"I entered a world of Abyss. I'm living in this world; it's so curious, so strange, yet unknown... like a dream that has become my life's nightmare."
The **Red Moon** was beginning to sink toward the horizon, its light thickening into a deep, bruised purple that stained the canopy of the screaming orchard. According to the digital timer flickering in the corner of my retina, I had been submerged in this living hell for nearly eighteen hours. Eighteen hours of running, bleeding, and watching the laws of nature bend into horrific new shapes. The sun was supposedly meant to rise in three hours, but here, beneath the suffocating ceiling of twisted branches, the concept of "morning" felt like a fairy tale told by a dead man.
I was reaching my absolute limit. My muscles didn't just ache; they felt like they were being shredded from the inside by hot glass. Every breath was a struggle against the thick, cloying air of the forest, and my golden armor—once a radiant symbol of my rank—was now a heavy, dented cage of cold metal that sapped the last of my strength.
I stayed paralyzed, pressed into the dirt beneath the jagged thorns of the studs. I didn't dare move. Right in front of my eyes, the brutal economy of the Abyss was on full display. The Butcher Tree had finished its meal. The Minocia soldier's screams had been replaced by a wet, slurping sound as the bark absorbed his essence. I watched, mesmerized by the sheer wrongness of it, as a new bud on the branch swelled, darkened to the color of dried blood, and matured into a perfect, star-shaped fruit.
One human life. One cursed harvest.
The math of this world was as cold as the steel that had brought me to the battlefield. I looked down at the small utility knife gripped in my trembling hand—a pathetic sliver of metal, more suited for peeling an apple than defending a soul. A part of me, fueled by a dying spark of the kindness I once held, wondered if I should have lunged out of the shadows. Should I have tried to save him? But as the tree's branches settled back into a satisfied, death-like stillness, the cold logic of the Abyss took over. In this place, pity was a luxury that only led to a faster grave. To try and save a man already claimed by a god was not bravery; it was a waste of breath.
Suddenly, a laughing sound erupted from the depths of the wood. It wasn't a human laugh. It was a high-pitched, warbling trill that descended into a guttural, multi-layered growl, sounding as if a dozen different throats were screaming in harmony. It was close—horrifically close. I pressed my face into the freezing soil, tasting the iron and rot of the earth, praying that the dying red moonlight wouldn't catch the glint of my armor.
*Is this world even worth living in?* I wondered, my fingers clawing into the dirt. *How do humans survive in a land that breathes with such pure, unadulterated hatred?* But then, looking at the trees, the truth became clear. We were the invaders. We brought the iron, the fire, and the noise. The trees didn't hate life; they hated the parasites that sought to conquer it. It was logical. It was the only justice left.
I began to move, crawling inch by inch through the dense, needle-like brushes. My knees were raw, the skin scraped away by the jagged stones, but I didn't feel the pain—only the adrenaline. That's when I saw the first shepherd of the deep wood.
A massive figure, nearly eight feet tall, drifted through the shadows like a ghost made of earth. It was a creature that looked as if it had been birthed from the forest floor—a walking mountain of matted hair, damp moss, and ancient soil. Its body was so overgrown with vegetation that I couldn't tell where the flesh ended and the timber began. One of its feet was human-like, yet the other was a massive, hoof-like stump that left circular depressions in the mud, heavy enough to crush a man's skull. In its gnarled, oversized hand, it carried a gargantuan axe made of petrified black wood, bound together by glowing purple vines that pulsed like veins. It didn't look for me; it simply roamed, a silent sentinel of a world that didn't want to be found.
I waited until the vibration of its footsteps faded into the distance before I dared to crawl again. I thought these things only lived in the dusty folktales my grandmother whispered, but the Abyss didn't care for stories. It turned myths into predators.
I continued West, my mind spinning into a dark haze of exhaustion. Then, the air changed. It grew heavy with the smell of musk, wet fur, and the sharp, acidic tang of rusted iron.
Standing in a clearing just ahead was a nightmare given form.
It was a **Minosok**.
Standing nearly nine feet tall, the creature was a towering wall of bovine fury and forest-born corruption. Its head was that of a gargantuan bull, but its horns weren't bone—they were jagged, blackened branches that seemed to grow directly out of its skull, reaching upward like lightning bolts made of wood. Its chest was a map of thick scar tissue and protruding burls, with massive roots erupting from its back like a crown of thorns. But the most terrifying detail was the weapon it held: an axe made of crude, heavy iron. It was the very material the trees loathed, yet this creature gripped it with a butcher's familiarity, the blade stained with the dark, crusted blood of a hundred victims.
The Minosok stood perfectly still, its ears twitching toward the slightest rustle of the wind. It was a king of the clearing, waiting for a reason to kill.
I moved with the caution of a man walking on a razor's edge. My destination—the path straight West—was visible through the gaps in the trees. I just had to get past it. I shifted my weight, trying to navigate around a cluster of bone-dry thorns.
*Snap.*
The sound of a single, dry stick breaking beneath my leg felt like a thunderclap in the unnatural silence.
The Minosok's head snapped toward my hiding spot with mechanical precision. Its nostrils flared, venting a cloud of hot, white steam that hissed into the cold night air. A low, terrifying rumble started deep in its massive chest—a sound of pure, concentrated malice. I saw its eyes—black, bottomless pits reflecting the dying red moon.
Before I could even scramble to my feet, the beast let out a deafening roar that shook the very leaves from the branches above.
It began to run.
The ground buckled and cracked under its weight as it charged. The massive iron axe was raised high, catching the purple-red light like a falling guillotine. The hunt had finally found me, and I stood there, broken and exhausted, with nothing but a three-inch utility blade to stop the end of my life.
**[USER: RIAN]** **[09 YEARS | 364 DAYS | 06 HOURS | 15 MINUTES]**
As my legs trembled seeing that creature coming this way, a flash of bitter, cold realization washed over me. This was my fault. I was the one who had used and opened that cursed app; I was the one who hit that button on the cursed app. I am the one who took everything from me but Now, the app was a permanent scar on my soul, impossible to delete, impossible to ignore. It had ripped me from my bed and soul-switched me into this battered, golden-armored knight. I didn't know whose body this was, or whose blood was currently pumping through my tired heart. Worse, I didn't know who—or what—was currently wearing my face back in my own world, living my life while I died in the dirt. But as the iron axe began its descent, one truth stood taller than the trees: if I can't win here, I'm nothing but a ghost in a stranger's body. I won't just die; I will perish from existence itself.