Second Chance [1]

When I opened my eyes that first day, I thought I was dreaming.

The sky was wrong. It wasn't the same blue that used to hang above, but an unrecognizable sky tinted with shades of violet and indigo that shouldn't exist. It looked like the night was always on the edge of falling.

I remember lying on the ground, my body feeling like it didn't belong to me, and thinking I'd finally slipped into the cracks of a dream, a place between life and death.

But that wasn't it.

This place—wherever it was—wasn't some dream or afterlife. No, I was still here, still breathing, though I often wondered why.

From the moment I woke up in this strange city, there was nothing. No answers. No familiar faces. Just cold stone streets, the scent of something rotten hanging in the air. Even the people who passed by acted as if I didn't exist.

The first thing I felt was hunger. Not the distant hunger that creeps in after you've missed lunch. No. This was deeper, harsher, a ravenous clawing at my insides that tightened with each passing minute. It was as if I'd been starving for weeks.

The second thing I noticed was how quiet this place was. Even when people spoke, their voices were muted, absorbed by the thick, stagnant air.

There was no joy here. There was no life. Just…

Survival.

I didn't know where I was. Again, there were no answers. No familiar faces. No way to know how I got here or why. But none of that mattered when you're starving.

The world could have burned around me, and all I'd care about was finding food.

After all, the rules were the same, whether in that world or this one:

[You take what you can. You survive.]

And so, I began to steal.

At first, it was easy. There was no one watching, not someone who cared enough to stop a boy with hollow eyes from slipping a few scraps of bread into his coat.

I moved through the narrow alleys, past crumbling stone buildings, hidden under a sky that never seemed to brighten.

The people here wore the same grim expressions as the ones I knew before. I could have blended in with them. I could have disappeared like I had always done.

But something in me refused.

I didn't want to be seen, but I didn't want to vanish either. I hovered somewhere in between, lost in the spaces where no one looked.

I didn't think I'd survive the first week.

But I did.

And then the second. And then the third. The town—whatever it was called—didn't seem to care about me as long as I kept my head down and didn't get caught.

It has been a month now. A month since I woke up in this world. A month since I'd eaten anything more than scraps stolen from open markets or the careless hands of strangers.

I was surviving, though I couldn't say why.

What reason was there?

The world will remain the same whether I walk its streets or let myself starve.

But today, I made a mistake.

It was supposed to be easy. Just grab a piece of bread from the stall and slip away before anyone notices. I'd done it dozens of times before, and no one ever seemed to care. It wasn't as though anyone would miss one piece of stale bread, especially not in a place where everyone looked like they were barely scraping by.

It was late afternoon when I first saw it.

I was wandering through one of the quieter parts of the city, where the streets narrowed and twisted into dead ends.

There, huddled in the shadow of a stone wall, was the smallest, most pitiful creature I had ever seen.

Its fur was matted, caked in dirt, and it was so thin that its bones seemed ready to break through its skin. It wasn't even moving, just lying there, as if it didn't have the strength to stand.

At first, I thought it was dead.

I should have walked away, left it to its fate. But something held me there, standing in front of the frail creature, staring at it like it was a reflection of something I didn't want to see.

I don't know why I fed it. I didn't have enough food for myself, let alone for something else.

But I found myself breaking off a piece of stale bread from my pocket and kneeling down beside it, holding the crumb out in front of its nose.

It barely opened its eyes and sniffed at the bread. Slowly, it licked the piece with a weak tongue before nibbling at it.

Watching it eat felt like something was shifting inside me. It was dying, I knew that. Just like I was. But for some reason, I couldn't let it die without doing something.

The days passed, and I kept coming back to that alley, bringing whatever scraps I could find. The creature never moved much, never showed any signs of getting better, but it ate. And for some reason, that was enough. It was enough to keep me going.

Until today.

Once again, the day of my mistake.

I had to steal more than one. Not for me, but for it. After observing the creature, it seemed that a single piece of bread was not enough to save it.

I had been careful, always careful, when I stole. But this time, I was distracted, too focused on getting the bread back to the creature before it got too weak to eat.

I was reckless.

I got caught.

The man who ran the bread stall wasn't the usual one. He was younger, stronger, with a sharpness in his eyes that made my skin crawl.

I should have noticed.

I should have turned back when I saw him standing there.

