Night fell without mercy.
The last trace of daylight vanished behind thick storm clouds, leaving the wasteland drowned in endless gray. Snow continued to fall in slow, heavy silence, covering the world like a burial cloth prepared for the dead.
The old man could no longer feel his fingers.
He lay half-collapsed beside the skeletal tree, his breathing shallow and uneven. Each inhale burned like frozen knives inside his chest. Each exhale felt weaker than the one before.
He had tried to walk again.
He had failed.
"…I suppose," he whispered to the empty sky, "this is as far as I go."
A strange calm settled over him.
In his previous life, death had been something distant and clinical — a quiet process observed through medical charts and whispered conversations. Here, it was raw. Immediate. Honest.
He was not surrounded by machines.
He was surrounded by silence.
The howls returned.
This time they were closer.
Through the veil of falling snow, shapes began to move. Dark silhouettes slid across the white landscape like living shadows. Low growls vibrated through the frozen ground.
Monsters.
The old man opened his eyes slowly.
Dozens of yellow lights stared back at him.
Fear flickered in his heart, but it did not grow. He had already accepted the end once. Perhaps that was why this moment felt less terrifying than it should have.
"So the hero dies before he even begins," he murmured.
One of the creatures stepped forward.
It was larger than any wolf he had ever seen. Thick greenish fur clung to a muscular body twisted by unnatural evolution. Its breath steamed in the cold air, carrying the stench of blood and decay.
The beast circled him cautiously.
It sensed weakness.
It sensed prey.
The old man forced his trembling hands against the ground and pushed himself upright. His legs shook violently, but somehow he managed to stand.
"If this is truly the end…" he said quietly,
"…then I will face it."
The words surprised even him.
He had never been brave. Never strong. Never chosen for anything important. Yet in this moment, beneath the indifferent sky of another world, he felt a faint spark of dignity ignite within his chest.
The monster lunged.
Pain exploded across his shoulder as claws tore into flesh. He cried out, stumbling backward into the snow. Warm blood spread beneath him, melting white into red.
Another beast attacked from the side.
Fangs pierced his arm.
He struggled. Not to win — he knew victory was impossible — but simply to remain alive a little longer. The instinct to survive burned stubbornly inside his failing body.
"I… was supposed… to save them…" he gasped.
More monsters joined the frenzy.
Claws. Teeth. Darkness.
His vision blurred as strength drained away. The storm above seemed to spin, turning the falling snow into a swirling curtain between life and oblivion.
Memories surfaced one last time.
A quiet hospital room.
The distant laughter of people he would never meet again.
A life that had passed without leaving much behind.
"…Maybe… this world… will remember me," he whispered.
The pain began to fade.
Sound disappeared.
Cold became warmth.
As his consciousness slipped away, a strange sensation brushed against his soul — as if something vast and unseen had finally noticed his existence.
A silent voice echoed through the void.
—HERO UNIT TERMINATED.
Darkness consumed him.
But somewhere deep within that darkness, another light was beginning to form.