Immutable

The smoke from the flare wafted through the air as Seth waved it around.

That's when he heard it.

CRACK!

A sharp sound, like stakes being driven into concrete, but amplified. It came from the edge of the building, just behind where he had come out.

CRACK!

Louder this time.
Closer.

The ground beneath his feet began to shake.
Seth slowly lowered the flare.

His heart, which had begun to calm down, suddenly started racing again.

"Again... what was that?"

He turned around, very slowly, as if moving quickly could make what he feared come true.

And then he saw it.

A claw.

A black, twisted limb, with strands of flesh and metal, dug into the concrete edge of the roof. The fingers ended in points as sharp as knives, and clung to the material with a force that sent splinters flying.

Another claw appeared next to the first. Then another.

A voice, cold, clear, without origin, echoed inside his skull, filling every corner of his mind:

Only the strong can choose.
Nothing you do will work.
No matter how hard you try, the reality is...

IMMUTABLE.

The roar cut through the air, as real as the wind on his face. The beast propelled itself from the facade of the building with its remaining tentacles, throwing its enormous, wounded mass over the edge of the roof.

WHAAAM!

It landed with a thud, and the concrete cracked into a web of fissures around its deformed legs. There it was, again, in front of him.

No fire had consumed it, no explosion had destroyed it.
Only smoldering wounds and hatred burning in its red eye.

It was Jorō, the beast that had returned to take away all hope from him.

Its eye fixed on Seth. The prey he thought he had managed to escape, but had only managed to prolong its life for a few more minutes.

Seth backed away, his eyes scanning the rooftop desperately.

To his left, the edge and the void.

To his right was the door through which he had come, but the beast stood between him and the door.

"There's no way out..." he muttered, and then his expression hardened.

"Unless...!"

He didn't think twice. There was no time to think.

Instead of running away, he ran straight toward the beast.

The creature, surprised for a moment, reacted. Its tentacles shot out toward him like black spears.

Seth had the smoke flare, which was still hissing in his hand.

In a desperate move, he threw it with all his strength, not at the beast's body, but straight at one of its eyes.

KRIIIIINN!!!

The beast instinctively closed its eyes and turned its head.

The flare exploded against its bony mask, covering it in thick, blinding orange smoke. The creature recoiled, tentacles flailing blindly.

Seth didn't stop.

He kept running, dodging a tentacle that almost pierced his arm.
He wasn't heading for the door.

He was heading for the void, the opposite edge of the roof.

From the moment he cornered me on the bridge...
I knew death was possible.

He thought as his steps brought him closer to the edge of the roof.

He looked down into the void for a moment.

How many meters would the fall be—? 
I don't care.

When he reached the edge, he didn't hesitate.

I'll still have a better chance of surviving than facing that thing.

FWOOOSH!

He jumped.

He closed his eyes; there was nothing but air.

The wind whistled in his ears, loud and clear, carrying away the smell of burning and blood. He felt his stomach rise, a sensation of weightlessness, of free fall.

It was a moment of surreal calm, of total freedom. He had chosen his own end, in his own way.

Then suddenly...

CLACK!

in midair

A brutal impact on his torso, as if a steel cable had hooked him in midair. The air rushed out of his lungs in a dry gasp. His body shook violently, his fall coming to an abrupt halt.

A black tentacle, long and thick as a snake's body, had wrapped itself around his chest, squeezing with increasing force.

Seth opened his eyes, gasping, unable to breathe. He saw his feet dangling in the air, swaying over the abyss. He wanted to scream, but no air came out.

"AAGH-H!" he managed to spit out, a hoarse, choked sound.

With a terrible effort, he turned his head, his heart pounding in his throat.
And then he saw it.

The face.
Or what looked like a face.

It wasn't a face, but a nightmare mask come to life, a white skull, rough and rugged, like a broken mask of ancient bone.

On one side, a single slitted eye, a sunken red that conveyed hatred... and sadness; below, a twisted jaw, grinding back and forth like a hungry mechanism.

Seth writhed, kicked the air, struggled with all his might.
But the tentacle only tightened, closing like a snake around his chest.

And then he felt something worse than the pressure: a feeling of emptiness, of coldness that started on his skin and crept inside him. As if his warmth, his energy, his very essence, were being sucked out through every pore.

The beast was absorbing his Rem energy.

