Kim drifted through the mourners as though tethered only by the weight of his grief—a phantom moving among the living. Each whispered “I’m sorry” and thin voice of consotion washed over him in muted waves, incapable of reaching the raw ache lodged beneath his ribs. The minister’s measured words about the fragile boundary between life and death rolled like distant thunder, echoing off the walls of his skull yet vanishing before they could touch his heart.
He found himself lingering at the far edge of the gathering, shoulders squared but rigid, eyes fixed on the polished mahogany coffin that bore the st vestiges of a past he could not yet release. A soft breeze stirred the white ribbon draped across it, carrying the scent of fresh lilies that mingled with the tang of unshed tears around him.
Then he saw her: a bck cat perched atop the marble steps, fur as dark as midnight and eyes two polished gems that pierced his soul with their unblinking stare. In that moment, the hush of the funeral deepened into something almost holy, as though the world had conspired to hold its breath in reverence. Those eyes were impossible—familiar beyond reason—and Kim’s chest tightened as memory and longing collided in a single, devastating heartbeat.
Fshes of ughter beneath cherry blossoms, of secret midnight promises, and the gentle brush of her hand against his flooded his mind. He pressed his palm to his mouth, taste of bile and loss sour on his tongue, and whispered into the hush, “There’s no point in living without you.”
The world warped around him. He felt the taut knot in his chest loosen only enough for him to raise one foot—then another—onto the cold stone railing. In the stunned silence of the mourners’ awe, he leaned forward. For one fragile heartbeat, he hung between two worlds: the st echo of her ughter and the void waiting below. Then he let go.
He hit the water with a bone-jarring crack of cold that stole his breath and sent shockwaves through every nerve ending. For a moment, there was only darkness. Then he surfaced, coughing swamp water and spitting half-digested reeds. All that remained of the bright sky was a sickly palette of greenish light, diffused through the tangles of rotting vegetation above him.
His lungs burned. The stench was overwhelming: fermented algae, drowned insects, something acrid and chemical that stung his nose and lodged deep in his throat. Each shallow breath was a torture; each movement drew him deeper into the mucky underyer of the marsh, where sludge clung like living sinew to his limbs.
He tried to scream, but the water stole his voice. Panic fred in his chest and everything went bck—until a soft, almost gentle whisper curled through the back of his mind: “Breathe. I’m here… let me guide you.”
His eyes flickered open at the sound—an impossible, childlike voice as clear as daylight. And then, as though summoned by that quiet command, a translucent interface shimmered into existence: pale glyphs hovering above the water, glowing symbols that beckoned him toward the shore.
Every drag of his arms was a battle against the swamp’s sucking grip. He felt the slimy tendrils of mud sliding up his calves, felt the cold creep over his jeans, heard the awful squelch of each inch gained. The HUD glowed faintly in his vision, its arrows pulsating with quiet insistence: forward… now… reach…
At st, his fingers found firmer earth. His knees followed. With a final, ragged heave, he burst free of the mire and colpsed onto the bank, mud spping in thick clumps against his arms and chest. He y there, panting, every inch of his soaked coat weighed down by rot and slime. The sweet sting of victory turned sour when the bile hit his throat again and he retched into the muck.
“Thank you,” he rasped, voice cracking. “But how…?”
Silence. Then the faintest rustle from the reeds.
He pushed himself up on trembling elbows. Something moved in the matted vegetation—a dark shape unduting toward him. The swamp had given birth to horrors; this was one of them.
The snake emerged: a monstrous serpent whose scales glistened with neon-green droplets that hissed as they spshed onto the mud. Its length was obscene, each loop coiling with baleful calm. As it slid closer, Kim felt a visceral recognition: this was kin to his own gift of corruption, a living testament to the twisted power he both feared and craved.
“Focus,” the voice murmured again, and the HUD’s runes fred. Pain bloomed in Kim’s chest as heat coalesced at his throat, then swept outward in a wave of bck agony. The serpent’s eyes snapped open, and in an instant its flesh blistered and cracked—scales dropping away in crunchy shards, muscle turning to ash.
Kim stepped back only to see the body tremble and twitch, joints creaking like rusted hinges. Even death had no cim over it. He watched, horrified, as a final twitch sent slime-coated vertebrae skittering across the mud.
Shaking, Kim slumped against a rotting log, chest heaving. Around him, the swamp was alive with the aftermath of that chemical fury: reeds spshed with sickly neon puddles, insects floating bloated in murky drifts, the air thick with the hiss of poison.
His gaze followed a rusted, corroded pipe that arched from the undergrowth, spouting an unending cascade of fluorescent waste. The acids sizzled where they hit the bank, eating holes in the earth, twisting life into grotesque mockeries. He recognized that smell—industrial, rancid, a toxin he’d tasted in nightmares.
This was man’s doing. Somewhere upstream, a factory poured death into nature’s veins… and from that foul alchemy, abominations like the snake were born. A cold knot of dread coiled in Kim’s gut: this pce was a crucible of corruption, a mirror to his own dark power.
He forced himself to stand, boots squelching in sludge. Pushing aside hanging vines, he saw the skyline open up ahead. A monolithic tower soared above the desotion, crowned by bzing neon letters: IMPERIAL PLAZA.
Its chrome spires pierced the toxic haze, each facet reflecting flickers of neon that danced across the sky. It looked like a cathedral of modernity—an invitation and a threat all at once. The air was charged with static, as though the building itself hummed with hidden energy.
Questions surged in his mind: Why here? Who could build such a pce amid this poisoned wastend? What secrets y behind those neon gates? But the voice in his head was already guiding him toward the city gates.
“Enter the city. Find shelter. I will expin everything once you’re safe.”
Kim swallowed hard, tasting metal and mud on his tongue. He pressed a hand to his chest, where his heart smmed against his ribs like a war drum. Steeling himself against the acrid wind and the weight of unspoken truths, he took a step forward—then another—toward Imperial Pza, toward the answers that would bind him forever to this world of corruption and light.
