mouth.
The man ripped the knife out. A fountain of blood sprayed out, mixing with the rain. Ruhan began to drown in his own sea of blood. His childhood promise, his pride—everything was washing away into the gutter.
"This hand... it was quite the nuisance, wasn't it? You vowed to wield a sword?"
The axe swung.
Thwack!
The left arm was severed at the elbow.
Ruhan's eyes rolled back. His body arched like a bow before slamming back onto the mud.
"And this hand? The one you made the promise with?"
A second swing. The right arm flew several meters away. Ruhan's scream echoed against the hillside.
One by one, the man severed both legs. The boy was no longer a human; he lay there as a living torso.
"Impressive! Do you possess nine lives like a cat?" The man laughed. There was no madness in that laugh, only a chilling satisfaction. "Let's see how much longer you last."
He raised the axe high above his head, aiming for Ruhan's neck.
It was the end. Ruhan prepared to close his eyes. He tried to recall Linara's face one last time, but the intensity of the pain washed even that away.
But just then—
His gaze fell upon the mud, and he froze. Right in front of his eyes, half-buried in the sludge, lay a human skull.
The skull's sockets were empty, devoid of eyes. Yet, Ruhan felt as though something from that dark abyss was staring directly into his soul.
Time seemed to stand still. The raindrops hung suspended in mid-air.
"Since you took care of me... I can offer you a chance in return."
The words didn't enter through his ears; they resonated directly inside his brain. An ancient, mechanical voice, grinding like gears turning after eons.
"I can send you to another timeline. You will regain your life, but the price is your memory. Do you accept?"
Ruhan's brain could barely function. Memory? His memory held nothing but humiliation and failure.
But at the word 'life,' he grasped at the final straw. He consented. In his mind, he screamed—'Yes.'
"So be it. A new beginning, in exchange for the pyre of memories."
In an instant, the skull vanished into the air. And with it, Ruhan's consciousness sank into an infinite void.
Reality snapped back. The axe descended.
Shing!
The head was severed from the torso, rolling into the canal water. Even as the current carried it away, a look of strange wonder remained frozen in the dead eyes of Ruhan's severed head.
On the road lay a bloody heap of flesh—limbless, headless.
The man wiped the blood from his axe and chuckled. "Well, the entertainment wasn't bad."
He raised a hand toward the sky. A cataclysmic bolt of purple lightning tore through the clouds, striking Ruhan's corpse directly.
Within seconds, bone and flesh were incinerated to ash. All evidence of the torture was washed away.
Erased from existence—Ruhan Ahmed.