Eva jerked her hand back as the warmth spread beneath her fingers.
Torn flesh began to mend.
Muscle slithered back into place.
Bone crackled, then realigned.
His missing eye refilled into the socket.
Ren's body sealed itself shut, groaning in pain through it all.
"Ren…y-you're..." She whispered.
Deep and full, he breathed in like a drowning man reaching the surface. His eyes fluttered open, somewhat adjusting to the world around him.
She flinched.
"It's fine, Eva..." Ren muttered, looking over to her startled posture. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
He sat up smoothly. His body, once unrecognizable, was whole again.
Clean
Untouched
Even the scars were gone.
"Eva?" Ren looked puzzled by her shocked expression.
She stood frozen. "Y-you shouldn't..."
Ren frowned in confusion.
"You…you shouldn't look like that."
Ren blinked blankly, not understanding her concern. "What do you mean? I'm back to normal...aren't I?"
"That's not the point..." Eva took a step back. "You don't understand. Regeneration doesn't do...this."
"In this world...it's normal?" Ren said, more of a question than a statement. "I've always healed...Seen others heal...I thought—maybe everyone—"
"No." Her voice cracked. "No, Ren. You don't get it. Regeneration happens here, yes, but—when people come back, they don't come back whole. Their bodies heal, but something else...breaks. The more they regenerate, the more they lose."
Ren's voice was quiet now, too. "Lose what?"
"Pieces of themselves," Eva whispered. "Their voice, their face, their memories. They forget how to speak. Just staring, like something is…taken from the inside."
Ren looked down at his hands.
They didn't tremble.
They never did.
He flexed his fingers slowly. They responded without hesitation—steady, clean, obedient.
"So...what does this mean for me?" Ren looked up at her with a worried expression. "If I've come back so many times. But I'm still whole…still…me."
Ren's voice dropped further, barely a breath.
"Am I still me?"
Eva didn't answer that instant.
"You said people lose pieces. That they break from the inside. That they change." Ren looked down to gather his thoughts. "But I haven't lost anything...I don't think."
Eva spoke up softly, holding her hands behind her back. "That's the state of this decaying world. You don't know what you lose...because you forget you ever had it in the first place."
Ren's throat tightened. "Then either I've been spared…Or I was never really me to begin with."
Eva took a step toward Ren. "That's certainly not true."
"Why not?" Ren's voice cracked for the first time. "What if I'm just something that thinks it's me? What if the real me died the first time—and I've just been…repeating?"
"That's not how it works."
"Isn't it?" He looked at her, desperate, searching her soft expression for something solid. "You said people change. I haven't. Not once. So tell me...what makes me?"
Eva took a slow, hesitant step closer.
"I don't know," she whispered.
Ren lowered his head in defeat.
"But you're still here?" Eva added on, trying to help calm Ren, if only a little. "You speak. You feel. That has to count for something."
Ren turned his hands over, as if something would be written there. "And if I'm just a copy of who I was? Would I even know?"
Her silence was answer enough.
He exhaled shakily and looked away. "Sometimes...I wonder if the me who started all this—if he'd even recognize me now."
Eva knelt quietly beside him, her hand still resting near his, offering nothing but presence.
Ren stared off into the broken distance of the chapel, his voice hollow when it came.
"I remember...when I...died."
Eva blinked slowly, confused.
"The machines...the sterile walls...I was dying. And I knew it. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Just…watched the ceiling. I kept thinking: Is this it? Is this how it ends? Alone and waiting for something that would never come?"
The ghostly horse walked over, catching both of their attention.
"I didn't want to die, y'know..." Ren continued. "But I wasn't scared, either. Just tired. And when I...pulled it—when the pain stopped—there was no light, no warmth. Just…"
He looked up, his voice a whisper.
"Just this."
The broken world.
"This place..." Ren whispered, almost to himself. "I've asked myself over and over. Is it hell? Purgatory? Some kind of punishment...for taking my own life?"
Ren looked at her with pleading eyes.
"Please...tell me, Eva. Is what I've done a sin? From what I've done. Do I...deserve this?"
Her lips parted, then closed. She had no verbal answer, only shaking her head no.
There was a moment of silence as Ren sulked over his questions.
"Ren..." Eva said sternly, getting his attention. "You're not the only one concerned about this world...I-I used to think I'd woken up here by accident. Or maybe that I wasn't good enough to reach heaven. But now…I think this place finds people. The kind who carry too much. The ones who can't let go."
Ren lowered his gaze.
"Eva, could you tell me...How did you die in the real world?"
"I...don't know."
Ren looked at her, startled. "You don't remember?"
She shook her head slowly.
Eva smiled faintly, failing to hide her sadness. "There are many gaps in my memory. I can recall my favorite book, the shape of rain on windows, a song I used to hum...but not where I was, or how I left."
Her hand moved gently to her chest, as though feeling for something beneath the skin.
"I sometimes wonder if I existed at all in my 'real world'. Or if I was made here—like a thought."
Ren watched her closely, like the answers might finally spill out—but she only looked forward, fragile as glass.
"Do you want to know?" He asked. "To remember how you died?"
Eva didn't speak for a long while.
Then, almost inaudible, she spoke up.
"Sometimes...but other times—I think I'm afraid of what I'll see. Because if it was something awful… if I was hurt, or betrayed, or just forgotten...then maybe it's better I don't know."