"But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself." - Nietzche.
Rain pummeled the windshield of his ancient Chevy Malibu like an ecstatic drummer that refused to quit. Jayce Park, twenty‑six and second‑generation Korean‑American born to immigrant parents, still stuck in the mud sink of life, drove erratically to his shitty warehouse job he was about to be late to for the umpteenth time.
Life had come at him quick.
He'd once been top of his class with straight-A grades, despite being the class clown, and was even somewhat popular.
Until depression and anxiety slammed the brakes on his life. He dropped out before he could graduate, studied and failed his GED multiple times, and then binged League of Legends day and night, only to get stuck in Bronze IV and drown in regret. Now he spent four years loading boxes in a warehouse that didn't give a damn if he lived or died.
He'd long since escaped his parents' grip but was now living at his sister's place. She was his mirror image in reverse: brilliant, driven, athletic. The family's golden child. By next spring she'd graduate university and chase the big city, while he could barely scrape together rent, blowing every extra dollar on video games and DoorDash to numb the harsh pain of his existence.
He fished his phone from the dirty center console and tapped the Spotify app. The first playlist popped up on the cracked screen: You. Me. Together. Forever.
His ex, Maylee, had ghosted him and nuked every shared playlist, but he'd snagged this one before she could take it down.
He fingered "SKIP," but the ad still continued on: "Tired of interruptions? Go Premium for ad‑free jams, offline downloads, and unlimited skips! Subscribe today!"
She had yanked him off their shared Premium account, and with zero money to his name, ad-free jams were currently impossible.
A girl who had once pledged her undying love to him quickly transitioned to cold replies, short texts, and unread messages.
He tried to contact her, but her only replies were, "I've lost the feelings I once had" and "I need space to find myself without a relationship", which only served to spin his sleepless nights into drawn out days. His brain churned thousands of scenarios, but never landing on the simplest truths:
He was a grade-A bastard. Self-centered, lazy, and lacking in ambition for the future. He clung too hard to people, gripping her and her love too tight until it broke.
Possibly a consequence of his loving, ever-present over-sheltering mother. Regardless he could've changed,should'vechanged, having seen the signs. But he ignored them like all terrible things in his life, hoping they would disappear, and his life would continue on.
He was uncaring, pessimistic, more than happy to rot in stagnation at his three-year warehouse job, eager to nag about how beneath him it was, yet too reluctant to change.
Oh, fate was a miserable bitch, a bitch that loved him dearly.
He was still tangled in his own self‑loathing when the world bucked beneath him, an explosion of motion that yanked him from his reverie.
At first, a flicker: a dark shape lunging across the wet pavement. The deer's slender legs hung for a heartbeat in the high-beam glare before Jayce's instincts screamed. He jabbed the brakes, but the road was pure glass, tires whispering protest before the car surrendered.
Time slowed. The steering wheel twisted in his hands as the Malibu swerved, scraping the guardrail with a metallic peel. Rain pounded the roof like a merciless drum, each drop mocking every wasted moment of his life. His heart thundered a fearful drumroll for the crash to come.
He caught one last glimpse of the deer's terrified eyes before the world flipped sideways. The front bumper bit into the rail, folding metal like tinfoil. A terrible screech filled the air as the windshield fractured in a spiderweb of cracks, shards raining down inside the cabin. Lightning flashed through broken glass, bathing everything in cold white light.
Pain washed over him in muffled waves: the sting of shattered bones, shock of rainwater mixed with sweat, the acrid tang of gasoline on his tongue. He pressed his chest against the steering column, breath knocked out by the impact. Every nerve ending burned as the engine sputtered and died. A bloody smile grazed his lips.
And even as the world went black, one thought broke through the chaos and the pain:
"Fucking finally this shit is over!"
His heart drummed in his ears, each beat a stubborn echo:THUMP‑thump…THUMP‑thump… Each blow rattled his skull, drowning out all else as the darkness pooled at the edges of his vision.
