ENDLESS NIGHT MERE

The rain hit the windshield like shatterproof glass bursting into dust. Tires squealed—a high, agonized shriek against wet asphalt—followed by the horrific sound of twisting metal. The steering wheel violently bucked against my grip, snapping my wrist with a sickening pop. Engine heat exploded through the dashboard, searing skin before darkness swallowed everything. Blink. No hospital white. No smell of antiseptic or sound of heart monitors. I opened my eyes to pure, suffocating darkness. "Where... am I?" My voice didn't echo. It dissolved into the void. Suddenly, the ground beneath me dissolved. I fell—wind howling in my ears as gravity yanked me into an endless abyss. Down, down, down, until impact. Every bone in my body shattered. Pain—blinding, unbearable pain—flooded my nervous system. I coughed up warm iron, staring at a sky made of swirling crimson clouds. Massive, spider-like silhouettes skittered across the dark horizon, converging on my broken body. I screamed as razor-sharp mandibles tore through my throat. Blink. I gasped, sitting up violently. I wasn't dead. I was standing on a narrow rope bridge suspended over a lake of bubbling magma. The heat scorched the hairs on my arms. Before I could process what was happening, a winged creature lunged from the smoke, clawing through my chest. Blink. Freezing water filled my lungs. Drowning. Blink. A room full of grinding iron gears crushing my limbs to paste. Blink. Death after death. Danger after danger. I lost count of the days, months, and years. Whenever I survived one nightmare, another instantly began. Whenever I died, I simply woke up at the start of another nightmare scenario. I didn't know I was lying in a hospital bed in the real world, hooked up to life support while my mind fought through thousands of hellish survival simulations. I only knew one thing: I had to keep surviving. I learned how to read shadows before they moved. I learned how to move without making a sound. My mind became a fortress of cold, calculated instincts forged in thousands of gruesome deaths. And then, after what felt like an eternity in hell... the abyss cracked open. A blinding white light shattered the crimson sky of my mind. The sound of alarms rang out—not from a nightmare beast, but from physical machines. I forced my real eyes open. My vision was blurry, bathed in a muted gray light. Dust choked my throat as I drew in a ragged, dry breath. The air smelled of sulfur, smoke, and old copper. "He's... he's waking up!" a voice rasped nearby. "Get the boss! The kid's awake!" I tried to sit up, but my body was completely weak, muscle-atrophied, and heavy as lead. I looked at my hands—pale, thin, and scarred. I glanced toward the window of the ruined building I was lying in. There was no city. No blue sky. Outside, a thick veil of gray smoke blanketed the skyline. Shattered skyscrapers stood like rotting teeth against a sun obscured by nuclear ash. Down on the dirt street, a boy no older than twelve walked past holding a rusty submachine gun, eyes hollow and dead. "Where... am I?" I whispered, my voice cracked like dry clay. A heavy hand rested on my shoulder. A tall man with a scarred eye and a thick leather coat stepped into view, holding a cracked can of expired peaches like it was liquid gold. "Welcome back to the living, kid," the man said gravely. "You’ve been asleep for five years. The world you knew is long gone."