I sat slumped in the corner of the room, knees pulled tightly to my chest, the chill of the floor seeping into my bones. A dull, rhythmic throb pounded behind my eyes—like even my thoughts were bruised. My voice cracked as it slipped from my throat, raw and hoarse, but I aimed it upward, casting it into the void like a desperate flare.

  "Please... just kill me. If there's anything out there— God, fate, some cosmic joke—you hear me?" My voice trembled, bitter and pleading. "End it. Just... let me go."

  Silence answered, as it always did. Thick and suffocating.

  Then, a low growl rippled through the stillness-my stomach, relentless and unimpressed by despair. A faint, humorless scoff escaped me as I pressed a hand to it.

  "Hungry again?" I muttered. "What is that now, day three? In stomach time?"

  The absurdity almost drew a laugh from me. Time didn't mean a damn thing here. Not in this forgotten corner of existence. Just the same cycle

  -pain, rage, hunger. Repeat.

  With a groan, I forced myself upright, my joints creaking in protest. The cold bit at my skin as I shuffled to the fridge, pulling open the door with numb fingers and fishing out a few strips of dried jerky. The light from the fridge spilled across the dark room like an intrusion, artificial and unwanted.

  I chewed slowly, each bite like ash on my tongue.

  "Guess you're not real," I murmured to the silence.

  "Or maybe you just don't care."

  I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat too jagged to ignore.

  "After all," I added, my voice barely audible now,

  "I'm too much of a coward to try."

  The fridge hummed quietly. The light faded as the door swung closed, and the lifeless void welcomed me back like an old friend.

  The air shifted-subtly at first, like the room itself exhaled. But my skin prickled, warning me before I even turned my head. I already knew.

  Albert.

  He stood across the room like he'd been summoned from the shadows, posture stiff, commanding, as if he owned not just the room, but the very air in my lungs. A chair materialized beneath him like some twisted sleight of hand, and he eased into it with the casual poise of a man settling in for a show—my suffering, his entertainment.

  The fire in me flared instantly, that slow-burning hatred crackling to life. He wanted me broken? Fine. I could give him that look. I could pretend.

  But l'd be damned before I let him see the pieces crack.

  His lips curled into a smirk, voice smooth and cool like a blade against skin. "Don't you look well."

  "Screw you," I snapped, not moving from my corner. My limbs ached, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch. "Your little torture chamber isn't going to work."

  Albert tilted his head, unbothered. "Edwin, I told you before—this isn't a room for torture. It's for containment."

  I laughed, sharp and dry. "Yeah? Well, you sure put a lot of thought into the decor. Cold walls, no clocks, isolation so thick it echoes? Really screams

  'vacation home.'"

  He let the insult pass, his voice taking on that infuriatingly mild tone, laced with something like amusement. "I designed it with you in mind... but no, this room wasn't built for you."

  My eyes narrowed. "Then who?"

  But he waved the question away like a puff of dust, his hand dismissing it as inconsequential. Typical.

  Always dangling truth just out of reach.

  "What matters," he said, his voice dipping into something colder-measured, serious-"is that you're here now. You're contained. You can't run anymore."

  He gestured with a slow sweep of his hand to the sterile, merciless space around us. "Look around, Edwin. This is your reality now. Accept it."

  For a moment, the silence pressed in, thick and heavy. My jaw clenched, fingernails digging into the backs of my arms as I stared him down. Accept it?

  Not a damn chance.

  I finally let my eyes wander—really look—and wished I hadn't.

  The walls, once white or maybe gray, were smeared in long, ragged streaks of rust-red. Dried blood clung to the grooves and corners like mold, cracked and peeling at the edges. Beneath that, fresher splotches glistened—wet, vivid. Still bleeding, it dawned on me that it. was all my blood.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  My breath hitched as I glanced down. The floor, cold and slick beneath my bare feet, was a mottled canvas of gore. Pools of blood thickened into syrupy patches, and my clothes... I hadn't even noticed. Soaked. Saturated. Stuck to me like skin on bone. I matched the room-red, brown, broken.

  I was drowning in myself.

  I turned back toward him.

  He stood there like a statue of disdain, arms crossed, posture relaxed in the way only monsters could be. His eyes met mine-flat, cold, completely untouched by empathy. Not even a flicker of shame or guilt. Just... detached amusement, like an artist admiring the chaos he'd curated.

  My voice cracked, torn raw from somewhere deep and tired. "Why can't I die?"

  It wasn't desperation this time. Not a plea. Just a quiet, bitter observation.

  There was so much blood. Enough to kill a dozen men. Enough to have killed me hours ago.

  Albert—the twisted version of him, or whatever he was now—didn't blink. "If you're wondering why, it's because something is stopping you."

  He stepped forward, casual, as if explaining the weather.

  "It always reaches out to save you."

  A cold shiver traced down my spine like a phantom hand. "It?" I echoed, my voice shivering from the implication that there was something else pulling the strings.

  "Yes," he said simply. "It."

  That was all. No name. No explanation. Just that single word, spoken with unnerving certainty. I searched his face for something more-humor, cruelty, regret. But there was nothing. Just emptiness.

  He tilted his head slightly. "Are you done resisting now, Edwin? Now that you know you can't die? Will you listen to me?"

