"Ahhhhhhhh…!"
"Ow, ow—hey, stop screaming!"
One of the seven people snapped at me.
"Huh? What? Don't you see that thing?" I stammered, my voice trembling with raw fear.
"What are you talking about? Geez, man, chill out, okay?" He paused, then his expression shifted. "Wait… did you actually see her? If you did, then that means…"
He trailed off. Suddenly, every single one of them turned to stare at me. Fear was written plainly across their faces.
"Yeah," I whispered. "I saw her."
I started to explain, but they cut me off sharply.
"It's pointless," one muttered.
They all looked… sad now. A heavy, resigned kind of sadness.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "What happened?"
Silence stretched between us for a long moment.
Then the guy with spiky red hair and a powerfully muscled build broke it.
"Okay, listen up, everyone. This isn't the time to grieve. We need to help him."
He looked like a classic muscle-head, yet the moment he spoke, the gloom lifted slightly from the others' expressions. They respected him—I could feel it.
Only then did I really take a good look at them.
Seven people. Plus me. And… her.
• A young man with neatly combed dark-blue hair and striking golden-brown eyes.
• Another with long, silky pitch-black hair and matching obsidian eyes.
• A kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen, with messy brown hair.
• The red-haired guy—spiky crimson locks, intense red eyes, built like he bench-pressed boulders for fun.
• Three girls: one with long, majestic blonde waves; one with short, bouncy red curls; and one with bright-blue short hair that framed her face sharply.
And then there was her.
She didn't look human at all.
A wolf's upper skull was fused to her forehead like some grotesque crown. Two long vampire-like fangs protruded from her mouth. Her eyes glowed a deep, bloody red. She appeared to be in her early twenties, yet everything about her screamed wrong.
Her body had the rough shape of a woman, but human skulls rested on each shoulder like pauldrons. From neck to hips, her skin—or whatever it was—
shimmered with twinkling stars and swirling galaxies. A pitch-black void, an actual black hole, pulsed slowly in the center of her chest. Below her hips, everything dissolved into thick, roiling fog.
And she had eight arms.
Each one gripped something:
• Two clutched a wicked scythe forged from blackened bone; fresh blood dripped endlessly from its curved edge, caught perfectly by an ornate cup held in a third hand.
• Others cradled entire miniature galaxies, captured black holes, and objects too strange and distant for my mind to fully grasp.
While I stood frozen, analyzing the impossible group, the blue-haired guy spoke again, voice gentle.
"Hey… you okay? If you feel dizzy, just say so."
"No… no, I'm fine." I swallowed hard. "But can you please tell me what the hell is going on? Why am I here? Did I… die back in that world?"
"No, man, you didn't die," he said quickly. "Okay? Just breathe. First—can you tell us your name? Or at least what you remember it being?"
"Yeah. I'm Sushanth. Twenty years old. I live in India, and—"
"Okay, okay, that's enough," he interrupted with a small, tired smile.
He glanced at the others. Disappointment flickered in their eyes.
"So… you're the one, huh?" he murmured.
I felt their collective emotion wash over me like a cold tide.
"Please," I begged. "Just tell me what's happening. This morning I got… teleported or something. I saw a girl who looked exactly like the one in my recurring dream. Then I stumbled into some assassin mess, got my ribs crushed by that woman over there—" I gestured wildly toward the eight-armed horror "—and now I'm…
here. What even is this place?"
"Don't panic," the blue-haired guy said. "You're fine—physically, at least. You'll understand more when the time comes. But first… you need to listen to what she has to say."
He pointed at the terrifying entity.
"Huh? Why me?" I asked, voice cracking.
"Dude, come on," the black-haired guy cut in. "Just do what we say. Unless you want to die here."
"Please," the three girls said in perfect unison, eyes glistening. "We're begging you. Don't make this harder for us."
The redhead and the kid just shook their heads slowly, silently pleading.
Their fear was so raw, so real, that I couldn't fight it anymore.
"Fine," I muttered. "What does she want to tell me?"
I turned to face her.
She opened her mouth—slowly, deliberately—and spoke in a voice that seemed to echo from every direction at once.
"Live. Get better. Be safe."
Then she simply… vanished.
I blinked. "Wait—what was that supposed to mean?"
The blue-haired guy sighed. "Don't forget those words, okay? Burn them into your memory. Now… I'm going to explain a few things."
Over the next stretch of timeless conversation, he told me why I was here.
A ceremony. A ritual.
I would be the one to choose my own purpose.
And then came the part that broke my brain:
They were all me—different versions of me from other realities.
The moment he said it, their bodies began to fade like mist under sunlight.
"What's happening?" I asked, voice rising.
He gave me a small, bittersweet smile. "Our time is over. You're here now. It's your turn to take care of things."
"Wait—when will I see you again?"
He smiled and said, try to find a way for that.
I blinked.
Brick ceiling.
Iron bars to my right.
A prison cell.
I staggered to my feet, head fuzzy, and shouted toward the corridor.
"Hey! Is anyone there?"
After several minutes of yelling, a bored-looking guard finally appeared.
"Shut it," he growled. "His Majesty will see you tomorrow morning."
He walked off before I could ask anything else.
I sank back onto the thin cot, mind racing.
Wait… my ribs.
I lifted my shirt.
No bruising. No pain. The bones that had been crushed were whole again.
How…?
Suddenly, a blinding headache exploded behind my eyes.
Darkness swallowed me.
…
"Hey. Wake up. Hey—you hear me?"
I jolted awake.
Three figures stood outside the bars.
The same guard.
Behind him: a young man my age with striking purple hair and golden eyes, a longsword sheathed across his back.
And behind him—the girl from my dreams.
Only now she looked taller, more imposing.
She smiled—a slow, wicked curve of her lips.
"Hello, mister assassin," she purred. "Ready for your interrogation?"
I stared.
"Huh… uh… huuuuhhh…"