I want to live.
I ran, thinking exactly that with maddening desperation.
"Khhhk...!!"
My school uniform, torn away along with my arm.
Turning my eyes as far as possible from that horrific stump gushing blood, I climbed the back mountain.
It was an ordinary mountain I'd seen countless times before, yet now it felt utterly grotesque.
—Creak, creak.
"...!!"
A chilling sound from the monster reached my ears.
Startled, I looked back and saw the guard, unable to pursue me.
The monster, fingers poking through the school fence as it peered up at me.
I swallowed my breath at that horrific sight.
"It doesn't even have a head... yet I can feel its stare. Fucking hell..."
Its gaze sent shivers down my spine.
I had once believed humans were the scariest beings in existence.
It seemed I had been wrong.
Right now, what terrified me most was that monster.
"Stu...d...ent... th-th-there, d-dange...rous."
That monster was speaking to me in a spine-chilling voice despite currently having no head. It was utterly terrifying.
The monster lifted my severed arm, blood dripping from it in thick drops, and beckoned as if telling me to come closer.
"...Mom... I want to live. Please, please... if you're watching from up there, help me...."
Calling my dead mother's name, I scrambled madly up the mountain.
Only one arm remained. I had lost too much blood.
My body was steadily growing cold.
My head swam.
I must have been running out of oxygen.
—Thud.
"Haa... haa...."
Unable to take another step, I collapsed onto my side.
Even if I tried to rise, I had only one arm to support myself.
"...I don't... want to die."
Praying so, I gazed up at the sky.
It was red.
So terribly red that it was horrifying.
Feeling my body slowly go cold, I let out a ragged breath.
"Heuk...."
Tears burst forth.
It was infuriatingly unfair that I would die so futilely at this age.
My body growing cold.
Time flowing by, impossible to resist.
I hated everything.
The only thing I could do was cry my heart out.
How long had I cried like that?
At the point where I could no longer even cry, only exhaling ragged breaths as I quietly awaited death.
—Crunch.
"...?"
The sound of rustling footsteps on fallen leaves came from behind me.
It seemed the security guard monster had found me.
I had to flee, yet my legs refused to move.
I want to live.
In that moment when I writhed with a deranged desperation to survive.
"Do you want to live?"
"...!!!"
The voice of someone long dead reached my ears.
'Mom...?'
When I turned back with trembling eyes, half-hoping—
"My son, do you want to live?"
"...!!!"
Something white, twisted into a horrible grin, was gaping its maw wide open.
A maw from which saliva dripped steadily, bits of flesh wedged between its teeth.
As I trembled violently at the sight, the monster muttered.
"Found you."
Immediately after hearing those words, I was swallowed by the monster.