This was a world shrouded in darkness.
Black earth, black night sky, a black world.
A pair of scarlet eyes quietly opened in the darkness and looked around.
The night concealed its body, but not the gaunt air about it. Like a wild dog, it stretched out its withered forelimbs, lowered itself, and slowly crawled forward like a true wild dog, without making a sound.
This was the basic skill required to survive in this dark world.
For no one knew how many dangers lurked in the darkness, or how many lives had been buried behind those dangers.
The scarlet eyes flickered in the dark as the "wild dog" slowed more and more. At last, in some corner of its memory, it felt a dry leg bone.
The scarlet light flashed for an instant.
Then vanished.
In the silence, faint crunching sounds arose.
The dry bone was ground into powder between its teeth, mixed with saliva, and swallowed. The taste was bland, and it had little nutritional value. But within the Black Prison, finding even a little food and struggling to stay alive was the greatest fortune. It could not ask for more.
At the thought of the words "ask for," the crunching in the night paused for a moment.
Perhaps it had remembered the sights beneath blue skies and white clouds, or the tenderness of fresh flesh. After being in this world for so long, such words should no longer have stirred its heart much. Yet recently, for some reason, it had increasingly thought of those words, and the meanings behind them.
Such as asking for, such as hope, such as despair.
Just as the crunching paused, a deep rumbling suddenly came from the pitch-black night sky overhead. It sounded like a thunderstorm in some faraway place.
The scarlet