Falling down towards the river I wasn't anxious.
The sensation was nothing like I'd ever experienced no wind rushing past my face, no adrenaline-pumping thrill like you'd expect when tumbling from a great height. Just weightlessness, pure and absolute, like the universe had paused mid-breath, waiting to see how I'd shatter on impact.
I was sure this was the end.
The river of blood welcomed us with a violent splash, though it wasn't water we plunged into. It was thick, viscous, like drowning in syrup liquid of what I could make out as blood, slick and suffocating. The current was impossibly strong, pulling me along with dozens of other bodies who fell with me. They were silent, unresisting, their faces blank even as they were swallowed whole.
The cold wasn't what got to me. It was the heat. The liquid burned, not like fire but something worse, like it was seeping under my skin, trying to strip me down to the very core of my being. My muscles screamed as I thrashed, but the river didn't care. It dragged me along mercilessly, carrying us like debris, like we were nothing more than discarded scraps.
Somewhere above on the bridge, the haggard and frail old woman turned her hollow gaze toward the river hearing the loud slash, her voice drifting down like a curse whispered into the wind.
"Now they have no chance to even reincarnate and they'll be swallowed by that monster."
Her words echoed nearby making no difference, swallowed by the roaring current as she turned back getting back to work uncaring as if whatever happened didn't bother her even a bit.
Panic surged through me, raw and
primal. This wasn't just death. This pain felt like erasure as if my entire being is being wiped out of existence tearing me from the inside.
There was a loud roar from the far end of the blood river hearing which I instinctively shivered.
Hearing the roar I started on thinking about ways to avoid whater it was at the end of the river. Not me, I wasn't going out like this.
My mind raced even as my body flailed, muscles burning from exhaustion. The people around me if you could even call
them that anymore floated like driftwood, limp and lifeless, their expressions blank as if their souls had been wiped clean. But they weren't struggling. They weren't fighting.
I could use that.
I clawed my way onto the nearest body, using it as a foothold. My hands gripped flesh that was cold and slick, devoid of warmth, like holding onto wax figures. I shoved down the guilt, the nausea that twisted in my gut. Survival had no room for sentimentality.
Step by step, body by body, I climbed- scrambling over shoulders, pressing down on hollow chests, ignoring the glassy eyes that stared through me.
The river roared beneath me, angry, alive. It didn't like this.
It fought back.
The current surged with renewed fury, pulling harder, dragging the bodies under one by one as if it didn't like that something escaped it's grasp. Some slipped from beneath me, swallowed whole, leaving me dangling for desperate moments before I found another foothold. But I didn't stop.
I couldn't a new found energy filled me.
My fingers were raw, my limbs trembling, but somehow somehow I reached the shore. I collapsed onto the cracked, blackened ground, coughing up mouthfuls of thick, metallic-tasting liquid, my chest heaving.
That's when I felt it.
A strong presence locking onto me from the direction where the river flowed. Cold, sharp, like the edge of a blade pressed against the back of my neck. A murderous intent so overwhelming it made the river seem like a gentle stream in comparison.
It wasn't just watching me. It wanted me dead. No to be appropriate erased. I could feel that fury that hatred for me from whatever it was.
I didn't think. Instinct took over me as I scrambled to my feet, slipping on the slick ground, my legs barely cooperating as I sprinted away. Away from the river, far from the monstrous thing lurking beyond it.
I ran like a man possessed, my breath ragged, vision blurring around the edges. I stumbled, fell, got back up. Over and
over, like my body was just a puppet driven by one command 'Don't ever stop.'
I don't know how long I ran. Time had no meaning here. Minutes felt like hours, hours like seconds. The landscape didn't change just endless, cracked ground beneath a sky that was neither day nor night.
Eventually, my legs gave out, and I collapsed onto my knees, gasping. The murderous intent had faded, but the fear lingered, coiling in my chest like a parasite.
When I finally looked up, I realized I wasn't alone.
Before me stretched a canyon. But calling it that felt wrong. A canyon has depth, walls, an end. This? This was something else. A rift carved into existence itself, a wound that bled darkness instead of light. The river of
blood flowed from it not down, but up, defying gravity, logic, and everything I thought I knew.
I crawled to the edge, peering into the
abyss.
There was no bottom. No opposite side. Just pure, endless black, like the universe had forgotten to fill this part in. I couldn't even hear an echo when I screamed into it. It swallowed sound the same way it swallowed light.
Behind me, I could still feel the faint presence of that monstrosity and a slight pressure, distant but relentless. As if It would never stop hunting me. Not as long as I existed.
I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. Think, Jacob. Think. Going back? That's not an option. Wait here? That
thing would find me eventually.
I was in a pinch I could only think of one way left for me to escape.
I laughed short, breathless, almost hysterical. Because what I was about to do wasn't brave. It wasn't smart. It was the kind of decision I would'nt make even if was drunk or mentally retarded. My other option has been stripped away with only leading me this one option.
I stood on shaky legs, toes dangling over the edge of reality itself as I stood at the edge of the dark abyss.
"It's better than being caught by whatever's at the end of that river," I muttered to myself, "or being reincarnated as a bug after drinking that soup forgetting everything and getting judged for my deeds."
"I'll definitely be something I won't like." With that, I jumped. No fear. No regrets. Just falling.
"I don't know what or where I'll end up or what my end would be." But I felf calm and relaxed as if nothing mattered right now.
Once again I felt weightlessness and closed my eyes. This time, there was no river to catch me.Just the endless abyss which seems to have no end at all.