He woke up to find himself drowning in a haunting darkness, a place that reeked of death and oblivion. He whispered in a trembling, broken voice: "So, I am dead... I died in a miserable way that not even an animal deserves. Damn everyone who dug my grave before my time." As he grieved over his wasted life, a tall figure emerged from the shadows behind him; a man with hair as black as an endless night and eyes as red as burning coals.
The man spoke in a terrifying, deep voice: "Will you not stop sobbing?" Dyle turned in terror and screamed bitterly: "Who are you? Can I not even find peace in death?" The man did not answer with words. Instead, he lunged at him, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him into the air like a feather. He shouted into Dyle's face, his voice shaking the very foundations of the place: "Wake up! Remember why you are here! No one is by your side anymore. No one asks about you, no one remembers your name. Even your family—the bond you held sacred—they cut you off like dry branches. Wake up to your bitter reality!"
Tears streamed from Dyle's eyes—tears of oppression, not weakness. He said: "I tried... God knows I tried! But there was no escaping this inevitable end." At that moment, a devilish smile appeared on the stranger's face. He slammed Dyle to the ground with force and asked: "What is it that you truly want?"
That single question was the matchstick that fell into a tank of gasoline. Dyle's heart ignited with a fire he had never known before. He screamed with a voice that shook the darkness: "I want revenge! I want to step on the necks of everyone who looked down on me. I want to look at them with the same contempt they showed me. I want power that crushes existence!"
The stranger replied coldly: "You shall have what you desire."
Darkness closed over his eyes once more. Dyle woke up in the exact spot where he had taken his last breath, but the walls were no longer terrifying; they felt like a loyal friend comforting his loneliness. He pulled out his phone with a shaking hand, only to find that a full month had passed. A whole month, and no one had looked for him. No tears were shed, and no missing person report was filed. He laughed with a bitterness that shook his soul: "Did my death really not make a difference to anyone? Really?"
At that moment, a screen the color of deep blood flickered before his eyes. In bold, terrifying letters, it read: [Gate of Death... Welcome, The Manipulator]. Dyle looked at it with dry eyes and asked: "And you? Are you a friend or an enemy?" A white palm icon appeared on the screen. He smiled mockingly: "A screen that likes to joke? Fine... let's see who laughs in the end."
Dyle stood up, mercy having completely left his heart. "I won't go out and announce my return. I will work in the shadows. I will be the nightmare that gnaws at their bones while they are still alive. The old 'Dyle' has rotted in his grave; a new person is born."
He walked out of the cave like an invisible ghost, moving through the crowds in the city. He saw his old friend eating and drinking with pleasure. He saw the traitors who sold him out living their lives in luxury and happiness, as if he had never existed. Every laugh they shared ignited a river of hell in his chest.
He picked up a black mask he found beside him when he woke—a featureless mask with red lines running through it like veins pulsing with blood. He put it on with a terrifying calmness and whispered from behind it, his voice dripping with venom:
"Time to play... and time for the reckoning."