This had to be the infamous seven‑minute death throe, a myriad of interesting facts he had garnered from browsing Reddit mindlessly in his free time.
Nonetheless he could barely feel his arms and legs, as if they weren't his at all. Panic knotted in his chest, only to be muffled by another shock: he was no longer on pavement. Something soft and springy pressed beneath him. He tried to roll onto his side with every motion a symphony of agony, the world around him shifted in an instant.
A hush descended. The whisper of wind through strange foliage. He forced his eyes open. Above, gnarled branches thick as thighs loomed against a bruised purple sky. Leaves glowed sickly jade; motes of light danced like fireflies.
He sat up, ribs screaming in protest, and looked around. The flimsy shell of his Malibu was gone.
No twisted metal, no shattered glass. Instead, he lay amid a carpet of strange, spongy moss. Rocks the size of boulders jutted up like the bones of some colossal creature long dead, thick mossy oak trees all-surrounding and looming like a twisted maze.
"Holy fuc-!" he croaked, but the words died in his throat.
This place… wasn't Earth. He must be dreaming..
A low growl rumbled through the trees, rolling like distant thunder. Jace's heart slammed. He jumped to his feet almost too quickly; the dizziness had sent him back to the ground like a newborn attempting his first steps.
He collapsed onto his knees in a shallow puddle. Cold water soaked his palms and spread up his shins. He leaned forward, staring into the rippling surface and froze.
Where Jayce Park's once long brown hair had framed his twenty-six-year-old face, now cropped black curls clung to a thin, almost eight-year-old skull. Those familiar dark eyes had shifted to hazel, wide and terrified. His cheeks, once round from childhood had hollowed into gaunt hollows, skin stretched tight over new bone.
He jerked back, arms flailing, and landed on his back with a splash. 'No',he thought, mind in disarray. 'This isn't me.'
The air tasted of iron and brimstone as he picked himself up off the ground. He glanced down at his hands: they were cold, pale and trembling, flecked with tiny specks of phosphorescent dust that clung like stains.
'W-what the hell?' he thought. He had to have been dreaming, there was no other explanation.
Jayce quickly stumbled over a gnarled root, every step a reminder that his twenty-six-year-old body was gone and replaced by this scrawny, eight-year-old body that felt half-empty and twice as fragile. His clothes, now slightly dirty and torn at the seams still fit snugly enough, hanging with a few frayed threads but offering no real discomfort.
Branches slapped at his shoulders, tugging at the edges of his shirt as he panted, hands on knees, trying to steady his racing breath.
He swallowed hard, head spinning. "This can't be real... W-where the hell am I?" he questioned out loud.
His own voice caught him off guard, thin, high-pitched, and lost amid the forest's whispers. He shook his head, blinking back tears of frustration as he tried to process the myriad of sensations and emotions that had slammed into him like a freight train.
He had to find a way out!
Then came a crack of wood and a low rumble. Jayce froze, every instinct inside him screaming: Danger!
Rounding a massive oak, he stopped short.
In an open clearing, a demon sat crouched over bodies. It's lower half was goat-like, matted fur slick with blood and swamp water, hooved legs bent at unnatural angles. It's upper body was humanoid, a twisted mockery of creation with long sinewy arms and the head of a goat, horns and all.
It was smiling at him, it's eyes piercing into him like daggers.
It chewed slowly on a severed arm, fingers still twitch, blood trailing down its chin like red wine. The girl's face, a girl this body remembered dearly, her eyes lifeless and glassy, eyes and mouth frozen mid scream.
The monster lifted its head, licking its lips with lascivious hunger. Its coal-black eyes locked onto his, and a crooked grin spread across its face. When it spoke, each word slithered through the air like curling smoke, hanging a moment too long in his ears.
"Death opens the door.. and you step through, still warm.. still sweet.."
His mind screamed at him to move, to run, to do something, anything! His body felt like it was encased in concrete. He blinked once in anxiousness as the world twisted, trees groaned like ribcages, shadows coiled like snakes. Flecks of light specked the edges of his vision. He felt like emptying his stomach as the demon pulled meat from bone like one peeled skin off fruit.
