Lucky to be Alive

The silver double doors stood open like a pair of outstretched hands, inviting him inside.

Wisps of illusory things drifted within the doorway.

"So it has finally come."

Colin took a deep breath, then, driven by some invisible force, followed the path split open by the Gray Fog.

Before long, as he stepped through the doors, they slammed shut behind him.

Colin looked back. The doors through which he had entered had somehow vanished.

When he looked forward again, he saw what seemed to be an illusory river flowing beneath his feet toward an ocean where countless rivers converged.

On both sides of the river lay nothing but boundless, profound darkness.

"This place..."

The river was not unfamiliar to him. He had already seen one in Living Dead territory.

But compared to before, he now felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity toward this strange river.

Countless things kept surfacing in his mind.

Colin inexplicably felt as though he was about to awaken from a dream.

Then, guided by some unfounded impulse, he moved his feet and slowly followed the river toward that illusory sea.

Yet at some point, Colin suddenly noticed something bobbing beside his feet.

He lowered his head and saw a mangled corpse. It seemed to have been bitten to death by something, torn apart until only incomplete fragments remained.

But when he saw the corpse's face, his gaze instantly froze—

The head, half its face bitten away, looked almost exactly like his own!

No, not almost exactly alike. It was him!

It was as though a bolt of lightning flashed through his mind, dispelling the fog in his heart.

"This is... me, when I used 'Prompt' to peer into the Chat Channel and find out what was wrong?"

Colin recalled how, during the first few days, he