Part 1

A piercing golden spark tore through the void, twisting space and time.

Jin felt himself yanked out of existence—his body collapsed inward, crushed by unseen forces, then violently thrown forward. A scream ripped from his throat, but he couldn't even hear it. The world shattered.

Then, silence.

Jin gasped, his lungs burning as if he had been drowning in nothingness. He found himself on his knees, trembling, his fingers digging into cold, damp stone. The flickering light of dying torches barely illuminated the blood-soaked altar beneath him. The stench of iron and decay clung to the air, suffocating him.

His hands moved on their own, reaching toward the pool of blackened water at the altar's base. The reflection staring back at him sent a jolt of terror through his core.

He froze.

The wounds—deep, fatal wounds that had slit his throat and pierced his heart—were closing. The blood coating his skin defied reality, flowing backward, disappearing into his flesh. Gaping gashes knitted together, sealing themselves as if time had reversed. His skin was left untouched, flawless—as if he had never been wounded at all.

He felt no pain. Only cold.

His breath hitched. What... What the hell is this?

Then, he saw it.

A soft glow pulsed from his chest. His necklace.

The strange, ancient pendant—something Leonard had owned in this life—emitted a faint, murmuring light. The shape of an All-Seeing Eye embedded in a crescent moon shimmered against his skin, its glow casting strange, shifting shadows across the altar.

The flickering flames in the torches dimmed, as if something unseen was watching.

Jin clenched his fists, his breathing uneven.

This isn't normal. This isn't possible.

He had felt himself die. The blade that had torn through Leonard's throat had been real. The cold steel buried in his heart had been real. The agonizing burn, the helplessness, the choking darkness—it was all real.

And yet, he was still here.

A low creaking sound echoed through the chamber.

Jin's breath caught in his throat.

Slowly, he turned.

The altar chamber was exactly as he had left it—a grotesque display of death. The bodies that had surrounded him remained, their twisted, bloodied forms slumped in eerie stillness.

But something was wrong.

The air felt... heavier.

Thick. Suffocating.

Jin's eyes darted toward the entrance of the chamber. The shadows seemed darker than before, shifting unnaturally along the walls. A sense of being watched crawled up his spine, its icy tendrils wrapping around his lungs.

Then, it happened.

The corpses moved.

Not all at once—just the smallest of twitches.

A finger curling inward. A foot dragging against the stone. A head tilting at an impossible angle.

Jin's body locked up. His muscles tensed, screaming for him to run.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

But he couldn't move.

A sharp gasp escaped his throat when one of the corpses—the closest one—jerked upright.

It was a man, his chest torn open, the gaping wound revealing shattered ribs and dried blood. His eyes—milky and lifeless—snapped onto Jin.

And then, he spoke.

A whisper, ragged and broken.

"—He returns."

Jin's pulse pounded against his skull.

The second body shifted, a woman with her jaw half-missing.

"—The cycle... repeats..."

More movement. More whispers.

Jin staggered back, his foot slipping in the pool of blood. His mind screamed, but his body was frozen.

This isn't real. This can't be real.

The whispers turned into laughter. Hollow, echoing. Like the sound of something wrong.

Then—

A hand shot out.

Jin barely had time to react before ice-cold fingers wrapped around his ankle.

He snapped.

With a desperate kick, he broke free, scrambling backward as the whispering dead began to rise.

Their voices layered over each other, repeating the same words—

"He returns."

"The cycle repeats."

"He returns."

"The cycle repeats."

Jin bolted.

His instincts took over, driving him toward the nearest passageway. He didn't think. He didn't stop.

All he knew was that he had to get away.

Because deep in his gut, something told him—

They weren't talking about Leonard.

They were talking about him.

Part 2

Jin's heart raced as he scrambled backward, breath coming in jagged gasps. The hands of the corpses around him began to twitch with disturbing regularity, their bodies jerking to life in unnatural synchrony. His pulse thundered in his ears, but his legs felt like they were made of stone. The cold stone floor beneath him, the pool of blood, the grotesque altar—everything around him seemed unreal, as if he had been thrust into a nightmare too vivid to escape.

With every step he took, another corpse began to stir, their hollow eyes boring into him like a thousand needles.

"—He returns."

The voice cut through the silence like a blade. It wasn't a whisper this time. It was louder, as if each corpse, each broken body, had a mouth of its own. They weren't just repeating the same thing—they were calling to him.

"He returns."

Jin's throat constricted. The cycle. It was repeating.

He didn't have time to process it, not when a cold, clammy hand shot out from the body closest to him. It grasped his ankle with an unnatural strength, ice-cold fingers digging into his flesh.

A flash of memory hit him, as sudden and sharp as the cold grip on his leg.

Flashback

Leonard had been just a boy—an orphan, abandoned by life, forgotten by the world. He had survived on scraps, selling his mind to the highest bidder, but his family—his sister, Maya—had always been his anchor. Until that day, when everything had changed.

He had been lured into the cult's trap. Promises of a job as a writer, promises of power. But they had betrayed him. It was meant to be a simple sacrifice, an offering to the dark god that ruled their twisted realm.

The final moments had been agonizing.

The cultists, chanting in tongues, had placed the necklace around his neck—a cursed artifact passed down through generations. It was supposed to bring the god's power, to awaken something beyond life itself. Leonard had been the perfect candidate. They slashed his throat. They pierced his heart.

But then, nothing.

For a moment, there was only darkness, only pain. The life was draining from his body. His vision faded. He could hear the cultists cursing, desperate, realizing their ritual had failed.

Then, a flash of golden light—the energy had exploded outward. But it wasn't the power of the dark god. No. It was something else.

It was the necklace. It had activated him.

The ritual had failed, but the force of the explosion had dragged him back from the abyss.

Back to Present

Jin's chest tightened as the memory faded, leaving him breathless and disoriented. The grip on his ankle was like ice, dragging him back toward the altar, pulling him into the depths of the nightmare. His vision blurred.

The corpses were still rising, one by one, their dead eyes locked on him, repeating those same cursed words. "He returns. The cycle repeats."

Jin felt the weight of their gaze. The horror of it. The realization that this wasn't just about the ritual anymore. This wasn't just Leonard's past. This was now his reality.

With a surge of adrenaline, he kicked his leg free from the corpse's grasp, the air filling with the sound of a sickening crack as he broke free.

The room seemed to close in on him. The flickering light from the torches cast grotesque shadows across the walls, warping them into twisted shapes. The reanimated corpses lurched toward him, their broken limbs jerking in unison.

He had to move. He couldn't stay here. Not with these things coming for him.

In a blind panic, Jin pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the weakness in his legs. He dashed toward the darkened passageway at the far end of the altar room. His lungs burned with each breath. His muscles screamed in protest. But he didn't stop. He couldn't.

Behind him, the corpses began to shuffle forward, their hollow eyes locked on his every movement.

"He returns."

The words echoed, a constant drumbeat in his mind.

Jin's heart skipped a beat as the sound of footsteps—slow and steady—followed him. He turned sharply around a corner, barely avoiding one of the dead bodies, and ran faster, pushing himself to the brink.

No. They're not talking about me. They're talking about Leonard.