The world had no sun, no moon, and no sense of time. The sky stretched endlessly above, a dull, swirling gray that never changed. It was neither day nor night, only a suffocating twilight that seemed to press down on everything beneath it. The air was thick, damp, and carried a faint but constant stench of decay, as though the entire world had died long ago and was slowly rotting in silence.
Below that sky stood a forest.
Or rather, what remained of one.
The trees were enormous, their trunks thick and ancient, but there were no leaves, no life, no movement. Their branches stretched upward like skeletal hands, frozen in place for countless ages. Between them hung strands of pale, thread-like material, resembling spider webs—but there were no spiders here. Nothing living could survive in this place.
The ground was worse.
It was uneven, soaked with gray mud that seemed almost alive. Occasionally, bubbles would rise slowly to the surface, burst with a wet sound, and release a foul odor. Sometimes bones would surface briefly—skulls, ribs, fragments of limbs—only to be swallowed again by the shifting sludge.
This was not a world meant for the living.
It was a world of remnants.
Of things that refused to disappear.
And within that endless, silent wasteland, something moved.
A skeleton.
Floya wandered through the forest, step by step, without direction and without purpose. It did not remember when it had begun walking, nor did it know where it was going. It simply moved, guided by something deeper than thought—something closer to instinct.
In one hand, it held a rusted long blade. The weapon was worn and uneven, its edge chipped and dull in places, yet it remained the only possession Floya had. It did not remember where it had found the blade. In fact, it did not remember anything at all.
Memory did not exist here.
Only existence.
Only movement.
And something else.
Hunger.
At first, the hunger had been vague, almost unnoticeable. A faint emptiness that lingered inside its hollow frame. But over time—if time even existed here—that hunger had grown. It was no longer something distant. It was sharp, constant, unavoidable.
Floya did not understand it.
But it obeyed it.
Occasionally, it encountered others like itself—other skeletons wandering through the forest. They never spoke. They never acknowledged each other. They simply passed by, each continuing on its own endless path.
Until one day, something changed.
Floya heard footsteps behind it.
Slow.
Uneven.
It turned its head.
Another skeleton was approaching.
There was no reason to react. Encounters like this had happened before. They would simply pass each other, as always.
But this time—
Floya did not move aside.
It stood still.
Watching.
The other skeleton drew closer.
Closer.
And then—
Without warning—
Floya struck.
The blade came down—hard.
Bone cracked with a sharp, hollow snap. The skull split open, fragments bursting outward and scattering across the mud.
Silence returned immediately.
But something else followed.
A faint white mist began to rise from the broken remains.
It was thin, almost invisible, drifting upward like breath on a cold morning.
Floya watched it.
Then—without understanding why—it leaned forward and inhaled.
The mist flowed into it.
And everything changed.
For a brief moment, something filled the emptiness inside it. A strange warmth spread through its bones. Its movements felt sharper, faster, more certain. The world itself seemed clearer, more defined.
It was a fleeting sensation.
But it was real.
Then it faded.
Leaving behind—
An even deeper hunger.
Floya stood there, motionless, as if processing what had just happened.
Then, slowly, something formed within it.
A thought.
Crude.
Incomplete.
But undeniable.
"I… want…"
The words were not spoken.
They barely existed.
But they were there.
And from that moment on, Floya no longer wandered aimlessly.
It searched.
It hunted.
Time—if it existed—passed without meaning. Floya moved through the forest with increasing purpose, seeking out others like itself. Each encounter ended the same way.
A strike.
A break.
A rising mist.
And consumption.
With each absorbed fragment of energy, Floya grew stronger. Its movements became faster. Its reactions sharper. It began to recognize patterns—weaknesses, opportunities, danger.
It began to learn.
Not all enemies were the same.
Some were stronger.
Some were faster.
Some—
Were dangerous.
One such encounter nearly ended it.
It came across a different kind of creature—a decaying corpse, its flesh rotting but still moving. A zombie. Unlike the skeletons, it did not break easily. It was stronger, heavier, relentless.
Floya attacked.
And failed.
The zombie's arm slammed into its ribs—
Crack.
Three ribs shattered instantly, fragments shifting out of place. The impact drove Floya backward, its frame nearly collapsing into the mud.
For the first time—
It could not win.
But it did not stop.
Instead, it changed.
It moved differently. It avoided direct confrontation. It circled, retreated, struck when the opportunity appeared, then withdrew again. Slowly, patiently, it adapted.
The fight dragged on.
Endless.
Grinding.
Until—
An opening.
Floya lunged.
The blade drove upward—
Through the jaw.
Into the skull.
A violent twist.
Crack—
The head split.
The body collapsed.
Silence.
Floya stood over the remains, damaged and incomplete, its structure barely holding together.
And then—
Something else happened.
A faint stream of energy flowed into it.
Not from the enemy.
From somewhere else.
Distant.
Unseen.
Yet familiar.
Ruger.
Floya did not know who or what Ruger was.
It did not understand the connection.
But it felt it.
And it could not reject it.
The energy was weak.
Insufficient.
But it sustained it.
Restored it just enough to continue.
Just enough to hunt again.
Floya stood still for a long moment after the battle.
Then it lifted its head slightly, as if sensing something far beyond the forest.
The hunger remained.
Stronger than ever.
And so—
It moved again.
Deeper into the endless forest.
Searching.
Hunting.
Becoming something more than it had been before.
The forest had no end.
And neither—
Did Floya.
Something within it had begun to change.
Something that would not stop.
END OF CHAPTER 5