"...wake up."

Usually, I don't wake up this easily, but that voice was echoing in my head. I opened my eyes, and as I stood up, I started looking around. I was in a place completely white as if someone had painted a whole room in that colour, but, as soon as my eyes and mind woke up completely, I realised that there weren't walls...that place seemed to go on and on.

"You're finally awake."

I turned my gaze to which direction the voice was coming from, and froze up with fear. Before me, there was this skinny girl, who looked to be 16 years old, and the only clothes she had was a white dress, which reaches the knees. The skin was pale like a corpse, the short hairs were white, the eyes were black and lifeless, the mouth was sealed with a metal wire and the entire face was hollow. The throat was cut, and blood flowed without stopping, the same for the abdomen that was torn apart. The only things that didn't look dead were the hands, the skin colour there looked more like that of a living person, but my eyes widened when he turned her palm toward me. There were faces on both hands, that were changing continuously; I could notice the skin that was moving at every single change, it was disgusting.

I wanted to scream: "What the hell are you??!!", but nothing. I was too scared and my body wouldn't collaborate.

Those faces were looking at me and started speaking, without stopping changing.

"Don't panic, I'm not here to hurt you."

That voice seemed to belong to a girl and it was somehow relaxing, the complete opposite of that appearance. I slowly calmed down, and my heart, which until 2 ago was beating fast, started to calm down too.

That creature started speaking again.

"Now, tell me. Do you remember who you are?"

I opened my mouth to speak but I stopped immediately...I couldn't remember anything.

"What's wrong? Did you forget everything?" the creature said.

I slowly nodded.

"I see. This explains why your body is in this state now." the faces said with a little smile.

"What do you mean-" I looked at my arms and they were slowly disappearing.

At this point, I didn't know what to feel. I, a person without a single memory, was disappearing without knowing anything and it seemed my emotions were also disappearing.

At this point, I asked the only questions could think of was:

"Why am I here? What is this place? And what the hell are you?"

That creature said with a calm voice:

"I’m surprised you still don’t understand…you are dead."

"...how-" I was going to ask something else, but that creature interrupted me.

“And this is the Realm of the End, a place for people that can’t reincarnate because they did something so bad that they don’t deserve it. Just like you.”

I looked around and said: 

“Why am I the only one here?”

The creature with a big smile on both hands replied with a different voice, a ringing one, like a little boy’s:

“Because you are the worst human being ever. Congratulations!”

And at this point, I was left speechless and confused. All of this doesn’t feel real.

The right hand seemed curious and asked:

“Are you confused? Do you want to know how you died?” 

“Yes, please!! All of this seems so fucking unbelievable!” I instantly replied, without a second thought.

And the left hand said, still using that calm voice, that was becoming irritating:

“Unfortunately, you can’t know that…at least for now.”

“And when will yo-” before I could finish my question I fell to the ground, hitting my face against the floor. My feet had disappeared, I was so concentrated on what was happening that I didn’t notice they were vanishing.

The creature chuckled.

“That was funny. That’s right, you don’t have much time left, so let’s make a contract.” the right hand said.

“A contract?” I said after raising my head just to look at the hands. That ringing voice was starting to annoy me.

“You’ll get a new life, but it will be different this time, you will not be a worthless human anymore. You’ll become a Nylict.” the faces said, and this time, the eyes of the “dead” girl were looking at me.

That freaked me out a lot. I tried to not look at those dead eyes and asked at the faces: “W-What is a Nylict?”

“To make it simple, you will get powers, many of them from a god like myself. They will be useful if you want to find the truth about how you died.” the hands said, while the dead girl’s eyes were still looking at me.

“A-and what would you gain from this? S-since this is a contract, I’m sure I’ll have to do something.” I said, while my legs almost disappeared completely, the same for my forearms.

“You’ll discover that soon.” the hands said with indifference this time, they probably started to be tired of all my questions.

“...and what if I refuse?” as soon as I asked this, I could feel something was changing in the air.

“...Let me show you what would happen in that case:” the hands spoke with indifferences.

The girl started walking towards me, meanwhile, a second pair of arms grew out of her body and as soon as she was close enough, she bent down and put the new hands on my eyes.

“E-Ehy! What…” I started to feel lightheaded “...are you…doing…” my eyes were slowly closing and I was slowly losing my senses 

“Now, have fun.” after saying that, the faces started laughing maniacally. That’s the last thing I heard before losing my senses. 

—--------

I woke up again, I don’t know for how much time I was knocked out and this time I was in a room. I looked around and it was really small. The walls were all white, there was a window, a narrow space for the toilet, a sink and a shelf. For that little bathroom, the floor was made of wood, while for the rest of the cell it was “tatami” (traditional Japanese indoor flooring) and there was a rolled “futon”(a type of Japanese bed). Both my shirt and my pants were light blues. 

I could hear someone lamenting from the other side of the wall… “am I in some kind of prison? Maybe, this is my actual life and all of that was a dream…but I still can’t remember anything.” I thought.

After some hour, the cell’s metal door opened and a prison guard entered in. He was Japanese and seemed to be over 50 years old and he seemed very tired. I was sitting with my back against the wall.

“It’s your time, £&$%m£&£l-san.” the guard spoke in English, but I couldn’t understand one word, “was that supposed to be my name?” I thought, but it wasn’t my main concern now.

“Sorry, but it’s my time for what?” I asked confused by what was happening.

