Was it worth it?

Hex's eyes snap open.

The world is wrong.

The air clings to his skin, damp and suffocating, like he's woken up inside something's mouth.

The alley is too dark, too quiet. The distant streetlights don't reach the walls. They just hang there, swallowed by the void above.

His breathing is ragged. His hands—sticky, trembling, coated in warm, thick blood.

His stomach churns. His skin crawls. The blood is fresh.

Too fresh.

Something drips.

Drip.

Drip.

A cold shudder rips down his spine.

There, slumped against the alley wall, is a corpse.

At first, it's just a dead man.

Throat slit.

Lips parted in the shape of his last scream. The blood pooling beneath him, seeping into the cracks of the pavement like black veins.

Then

The smell.

Not just death. Not just rot. Something else, something wet and breathing and watching.

Hex sways on his feet, head pounding. Then, like a knife driving straight into his skull—

A memory.

The blade was in his hand. He felt it sink in. The skin, the muscle, the hot spill of life.

A whisper.

Too close. Too cold. Too knowing.

"Was it worth it?"

Hex jerks his head up.

The alley entrance is wrong.

The street is gone.

A shadow stands there.

It has no face, no features, just shifting, bleeding darkness. But it is watching him.

It tilts its head, and Hex feels something inside him tilt with it.

Then

A sound.

At first, he thinks it's the rain.

But it's inside the corpse.

A wet, sucking, writhing sound.

The body shifts.

Hex's gut freezes.

It shouldn't move.

The corpse's lips are stretching. Its jaw unhinges, pulling wider.

No sound. No breath. Just

A crack.

A gurgle.

A laugh.

Not human. Not alive.

Hex takes a slow, shaking step back.

And then

The corpse SCREAMS.

Not with its mouth.

From its throat.

Something inside it is screaming.

The flesh tears.

A hand—too long, too thin, with seven fingers and black, cracked nails punches out from inside the split throat.

Hex stumbles back. He wants to run. He can't.

The corpse rises.

Dripping. Twitching. Smiling.

The thing inside it is wearing the dead man like a suit.

It tilts its head—the exact same way the shadow at the alley's entrance did.

Then, in Hex's voice, it speaks.

"You did this."

The words don't match the mouth. They spill out a second too late, a fraction too early, like something trying to mimic human speech and failing.

Hex runs.

The alley stretches. Wrong. Too long. Too dark.

Hands reach out from the walls.

A knife plunges into his back.

The last thing Hex hears is that whisper, curling through his skull like rot.

"Was it worth it?"

He wakes up.

'Again?'

Choking.

Something thick and sour clogs his throat—not air, not blood, something else.

He retches, gasping, clawing at his neck, until a slick, black strand slides from his mouth like a parasite pulled free.

It writhes between his fingers before dissolving into nothing.

He lurches forward, hands slamming onto the damp ground.

The alley. Again.

The corpse is there, slumped against the wall, its eyes locked on him.

Hex freezes.

It wasn't looking at me before.

The blood beneath it is fresh, thick, but wrong.

Not pooling outward.

Creeping toward him.

A whisper.

"Was it worth it?"

Hex flinches. The voice isn't behind him this time.

It's beside him.

Slowly—so slowly—he turns his head.

Something is sitting next to him.

It has no features, no eyes, no mouth—just a silhouette, dark and twisted. It moves like ink spreading through water, its form shifting with each second.

And then, it tilts its head.

Like the corpse did. Like the shadow in the alley.

Like him.

Hex scrambles backward, hands skidding against wet stone. But as he moves

So does the shadow.

It doesn't stand. It uncoils.

Stretching.

Unfolding.

Becoming taller.

Hex's chest tightens. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what's coming, but his body does.

His veins burn.

His lungs freeze.

And then

It speaks.

"Do you remember yet?"

The words crawl beneath his skin, burrow into his bones.

Hex shakes his head.

The shadow takes a step forward.

The world flickers.

For a split second, Hex isn't in the alley anymore.

For a split second

He's somewhere else.

A room.

Candlelit.

Claustrophobic.

Stinking of burnt hair and something rotten.

A figure slumped over a table, quill scratching against parchment.

Blood drips from its fingers, staining the contract beneath its hands.

Hex's hands.

His own hands.

A voice—his own voice—whispers:

"Take it. Sign it. Give it away. Give it all away."

A blade flashes.

Hex blinks—

—and he's back in the alley.

Gasping.

The shadow is right in front of him now.

And when it speaks again, it speaks in his voice.

"You did this."

Then

Something grabs his ankle.

He barely has time to look down before the corpse yanks him into the blood.

The alley vanishes.

The world drowns in red.

-------

Hex wakes up.

Again.

But this time

The corpse is already standing.