"LET ME GO, AAAGGH!" he screamed, this time with all the voice he had left, a scream torn by panic and rage.

But all of his strength was slipping away. He felt his arms and legs becoming heavy and numb. Coldness invaded his chest. Time, once again, seemed to slow down.

Each beat of his heart was a distant echo. Each gasp for breath was a monumental effort.

Am I going to die like this? he thought, and the thought was calm, resigned.

Everything hurts... I... I can't feel my feet anymore...

Slowly, his eyes closed, filled with tears.

I'm sorry, brother... Forgive me, Mom... I should have listened to them... All those times they told me to quit the academy...

But then, in the midst of the cold darkness closing in on his mind, a memory pierced him with the clarity and force of a bullet. It wasn't a vague thought; it was a complete, vivid scene that burst into his consciousness:

—10 days ago 4/02/2274 REM Academy Hall 1-C—

The neon light was cold and white. Seth stood in front of his professor's metal desk. The man, with graying hair and a tired face, didn't even look up from the reports he was reviewing.

"Professor, it's me, Harper. I wanted to talk to you about authorizing me to participate in a mission."

The professor put down the report, but didn't look at him.

"I'm sorry, Harper. But you know your situation. I can't help you with that if your Rem control skills are so poor." Finally, he looked up. His eyes showed no anger, but something worse: pity. A professional, distant pity. "What have you been doing since last year? Have you been training as I told you to?"

But I kept insisting.

"I've been training. And not only that, I've gotten the best grades in the course in Rem tactical and operational theory. According to the regulations, cadets with exceptional grades can be tested in a field mission, even if their practical parameters are... inadequate."

The professor looked at him for a long moment, as if seeing right through him. Then he sighed and grabbed a form.

"Fine. I'll authorize it." His pen began to scratch across the paper. "But when you're out there, Harper, you'll realize how unprepared you are. Grades are one thing. Reality... is quite another."

The memory hit like a dagger.

The humiliation, the helplessness of that moment, burned more than the emptiness the beast had created inside him.

"...My first mission at the Rem academy, and my last chance to prove that I'm not just a waste. These three years won't be for nothing..."

A different voice resonated in his head. It wasn't the professor's.
It was his own voice, from just a few days ago, filled with fragile but unwavering hope.

I said that. I... came here to change my circumstances. To... change something, no matter what.

Not to die with regrets like this...

Not to prove right all those who ever doubted me.

That spark of rage, of pure stubbornness, was stronger than the energy they were stealing from him. In the darkness that swallowed him, one last fierce thought arose, not as a plea, but as a promise.

NO!

Something roared inside him.

A dull, primitive NO that did not come out of his throat but vibrated in every cell.

A NO that did not accept the end, that refused to be the epilogue of a story of defeat again.

KRIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!

The beast reacted to that unexpected burst of willpower.

The tentacle holding him tightened even more, and then, with a sudden movement, the creature lifted him higher, as if it wanted to slam him against the roof floor to end his resistance once and for all.

And then, it threw him.

SPLAAAAAT!!!!

Seth's body slammed into the concrete wall of the roof access shed. The impact was sharp, brutal. He felt the air escape from his lungs forever, something break in his side.

But in the last second, instinctively, he had crossed his arms and protected the back of his neck.

His head didn't hit solidly.

The blow was cushioned, distributed across his back and shoulders.

He fell to the roof floor like a sack of broken bones, rolling a couple of times before coming to rest, face up.

"Aghh..." A sound, barely a whisper of air.
"I... can't... move..."

His body, shattered, gave way completely.

His limbs were unresponsive.
A sweet, dark heaviness called to him from the depths of his consciousness.

His eyelids, terribly heavy, began to close.

"I-I refuse... to die," he murmured, and those were his last conscious words.

The last thing he saw before darkness enveloped him completely was that single eye.
That red eye, sunk into the bone mask, watching him from above.

There was no triumph in that gaze.
There was no hunger.

Only a cold curiosity, a silent question floating in the air between them:

Why?
Why do you keep fighting?

And then...
Darkness.

A scene that does not scream.
A scene that whispers despair.

A scene in which a simple human, with nothing but his stubbornness, had given everything.

Silence.

Absolute silence flooded the rooftop, broken only by the faint final hiss of the spent flare and the whisper of the wind over Seth Harper's unconscious body.