Roy gasped for air, his body jolting awake.
The wind howled around him, biting cold, as his body plummeted. The ground below seemed miles away, a blur of brown and green. No matter how he twisted and turned, no matter how he screamed, the fall was inevitable. He hit the earth, bones shattering like brittle wood under the force of the impact.
Darkness.
Roy’s eyes snapped open again, but this time he was lying in the street. The steady hum of traffic passed by, oblivious. He barely had time to register his surroundings before a motorcycle tore through the air. Its rider never saw him, and the wheel of the bike crushed his skull, the sickening pop echoing in the air as his brain matter splattered onto the pavement.
Darkness.
He found himself back on his feet, standing in a crowded subway. People brushed past him, and for a moment, he thought he might be okay. Then, with a high-pitched screech of metal, the train derailed. It tore through the station, twisting and tearing everything in its path. A steel beam impaled him through the chest, pushing through his ribs with a force that splintered his bones like dry twigs. His blood sprayed across the station, and the world went black.
Darkness.
This time, Roy didn’t even have the luxury of a moment of peace before it happened. The roof above him buckled and collapsed in a pile of concrete and rubble. His legs were crushed under the weight, his body pinned as a massive slab of stone came down, grinding his torso into the ground. His lungs crushed, his blood pooling beneath him as he choked on the suffocating weight.
Darkness.
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The next death was quick but agonising. He was standing at the edge of a cliff, looking out at the endless ocean, when the ground beneath him cracked. The cliffside shattered, and he fell into the water below. The current pulled him under, the force of it snapping his limbs in unnatural directions. His spine cracked under the pressure as the cold darkness of the ocean consumed him.
Darkness.
In the next life, he was back in a high-rise building. The glass windows shattered, and the floor beneath him crumbled. A steel beam impaled him through the stomach as he fell, the jagged edge slicing through his organs before he hit the ground. His body sprawled out, twitching as blood pooled beneath him.
Darkness.
He couldn’t remember how many lives had passed. How many deaths? The number blurred together. It wasn’t just the pain that weighed him down—it was the constant, unbearable dread. He couldn't escape it. It was like being chased by a shadow that, no matter how fast he ran, would always catch him.
Another death. A train crash.
Darkness.
Another death. A bullet to the head.
Darkness.
Another death. Struck by lightning.
Darkness.
The pattern was endless. Over and over. A relentless spiral of torment.
Roy’s body jerked back to life for the 100th time, his hand instinctively reaching for his throat. His vision swam, blurry with blood, as he stood in a dark alley. A figure appeared, masked and looming. He had no time to react before the knife plunged into his stomach, the blade twisting with agonising precision as his insides were torn apart. His legs buckled beneath him, and he collapsed to the ground, choking on his own blood.
Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness.
He didn’t know how much longer he could take this. The endless cycle, the horror. His sanity felt like it was hanging by a thread, unravelling with every new death.
As his body hit the ground yet again, Roy’s eyes closed, but this time—this time he didn’t flinch.
He stopped fighting. Stopped resisting.
The endless stream of deaths—their grotesque brutality—no longer fazed him. He had been reborn a hundred times, each death more brutal than the last, each more horrific, until his soul had been stripped raw.
And yet, he kept returning.
Roy let the darkness take him, but this time it was different.
