Felis awoke to a scream—not from his mouth, but from deep within his skull, where air rushed violently like a balloon about to burst. His ears throbbed with pressure, begging for silence. A crushing force slammed against his body, yanking him downward. The pain was immediate, nauseating, and real. He was falling from the sky.
Without thinking, he flung his arms and legs outward, trying to catch the air, to slow the pull before it reached terminal velocity. It was instinct—something primal buried in his bones. Strange, considering he barely remembered anything beyond a middle school education. And yet, his body moved like it remembered a world his mind could no longer name.
There was someone else falling beside him—a man, or at least the shape of one—plummeting through the sky with a backpack strapped tightly to his shoulders. Felis caught a glimpse of the glinting buckles, the slight flare of fabric catching the wind. It looked planned, deliberate. As if they had given him a chance—however slim—to survive. But Felis had no such luxury.
It was almost merciful, this idea of letting him die "naturally." And yet, the cruelty in that mercy gnawed at him. Why let him fall? Why not finish him cleanly, swiftly? The real question burned behind his eyes: Why keep him alive just long enough to hope?
Whatever the case, Felis had an idea—anything was better than painting the sea below in shades of red. He angled his body toward the man, hoping, praying he could reach him in time. But before he could think twice, instinct seized control. His eyes narrowed. His body shifted. He angled into a controlled descent—not quite a dive, but close enough.
Everything around him blurred, yet his mind was unnervingly clear. Crystal sharp. It was as if danger sharpened his focus instead of shattering it. Like a crow or a raven, he moved with eerie precision, closing the gap between them. Then—swift as shadow—he stole the backpack from the man's shoulders. A sharp jolt told him he might've dislocated the man's arm, but it didn't matter.
Without hesitation, Felis yanked the cord. The parachute exploded open above him like a scream in the silence. Below, the man spiralled downward, a ragdoll with nothing left. Felis barely heard his final words as they cut through the wind like a curse:
"Rot in hell, you bastard."
They were fleeing, but unmistakably clear.
Felis watched the man's body crash into the sea, the impact sending a visible plume of blood into the water. He blinked once—twice—but felt no tremor of guilt. Alarmingly calm, he realized he had just killed someone… and didn't care all that much. There were more pressing things clawing at his mind.
It sounded heartless, even to him. But ever since yesterday—ever since the car hit him and the artifact vanished—something inside had shifted. He felt different. Detached.
Now, gliding silently through the sky beneath the open parachute, Felis sank deep into thought. Let's see... The moment the car struck him, he remembered a blinding pink glow—vivid, unnatural. At first, he thought it was just his imagination. But no… his memory was too sharp, too precise afterward. He remembered everything—every face, every crack in the pavement, every fleeting second—with an unnatural clarity.
The artifact… yes, it had been square in shape, ancient and worn. A bird's head had been carved into its surface, and from the eye extended a massive "X" that stretched toward one corner. It pulsed with age, power, and something else—something he couldn't yet name.
Just then, a patch of green broke the endless blue beneath him. Grasslands. Land. Safety—or danger. It was too soon to tell.
Felis landed with a muted thud. He stretched, almost casually, as though he hadn't just stolen a man's life and parachute. His mind was disturbingly clear—too clear. He knew he wasn't one of the Chosen. The cursed always described hearing a voice—nasty and mocking—that announced their kills or dispensed grotesque rewards, whether the victim was human or monster. The curse didn't discriminate.
But Felis? He heard nothing.
He wasn't chosen. He was forced—dragged into a Rift by some twisted clan leader's whim. And now one of that leader's own subordinates was dead by his hand. Ironic. Or perhaps inevitable.
He checked the parachute. It detached automatically, its compact design snapping back into a backpack form via some kind of sensor. Regular parachutes were massive, unwieldy things. This one—sleek, smaller—was different. Possibly blacksmith-crafted, tailored for elite use.
Curious, he opened the bag. Inside: food, clothes, and water. Practical items. Nothing magical, nothing otherworldly.
Or so he thought.
Then he noticed it—just faintly. Along the inner lining of the bag, words shimmered in glowing black light, writhing like ink in water. Letters that weren't etched, but alive.
And they were looking at him.
He decided to return to the strange script later. The symbols pulsed with ancient energy—older than language, older than memory. They could wait.
Digging deeper into the bag, Felis found two books. One was titled Intro to Rift, the other Becoming Evolved and Sage. That was... promising. Maybe he could learn something useful. Even if he hadn't been chosen by the Rift's curse, knowledge was survival. If there were alternatives to the curse—some loophole, some hidden system—these pages might hold the key. Maybe even a way back to the world he once knew.
But then a thought twisted in his gut, cold and wrong.
When someone chosen by the Rift dies... isn't there supposed to be a replacement? A monster, born from the void, taking their place in the real world?
A slow chill crept up his spine.
Felis turned his gaze back toward the shoreline—toward the broken body he'd left behind. Darkness had begun to pool around the corpse, thick and tar-like, swallowing the blood-slicked water. And then, without warning, a grotesque, towering arm burst from the carcass—its shape monstrous, clawed, and dripping with void-black mist.
The dead man was gone.
Something else had taken his place.