It was as if he could feel all of it. The tearing. The chewing. The warmth of blood sliding down the gullet of the monster.
"This has to be a dream, this isn't real, this isn't real!" he yelled.
He blinked and the world turned upside down.
The swamp shuddered and the vision decayed before his eyes. His mind snapped back into focus, just in time to realize his feet were moving.
He hadn't been standing still, and he'd been walking. Step after step towards that,thing. It loomed now only yards away.
"W-what the...?"
It grinned happily as it gripped a severed arm like a stick of chicken.
His knees buckled and he collapsed backwards with a splash, hands pattering at the swamp muck as he tried to crawl away.
"Oh god, nonononono, stay back!" he yelled.
He twisted, stumbling, trying to rise again. His breath was like thunder in his ears as he panted, his heartbeat booming in his chest like a strike to the chest.
Behind him the demon laughed.
"Run if you must..." the demon called, voice oozing through the trees like black oil.
"But know that the forest does not end.. and I have walked these forests longer than you've been alive.."
Branches whipped his face. Roots clawed at his ankles. He didn't care. He had to move and flee.
"Your fear is...exquisite... Ripe.. Do you feel how sweet it gets... the closer I come..?"
He dared to glance back. Bad idea. It was still there.
It didn't chase him. It stalked him slowly, moving with calm certainty, its grin never fading.
"Please..! give me a scream worth remembering.." it teased.
"Shut up!" he gasped, pushing himself forward. "You're not getting me!"
"But you never left me..." whispered into his ears.
The trees seemed to close in. His vision blurred again. His heart pounded so loud it sounded like war drums.
Something inside him coiled tightly, his panic folding in on itself as his back slammed against a dead tree, bark scraping against flesh.
He had nowhere left to run.
The demon loomed before him, massive and terrifying. It raised one long-fingered clawed hand.
"All that terror.. all that guilt.. all mine..."
The boy's breath hitched. His fingers clutched the only thing he had left, the cross necklace around his throat. The cold metal sent shivers up his body.
He whispered, barely audible. "I... don't want to die again..."
The hand reached for him, black claws like rusted blades lunging toward his throat.
RUN! His body wanted to scream. But he didn't move.
He saw them. Faces, her face, eyes wide in terror and voice calling out his name. Limbs twisted and torn. Hope snatched from their bones.
It was his fault they had died. "Lila.. Tomas.. Marie.. I'm sorry I couldn't avenge you.." he mourned.
He had led them into this forest, and that thing had smiled while it ate his friends.
'You ran once, and they died screaming' a voice in the back of his head reminded.
'If you run again.. You'll die too. And no one will remember your name.'
His fingers twitched.
SURVIVE.
That one word rang in his skull like a bell.
Survive. Survive. SURVIVE.
SURVIVE!
The moment the demon's claw grazed Rowan's hand the air snapped shut around them. Darkness bloomed like ink, sealing the clearing in a tomb of absolute darkness. The demon staggered, eyes wide with confusion.
"What… what is this...?" it rasped, its voice hollow in the black. "How.. are you doing this..?" it panicked.
On Rowan's skin, dozens of crimson eyes flared to life in tight concentric rings, glowing like hot coals. From each eye, inky tendrils unfurled, coiling around his limbs and rising into the air like living fog. The demon screamed as the darkness pressed closer, soft at first, then hardening into jagged obsidian.
"Stop! No! You can't do this!" it shrieked, talons scraping at nothingness.
The black mist gathered at Rowan's chest, twisting into a gaping maw framed by rows of glowing red eyes. With an unholy roar, that maw snapped shut, swallowing the demon whole. A final, panicked howl echoed from within, then quickly died.
In an instant, the darkness shattered like glass. moonlight once again flooded the swamp, the trees sighed back to life, and the mud glistened under a pale moon. Rowan stood alone, heart pounding, the red eyes on his skin fading to darkness
And then he promptly fell into unconsciousness.