Felix was floating.

At least, that was what it felt like for him.

‘Is this death?’ He thought numbly, looking into the darkness.

Hauntingly, a phrase he had heard before crept into his mind.

‘And if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’

Well, he wasn’t sure if this qualified for an abyss- what exactly was an abyss anyway?- Felix could definitely feel something gazing at him.

But not exactly looking at his physical form.

No, it felt like the gaze was piercing his very soul.

No matter how much Felix tried to put the feeling into words, he couldn't. He felt goosebumps all over his skin, and shivers ran down his back.

‘Could this be hell?’ Felix tried to remove himself from the gaze of the thing that was causing him to be like this. He tried to flail his arms and kick his legs, but it felt like he was not moving at all.

And he could still feel the gaze.

‘No wonder I landed in hell. I’ve done many bad things…’ Felix thought miserably. He sighed. As he recounted all the things he had done, a cold knot or regret began settling in his stomach. ‘Why did father-’

The cold knot in his stomach tightened considerably. But not from regret.

From the sheer anger he was feeling.

It was nothing at all what he had ever experienced. It felt like he could almost see the anger in front of him, tinges of red at the corners of his vision.

‘...’

If one was to see Felix right now, one would be shocked at the emotion flowing from the boy. It almost felt like waves of rage were flowing out of his very soul.

Felix’s bloodshot eyes looked up at the skies.

And he screamed.

Felix’s pained noise echoed across the area.

He began clawing at himself with his nails, line after lines of red marks appearing on his face and arms. However, the pain did not bring him back to the realm of sanity. Instead, it fueled him more, as it reminded him of what his father had done to him.

“I’m going to kill him, I’m going to kill him, I’m going to-”

Felix’s maniacal mutterings suddenly ceased as he felt a certain pressure lift from his body.

The gaze was gone.

Felix stared at the void of black, the fury in his chest straining at his heart.

He lifted his hand to scratch at himself again, but instead, his hand fell down in despair.

“Why am I here?”

Felix slowly became tired and numb. The anger slowly seeped out of him. After all, there was a limit on how much emotion a body could withstand and handle.

‘Let me die. I don’t wanna be here.’

And incredibly, a white dagger suddenly appeared in his hand, a bright contrast to the void he was floating in.

Felix stared at it. His mind was tired from his previous outburst, and his mental output wasn’t at its best.

But he somehow knew that if he killed himself with it, he would be able to rest.

He slowly pulled the dagger and positioned it right at his neck, feeling the cold metal scrape at his Adam's apple.

And then Felix saw something.

His father. Standing in the void.

His eyes were superior. Like he knew how weak Felix was. And that he liked that. He looked goatingly at him, mocking him.

‘Yes, go on. Finish the job. After all, you always did what I wanted.’ His father’s eyes seemed to speak to him.

Felix didn’t know if his father was really here, but he was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing Felix killing himself. After all, he had given him that satisfaction already.

He was never going to follow or let anyone order him around again.

And with that, Felix reared back and threw the dagger at his father.

And what followed was a sudden burst of light, seemingly covering everything in the pure white.

***

When Felix opened his burning eyes, he was standing on a meadow of grass. It stung his feet a bit, but it felt good after the darkness of the place he was previously at.

Luckily, the sudden change in scenery had managed to bring Felix back to sanity.

Although he was still quite numb, it was much subdued.

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Felix looked around. The meadow was bright and green, complimented by the strong brightness of the sun. It looked like a place straight from the covers of a fairy tale.

[The Forbidden System is Initiating]

‘Wha-?!’

Felix jumped back as the notification suddenly popped out at him.

‘The Forbidden System? What..?’

Felix looked around. There was no source for the screen. Perhaps, it was some kind of projector?

[The Forbidden System Initiation Progress:]

[0%------20%-----------------------]

Felix stared incredulously at the new notification.

‘What’ll happen when it reaches 100%?’

However, Felix never got the chance to think on this long.

“Hehehe”

A giggle suddenly reached Felix’s ears. He twisted around, just in time to see a horrific monstrosity right next to him, its face pulled up close to him.

“Wha-”

“HEHEHE”

The monstrosity, which looked like a beast with horrific proportioned limbs, which had its arms longer than Felix’s whole body, and legs that reached Felix’s chest. It peered down at him, its face twisted into a satanic grin.

“Fuc-”

Felix leaped back, his mound opening in horror. Instincts kicked in, making him run as fast as he could away from the monster.

“HEHEHEHEHE”

The monster grinned even more, splitting its face so much that blood leaked down around its teeth, which were razor-sharp.

And then it began chasing after Felix.

