"Food, water, sleep...When life is reduced to only these things,survival takes on a different meaning.
My name is Aren.Or at least, that's what they think.
This story begins where everyone forgets who they really are."
I looked down at the muddy water flowing between the cobblestones.A piece of bread slipped through my fingers...
Looked like a miracle—and fell into the deepest pit of despair.
My stomach... felt like a coiled serpent twisting inside me.
I don't know how many days had passed.How many nights I hadn't slept.How many dreams had turned into nightmares...
I don't remember.
I just ran.
I ran.
And I hid.
But after a while, hiding became as hard as breathing.Everywhere I looked, I saw danger.Every shadow carried a pair of watching eyes.
I hid behind an abandoned barrel by the city wall.One more day lost behind the crumbling market stalls.
It was a dull, silent, merciless night.Even the sky had turned its back on me.No stars. Nothing.
And in that darkness...someone was watching me.
A sudden chill rose inside me.I felt a breath on my back.I sensed a presence in the shadows.
I jumped, purely by reflex.I ran.
But my lungs couldn't keep up.The air in my throat was choking with each step.
At the end of the alley, I crashed into someone.
"Sorry... s-sorry," I gasped.
But the person only stared.
Expressionless.
Cold.
It wasn't the face of a human.It was the face of a beast watching its prey.
His eyes...they weren't the eyes of people.They were the eyes of something that never forgets what it hunts.
What happened next...
- - - - -
When I woke up... I couldn't breathe.My eyes were open, but the darkness hadn't changed.Everything felt like a grey void.
It was damp.
Cold.
The air pressing against me felt like mud pouring into my lungs.
I tried to move.
Strange sounds came from my body.Like rusted gears turning inside me.
My arms were numb.My legs trembled uncontrollably.
Water dripped from the walls.The smell of moss mixed with the stench of rotting bones.
Each breath... was like bargaining with death.
Something slid past my feet.
Wet.
Slippery.
It crawled across the floor.
Another creature on my back.Maybe a shelled thing.
But every hair on my body stood on end.
And then...
It arrived.
A thin, long, muscular snake.Its scales gleamed white.Its eyes, red and striped with black, glowed in the dark.
It crept closer.
It sniffed.
And then—
SNAP!
Its fangs sank into my arm.
I wanted to die before I could even feel the pain.
The venom... poured into my veins like molten glass.My shivers turned to paralysis.
But suddenly...
Warmth.
It began in my chest.Then it spread—to my eyes, burning.
I gasped, like an animal growling from deep in its lungs.I reached out.
Grabbed the snake by the throat.Squeezed.
Its eyes bulged.
And then...
I tore into its flesh with my teeth.
It tasted metallic.Bitter and powerful.But me...
I was alive.
I had killed the snake.
But what I didn't know—was that it had given me something.
A piece of itself.A force.
Something... had leaked into me.
Did time pass?
A day? An hour?
I don't know.
I drank the filthy, mossy water.It made me sick.I threw up.
But I smiled through the vomit.Because I was still alive.
I scratched at the walls with my nails.I carved a name: "Aren."
Then I scratched it out.
I wrote: "No One."
And then I erased it again.
Because now, I didn't even know who I was.
Footsteps...
The door opened.
Light.
Too much of it.
It burned my eyes.I lifted my hands to cover them.
A voice...
"Are you okay?"
A child.Around my age.Maybe older.
Others stood behind him.Lined up.Silent.
Staring at me.
They wore the same clothes.They had no masks—but their eyes… had built walls.
One stepped forward.Held out a hand.
"You're here now," they said."Forget the past.Forget your name.Everything starts over here."
In that moment, I thought...
"Aren," I whispered in my head.
But I didn't speak.
Because even Aren—whoever that was—was a mystery now.
This was only the beginning.
I didn't know what tests were coming.But with the power that snake left inside me—
I opened my eyes toward the light for the very first time.