"Where… where am I?"
Zain was certain—absolutely certain. Not a single shred of doubt could, or ever would, cross her mind.
She remembered everything. Every single thing. It was all so vivid, so terrifyingly clear, that she could recount the events in perfect, agonizing order.
Each moment unraveled in her mind like a thread of thorns, dragging along every minute detail she wished she could forget.
The timing of it all. The voices that filled the air—some faint whispers, others so piercing they felt like needles driven into her ears. The expressions she caught with her own eyes; some were cold and hollow, others were laced with hidden meanings she never wanted to understand.
And those words… those merciless, relentless sentences. They struck her chest one by one, crushing her heart like a piece of scrap paper—discarded, wrinkled, and soiled, ready to be thrown into the trash at any moment.
Until finally, her body could no longer bear the weight of it all.
She collapsed.
She pulled her knees close, clutching them tight against her chest. Her flushed face buried deep between them, hidden in the dampness of her own skin—moist from the relentless droplets of tears falling one after another from her eyes.
Minutes passed—or perhaps it was only seconds that felt like an eternity—until the sensation hit her.
A sudden, violent assault on her head.
It felt like a barrage of tiny ice spears piercing from within. The tips were sharp yet strangely delicate, but the cold they carried spread rapidly, shattering her balance. She winced, her hands instinctively clawing at her own head.
Her vision began to distort.
Reality warped, bending and spiraling into something unrecognizable. Straight lines lost their form, twisting into strange, jagged curves. Colors bled into one another, forming bizarre circles that spun faster and faster, descending into absolute chaos.
Until finally—everything collapsed.
Darkness swallowed her whole, pulling her down with a terrifying force.
And then...
When she finally pried her eyes open, she found herself in a place that led her to one, terrifying conclusion.
"Is this… the Apocalypse?"
Before her eyes, the familiar sanctuary of her room was gone.
There was no longer the cramped, stifling space she knew so well, with its rarely opened window.
Gone was her desk, which barely had an inch of breathing room—once cluttered with her glowing laptop, its screen displaying rows of unfinished paragraphs she never got to complete.
The scattered papers were nowhere to be seen. The sheets filled with colorful ink and jagged scribbles—the half-baked ideas and sentences that had died mid-breath on her bed and across the floor—they had all vanished.
Even the snacks she'd bought in a rush to accompany her late-night writing sessions were gone. The half-eaten bags and the forgotten wrappers tucked under the table and beneath her chair… they were erased, as if they had never existed at all.
Everything… was gone.
It had all vanished, dissolved into nothingness.
In its place, something far grander—and far more terrifying—stretched out before her.
She seemed to be standing at the epicenter of a... city.
Or at least, something that had once been worthy of that name.
Buildings that should have towered with arrogant defiance toward the sky were now shattered. Not a single straight line remained, no recognizable silhouettes—everything had been reduced to a chaos of identical, unrecognizable ruins.
She stared at her surroundings, trying to make sense of the landscape. The longer she gazed, the more unsettling it felt—the color.
Jet black.
As if a volcanic surge of intense fire had ignited from the city's core, roaring silently into the air before crashing back down like a deluge of flame.
That fire had devoured the walls, the windows, and the pillars that should have stood strong, transforming them into skeletal remains; black, scorched bone-like structures jutting out in every direction.
She could also feel it.
Each of those building carcasses… seemed to be staring at her. An unblinking, unyielding gaze. Sharp. Filled with a cold, piercing curiosity, as if they were waiting for her very next step.
"Am I… hallucinating?"
"Or… is this a nightmare sent by the Deity because I dared to raise my voice at my Mother earlier?"
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something—a mirror.
A large, wide shard of glass hung precariously against the ruins beside her. Its surface was dark—a deep, obsidian blue that reminded her of the silent, untouched depths of the ocean, where light rarely dared to reach the bottom.
Slowly, she took a step closer.
And there she was.
The reflection was unnervingly clear.
She was still wearing her round glasses. Her clothes hadn't changed—a simple, slightly wrinkled black short-sleeved shirt and loose trousers that fell just below her knees. Her hair was still tied haphazardly, messy, with a few stray strands falling and swaying gently against the sides of her face every time she moved.
