Chapter 0: Prologue

This shouldn’t be happening, not again.

He felt the cold surface beneath him, realizing he had collapsed face-first onto the ground. Fatigue had drained him of any remaining strength, leaving only the sensation of cold. No warmth remained in his body; he was freezing, and the ground beneath him felt even colder.

With immense effort, he managed to open his eyes, noticing the wet ground and snowflakes falling around him, one landing just in front of his face. Winter had come.

He didn’t understand what was happening. He tried to call out to his mother, but as he opened his mouth, a large amount of blood poured out. He coughed and vomited blood, which foamed up around the corners of his mouth and dripped from his nose. The brown ground turned red. Puddles of blood formed.

The amount of blood required to form puddles was not small. However, he had only coughed up so much blood that it wouldn’t even fill a tiny mug.

Was his body pierced by something? A hole driven, perhaps?

Thinking this, he mustered what little strength he had to move his head and eyes a little, to spot anything at all. Just then, he noticed...

He had been pinned to the ground with spears that pierced both his arms and his abdomen. He couldn’t move his arms, and when he tried, he felt excruciating pain. Even then, he wasn’t big enough to create such large puddles...

The realization dawned on him when he finally noticed, for what seemed like a disaster caused by him.

His head tilted under its own weight, and the first thing he noticed was a corpse. It belonged to Elisha, the female human who was his friend, mother, and owner.

She was his guardian and caretaker. Just like how humans reared dogs, she reared him, a lizard.

However, right now, what remained of her was her half-torn torso and detached head. Her face seemed quite clear to him despite the dark night and what little light the flames of the torches could offer—fear was engraved on it.

Both her eyes were wide open, her pupils constricted. Her mouth was agape. She was scared, afraid just before her final moments.

Who killed her in such a horrible way? Half of her body seemed missing, as if devoured by someone. The rest only became the source of the blood puddles in which he was bathing at the moment.

There were several other bodies further from here. He tilted his head to his left now, noticing another pile of bodies… They were the source of all this blood.

His eyes widened as his foggy mind seemingly cleared. Memories resurfaced, and he finally remembered.

But unlike the initial confusion, a smile sat on his face.

He was nonchalant about it, as if he didn’t care.

Will I go back again?

He raised his head knowingly, this time staring at the humans further ahead with full intent.

Boots made of steel formed ripples in the pool of blood before his eyes. Just a tilt of his head, and he noticed many similar boots, each forming a ripple of their own—there were many humans nearby, the ones who had killed him.

One of the soldiers walked towards him while wielding an axe.

Then the soldier swung the axe down with brutal precision, chopping off his head in an instant.

And now, everything will pause.

Time froze. The instant the axe cleaved through his neck, severing his head from his body, everything came to a halt. His consciousness began to waver, but before it could fade entirely, the world around him stilled. 

His detached head, defying the laws of physics, drifted back toward his neck, reattaching seamlessly. The axe reversed its course, moving backward with unnatural precision. The soldier who had swung it stepped back in reverse. Ripples in the blood puddle began to retract, as if time itself was being rewound. His own actions, the slight tilting of his head, all played out in reverse, undoing what had just transpired. 

The soldiers who had pierced his body with spears walked closer, their movements unnatural and jerky. They lifted the spears out of him. The wounds that had formed began to seal, the blood flowing back into his body.

The soldiers then moved backward, their expressions shifting from relief to anger to urgency in a disconcerting sequence. They returned to their original positions, standing once more with the group, as if nothing had happened.

The pile of corpses nearby began to change.

Blood flowed backward, re-entering their bodies. The soil and pebbles, once drenched in blood, returned to their original state.

The corpses regained their lost life, their breaths returning first, then gradually becoming heavier.

He got up and moved to his right, closer to one of the corpses. His mouth moved automatically to where there had been nothing—the flesh that had already been eaten.

His stomach bulged, and then a sensation of vomiting came as a large part of the stomach emerged from his mouth. It seemed undigested and normal.

The man didn’t scream as the air flowed back into his lungs instead of escaping. Inspiration and expiration reversed in that moment.

The belly reattached.

The wound sealed.

Finally, the man looked completely normal, except for the lingering fear in his eyes.

The process repeated with every other victim, the events playing out in reverse as if all the damage was being undone.

The supposed corpses began to move again, while he walked back into the small hut where he had been living. The door remained open as his mother walked backward, looking at him.

Her nervous smile faded to a stoic expression as she walked back to the kitchen...

She then made her way to the living room where the vase was present - it looked great. Then the vase broke.

The world had been reset.

He stood in front of the vase as dirt and mud dyed his face and scales.

Azu wanted to die.