Faceless: The Shadow of the Ruined World

It was a nice, sunny day. Every social creature was either hanging out, going to bars or cinemas, playing around, or copulating.

However, a certain young man was searching through his fridge.

His skin was pale as if he hadn't seen the sun for years, the hair on his body was fully white, and his eyes were bleak.

His name is Ashland, Ashy for short.

"Damn…out of instant noodles…"

Ashy forced himself to go outside. Wearing a huge jacket on this sunny day, he also wore sunglasses and gloves. Most of his skin was covered.

Being sensitive to the sun was a troublesome thing.

Driving his car, he stopped before a shop and entered inside. When he came out, there were a few dozen instant noodles in his hands.

"I got a nice discount." he lightly smiled, content with the discount.

Ashy carefully put the instant noodles inside his car. These were going to be his monthly rations. If possible, he didn't want to leave his house for at least a month.

Bam!

Sadly, he wasn't able to go back to his home ever again.

Before Ashy sensed the pain, he found himself in the air. However, there were only two thoughts — irrelevant ones — in his mind.

'I should have deleted my browsing history and work folder…'

And,

'How the heck a truck hit me on this small road!?'

These were his last thoughts before pain overwhelmed his senses and mind.

And then, his vision went dark and his consciousness closed.

*****

Ashy's vision returned and his mind woke up after who knows how long.

However, he couldn't see anything other than darkness. Cold air was creeping on his skin and his heart was hammering to his chest.

'Calm down… calm down… I didn't go paralyzed or go blind, I can still move and see.'

Ashy was sure that he wasn't cripled but he couldn't say the same for being blind. Was he in a very dark place or were his eyes not working anymore?

Ashy brought his hands to his mouth and breathed out. This momentarily warmth brought him to his senses, causing him to hear the things he previously couldn't.

There was another breathing sound, right behind him.

It was deeper, slower, and colder. This rattling breathing was the cause of him feeling cold.

'Holy fuck!' Ashy internally cursed.

"Grrrr…"

A bestial grunt came behind his back.

'Fuck! What the hell is that?'

Ashy held his breath and carefully moved his limbs. Trying to not cause any noise, he moved at a snail's pace.

A full minute later, he began to have a hard time holding his breath. Fortunately, he was now standing on his feet. The cold breath now landed on his ass instead of his nape.

Still, there was no light in sight. This meant that, to find where he was without any worry, he first needed to deal with the thing that was behind his back.

Gathering his courage, Ashy threw a kick to the thing, exactly where the head was.

*Thud.*

"Agh!"

The one who grunted in agony was Ashy, not the thing that got kicked on the head. It was as if he kicked a steel door instead of flesh and bones.

'Shit!'

Ashy immediately kicked the ground and ran. He didn't know where he was but it would be better than being near this 'steel-headed dog'.

He ran and ran in the darkness, around half a minute passed but there was still no sign of him finding a wall or source of light, let alone an exit.

Though, there was no sign of the steel-headed 'dog', either.

Did it not even give chase? Was that not a dog or even a living being? Ashy didn't know. If possible, he would rather not learn either.

"..."

Soon, Ashy found himself out. He was finally outside. Before he knew it, he passed through the darkness and appeared in a dark back street. It wasn't the usual modern street he was used to but an old medieval one full of clearly abandoned houses.

"...what the fuck?"

There were no people on the sight. It was as if it had been forsaken for years.

Even though Ashy just ran for a minute, his bones felt like they were on the verge of breaking. There was no strength in his limbs.

However, the strangest thing wasn't the medieval street, the unnatural darkness, or even the steel-headed 'dog'. It was something far unexpected.

'Why the hell my hands are smaller and nothing but bones!'

Ashy's hands were small as a child's, and skinny enough to count his bones.

'Shit! My legs are the same! How the hell I get smaller!?'

…

"Ha…hah…hah…"

Ashy couldn't continue any longer and sat on the ground, leaning against the wall of a long-abandoned house.

Gradually, he recovered his breath, yet, there was still nothing in sight.

Where was he? Why were the surroundings darker? Why wasn't the sun bright as usual? What were the enormous things that were flying in the skies? Was something covering the skies?

Was he in another world or something!? He wasn't even a Japanese high school boy, damn it!

His mind filled with countless questions but there was nothing he could get answers from.

Pushing himself from the ground, Ashy got up. Although he didn't know where he was, he could guess it was anything but a safe place.

A weapon. He needed a weapon to protect himself.

Luckily, there were many abandoned houses in sight. One of them must have a knife or at least a blunt weapon, right?

With this hope, Ashy stopped in front of a door and slowly opened it. He momentarily regretted this.

The creaking sound of the door was too much, he feared something would hear and come.

However, even after Ashy waited more than a few minutes, nothing showed up.

Thinking that it was just his paranoia acting, Ashy entered the house. The inside was pitch black, devoid of any light sources, making it even darker than the surrounding environment

Ashy waited some time until his eyes got used to the dark, after that he began to move.

In the end, all he found was a couple of rusty knives and a leg of a chair.

'It is better than nothing.' Ashy thought as he tied the knives to his skinny waist with a cloth, and held the leg of a chair like a baseball bat.

From what he could see, the inside of the house also looked like it was from the medieval era.

'Am I really in another world? Or is this just a realistic nightmare?'

It was useless for now, so Ashy suppressed the questions in his mind and got out of the house.

"Grooo!" someone screamed at his side.

Right when Ashy stepped out, he found himself on the ground. The right side of his face was in pain.

"Agh—"

Ashy fell onto the ground as the side of his head began to bleed, staining his face. In front of his eyes was a man.

Although calling this 'thing' a man wouldn't be technically wrong, it wouldn't be fully true either.

It was like a mummy, a corpse. The dry, lifeless body of a man, whose bones could be easily counted because of the little mass of muscles and cracked gray skin that was covering the skeleton.

"What the fuck is this biology model?" Ashy cursed, the corpse wasn't smelling rotten and it didn't have eyes.

Ashy immediately jumped to his feet and backed away. Being shocked wasn't going to kill this guy. He needed to do it himself.

He played many games and watched many movies, he knew almost anything about walking corpses.

'It is an undead I guess. So, blunt weapons it is.'

With the courage that came from knowing the opponent, Ashy tightly held the makeshift baseball bat and slammed to the corpse's head.

"Groooo…"

The undead groaned as the wooden stick hit its head and broke a small part of its skull together with the half of the wooden stick.

This wasn't the outcome Ashy was expecting.

Just this much amount of damage was never enough for an undead in video games let alone in this dream-like reality… or was it a reality-like dream?

'This isn't the fucking time to thinking philosophy!'

This time, Ashy thrust the broken part of the wooden stick to the undead's face, but he missed and the stick penetrated the undead's throat.

No blood flowed from the undead's wounds.

'That is alright too!'

Ashy immediately swung the wooden stick while it was still embedded in the undead.

"Grooo…?"

The right side of the undead's throat and spine were ripped apart by the force and its head fell onto its left shoulder, still connected by the little bits of cracked, dry flesh.

'Fuck!' Cursing, Ashy threw the wooden stick to the undead and began to run.

It was startling that the undead was still alive, no, still moving even after its spine was not connected to its skull anymore.

'It is not biological virus shit! It must be magic! Magic! It shouldn't have been able to move after I cracked its spine!'

Ashy's heart fell with the thought that he was in a world of magic.