Nothing was different.
Her gaze lowered, observing more intently. Her skin—where it wasn't covered by fabric—was clean. Too clean. There were no scratches, no wounds, not even a speck of dust or a stain that should have been there, considering this place… this place was clearly anything but whole.
Her eyes returned to the reflection.
Her eyes.
She blinked once, then again.
They weren't red. They weren't puffy. There was no trace of tears, no exhaustion, no sign that she had just endured something agonizing—even though, for some reason, a faint feeling inside told her that she should have looked broken.
She stared at the reflection for a long time.
She was no longer sure what she was actually looking at—whether it was herself, or the black ruins looming behind her. Or perhaps… she was searching for something. A sign, a small clue from her own body, to understand where she was and how she had ended up here.
And just as her thoughts began to spiral aimlessly, her eyes suddenly widened.
"Could it be…"
"Am I… have I been thrown into another world?"
"Teleportation? Or more accurately… transmigration? Just like the stories I've written, the novels I've read, and the series I've watched…?"
"But… if that were true, wouldn't someone have to experience death first before being reborn in another world?"
"Could it be… that I am indeed dead…?"
"But… this is completely nonsensical, isn't it?"
"What could have caused my death? It's impossible that it was just from… crying, right? Something like that is clearly impossible."
"Besides… in the real world, there isn't a single theory capable of proving that a person can move to another dimension."
"All of that is just imagination, without a single shred of truth—"
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!
The sound struck her ears without mercy, a brutal shockwave so powerful it nearly sent her body flying backward.
Her balance shattered—she stumbled, almost falling into the jagged, gaping ruins that surrounded her—but a massive slab of debris behind her caught her back, halting her fall in a split second that was almost too late.
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!
Her hands shot up in a desperate reflex, pressing hard against her ears to shut out the world.
But it was futile.
The sound defied her, piercing through the desperate pressure of her palms, crawling deeper with a ferocity that only seemed to grow. Her eardrums screamed in agony, hammered mercilessly by the shockwaves that tore through the air, swirling like a violent vortex eager to shatter her to pieces.
The sheer weight of that second roar stripped the strength from her legs. Her joints buckled, turning to water under the crushing, invisible pressure that continued to mount.
And finally, her body surrendered.
She fell, the full weight of her existence collapsing until her knees struck the scorched earth beneath her.
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!
The sound didn't come alone this time.
It arrived with a cacophony of other voices—the shrill, metallic screeching of building remains that had been trembling against one another, until finally… they began to grind, to collide, as if every slab of concrete, every splinter of wood, and every shard of metal had been breathed into life.
The ground beneath her suddenly buckled and surged, heaving like a colossal tidal wave that forced everything standing upon it to dance a violent, uncontrollable dance.
Her balance shattered once more.
She was tossed around—flung, bounced, and staggered by the sheer force of the upheaval.
Just as her consciousness began to flicker under the violent momentum, she finally slammed into the earth, collapsing face-down. Her chest pressed against the soil, her palms searing against the cracked surface, burning from the friction of the chaos.
But the destruction was far from over.
A shadow loomed over her, massive and absolute, swallowing her small, trembling form whole.
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!
ROOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!
The sound returned.
This time, it was closer than ever. Clearer. More deafening.
It didn't strike just once; it came in relentless waves, pulsing rapidly, stacking upon one another in a brutal, rhythmic assault.
Her hands flew back to her ears instinctively, a futile shield against the overwhelming force.
She could no longer hold herself together—her body shook violently, her limbs clawing at the scorched earth as the world continued to vibrate with a wild, untamable ferocity.
With the last shreds of her consciousness, slowly—agonizingly slowly—she lifted her head.
Her eyes searched, straining to focus through the oppressive darkness and the vast shadow that had swallowed her whole.
She needed to know. She had to see what was causing this sound, what was looming over her, what was making every nerve in her body scream without end.
And then, she saw it.
Her breath hitched, trapped in her throat.
Her pupils dilated, wide with a mixture of terror and awe.
Before her mind could even begin to process or translate the impossible sight before her, her voice took over—trembling, shattered, yet certain.
"Is that… Levi… Leviathan?"