“For your execution.” the guard said. “Did you forget why you are here?”

“yeah...can you…remind me what I did?” I asked, still confused and his reaction quickly changed. He was angry. His eyes were full of hatred and he was gritting his teeth.

“Are you joking?! You killed them! You killed my fucking family and many more people!” he shouted out loud, full of rage.

After that another prison guard arrived in the cell, he seemed much younger than the other one, maybe he was in his 30s. He started to speak with his colleague in Japanese. It seemed the younger one was trying to calm down the older one, that was still angry.

“I killed many people and now I’m on death row…why can’t I remember anything..maybe that wasn’t a dream and that monster was real..?” I was lost in my thoughts and I didn’t notice that two prison guards stopped talking.

I stopped thinking when they both took me by the arms and dragged me out of the cell. My heart started beating fast, I started sweating, my breathing was heavy and started screaming while they were dragging me through that corridor: “PLEASE PLEASE! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”. 

The guards didn’t consider what I was saying. I was panicking more and more, I started moving my arms to free myself from their grasp, and I was trying to keep my feet firm on the floor to slow the walk of the guards, but it was all useless. I continued to scream in vain and after some minutes we arrived at the execution chamber.

There was a rope hanging from the ceiling and was tied to four rings, two on the wall and two on the floor, they were keeping the rope taut but not too much.

At that point, I stopped screaming and I was slowly accepting my fate. While the guards were helping me to reach the rope by using some stairs, some memories started flashing before my eyes, they weren’t my memories of this life but different ones, and in all of them, I died in horrible ways. I was seeing them clearly and at the same time, I remembered the conversation with that monster and thought aloud “So this is what happens if I don’t accept…eternal suffering…”

“Eh? What the hell are you saying?” the old guard said and he put the rope around my neck

After that, I took a deep breath and screamed the best I could: “YOU! MONSTER OR GOD, WHATEVER YOU ARE! I ACCEPT YOUR OFFER! I ACCEPT YOUR POWERS! JUST…” I started crying “...let me live…in peace…” I expressed while sobbing.

There were some seconds of silence in the room. The first to break that silence was the old guard that was close to the stairs.

“...There is no god for you.” after saying that he kicked the stairs making them fall, and I instantly fell too. The last thing I heard was my neck breaking, and everything went black.

—-------

I suddenly woke up and I was sweating a lot. I looked around me, I was in a hospital, my arms were arms, legs and head were completely bandaged and I had a respiratory mask.

“What happened…? Is this real? Was that just a nightmare?” I thought and made a huge breath of relief. “I still don’t remember anything but considering how I’m bandaged I probably had an accident, and now I have amnesia…yeah, it must be this. I hope it’s this.” 

“Oh my- you woke up!” I heard someone say this. I looked at the door, there was a nurse and saying that she was surprised it wouldn’t be enough to describe her face.

“I-I have to call the doctor!” the nurse said before leaving.

After a minute, the nurse returned with the doctor, that started to check up on me. The doctor didn’t seem too old, at least in her 40s, while the nurse seemed to be in her 50s. Both of them looked like Japanese, that was my first thought because of the last “dream” I made. During that check-up, they removed my oxygen mask and started removing my bandages.

“It’s incredible. It looks like you have healed completely, but yesterday you were in a bad state..how is this possible?” the nurse said while removing the bandages.

“What…happened to me?” I asked.

“Don’t you remember? Three weeks ago there was an explosion in a building in the Saitama prefecture, the building collapsed and you got buried alive. When the rescuers brought you here, you were on the brink of death and stayed in a coma until now.” the doctor paused for a moment, thinking about something and then asked

“Do you remember something about yourself at least?”

I slowly shook my head

“Post-traumatic amnesia…” the nurse said.

The doctor nodded and said: “Yeah, it must be it.”, she then looked at me and continued: “usually it can last from 1 hour, for mild trauma, to over 24 hours for a severe one. In your case, you got some severe trauma but you healed extraordinarily well, so it could take some hours. Anyway, to be sure, you will remain here for a few days.”

“Understood.” I said and started thinking: “Maybe, this is seriously my life and not just another nightmare. I hope I can get my memories back soon.”

“Well, I’m off now. If you need anything you can call the nurses and remember to keep us updated once you get some memories back.” the doctor said before leaving the room.

—-------

25th October 2025

Five days passed since I woke up and at this point, I remember almost everything. My full name is Dai Ikari, I’m 25 years old and I was born here in Tokyo. My parents died in a car accident 10 years ago, while I was at my grandparents’ house. I lived with them for 8 years and after finding a stable job as an English teacher, I moved into a small apartment. The only thing I don’t remember is what I was doing before getting buried alive, but I guess that's normal.

But that was fine, all that mattered is that I was going to return home. I go to the bathroom of the hospital to fix my hair, they were black and not too long but still enough to become very messy, the eyes were grey(weird colour huh) and overall I was really skinny. While fixing the hair, I start seeing something in the mirror, a weird red light coming from the palm of my right hand. I looked at it and I saw a weird symbol forming before my eyes. It was a rhombus with a red pupil in the centre of it and the same thing appeared in my left hand. I was confused, but that confusion became fear almost immediately because I realized one thing, the “nightmare”, the monster or god, whatever that was, it was all real.

 “ So…this isn’t my life…? Was this the body of somebody else?” I thought with a lot of anxiety and fear. All of this was just absurd…and I had the feeling that it was just the start of something even worse.