But I didn't. I reached out for the bread, and the moment I touched it, his hand was on my wrist, crushing my bones in his grip.

For a moment, my mind raced. But since I was used to being a genius back on Earth, I calculated a dozen different ways I could slip free, and how I could escape without drawing too much attention.

But before I could move, the hand yanked me backward, hard. I stumbled, the ground spinning beneath me as I was dragged toward the stall.

Despite having many plans to escape, my body was too weak and fragile to resist.

"What do we have here? A little thief, huh…?"

I opened my mouth to deny it, to say anything that might get me out of this. But before I could even think to speak, his fist slammed into my stomach. The air rushed out and I doubled over, gasping for breath.

"People like you, filthy little rats, don't deserve a single thing."

Another blow came, this time to my ribs. I felt something crack as a sharp pain shot through my chest. I bit down hard, forcing myself not to cry out.

Crying wouldn't help. It never did.

"I didn't… I wasn't…"

The words finally slipped out between ragged breaths, but they sounded weak.

"You think you can just take what you want?"

The man's fist slammed into my jaw, cutting off any chance I had to explain. Not that it mattered. No one here cared why I stole.

It didn't matter whether the bread had been stale or if it was just for that creature I found. All that mattered was that I had taken something that wasn't mine. And in this world, that was enough to condemn me.

He hit me again.

And again.

Again.

The world blurred around me. The sounds of the street faded into a distant hum as my body crumpled beneath his fists. I felt the cold and rough ground beneath me, and I wondered if this was how it would end.

Beaten to death in a dirty alley for a piece of stale bread.

Somehow, it felt fitting.

This world was too unpredictable. Unlike the Earth where I could see everything with clarity, in this world, I could see nothing but a blur.

After I lost count how many times he hit me, he stopped.

He didn't kill me.

Why?

I don't know why.

Maybe he got bored. Maybe he decided I wasn't worth the effort.

Either way, he left, leaving me lying in the dirt, my face pressed against the cold stone with the taste of blood in my mouth.

I stayed there for a long time, staring at the ground, my body too weak to move. The pain was everywhere, throbbing in my ribs, my jaw, my chest. The sky above began to darken. The violet and indigo hues deepened into the color of twilight. I could hear the distant hum of voices and footsteps on the cobbled streets.

The town carried on, unaware, uncaring, as it always did.

But then I heard it. A small, soft sound.

A rawr.

I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus. And there, just a few feet away, I saw it—the creature that looked like a dinosaur plushie or whatever it was.

It dragged itself toward me. Its tiny, frail body trembling with each step. Its fur—more like scales—was still matted. Its eyes half-closed, but it looked at me with a strange sort of intensity. As if it knew.

As if it understood.

With my trembling hands, I reached out. The creature nudged its head against my hand, and for a moment, the world felt still. There was no pain. No hunger. No cold. Just the warmth of it against my skin, and the soft rise and fall of its breath.

For a moment, I thought, "I should have left it. I should have walked away. I should have let it die like everything else in this city."

But I couldn't.

I broke off a small piece of the bread and held it out. It sniffed at it cautiously before taking a small bite, chewing slowly. As I watched it eat, I felt a flicker of something that wasn't just pain or hunger.

Maybe I couldn't save myself. Maybe I was already too far gone. But maybe… I could save this one.

Even if it was the last thing I did.

The cat finished the bread and curled up beside me with its tiny body pressing against mine for warmth. I closed my eyes. The world around us was still cold. But in that moment, there was something else.

…Something like the last warmth of a dying fire.

I didn't know how much longer I could survive like this. The hunger. The beatings. The endless struggle to find food. It was all wearing me down.

I miss Jake. I miss his smile that never seemed to fade away.

I miss Lia. I miss the way she yaps every time she discovers something new.

I miss Haru. I miss his silent chuckles.

I miss all of them. The way they brought excitement to my boring world back then, I… I miss those moments.

It has been a month now, and I wonder if they're also in this world, or another, or anywhere. I wonder if they were given a second chance to live. And if they did, I wish their situation were not as miserable as mine right now.

I wish they're living a happy life, not a survival. And of course, not alone…

"..."

But as I lay there with the creature that nestled against me, I realized that maybe survival wasn't just about me anymore.

"Rawr!" the creature licked my cheeks.

Maybe, for once, in this world, I wasn't alone.