"Dark... it's all dark—why can't I see anything?!"
"I can't see— I can't see anything!"
Victor stumbled through the darkness, finding himself in a filthy alley reeking of rotting garbage and dust. Around him, rat-like creatures scurried, their claws scratching against the broken concrete.
"Ahh! Damn it, my right eye... I can't see anything!"
Pain exploded across his face as he pressed both hands against his injured eye, trying to stop the bleeding. It slowed, but the agony was unbearable. Victor screamed, his voice tearing through the empty alley like a wounded animal.
"Ahhhhhhhh! It hurts! It hurts so much! Where... where am I? I don't recognize this place... and that smell... it's blood. But not human, I think."
Shaking, barely able to stay upright, Victor began to walk. His hands were torn and bloody, his feet in even worse shape—blood flowed from them like a broken dam, soaking into the grime beneath him.
Using a rusted steel pipe he found leaning against the wall, he hobbled forward, covering his injured eye with a filthy rag torn from his shirt.
Slowly, painfully, his uninjured left eye began to adjust to the darkness. But as the world came into view, so did the extent of his injuries—and it was far worse than he had imagined. His body was battered, weak, and unfamiliar.
"What... what's happening to me...? Why is my body like this...? Why can't I remember anything...?" Victor mumbled under his breath, his voice shaking.
He staggered a few more steps before spotting something glinting against the alley wall — a shattered mirror.
Victor collapsed in front of it, staring at his reflection with wide, horrified eyes... and then, without warning, he burst into laughter. Loud, broken, echoing laughter that filled the empty space around him.
"I see now..." he whispered, pointing a trembling, bloodied finger at the cracked mirror.
"The reason my whole body is wounded... the reason I don't remember anything..."
A twisted smile formed on his lips.
"...is because it's not my body to begin with."
Victor dragged himself upright, leaning on the rusted pipe like a dying animal clinging to its last limb.
He was not the kind of man who could sit still.
So he walked.
And walked.
And walked.
There was no destination — only the endless stretch of a decaying alley swallowing him whole.
Blood dripped from his torn feet and mangled hands, painting a trail behind him like a slaughtered animal refusing to die.
The filthy rag over his right eye was useless now, soaked through with blood, the fibers sticking to his skin like wet scabs.
"How much longer must I walk to escape this place?"
"Or... is there even an escape?"
He couldn't remember how he got here.
He only remembered falling asleep — head down on his desk — then drowning.
An ocean without surface or bottom.
Falling deeper.
And deeper.
And deeper.
Victor's mind crawled with questions like maggots in an open wound.
But answers rotted away before they could form.
There were no humans here.
No lights.
No clocks.
No sun.
Just the thick, oozing dark, pressing against his lungs until breathing itself felt unnatural.
Time melted into a sick dream.
Minutes.
Hours.
Days.
Weeks.
He didn't know anymore.
His legs buckled.
He collapsed onto the filth more times than he could count.
Each time, the stench of rotting garbage filled his nose — a stench that clung to his skin, soaked into his soul.
Each time, his broken body clawed its way back up.
Somehow.
The rusted pipe he used for balance was no longer brown and corroded — it was painted red now, dripping blood like a butcher's blade.
His mind could no longer hold the questions.
Too many.
Too heavy.
So he made a rule:
One question. Every ten steps.
The first ten steps:
"What will I eat when I get out? I'm starving enough to eat an elephant... raw if I have to."
The second ten steps:
"It's freezing here. I want warm clothes... a fireplace... a bowl of hot soup..."
The third ten steps:
"I want a bath. A hot one. Full of soap bubbles to wash this rotting stink off me."
The fourth ten steps:
"I want to sit somewhere warm, wrapped in a blanket, sipping chocolate coffee, reading a book... pretending none of this ever happened."
Each question lit a tiny candle of hope.
But this alley was a place where candles went to die.
With every step, every crash to the ground, hope bled out of him, like the blood staining his path.
The 50th step:
"What if I never leave this place?"
A whisper.
A creeping thought slithering through his mind.
. . . . .
By the time he reached his 99th question, he was no longer asking about food, warmth, or comfort.
"What do I do now?"
"It's been a week since I started walking. Or maybe longer... I can't tell anymore."
"My feet and hands are rotting. My vision... it's fading."
"The pipe... it was rusted brown when I picked it up."
"Now... it's nothing but a bloodied club."
"Maybe... maybe I should just stop."
He chuckled.
A broken, wheezing laugh that echoed off the narrow alley walls like the cries of a dying animal.
"I did everything, didn't I?"
