Before They Die

Without a word, Oliver marched toward the gate. The figure he had seen earlier—the faceless shape beneath the doorway—seemed to retreat, step by step, as he approached, until it melted into the wall and vanished.

"Huh…" he exhaled sharply. Watching the figure dissolve into stone, he chuckled nervously, then turned back for a final glance at the bed he had awoken on.

"Wait…" his eyes narrowed. "I think there's another door beside the screen."

His gaze shifted, catching the edge of something.

He approached the door the figure had stood at its doorwar, hesitant but drawn, and opened it.

What met him was not a hallway.

Not an exit.

But a void.

No floor. No bottom. Only a pit—black, endless, hungry.

An abyss so vast its height and width vanished into shadow. Its depth couldn't be measured. Only felt.

Felt like a whisper beneath the skin.

"So…" Oliver leaned out slightly, peering down. "Who… or what was standing here?"

He tilted his head, trying to find a platform, a ledge, anything that could've supported the figure. There was nothing.

He shut the door, heart racing, then turned and made his way back toward the door beside the first bed His bed.

But the room had changed.

All the other beds… empty.

The mutilated bodies were gone.

Except one.

Only one bed remained occupied now.

Something in the air shifted.

The silence was heavier.

The walls seemed to breathe.

His pace slowed.

Each step felt fragile, like walking through the tension of a dream right before waking—or falling.

All he wanted was to reach that final door. The one he had forgotten the moment he awoke. The one that hadn't yet lied.

He passed one bed. Then another. The silence deepened. The air thickened. His skin prickled with unseen static.

Only one bed left.

And something—someone—lay upon it.

He reached out, wrapping his fingers around the cold metal pipe that framed the bed.

The body moved.

Just a tremor. But it was enough.

His breath caught. His eyes stretched wide. His heart pounded like a drum of war.

Then the upper torso snapped upright.

At once, a chorus of screams exploded around him—loud, echoing, human and not.

He clung to the bedframe.

The air itself turned to needles. With every breath, it tore at him. His nose bled. The red drops fell onto the bed.

That's when he saw them.

Eyes.

They formed—one by one—on the body.

There was no head at first. But the blood soaked into the fabric, and from it, bone rose, skin shaped, and a face grew.

Oliver couldn't move.

Couldn't speak.

Even his heartbeat felt suspended, like the world had paused for this moment.

Then the head turned.

The eyes locked onto him.

And it spoke.

"Oliver… you're 50% through your first transformation. Complete the remaining 50% before they die."

At first, the words made no sense—muffled, distorted, hollow.

But the moment it spoke his name, everything clicked.

Meaning roared in. Urgency followed.

And death… waited.

"Hold him! Hold his legs tight! Hey, boy—come grab your friend's hands before he breaks my ribs!"

The room exploded with panic. Bodies swarmed in white—except for one man, gaunt and sweating, wearing nothing but a stained singlet.

The bed shook violently.

It slammed against the floor with terrifying rhythm, bones against steel. The force was monstrous.

Two men clung to Oliver's left leg.

Three gripped the right.

And Leo—face pale, arms trembling—held his friend's hands.

"Hold him tight! If it takes over, we amputate before he wakes!"

The words hit Leo like a hammer.

He squeezed harder. Gritted his teeth.

A man in glasses—a medic, maybe—wasn't so lucky.

Each jolt of the bed smashed it against his waist, bruising him brutally.

But he never let go.

He plunged a syringe deep into Oliver's neck.

A red liquid.

Time slowed.

The violent thrashing stopped… but Oliver's skin still trembled.

Twitching. Rippling. As if something moved beneath it.

Leo stared.

This wasn't Oliver anymore.

Not really.

Maybe it was the liquid.

Maybe it was what he saw.

Maybe it was something else.

Since that night Leo left.

Since he went off with the girls.

Everything had changed.

Then—

The ring.

It vibrated on Oliver's middle finger, humming like a tuning fork from hell.

One of the men on the right leg noticed it.

He shivered.

Eyes wide.

Mind snapped.

He bolted.

But he never reached the door.

Something slammed him against the wall—a force no one saw.

His body crumpled.

Hard.

Then silence.

The rest froze.

Fear painted their faces pale.

Breaths shallow as an ant's tunnel.

"WHO THE FUCK IS HE?!"

One of them screamed, voice cracking.

The others didn't wait.

They ran.

But fate had a plan.

The first reached the door.

And the ground beneath him…

collapsed.

He dropped into the abyss.

No scream.

Just gone.

The second man clawed onto the edge.

Held on.

"NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS—I WON'T BE PART OF THIS HELL!"

He hauled himself up.

Then—it began.

Oliver…

He didn't rise.

He floated.

Eyes blazing like twin suns.

The man at the door—trapped.

The same door that once swung open with a toddler's touch

now refused to budge even with a grown man's fists.

Then he saw it.

It.

Coming for him.

It didn't walk.

It didn't crawl.

It moved through him.

His eyes were devoured—gone—as it passed.

Then it burst from his nose into the air—

spinning, seething—

and plunged straight into his mouth.

His chest swelled.

Bloated.

Then—

Boom.

The swell burst.

A black pen—short, thick, and glistening with blood—dropped to the floor.

It clicked once.

And silence returned.

"I think it has already taken over. I'm sorry... there's nothing we can do."

The man in lenses locked onto Leo—eyes wet with unspilled tears—and delivered the truth. The moment the words faded, all the lights snuffed out.

The two men holding Leo's left leg began convulsing, their bodies thrashing violently. Tables upended, chairs skidded, equipment slammed into them like thrown stones.

The bespectacled man lunged for the knife rack—scrambling, shoving aside trays of instruments—but the amputation blade was missing.

Then Oliver's gaze locked onto him.

A mistake.

The lead surgeon—the one who was supposed to save him—was impaled by the very machete meant for the operation.

His scream flooded the room.

The other two men, still shaking, knew now: There was no escape.

"I wish I'd never been part of this!"

As the words left his lips, his skin began to peel away from his flesh.