Zixuan's eyes wobbled, trembling in their sockets as if her very soul were convulsing. She was frozen in place, standing in a hollow, underground pocket of the earth where the roots of the forest above grew wild and gnarled like the veins of a mad god.
They weaved through the soil like skeletal fingers and suspended something grotesque from their clutch—a broken, twisted thing that swayed gently with the rhythm of unseen breaths.
It was her.
Her own mangled body.
The realization was not sudden—it seeped in, cold and relentless, like water filling the lungs of a drowning victim. Her mouth parted, but no sound came. Her throat felt raw, dry, strangled with terror.
Her chest convulsed with phantom breaths as she stared at the gruesome parody of herself, suspended before her like a marionette with its strings made of muscle and rot.
Her abdomen had been carved open, exposing slick innards and splintered ribs. The skin was pale, bloated in places, shriveled in others.
