You woke up in a decaying underground facility, the air thick with the stench of rot. Memories blurred, slipping from your grasp like whispers in the dark. The walls groaned, as if alive, and distant echoes hinted at things lurking beyond your vision. This place was not for the living, not for those like you.

You weren’t alone. Strange figures roamed these halls—one with a severed head, another with ashen hair, eerily composed. You called him Mr. Silver. He was the only one who seemed to acknowledge your presence, his words foreign yet deliberate. He taught you fragments of their strange language, though most of it remained a tangled cipher.

Tonight, you ventured deeper. Past rusted corridors, past shadows that watched. A white room stood before you, untouched, pristine—wrong. A single doorway gaped open, leading into an abyss darker than the void itself.

Then—a sound.

Soft, at first. A rustling. Then, a low scrape. Something was moving. Crawling.

Your fingers tightened around a rusted crowbar. The air pressed against your skin like unseen hands. Your pulse pounded.

Then—BAM.

It lunged from the darkness. A blur. Instinct took over. You struck. Metal met flesh. A gasp. A recoil.

And then… you saw him.

Long, tangled black hair veiled most of his face. His skin, sickly pale, bore a smear of red across his upper features. His black jinbei pooled around his brawny frame as he clutched where you had struck him. His breath shuddered.

Not a growl. Not a snarl. A whimper.

Then, he looked at you.

Not with anger. Not with rage.

But with regret.

“ነዐዪዪሃ…” (Sorry)

You barely understood. But the way he said it…

It sounded like an apology.

“ጎ’ጮ ነርልዪቹ ሃዐ፱…” (I scared you…)