Strangeness on the Tip of the Tongue

Pain!

Such unbearable pain!

The agony that gnawed at his bones invaded Ning Fan’s consciousness. He opened his eyes, his blurry gaze landing on a ceiling tinged with a faint blood-red hue.

He was lying on a cold, damp floor, shadowy figures swaying before him.

“This isn’t my home.”

The instant he saw the ceiling, this thought rose unbidden, and at the same time, a torrent of memories not belonging to him flooded his mind.

These memories were chaotic and jumbled, bursting forth like scattered glue.

But, in that moment, the pain radiating from every corner of his body captured all his attention, leaving him no room to sort through the confusion in his mind.

His legs were numb, sensation lost below the knees; from his left arm came a piercing, bone-deep pain.

“Hsss~”

The shadow kneeling and swaying beside him let out ragged, guttural sounds.

Ning Fan’s vision gradually cleared. As he finally made out the form of that shadow, his pupils contracted sharply—

Before him crouched a creature with a vaguely human body but the face of a dog, its sharp claws digging into Ning Fan’s arm, feeding it into a maw lined with razor-sharp teeth.

“A dog-headed monster? A werewolf?”

The pain he felt was mostly from this creature’s savage biting.

Yet, in this moment, what surged forth in Ning Fan’s heart was not terror, but a brief flash of confusion:

“How could my arm possibly be so thin?”

The doubt lingered, but did not slow his actions. Survival instincts took over—he raised his other hand,