  A jagged laugh tore from my throat, bitter and sharp. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't want to be tortured!"

  His smirk widened, but his eyes remained void of life. "Then stop making it so entertaining."

  With a sick twist in my gut—I decided to believe he needed me to endure. I had nothing else to cling onto.

  "You losing your memory..." His voice dipped low

  —almost regretful—then snapped sharp and metallic. "It's the best and worst thing that could've happened."

  His words punched through me like nails raking a chalkboard.

  "Why can't you just obey me like before?" he snarled. "I'm your father, damn it."

  But that wasn't his voice anymore.

  It twisted—deeper, alien—scraping wrong against the air.

  I stared him down, the fire in my chest rising to meet the cold in his. "Because I have a will. A will to escape. To leave. To never look back."

  He sneered, shaking his head like I was a child throwing a tantrum. "You have no will." His voice was a pit. "You have nothing but yourself. And as everyone learns... you are always your own worst enemy."

  Something inside me cracked. "Screw you!" I shouted, fists clenched at my sides. "Stop messing with my head!"

  He didn't flinch. He just vanished.

  Gone.

  And in the next breath, he was across the room—standing there again, like he'd never moved. My breath caught. My skin crawled.

  "I'm only teaching you a lesson," he said. "One you forgot."

  But this time... his voice shifted. It bent in on itself.

  Words warped and stretched like echoes in a broken mirror—until it was something else entirely.

  Familiar.

  My own voice.

  And then he was gone.

  No trace, no sound-just the hollow pressure in the air where he'd been, as if his silhouette had scorched itself into the atmosphere. I stared at the empty space, heart pounding, thoughts unraveling.

  He hadn't been here at all.

  Not really.

  Yet the conversation still echoed in my mind— every word, every look. Real in all the ways that mattered.

  And then it hit me.

  Was I talking to ‘It’?

  That thought should've shattered me. Instead, something stirred in my chest—a flicker of warmth in the frost. Hope.

  I sank to the floor, the cold biting through the thin fabric of my clothes as I stared up at the ceiling.

  The dim lights above blurred into soft halos, and for a moment, the silence became a canvas for memory.

  Cenilera.

  Robert.

  Their names echoed through me like a heartbeat, distant but steady. Somewhere—somewhere beyond this place—they might still be searching. I could almost see them, their faces flickering behind my closed eyes like fading photographs.

  Robert's quiet strength. Cenilera's fierce hope. The warmth they gave me when I thought I didn't deserve it.

  My hands curled into fists on the floor, knuckles white.

  This time, I'll be the one to save them. I'll be the one to help them escape.

  "I'm getting out of here," I said confidently into the void, voice hoarse and trembling, but fierce. "And I'm taking you both with me."

  My gaze dropped to my right arm, and there it was

  —a flicker. A glimmer. Not of light, but of possibility.

  "Thank you, shadow Albert," I muttered, almost laughing at the madness of it. Even his twisted, phantom lessons might be useful now.

  I rose to my feet, unsteady but resolute, and raised my fist in front of me. I focused, reaching into that place inside where instinct met pain, where memory met fury.

  Will.

  He said it like a sneer, like a challenge.

  Because I have a will.

  I gritted my teeth and pushed.

  Agony exploded through my arm like lightning under my skin. I gasped, stumbling back as veins bulged and twisted, pulsing with unnatural heat.

  My skin bubbled, inflamed, as if molten metal seared through my blood. Steam hissed from my pores. Small, sickening pops echoed in the silence as my body rebelled.

  "Ow-what the ffff—!" I choked, every nerve screaming.

  Still, I didn't stop.

  I would remember. I would control this. And I would smash my way out if I had to.

  "Shit!" I gasped, barely able to hold back a scream.

  And just as suddenly as it had started, the pain ceased, my arm snapping back to its normal form.

  I stumbled back, panting, my chest heaving. "What the hell was that?" I muttered, voice shaking. "Why does it hurt so bad?"

  Slowly, I raised my hand, studying it with wary eyes. "Is Albert... the trigger?" I whispered.

  Memories flooded my mind—every bullet tearing into me, every blow he delivered, every agonizing second of his laughter ricocheting through my skull. I clenched my fist, and immediately, I felt it again— a raw and primal feeling. Something that wanted to survive.

  My arm bulged grotesquely, muscles twisting and warping until, with a sickening crack, the skin ruptured outward. A monstrous, clawed arm unfurled itself from the wreckage, the muscles rippling with unnatural strength.

  For the first time, I really looked at it—really looked.

  "I never really got to look at it," I murmured.

  I traced a trembling finger along the strange, pale skin, feeling the roughness of it under my touch. There, etched into the surface of my forearm, was a faint, intricate symbol—lines curving and intersecting to form the top of an arrow shape—like a ‘V’ with the bottom pointing towards the knuckles, a single dot embedded in its center like an unblinking eye.

  "This'll definitely be useful," I muttered under my breath, flexing the monstrous limb. The muscles shifted and coiled with terrifying strength as I tested its weight. When I let it rest across my legs, I felt the heft of it—solid.

  And then, as if responding to an unspoken command, the arm began to retract, folding in on itself and melting seamlessly back into the skin of my normal arm.

  Like it had never even been there.

  “Perfect!” I sneered.