Back in the world with two gates…

The boy woke up to find his body no longer losing color. However, the color he had lost didn’t return, as he could make out the gate in front of him through his palm.

To his delight, the pressure dragging him back towards the door devoid of light was no longer present. Hesitantly, he took a step forward.

Immediately, a smile spread across his face as he was delighted to find no force pulling him back like he remembered.

Stabs of pain pricked his heart as his hand touched his forehead. A sensation similar to touching the surface of a pond spread through his hand as a few beads of sweat began rolling down his face.

‘What was all this about?’ The boy thought before returning to focus at the gate in front of him.

Taking a deep breath, he walked forward towards the gate in the white for what felt like an eternity before finally walking through it.

The world around him filled with a blinding light, forcing him to shut his eyes as a comforting warmth enveloped him. Before he knew it, he was sound asleep, suspended in an endless expanse of light.

At the same time, back in the material world…

One after the other, runes on the boy’s body turned into a scarlet light, before being greedily devoured by the mask like a hungry beast which hadn’t eaten for days.

It still levitated above his left eye while the world around the boy had not changed one bit since its appearance. While the light emanating from it grew stronger by the second, the runes spread across the boy’s body grew sparse.

Every time a symbol turned into the scarlet light, the darkness which spread around it would follow the rune, followed by an outburst of a white smoke from the boy’s skin.

His cracked skin around the region would weave back together, returning to a state where it looked similar to how it was before cracking apart.

In what seemed like an eternity, or perhaps no time at all, the mask had devoured all the runes on his body. His skin had returned to how it was beforehand, smooth like a baby and lacking any cracks.

However, his body lacked muscles and appeared shriveled, as if starved for days.

Steam rose from all his pores as the piece of mask floating above his left eye fell down, satiated with its meal.

The moment it touched the bandages on top of the boy’s eye, the mask disappeared like a drop of water hitting the floor. The boy lay there, his chest heaving up and down, his body barely anything besides a bag of skin covering bones and organs.

Just as the mask vanished, the boy began to spasm. At the same instant, the hands ticking of the clock filled the room as the world returned to how it was prior to the appearance of the mask.

The metallic scent flooded the room once again. The breeze blew once more, carrying the air of rot. Sounds from nature poured through the window. The hands of the clock in the corner kept moving, producing the familiar ticking noise over and over.

All except for one difference — the shriveled yet calmly breathing boy.

His breath was steady, his expression tranquil. After a while, his body stopped twitching as he fell into a deep slumber. Time flew by as hours turned to days. Days turned to moontides—a period of ten days—before turning into months. In the blink of an eye, a little over three months flew by.

The only sign that the boy was alive was his beating heart, his expanding and contracting chest and eventual smile or frown which appeared on his face.

His eyes were still closed as he lay there, as if enjoying a long dream, if not counting the fact that he wouldn’t wake up no matter what anyone did. The surrounding people continued to look after him as his days passed in peace.

On one eventful night, sweat poured down his body in droves. His breath grew rapid as his body twitched a little now and then.

His right fist clenched, causing the bandages wrapping around his arm to turn a shade of crimson. Then his fist loosened a moment later before he began clutching at the sheets underneath. His body shook while his legs kicked at the air.

Following a gust of fresh air, his eye snapped open.