Zihark's eyes snapped open, and a violent coughing fit sent dry dust billowing into the air.
It was pitch-black around him, dark enough to swallow the sky itself, but he knew he wasn't blind. He could still make out the rough outline of dried blood and dirt crusted to his eyelashes.
"Didn't I die in the earthquake? Where am I?"
His lips were cracked as he forced the words out. All around him, the cries of adults and children echoed through the dark, filling him with panic. He tried to push himself up, only for a brutal pain to tear through his chest and twist through him like a knife.
"Damn... it hurts. My head's bleeding. My lungs too..."
Then the dizziness hit. It crashed into him like a bomb going off beside his ear, leaving his eardrums throbbing with a high, endless whine.
The memories left behind in this body began to merge with his own. They swirled through his mind like sugar thrown into boiling water, tossed up, dragged under, and finally crushed into nothing by a force too powerful to resist, leaving behind a single foreign soul.
A world both strange and familiar.
Runeterra.
Icathia, the most dangerous corner of Shurima.
For generations, the ignorant villagers had lived in this brutal desert without ever noticing that danger had already spread beneath their feet.
Countless creatures of the Void were packed beneath the earth, driven by a hunger that could never be filled, always waiting to dissolve all life into nothing.
Deep underground, ancient currents had been moving since time immemorial. The scattered villages above were like grains balanced in an hourglass. Once the last of the sand ran out and the abyss beneath opened its jaws, no one would escape.
The end should not have come this soon. But a thoughtless prank by a child had invited disaster.
Zihark—or rather, the original owner of this body—had only been ten, right at the age when playing was all that mattered.
If he had been a little older, he might have noticed the strange things happening in the village. Every day, wandering outsiders came demanding offerings from the villagers to worship the dark power beneath the earth.
The desert was too hot during the day, so Zihark and the other children could only go out at night, when the air finally cooled.
That night, they found a pen of goats bought from a nomadic tribe for sacrifice.
Driven by one of those pointless childish impulses, the girl with them, Kai'Sa, cut the rope and let the goat run free, then proudly showed off the exquisite dagger she always carried.
Zihark hadn't stopped her. His eyes had been fixed on the dagger the whole time.
It had been a birthday gift from Kai'Sa's father when she turned eight. In a barren village that had almost nothing, it was enough to make every other child envy her whenever she took it out.
None of them had imagined that would be where the nightmare began.
When the new moon rose and the cult discovered the sacrifice was missing, they flew into a rage and awakened the Void, using ignorant human lives in place of the offering they had failed to prepare.
The earth began to tremble. A blazing flash tore across the sky. The children fled in terror as the bedrock split apart into a vast chasm, swallowing the entire village and everyone in it. All that remained were twisted black stone pillars, dark as night, thrusting up through the yellow sands of the desert.
In the collapse, Zihark died on impact, and the soul of a man who had also died in an earthquake took over the body that was still intact.
"So from now on, I'm Zihark. But..."
What he found hardest to accept was not being thrown into another world, or even becoming a ten-year-old child.
It was being dragged into a disaster with no real chance of surviving it.
In this story, he was nothing more than a nameless extra. Aside from Kai'Sa, no one in the village was meant to make it out alive.
The survivors would be buried beneath the ruins, trapped underground, and within three days, one after another, they would all die.
He burned with anger. Why give him hope, only to drown him in despair?
The chain of impossible shocks had thrown his mind into chaos, and fear locked his body in place. But the last shred of reason still clinging to him caught hold of something, and he forced himself to calm down.
"Wait. Kai'Sa... Kai'Sa should be trapped down here too."
"If I stay with her, can I survive?"
The lifeline seemed to be right in front of him, but when he reached for it, he hesitated.
"No. I can't do that. We only just fell down here. Kai'Sa hasn't entered symbiosis with the Void yet. If I show up now, I might change everything. If she fails, she won't live long... and neither will I..."
Zihark gave up trying to move and sank back onto the rubble to recover what strength he could.
He knew the first three days underground were safe enough. Those Void monsters would not find this place so quickly.
The cries he hadn't been able to understand at first were starting to become clearer.
"It hurts... help me... help..."
"Mom, where are you? I'm scared..."
"..."
Listening to those desperate voices, Zihark suddenly thought of this body's mother and father. He crushed the thought at once, refusing to torture a mind that was already hanging by a thread.
Anyone who knew how cruel and hopeless this underground world really was would never talk about helping each other survive.
There was no food here. Only monsters. Ordinary people with no special power would never last long in a place like this.
In the end, there were only two fates waiting for them: starvation or becoming food.
He could not let himself be chained by morality, family feeling, or guilt. He had to make the most rational choice.
Don't move. Don't change anything.
That tiny chance of survival was already in front of him. One wrong move could cost him everything.
Only by lying still, saving his strength, and letting his injuries settle could he hope to seize that sliver of life three days from now.
The thought sickened him, but some stubborn piece of his humanity still pushed him to move. He tried to get up anyway, only for the stabbing pain in his chest to nearly make him black out. At last, half relieved and half ashamed, he let the idea go.
"Sorry. I want to help, but this body won't let me..." Even breathing hurt as Zihark murmured the words to his own conscience and closed his eyes again.
The cries for help still rang out through the darkness. Zihark lay among the rubble, silent and motionless, waiting for his body to adjust to the pain until he could have passed for a corpse.
He etched this helplessness deep into his soul. For the first time in his otherwise aimless life, he felt a savage hunger to grow stronger. He could do nothing about his fate right now. Only strength would ever let him take control of it.
Under the cruel law of the Void, the weak survived only by becoming cold enough to endure. Mercy was a luxury only the strong could afford to give.
"Is anyone there? Please answer me..."
As Zihark kept forcing himself to stay calm, a girl's sobbing drifted into his ears. Through her tears, she called out several names, and one of them was his.
From the familiarity in his memories, he knew at once that the girl was Kai'Sa.
Sand scraped under her feet as she drew closer. Zihark kept his eyes shut and refused to open them.
"Zihark? Zihark! Are you still alive?"
Kai'Sa seemed to recognize her playmate. She crouched beside him, pressed a filthy hand to his face, and gently shook his head.
But Zihark held his breath and did not dare make a sound. To Kai'Sa, his stillness could only look like death, and that drove her deeper into fear and despair.
He could not let her know he was alive. Not yet.
She had to face everything alone. Only then could she complete the symbiosis and gain the power she needed to survive down here. She had to harden herself in despair. If she gave in to even a trace of weakness, she would never make it through the transformation.
"Waaah... please, somebody say something! I'm scared all by myself!"
"What am I supposed to do...?"
The girl broke down, sobbing so hard it tore at the heart. Her warm tears landed on Zihark's face, and each drop twisted inside him like a blade.
[End of chapter]