*

After a while, it all starts to fade. No more pain, no more unwanted thoughts and most of all no sound. Just darkness. I welcome it. Cause I was done

*

“Ahhhhhhh!” A scream tore from my throat, the sound ragged and filled with terror. It echoed off the cold, unyielding walls around me, making the darkness feel even more suffocating.

“Where… am I?” I gasped, my breath shallow and frantic. My chest heaved as I tried to take in the situation, but nothing made sense. I blinked hard, but the blackness was relentless. There was no light no windows, no hint of where I was. My body felt strange, off balance, and weak. Something was horribly wrong.

Then, pain. A sharp, aching throb spread through my limbs, like I had been hit by a truck. And suddenly, I remembered. The truck. Truck-kun. It was hurtling toward me as I crossed the street, with no time to react…

“Am I… dead?” I whispered, the thought paralyzing me for a moment. This was no hospital. If anything, it felt like a grave.

My heart pounded in my chest, fear and confusion taking hold. I moved my arms, feeling how small and fragile they were. “What…?” I looked down, the dim light that barely crept into the room allowing me to make out the silhouette of my body. It was… small. I was small. Panic gripped me as the realization sank in—I was a child. Somehow, impossibly, I had become a child again.

Before I could even begin to comprehend it, I heard it, metal creaking.

Crank. Crank.

A door opened somewhere in the distance, followed by the shuffle of footsteps. My stomach dropped as light poured into the room, cutting through the dark. Three figures entered, their faces hidden behind grotesque, devil-like masks. The sight of them sent shivers down my spine. They moved in unison, like predators, and the iron bars that caged me creaked open.

I tried to move, to scramble away, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. My muscles screamed in protest, my limbs still too stiff and weak. The panic inside me swelled, threatening to burst as the masked figures loomed closer. I couldn’t see their faces, but I felt shivers run up my spine the moment one looked at me.

One of them knelt beside me, his cold hand grabbing my arm with a grip so tight it felt like my bones would snap. His gaze flicked over me with an air of disinterest.

“Still alive, huh?” he muttered, sounding almost disappointed. “Tough little bastard.”

The other one, a woman, laughed, a shrill, cruel sound that made my skin crawl. “Oh, he’ll wish he was dead soon enough. Just wait until we start.”

I wanted to scream, to thrash against them, but my voice caught in my throat. A helplessness I hadn’t felt in years washed over me like a cold wave. No matter how hard I tried to fight, they were too strong, too in control. It reminded me of those days at school the bullies, the beatings I had learned to endure. But this… this was so much worse.

As they dragged me down a series of damp, winding corridors, I could barely keep up. My body felt foreign, too small, too weak. My mind raced. Was this a nightmare? Some twisted version of hell? I could hear their muffled conversations ahead, but my thoughts drowned them out. I couldn’t even cry I was too numb, too scared to react.

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Finally, we stopped in a room that made my heart drop into my stomach. It was like something out of a horror movie. Rows of tables with metal restraints lined the room. Strange machines beeped and hummed, tubes and needles scattered across countertops. In the far corner stood an altar, stained with fresh blood. I stared at it, dread rising in my throat. What was this place?

They wasted no time, dragging me a bit further they shoved my hand against a white, floating crystal. For a brief second, a screen blinked into view.

Ding!

/STATUS/

• Name: None

• Class: None

• Race: Human

• Level: 1

• HP: 10/10

• MP: 0/0

• Stamina: 5/10

• Strength: 5

• Defense: 2

• Magic: 0

• Resistance: 100

• Speed: 2

• Charisma: 10

• Luck: -100

I stared at the numbers in disbelief. Luck -100? What the hell kind of stat was that? Resistance 100… What did that even mean? is it good or bad? My heart raced as the man beside me studied the crystal’s display and let out a disappointed sigh.

“Terrible stats,” he muttered. “Barely worth the effort. I’m not even sure you’ll survive but that resistance… maybe you will. We’ll see.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could even form the words, he yanked me toward one of the tables and strapped me down. The cold metal bit into my skin, the restraints digging deep into my wrists and ankles. Tears burned at the edges of my eyes, but I blinked them away. I couldn’t break down now, not here.

“Don’t worry,” the man said with a grin that chilled me to my core. “This will only hurt… a lot. And I’ll make sure to enjoy every second of it.”

The needle pierced my skin, and everything exploded into fire. It felt like my veins were being filled with molten lava. I screamed until my throat was raw, until my voice gave out and all I could do was gasp. The pain consumed me, tearing me apart from the inside.

In the midst of it all, only one thought kept me anchored, survive. No matter what, I had to survive this. I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails dug into my palms, drawing blood. I couldn’t die here. Not in this hell.

Days blurred into one another. The pain became my constant companion, numbing me to everything else. Each day, they came and injected more of that black substance into me. The burning was unbearable at first, but over time, I learned to endure it. I had to. There was no other choice.

What’s worse is that I wasn’t the only one they experimented on. On the first few days other kids were brought in, subjected to the same torture. I watched as one by one, they died. Their screams echoed in my ears long after they were gone. I stopped counting how many had been dragged out lifeless, their faces frozen in terror as blood dripped out of their whole face. I was the only one left.

Sometimes, I wondered why I was still alive. Why me? Was it the strange stat I had seen in the crystal? Was my body more resistant than the others? It didn’t matter. All I knew was that I had to stay alive. I had to find a way out. I couldn’t let this place break me.

“The child is asleep.”

The sound of voices drifted into the room, cutting through my fog of exhaustion. I lay still, barely breathing, listening.

“Yes, Master. Today’s dose was injected into him.”

“Hah! ‘Him.’ I don’t think he’ll be a ‘he’ for much longer. The succubus blood is working slowly, but I predict within a few years, he’ll fully transform into a woman.”

Succubus blood? My heart pounded in my chest. That’s what they had been injecting into me? Demon blood? My skin prickled as I tried to process the words.

“How much more of that demon’s blood do we have?” the master asked, his tone indifferent, as if discussing livestock.

“None, Master. We injected the last drop today.”

“Hmm… What other demons do we have in stock?”

“A vampire, Master.”

There was a long pause. I felt bile rise in my throat.

“Good,” the master finally said. “Excellent. Start injecting the vampire blood into the child. All of it, if necessary.”

“Yes, Master.”

Fear, cold and sharp, gripped me as their footsteps faded. They were turning me into a monster. First succubus blood, now vampire blood. My body, already a stranger to me, was becoming something else entirely.

But amidst the fear, something else began to grow, determination. I wasn’t just going to lie here and let them mold me into whatever they wanted. I was still me, no matter what they did. And I would survive. I didn’t care what they turned me into, I would use it. I would escape this nightmare, and they would regret the day they ever laid hands on me.

This was their mistake. They thought they could break me. But they were wrong.