I stumbled upon the barren wastelands, each step crunching on the reddish-brown ground beneath my feet.

The atmosphere was thick, making every breath feel like I inhaled the residue of an ancient fire.

Flames danced randomly in the distance, eerily illuminating the horizon with their flickering glows.

Logs, charred beyond recognition, were scattered haphazardly across the terrain.

Luckily, the female clothes in Mordurn were revealing, so I probably wouldn't melt for a while.

"It seems hotter here than in Mordurn," I whispered, taking in the scorching heat.

I looked at my clothes and felt awkward, "Did these clothes always feel so tight?"

It felt like these clothes were going to burst any minute now. But then I noticed something in the corner of my eye.

I leaned down, my fingers grazing one of the countless dead sticks littering the ground. It disintegrated upon touch, leaving nothing but ash on my fingertips.

"Well, aren’t you a dramatic piece of wood?" I remarked, slightly amused. This place was full of surprises, and while it held an aesthetic resemblance to hell, its peculiarities set it apart.

I trudged on, and the very act of walking became an increasing struggle. Every direction looked the same—endless and foreboding, with the occasional flame throwing up a column of dark smoke. The air was still thick with the stench of sulphur and despair.

Every inhale tasted of ash, and every exhale whispered a silent plea. I couldn't help but remark to myself, "It's like every version of hell I've ever imagined, and yet... It's so different."

Off to the side, a sudden flare of fire caught my eye. I paused, watching as it licked the air hungrily.

Yet, oddly, there was no warmth. Its light, too, was peculiar—bright, but it didn’t penetrate the surrounding darkness. It felt... hollow, like an imitation.

Slight discomfort prickled my feet with each step on the ground, which, despite its sandy texture, held an uncanny solidity.

The familiar weight of my shoes did little to ease the sensation.

The more I walked, the more this landscape began to resemble the images of hell I saw in books and tales.

The fiery flashes around me felt almost theatrical, like actors in a play I never asked to see.

They flared up unpredictably but never provided warmth. I mused aloud, “They’re more like phantoms of real flames.”

Suddenly, the ground beneath me shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly. I paused, feeling a slight vibration underfoot. I glanced around, trying to discern its source. It was faint, but there was definitely a rhythm, like a heartbeat.

"The land's alive?" The notion was absurd, yet I couldn't shake off the feeling.

I looked up at the sun, still red. I wondered if there was a moon, but a stick crunching blew that thought away. 

I looked down, stepped on another stick, and then looked ahead of me. There were a lot of sticks and logs. The fire seemed to have dissipated too. 

Pressing on, I felt the weight of solitude and the stifling heat combine, attempting to drown my spirit. Yet the hope of escaping this nightmarish landscape spurred me forward.

After what felt like hours, the barren expanse started to give way. In the distance, I noticed the outlines of trees—dead and devoid of life.

I felt compelled to explore. Was this another of Yukio's manipulations? A trap, perhaps? I didn't know what Yukio could or couldn't do with the book.

I remembered when Beatrice warned me about wandering alone. But my curiosity piqued, and I quickened my pace.

Soon enough, the sporadic logs turned into the skeletal remnants of trees. A dead forest amid hellish lands.

As I ventured deeper into the forest, the atmosphere shifted. Gone was the oppressive heat of the wasteland, replaced by a chilling stillness.

"Well, that's unusual." I said to the trees before continuing my journey to nowhere. My words hung in the air, absorbed by the silence that seemed to echo with the weight of secrets.

Their leafless branches creaked, even though there was no wind to sway them.

The distant, flickering flames were no longer visible. Their warm glow was replaced by a cold, blueish luminescence that seemed to emanate from the trees themselves.

"What even was Yukio's goal sending me... wherever I am?" The words slipped from my lips like a sigh. I was alone with my thoughts, my doubts echoing through the stillness of the dead forest.

The dead sticks crunched underfoot more frequently, and the ominous trees loomed closer. Their twisted, blackened forms seemed to reach out, craving something they no longer had—life.

I still wondered why I felt angry at Yukio for killing off Beatrice, Lilith, Gordon, and all of Mordurn, "Why do I care so much about their fates?" I mused.

I roamed around, looking for any place I could stay for a while as I thought of ways to beat Yukio until he cried out in agony.

The dead forest seemed to stretch endlessly before me. Some of the branches reached towards the sky, like skeletal hands beckoning the unknown.

I took another glance at my outfit, raising an eyebrow. "Revealing might've been an understatement. Or were these clothes burning? If so, why aren't I?" 

A few seconds passed before I shrugged off my concerns about my outfit and continued through the dead forest.

The eerie silence weighed heavily on my shoulders, fueling my determination even further.

Continuing on through the haunting forest, I found myself drawn to a particular tree that was noticeably larger than the others.

Its branches twisted in a peculiar pattern, as if they were forming some arcane symbol.

"Are you a landmark?" I murmured, circling the tree. There was something about its design that seemed intentional.

As I pondered, my foot caught onto a concealed root, causing me to stumble.

Regaining my balance, I looked down and noticed a unique pattern in the sandy ground around the tree's base.

The reddish-brown sand appeared to be shifting, like a mini-whirlpool.

Curious, I reached out to touch it. The moment my fingers made contact, an intense jolt ran up my arm, and the symbol vanished.

"Was that a trap? Did something happen to me?" I wondered. But as I looked around, everything seemed unchanged.

As the minutes ticked by, my thoughts drifted to my friends. Could I call them friends? What exactly qualifies someone as a friend?

Lost in my own thoughts, I found myself eyeing the charred wood once more. Could it be edible?

The thought was absurd, of course, but the hunger pangs in my stomach were becoming unbearable.