"In my previous life... I struggled. I clawed my way through hell just to taste a moment of peace."
"I earned it. I deserved it."
He tilted his head back and screamed into the blackness above:
"WHY?! WHY ME?!
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"
The alley swallowed his voice whole.
Not even an echo returned.
Victor collapsed once again.
This time, he barely moved.
His body was a ruin.
His mind a shattered mirror.
But then — without thinking — he began crawling forward.
His body, driven by something beyond his own will, refusing to die, even though there was no reason left to live.
He crawled through the filth like a dying insect, his hands leaving smears of blood and pus across the cracked concrete.
There was nothing ahead of him.
No light.
No destination.
No promise.
And yet —
he crawled.
Victor — broken, bleeding, blind — still moved forward.
In a world that had already forgotten he existed.
But then —
he reached somewhere.
Not another alley.
Not more trash.
Not the crushing walls closing in.
No.
This place was... wide.
A circular clearing hidden in the very heart of that suffocating labyrinth.
Victor paused.
He tried to look back, but his vision was failing.
What he saw behind him was only more darkness — deeper than before.
It was as if the alley had swallowed his path, erasing his suffering like it never mattered.
Then — for the first time in what felt like eternity —
light.
A sudden blue orb ignited in the air above.
Pale and haunting, like a frozen sun.
The dim light cast long, eerie shadows across the circular space.
Victor blinked, his one working eye stinging.
He hadn't seen light in days.
Weeks, maybe.
It almost hurt to look at.
But what the light revealed was far worse than the dark.
A colossal statue sat in the center.
Monolithic.
Ancient.
Alien.
It had four hands, folded tightly in front of it — as if in prayer — but they were chained together by monstrous iron shackles.
Each arm bulged unnaturally, carved with runes that twisted when Victor tried to focus on them.
He didn't care.
He didn't want to understand.
What truly mattered wasn't the statue.
It was the liquid.
Something was leaking from the statue's limbs —
Dripping.
Pouring.
Streaming.
A pond had formed at its base, glimmering under the pale blue orb.
Victor's eyes widened.
He crawled.
Dragged himself toward the stairs that led down into the basin.
He left a thick, broken trail of blood behind him.
His throat screamed for moisture.
Days ago, he had swallowed his own blood just to wet his lips.
But now even blood wouldn't come.
He was dry.
Cracked.
Dead inside, but still moving.
He reached the stairs.
He pulled himself up, one step at a time, using only his arms — his legs were useless slabs of meat now, torn and limp.
But then —
he saw it clearly.
This wasn't just water.
It was not water at all.
The pool before him wasn't a single pond.
It was divided into four.
Four separate streams flowed from the statue's four chained hands:
One hand bled deep crimson — thick like blood, but too dark, too oily.
Another hand bled icy blue — clear, yet glowing faintly, like liquid crystal.
The third bled violent purple — the color of bruises and poison.
The final hand bled dark black — too dark to look, swolling whole blue light from air.
Each liquid flowed into its own basin, before spiraling together into a black center — a swirling heart where all four colors met.
Victor didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Thoughts blurred.
His body acted on pure need.
Drink.
Drink.
Drink.
Dri...
He dragged his broken body into the center of the pond — where the liquids met, where colors turned black.
And then —
he fell in.
"It's... kinda cold," Victor muttered, half-submerged in the strange liquid. "But... it's kinda good..."
His voice trembled, but not from fear. From relief.
The unbearable sting in his arms and legs—gone. The bleeding, the cracked skin, the burning ache in his throat—all vanished like smoke. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he felt... peace.
"I feel better now… no pain... it's like… I'm floating."
His fingers curled gently beneath the surface. "More… I want to go deeper… More… more…"
He didn't know what the pond truly was. No one ever told him.
Because no one ever came back.
The pond wasn't salvation. It was slumber.
A seductive void, swallowing broken souls in exchange for one final gift: rest—from the endless alley, from agony, from memory itself.
But fate had something different planned.
A voice echoed above the stillness, amused and laced with hunger.
"Oh my, oh my… It's been a century. A whole damn century since someone made it this far," it said, words slithering into the air like smoke.
"To think a soul could cross the eternal alley. I almost forgot that was possible."
A low chuckle followed, dry and bitter.
"Your soul must be exquisite. I can already taste it. Hehehe… my first meal in a hundred years."
A dark figure loomed atop the statue, its face hidden by shadows—its presence heavy, almost crushing. It waited, drooling anticipation, watching the soul dissolve in the pond.
But something unexpected happened.
Victor rose.