Felix kept running, sweat pouring down his back.

‘This is so definitely hell!’

Felix began to run, but the monster was slowly gaining on him. Its mouth opened wide, it looked like it could chop Felix’s head from his body in one quick clamp.

As Felix kept running, a poisonous thought crept into his mind.

‘Should I give up?’

Well, Felix reasoned, there was nothing that he had to live for anyway, right? He was dead, all his loose ends had probably been all tied up by now, and his father, whom he worshiped had betrayed him.

His father…

The anger that had been kept at bay by the turns of events suddenly came back flaming to life.

After all Felix had done for him…

Felix still remembered the first demand his father had given him.

“Felix!” His father had cried, tousling 12 year old Felix’s hair.

“Could you do me a favor? It won’t take too long!”

“Sure, father!”

If only Felix had known how it would all turn out.

Felix’s father had handed him a small blue bottle filled with pills.

“I need you to give this to the small elderly grandmother who lives next to us, okay? The one that comes often for dinner. Tell her that it's the vitamin that’ll help her get rid of those wrinkles. One per day, okay?”

“Okay!”

The grandmother died four weeks later. She was diagnosed with a mysterious disease, and had passed away in her sleep.

Apparently, for his father having shown so much kindness towards her, in her will she had stated that he would receive 96% of her total money, as she had no heirs to give it to.

Of course, Felix had been naive. But he was not stupid. He knew that his father had killed her. After all, he had counted the amount of pills.

Exactly 28 pills. One for each day.

It was too much of a coincidence.

But he truly believed his father when he had pulled him close and assured him that this was needed. And that his father and Felix were going to conquer the world together.

And Felix had not a spot of doubt in his heart.

Felix whirled around, staring at the monster running towards him.

He knelt down and picked up a rock. His fingers caressed the edges. Jagged, but sharp.

The image of Felix’s dad overlapped with the monster running towards him.

“HEHEHEHE”

The monster ran towards him, his grin somehow becoming more and more wide.

Felix stood up, and peered at the monster’s hollow eyes.

‘And if you gaze into the abyss long enough, the abyss will gaze back at you.’

Felix began running, his feet slipping on the grass.

But not away from the monster. But towards it.

Felix swallowed down his fears.

This was necessary.

Because Felix had decided.

‘I’ll hunt down my father. And I will make him suffer for what he did. I will come back from the grave!’

And to do that, this thing had to be killed.

Felix sidestepped as the monster lunged towards him.

His fluttering clothes were caught as the monster’s jaw bit down, ripping the clothes to shreds. However, his skin was still intact.

Felix stumbled back as the monster recovered quickly, slamming its body onto Felix’s.

Felix, in his desperation, grabbed the monster’s jaw with his other hand, the one not holding the stone, and with the other, dragged the stone on the monster’s face, cutting it.

The monster shrieked, snapping at Felix again, but Felix reacted quickly and punched the monster hard on the jaw.

The monster whacked him hard in retaliation, and Felix went flying, breathing a gasp of pain as he landed on the ground.

He winced. Judging by the fire of his ribs, they were most likely broken.

The monster did not waste a second and pounced on him in seconds. Ignoring the pain in his ribs, Felix rolled to the side and slammed the rock hard on the monster as it landed where he had previously been.

The monster shrieked once more and bit down on Felix’s arm, mutilating it.

Felix screamed as the pain overrode any sorts of thinking he had previously been doing. By instinct, he started slamming down the rock on the creature’s skull.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The creature shrieked for its final time, and fell down, dead.

In compliance with the pain in his arms, Felix also went down.

He gingerly removed his arm from the creature’s mouth and winced as he saw the flash of white bone among the sea of blood and flesh.

And as he stood up, legs shaking, in the corner of his vision he saw a white flash.

He leapt back, staring as a soft white glow surrounded the creature.

And stared in horror as the monster warped into the features of a human.

He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with light brown hair, a contrast to the red blood pouring down his face. He looked like he could be sleeping, with his eyes closed peacefully.

But Felix knew that he was dead.

And Felix had killed him.

Felix felt acid down his throat and threw up. He had killed before, of course. But those were his father’s demands.

This was the first time he killed someone with his own intent.

He averted his eyes from the body and clenched his fists.

Luckily, he didn’t need to mull the killing over long because he saw notifications appear at the corner of his eyes.

[The Forbidden System has finished Initiating]

[Transportation Sequence Activated]

[Trial Completed]

[Incarnate Selected]

[Transporting…]

Wiping the acidic vomit from his lips, Felix stared incredulously at the notifications at the corner of his vision.

‘Transporting?’

And once again, the white flash covered his vision.