JUNE 17th, 2014.

Black.
Surrounded by a void yet again, Seth was only accompanied by his thoughts.

I… died again. Again. I died again. I died again. I died again. I died…

He holds his head between his hands, falling to his knees as they splosh against a flooded surface, as if the entire world was a mixture of pure black ink and water. The puddles rippled around him, sending themselves throughout this flat, silent world.

I can... feel my own body this time… but it’s not the same.

Tick.
Tick.
Tick.

Seth hadn’t noticed the clock postponed in the middle of the void above and in front of him. It sat there, or maybe stood there, suspended in space. Despite the nature of this world, it kept ticking away.

Tick.
Tick.
Tick.

The clock had no numbers, just black marks for each one that would normally appear. However, it had all three clock hands one would expect out of a, well, clock.

“So. You were killed again.”

A voice, seemingly coming from everywhere initially, sends an intense chill down Seth’s body, burrowing itself into his pores. This voice, though, was familiar to him. The crackly aspect of it, the roughness, deepness… it sounded more monstrous than human. Despite not knowing the direction, he had a sickening feeling. One he didn’t wish to confirm, but felt like he had no choice but to.

IT was behind him.

Before he could even turn, his body sensed it, and he felt the ripples of what made up the ground against his feet.

Something had moved, just behind him.

Tick.
Tick.
Tick.

Letting his instincts take over, Seth turned his torso to look at what he felt so threatened by. The sight he was met with was burned into his mind for the rest of his life.

Calling IT “humanoid” would be mostly accurate, but would also be an insult to how grotesque IT was. Its elongated body, still somehow not triggering a sense of the uncanny valley, yet feeling unnatural and wrong simultaneously. Its arms were longer than an average human’s, and spikes made of sharp ivory-esque bone broke through the elbows’ skin as if they were natural weapons. Its legs followed suit, and the knees presented similar bones emerging from them as well. It was only a head or so taller than Seth, but its nature made it seem much, much larger.

The real disgust was its skin, if one could call it that.

It appeared as if someone had taken the fabric of space, stained it white, and wrapped a corpse with it four times over. Covering every aspect of it, sealing it as if it was meant to be mummified. It had no face, though the “skin” was so tight that Seth could visibly see the indentation of two eye sockets. Its mouth, though covered, was much larger than a normal human’s.

It was thin, but not abnormally so.

It was lanky, yet, if you gave a human the same lankiness, no one would care.

No, it was all of these traits combined together that made Seth feel like he swallowed his own soul out of a fear so burning cold that he thought he would break into a sweat.

And it was making its way closer to him, with each step more subdued than the last. Its head was tilted, cocked as if it hadn’t seen a human face-to-face in a century, even a millennium.

Tick.
Tick.
Tick.

After comprehending what he had seen to the best of his ability, Seth repeated the one thing in his mind that almost everyone and everything who’d ever seen IT like this had said.

This thing… should not exist.

Seth backs up slowly, his feet scraping the liquid making up the floor backwards. Unable to hide his weary, terrified body language, he cautiously speaks up.

“What… are you…?”

It stands still, cocking its head. Still staring at him. After its “eyebrows” squint, shrinking its eye sockets downwards, it responds.

“Guess.”

The confidence randomly emanating from this thing in front of Seth was incredibly off-putting, adding even more to the unnatural feeling he got from seeing it.

“...I formed a contract with you the other day.”

“You did.” It responds, with an unimpressed tone of voice.

It doesn’t seem hostile, though that unmistakable sense of danger still lies under his skin.

“Then, what are you?”

It quickly rushes toward him, stopping just before his face before he can react. Its missing eyes stare into Seth’s examining him. After a moment, it slinks backward, raising its back from where it had leaned over.

“You’re not as sharp as I thought. First of all…” It trails off, raising its long hand to elbow height with its clawed index finger raised. “...I am a spirit. To most, I’m known as a god of time. My name…”

It continues to intensely stare at Seth.

“...is Yggdrasil.”

Yggdrasil…? Seth thinks to himself. The World Tree from Norse mythology?

“Similar,” Yggdrasil responds, able to hear Seth’s internal thoughts. “But humanity is far from understanding the workings of the spiritual world.”

Yggdrasil sounds slightly annoyed by the comparison, as if it was insulting.

“Second of all,” Yggdrasil continues, not allowing Seth to speak, “I called you here to review the terms of our contract.”

Seth, still very uncomfortable with all of this, slightly raises his eyebrow in confusion.

“We’ve been allotted a special type of contract due to my… circumstances. In return for our lives, there’s a signer we have to kill.”

“And what is a… ‘signer’?” Seth asks, slowly becoming more comfortable, despite barely knowing anything. If he has one irrefutable talent, it’s the ability to adapt.

“...Humans who reach the lowest point of their lives are given the ability, consciously or not, to form a contract with a spirit. Those humans are known as ‘signers’.”

The lowest point of their lives…?

“For example, when you committed that sin—”

“I get it now.” Seth cuts Yggdrasil off, staring into his non-eyes. His voice drops, taking on a much more focused and tense tone.

“Right… That’s a sensitive memory for you.”

“...Who is this ‘signer’, and why do we have to kill him?” Seth asks, ignoring Yggdrasil’s observation and getting straight to the point.

“Their identity is unknown. As for why we have to kill them… only the Council knows.”

“The ‘Council’...?”

“I can’t tell you who or what they are. You’ll likely figure it out yourself.”

This doesn’t help at all.

“Then let me give you a warning.” Yggdrasil takes on a lower tone, cocking its head in the opposite direction, still staring lifelessly at Seth and slightly annoyed by his retort.

“Die too many times, Seth… and you’ll lose what makes you human.”

“...What? What do you—”

Before Seth could finish, the void around him turned a pure white and Yggdrasil’s form had disappeared before him.


. . . . .


“...Ey? …You… man?”

Seth’s hearing and vision are blurry as bright lights attack him from every direction while he tries to maintain his balance, stumbling with his hands to his head.

“Are you okay, man?” an unknown voice curiously and worryingly asks him.

Seth’s vision and hearing slowly come back to him, until he realizes he’s in the middle of a staring crowd on a sidewalk. The street looks vaguely familiar at first glance.

More importantly, however, a young man with a punk-ish outfit and combed-back blonde hair had his hand on his left shoulder, looking over at him with a confused expression.

“Hey, are you alright?” the man says, squinting at Seth.

Seth regains his balance, removing his hand from his head and twisting his torso to look at the man.

“Yeah… sorry. I guess I… didn’t get enough sleep,” he responds, awkwardly putting his other hand behind his head in a show of casual admittance of guilt.

“Been there… take care of yourself. See ya.” the young man says, walking away as the crowd around him goes back to their daily activities, as if nothing had ever happened.

I’m back again… what did that thing mean by that…? He thinks to himself, searching around him. Just then, he notices the street he’s on.

Wait, this is… 32nd Mota…? My apartment should be…!

Beginning to sprint against the crowd, he runs down a block of sidewalk, desperate to find the answer to his question. Almost tripping over multiple times, he keeps apologizing to passersby for bumping into them before turning a corner to his right.
Recognizing it, he quickly looks ninety degrees to his left. In the distance, a building that clearly stood five stories tall confirms his suspicions as it enters the reflection of his eyes.
They widened, half in surprise, but to an extent he had suspected this would be the case.

I don’t just escape from death. This… isn’t my world.

It was his apartment, but…