I shook my head, trying to clear the ridiculous idea from my mind. No, I couldn't risk it.

With a sigh, I leaned back against a nearby tree and closed my eyes. Maybe if I just rested for a bit, everything would become clear.

Maybe the answers would reveal themselves to me in the quiet of the forest.

But as the minutes turned into hours, I began to realise that the only thing clear was my isolation.

I continued my journey through the eerie dead forest, the silence around me accentuated by the occasional creaking of the twisted trees.

The landscape around me was haunting yet eerily beautiful. The trees cast eerie shadows that danced and twisted with every step I took.

I could feel their eyes on me, even though they had none. Their ancient, gnarled forms seemed to whisper.

I paused, trying to discern the whispers, hoping they might hold clues. But they were just figments of my imagination—echoes of my own thoughts, bouncing back at me.

The ever-present silence weighed heavily on my shoulders, occasionally broken by the crunching of dead wood under my feet.

I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, even though rationality told me I was alone in this desolate forest.

A single thought continuously circled in my mind: How long has it been? Hours, days, perhaps even longer?

My sense of time was distorted, and I couldn't trust my own perceptions anymore. Was time even a concept in this place?

"Everything is the same," I whispered—every tree, every shadow, even my footprints behind me seemed to disappear, as if the forest was erasing my very existence.

With every step, the dead forest seemed to close in on me. Shadows played tricks on my eyes. Did that tree just move?

Is the forest rearranging itself?

A gust of wind? No, there was no wind. Just silence and the strange sensation that the forest was rearranging itself with every step I took.

Every distant crack of wood felt orchestrated, as if the forest itself was alive and reacting to my presence.

Each step forward only deepened my sense of déjà vu.

I couldn't tell if I was walking in circles, so I clutched my head and counted from one to ten to see if anything different would happen. But no matter how many times I counted, everything remained the same.

It's not like I expected anything to happen, though. So I just continued walking into nowhere. It was all I could do, anyway. There was nowhere else to go.

"Is Yukio just sending me into an infinite loop? If he really wanted this to be a 'fun' game, why would he do this?" I pondered while wandering, feeling an unusual mix of frustration and curiosity about Yukio's motives.

But then a peculiar thought interrupted my musings, "At least there isn’t any lava here."

But, of course, as soon as the thought entered my mind, I came upon a clearing where a scorching lava pool sat.

"Is this some sort of twisted joke? Did my thoughts just manifest this?"

The heat radiating from the pond was intense; just getting near it made me feel like I was incinerating.

I looked down; some of my clothes had melted too. It wasn't ordinary lava; I think it was something entirely different.

I couldn't help but wonder what kind of substance it actually was, but I didn't want to stay long, so I walked away as quickly as I could, holding on to the remaining fragments of clothing that didn't melt away.

I tried punching the ground, hoping it'd give way to another world or dimension. All it did was create a minor dent in the endless stretch of land and bruise my fist.

"Stupid! Why did I think that would work?" I screamed internally.

I lay on the ground and glanced at my bruised fist. The deep purple contrasted starkly with my skin, throbbing painfully with each heartbeat.

"Why did I even do that?" I mumbled to myself, tracing the swollen area gently with my other hand.

The pain was sharp and immediate, making me wince. Yet the sensation was oddly grounding.

Sitting on a fallen log, I tried to regain my composure.

"Being the only one in your family able to forget... isn't fun at all. I wonder if I have any happy memories."

I struggled to remember just one pleasant memory that didn't involve me pretending to kill my toys, but all I could think of was emptiness.

I could feel the fringes of a memory, I think—a smile, a touch, a song—but it eluded me, leaving me with a hollow ache.

Even so, did I have a pleasant memory?

The claustrophobic feeling began to intensify, with every direction offering nothing new. I closed my eyes and counted to three. With each number, I hoped to awaken somewhere else.

"One... Two... Three!"

I opened my eyes, but I was still there, in the same place.

I spent the next few hours trying every method I could think of to break free from this hauntingly repetitive terrain.

In a moment of wild desperation, I began to shout random words from various spells I had heard or read about. "Abracadabra! Open sesame! Riddikulus!" But, predictably, nothing happened.

I tried visualising a door and willing it into existence. However, all that appeared was a hot breeze.

Next, I tried mimicking the classic 'damsel in distress' call, hoping a heroic figure or beast would swoop in and take me away.

"Help, help! Someone, save me from this dreary place!" I exclaimed dramatically.

The only response was—you guessed it—a hot breeze.

Sitting in frustration, I tried to recall any magical means of transportation. "Teleportation spells, dimension doors, rifts..." I mumbled to myself, scribbling symbols in the sand, attempting to craft a circle that might transport me elsewhere.

I still felt like I was being watched, but there was nothing—besides constant rustling, which only made that feeling worse.

I collapsed onto the ground, letting the weight of my tiredness overtake me. The piercing silence of the dead forest seemed louder than ever, punctuating my heightened state of weariness.

It might be strange to say this, but the sensation of seeing someone in pain, though it sounds cruel, always energised me.

It's as if their suffering became my strength. Not in a sadistic sense, but it's like the pain resonated with a void inside me, filling it momentarily.

My hands clawed the air as if I were scratching an itch. Why I did this? I don't know. But the very fabric of reality tore like paper. I stared at my hands in disbelief.

“This... can’t be real,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

"Did I actually just rip through reality? Could I even call it reality?" I mused, standing up and beginning to pace around.

"What if I..." I put my hands through the tiny split and widened the gap by spreading my hands farther apart.

It was as if the world was a canvas, and my hands were the brush tearing through the painted reality.

I gazed into the tear I created, expecting to see home, or anything like home. What was on the other side wasn't home, but...