hotmtlnovel Chapter 60 The Curse of Living
Chapter 60 The Curse of Living
But the pain— pain was still there.
His throat burned as if the fox's teeth still clamped down on him, as if the flesh had been torn open.
But there was no wound.
No blood.
The fox was still there, feasting, its golden eyes flicking toward him only briefly before returning to its kill.
As if nothing had happened.
As if he had never died at all.
The cub did not understand.
His mind, young and unformed, could not grasp what had just occurred.
He only knew that he had felt pain—horrible pain—and now he was here again, whole, untouched
His stomach twisted with hunger.
So he moved forward once more.
And once more, the fox lunged.
The fangs returned.
The darkness swallowed him again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, the pain remained.
Each time, his body shattered, only for him to return moments later, whole but suffering.
He did not know the word for it yet.
But something inside him whispered—
This is wrong.
.
The cub did not try again.
Not after the seventh time.
The fox had long since finished its meal, leaving only scraps in the bloodstained snow.
The cub lay where he had fallen, curled into himself, his tiny body trembling.
The hunger was still there.
But he was more afraid of the pain.
He had died, but he had not died.
He was still here.
The snow fell gently around him, soft and quiet.
The wind whispered through the trees, uncaring. The world had moved on.
Only he remained.
And for the first time, the cub felt something deeper than hunger.
A fear he could not name.
Because he now understood—
He could not die.
And that terrified him more than anything.
The cub did not move for a long time.
The snow piled atop his small body, its weight pressing down on him like the weight of something unseen, something suffocating.
He should have been dead.
He had died.
Many times.
And yet, his body remained whole, as if the pain had never happened. But it had.
The ache in his throat, the sharp sting of torn flesh, the suffocating sensation of something crushing his windpipe-he still felt it all.
There was something.
Which had settled deep within him, curling into his bones like a sickness.
He was too young to understand what he was, but something inside him whispered the truth.
burned. His body trembled with the phantom feeling of fangs sinking into his flesh, of his bones being crushed.
His breath came in short, ragged gasps.
He pressed his tiny body into the snow, trying to bury himself, hide, disappear.
But there was nowhere to go.
The world had not changed.
Only he had.
Only he had died.
.
It did not take him long to understand.
Everything in this world wanted him dead.
The fox. The lynx. The cold.
It did not matter what he did, where he went-death followed him.
Over and over.
Again and again.
But death did not take him.
Only the pain.
Always the pain.
It was not a single moment that broke him.
It was many.
It was the night the owls came, their talons sharp, their beaks cruel.
It was the day the river swallowed him whole, filling his tiny lungs with freezing water until his body stopped moving.
It was the moment a bear found him beneath a fallen tree, its claws larger than his head, raking him open as if he were nothing.
Each time, he died.
Each time, he came back.
Each time, he felt it all.
The pain. The fear. The helplessness.
It never faded. It never ended.
He had stopped trying to eat.
He had stopped trying to fight back.
Because nothing mattered.
Nothing would change.
The cub lay in the snow, his body curled tight, his small chest rising and falling in weak, shallow breaths.
He did not move.
His fur was matted with dried blood, his own blood, from wounds that no longer existed.
But he remembered them.
He remembered all of them.
The cold bit at him, but it did not compare to the feeling of being torn apart, of drowning, of being crushed.
He closed his eyes.
He wished for sleep.
He wished to never wake up again.
But he knew.
He knew he would.
No matter how much he suffered, no matter how much he begged, no matter how much he wanted it-
He would always return.
He could not die.
He would never die.
And he was so, so tired.
The wind howled around him.
The snow continued to fall.
And then-