0.

An endless river of souls drifts toward the sun.

Their eyes were vacant, their faces lifted to the burning horizon, stumbling to the end, yet not knowing what was waiting for them. Their bodies moved mechanically with hope, but their eyes were still hollow.

Blood welled on her arm from a fresh scratch. Without a flicker of emotion, she smoothed the droplet away. Then, like the rest of them, she raised her head and walked on.

1.

Moonlight spilled across the rusted iron bed, a single beam piercing the cracks of the room.

She opened her sore eyes. Squinting, she saw it glowing on her wrist—613. It was a number burned into her pale skin.

Pain detonated in her skull, as if something inside had been split open. A voice echoed within her: Face the sun. The words rattled like chains, a command she could neither hold nor understand.

—

She pushed open the door. Outside stretched the wastelands: withered trunks, barren earth, an endless rust-colored road unraveling beneath a blackened sky.

A shimmer of water drew her steps. Kneeling, she looked into the reflection.

A face stared back. Her own, and not. Hollow, animal-like. Empty yet knowing, as if bound to a fate written long before her. It seemed familiar, almost intimate, yet impossibly distant, unreal.

For a moment she wondered: Who is this person?

Something like déjà vu rose in her chest, stirring a feeling she could not name.

2.

It was dawn. The air inside the room felt stale, pressing against her skin, so she stepped outside, then saw another figure standing not far away in the midst of the air.

“When the sun rises,” the figure murmured, “we should go.”

“Toward the sun?” she asked, rubbing her hands.

“Of course. We’re meant to walk into the light, just like the others.” The figure pointed to the scattered people in the distance.

“But why?” she asked softly. “Doesn’t it feel… wrong?”

“I know it feels wrong,” the figure admitted, “but I’m satisfied. I’ll choose to follow them.”

“I’m… not satisfied,” she whispered, her words dissolved into the morning air, as if the first trace of change had already begun.

3.

The sun was out, close enough it felt within reach. She felt the pull to keep moving forward, forward, until the rising light would swallow her whole.

She left the tiny room. Outside stretched a barren road, with people drifting toward the sun. A pressure rose in her head, telling her to follow.

Their voices echoed hers. Their smiles looked like hers. They walked the same path. But something was wrong. They weren’t supposed to be the same. She wasn’t supposed to be the same. 

She glanced at the others beside her. On their wrists, numbers glowed: 016, 091, 005…

She felt caged in this mechanical world. Everything was silent, everyone was silent. Faces blurred, motions repeated, and sameness suffocated her.

Memories flickered through her mind like the sunlight through her skin. She almost remembered, but everything felt unfamiliar. The mechanical voice droned and droned in her ears, until she thought it was part of her. But no, no, she wanted to break free.

She wanted to break free. To slash, to stab, to shred the world apart. To clutch control in her own clenched hands. The rest were only duplicates, drifting, dull, doomed to repeat the same life again and again.

She ripped her sky open.

4.

She smiled as blood trickled faintly across her body, her heart ripped wide open. Blood pulsed from her veins, spreading, deep crimson, spilling drop by drop. She smoothed her skin, for the first time she felt that she had her life in her own hands.

The sun shone bright, so bright it seemed almost within reach. Its light stretched across the road, pulling them onward. No one knew what lay beyond the glare. No one knew what they were moving toward. Step by step, as they drew closer, their bodies thinned, edges dissolving. Until, at last, they grew faint, blending into the blinding seam where the sky met the sun. Their shadows lay stretched on the ground, long and fragile, before vanishing too.

Blood surged from her body, once, then again, staining the rusty road red. The great path had become crimson.

She paused, watching the countless masses pass by, a sea of figures swallowed by the light. She turned, her eyes tracing the lines of those still behind her. Faces pale, hollow, endlessly absorbed in the light ahead.

They looked like her. Yet they were not her.

This time, at last, it would be different. Though she didn’t know what was waiting in the end. She felt something resting on her own hands.

A smile broke across her face, the sun shone bright through the sky.