Chapter 15: Dying City

I woke up to silence—absolute, suffocating silence. My body felt heavy, my head pounding as I forced myself to sit up. The first thing I noticed was the sky: an endless, swirling expanse of black and crimson, as if someone had torn apart the heavens and stitched them back together with blood.

"Where… am I?" my voice echoed, but there was no reply.

The air was thick and metallic, carrying the faint stench of rust and decay. I looked around, realizing I was standing in a city that resembled mine—but it wasn't mine. The buildings were twisted and broken, their surfaces slick with an oily black substance. The streets were cracked and uneven, leading into shadowy alleyways that seemed to stretch on forever.

The world was empty.

Or so I thought.

I walked aimlessly, the sound of my footsteps swallowed by the oppressive stillness. Occasionally, I would see something out of the corner of my eye—a flicker of movement, a shadow darting past—but when I turned, there was nothing there.

Then I saw it: a pool of blood spreading across the cracked pavement, thick and glistening. I followed the trail, my stomach churning with every step. The trail ended at a wall, where something—or someone—had been splattered against the concrete.

I couldn't even tell if it was human anymore. Limbs were twisted at impossible angles, the torso ripped open as if something had clawed its way out. The face—what little was left of it—was frozen in a scream.

I staggered back, bile rising in my throat. "What the hell is this place?"

As I stumbled through the empty streets, I began to hear them. Faint at first, like whispers carried on the wind. But they grew louder, more distinct.

Screams.

Some were desperate, pleading cries for help. Others were guttural, filled with agony. They came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing off the ruined buildings and seeping into my bones.

I ran. I didn't know where I was going, but I had to get away. Away from the screams, away from the blood, away from this hellish nightmare.

But the further I ran, the worse it got.

I rounded a corner and froze. In the middle of the street stood a pile of corpses—at least a dozen of them, stacked like discarded trash. Their bodies were in varying states of decay, some missing limbs, others torn apart entirely.

My breathing grew shallow as I realized something was off. The corpses weren't still. They twitched and shuddered, their empty eye sockets turning to look at me.

Then they started to move.

"Oh, no. No, no, no!" I backed away, but my foot caught on something, and I fell hard onto the pavement.

The pile of corpses collapsed, the bodies writhing and crawling toward me. Their mouths opened, emitting garbled, inhuman noises that sounded like a mixture of laughter and sobbing.

I scrambled to my feet and ran, my heart pounding in my chest.

I don't know how long I ran, but eventually, I found myself at the edge of a lake. The water was pitch black, its surface reflecting nothing.

For a moment, I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe I could find something here, something to help me understand this place.

But as I stepped closer, the surface of the lake began to ripple.

Hands.

Hundreds of pale, skeletal hands broke through the surface, reaching toward me. Some were small, like those of children. Others were grotesquely large, their fingers ending in jagged claws.

They clawed at the air, their movements desperate and frenzied. From the depths of the lake came more screams, accompanied by wet, squelching sounds.

I stumbled back, my legs shaking.

"Why are you here?"

The voice came from behind me, low and raspy. I spun around, but there was no one there.

"Who's there?" I shouted, my voice trembling.

The shadow on the ground in front of me shifted, forming into a vaguely humanoid shape. Its eyes glowed red, and its smile was wide and filled with too many teeth.

"You don't belong here," it hissed, its voice echoing unnaturally. "This is a place for the forgotten. The lost. The broken."

"I don't care! Just tell me how to get out of here!"

The shadow laughed, a sound that made my skin crawl. "You can't leave, little one. Not until she decides your fate."

"She? Who's 'she'?"

The shadow didn't answer. Instead, it dissolved into a mass of writhing tendrils that slithered toward me. I turned and ran again, the laughter of the shadow echoing in my ears.

I found myself in front of a house—if you could even call it that. Its walls were made of pulsating flesh, veins and arteries visible beneath the surface. The door was a gaping maw, lined with jagged teeth that dripped with saliva.

I didn't want to go in, but something compelled me to.

The interior was worse. The floor squelched beneath my feet, and the walls were lined with twitching, disembodied eyes that followed my every move.

At the center of the room was a figure, hunched over and covered in blood. It was eating something, tearing into it with animalistic ferocity.

I took a step closer, and the figure turned to look at me. Its face was a grotesque mix of human and something else, its mouth stretched unnaturally wide.

"You shouldn't be here," it growled, its voice deep and guttural.

"I-I didn't mean to—"

Before I could finish, it lunged at me.

I woke up on the ground, gasping for air. My body ached, and my mind was a whirlwind of fear and confusion.

In front of me was a door, glowing faintly in the darkness. Without thinking, I opened it and stepped through.

I found myself back in my world—or at least, it seemed like it. The sky was clear, the streets were normal, and everything was quiet.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was still watching me.

And then I heard it—a faint whisper, coming from the shadows.

"Welcome back, Kaito-kun."