He emerged slowly from the dark pond, droplets of thick liquid sliding down skin that should have been torn but now looked flawless. His foot—once raw and bleeding—touched the stone floor. His hands—once shredded—flexed with new strength.
And his right eye, once covered by a bloody rag, was open.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," he whispered, touching it carefully. "But… it feels cold. Dead cold."
Clap. Clap.
Victor flinched. A figure was walking toward him, hands lazily clapping, its silhouette carved from the dark itself.
"Remarkable," the figure said. "Utterly... remarkable. You fell into the pond of death and came out whole—with your soul intact. Most souls are devoured the moment they taste it."
Victor stepped back, fists clenched. His instincts screamed, and his body responded. He didn't understand who this was or where he was—but danger was undeniable.
"What is this place?" Victor demanded. "Why am I here?"
The shadow cocked its head. "Ah, so you really don't know… That makes it even more fun."
He paused, then smiled—though Victor couldn't see it, he felt it in his bones.
"Most people come here seeking the elixirs—the gifts leaking from the statue's hands. But almost all of them die crossing the alley. That was your first trial. Congratulations."
Victor blinked. "You're saying… this pond… is a trial too?"
The figure clapped again, slower this time. "Exactly. You passed the second. The pond kills those with weak souls. But you—" he pointed, "—you didn't drink. You drowned. And you survived. That's rare."
"Then send me back," Victor snapped. "To the world of life. I want to go back!"
The figure's chuckle deepened. "I never said there were only two trials."
Victor's eyes widened. "Then… what's the third? Just tell me. I'll do it."
"You really have no idea what this place is, do you?" The figure slowly sat down on the stone floor. "Sit. It's foolish to waste the energy of your soul."
"I don't care!" Victor shouted. "Just tell me the goddamn trial!"
A sudden force slammed him into the ground—unseen, unforgiving. It was like a hundred elephants had crushed his chest at once. He gasped, unable to breathe.
"I said... sit," the figure growled, its voice no longer playful but thunderous, ancient.
Then—release.
Victor coughed violently and pulled himself up, groaning. He sat without protest, eyes filled with quiet rage.
"Good," the figure said, chuckling once more. "Now that you're behaving, let's start from the beginning... shall we?"
"You see, child… this place—where your feet now tremble—is known as the Eternal Domain of Death."
The voice echoed like a whisper carried on the wind of a forgotten tomb.
"Most who come here seek the Four Wondrous Elixirs—gifts that defy nature, corrupt fate, and rewrite the order of worlds."
Victor stared.
The figure before him had no face—no flesh, no eyes, no mouth—only the vague outline of a man, draped in endless shadow, as if night itself had risen to speak. Yet somehow, Victor felt it smile. A cold, mocking smile stitched from silence and void.
"Ah, did I frighten you?" the shadow hissed. "You're not saying a word. How dull. Say something, or I'll feel like a madman, ranting into the abyss."
Victor remained silent. His breath shallow. His mind raced, but his lips wouldn't move.
The figure tilted its head, amused and disappointed.
"Still nothing? Very well. Let's play your game."
It shifted closer. The air grew heavier—thicker. "You want to leave this place, don't you? Then listen closely…"
A low rumble stirred beneath them, like the domain itself was groaning in its sleep.
"There are three trials," the shadow crooned. "Three paths drenched in failure and soaked in soulblood."
> "First—survive the Endless Alley. A maze where even the bravest warriors rot and scream until their minds tear apart."
> "Second—drink from the Pond of Death, where the water devours the soul. Most who try are left as hollow husks, their minds drifting here forever, whispering madness into the fog."
Victor's heart pounded as he strained to listen. He leaned in, breath held, expecting the third trial.
But the figure paused.
Then, with eerie cheer, it asked,
"Say, don't you want to know who I am first? It might make things… more entertaining."
Victor snapped, voice cracking with rage and fear.
"Just tell me the fucking third trial!"
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Then the voice returned—no longer playful, but ancient and starved.
"You wish to know the third trial?"
It stepped forward. The room darkened, as if light itself feared to stay.
"I am a Soul Eater. Once, I roamed the world, devouring the drifting spirits of the dead. Until they bound me here—cursed me to this forsaken domain for all eternity."
Its voice cracked like old bones.
"I am
starving, child. And your soul... is deliciously strong."
Victor staggered back, terror tightening his chest.
"The third trial," the Soul Eater said, now a growl beneath the ground itself, "is this—survive me."
Without warning, a black tendril surged from the shadows, latching onto Victor's leg like a serpent of despair.
His scream was swallowed by the darkness.