Shuyan couldn't tell when he was awake and when he was asleep anymore.
Sometimes he drifted, lost in the silence of the water around him. Other times, he thought he was dreaming—floating through a thick red mist, feeling pain in places he couldn't name, hearing strange whispers that tickled the back of his mind. But then he would jolt, eyes wide open, and realize he was still there, inside the glass tomb with not a single change in his situation.
The world outside his glass prison never changed much. Dark walls dimly lit with blue lights that buzzed softly. And in front of him, beyond the thick glass, was a table. Sometimes a figure stood there, back bent, head low. It never spoke. It just watched.
The worst part was the red.
It happened suddenly, without warning. The water around him would begin to darken, slowly, like ink poured into clear water. His skin would sting. His chest would tighten. A sharp pain would race up his spine. And just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, everything would fade to black again.
Then the cycle repeated.
He didn't know how many days had passed. He had no sun to look at. No stars. Just endless cycles of waking, hurting, and sleeping.
At first, he had screamed. Kicked. Pounded at the glass. But his voice didn't carry in the water. No matter how hard he fought, he couldn't escape. The water muffled everything—his cries, his thoughts, even the pounding of his heart.
Now, he had stopped fighting. He just watched quietly, his mind nearly numb to the situation.
He had started to notice patterns.
The red came after the figure appeared. The pain came when a strange glyph flickered on the outside of the glass. It was carved into a metal panel—something like a symbol, glowing faintly whenever the figure pressed its hand to it.
Sometimes, the figure would bring strange tools. It would hold them up, do something on the panel, and the glyph would change. Then the pain would begin again.
"Am I food?" Shuyan wondered once, during a brief moment of clarity. "Am I being raised... like a pig in a pen?"
He remembered a story the old herbalist in his village used to tell. A tale of a demon witch who kept children in jars, feeding off their life until they turned to bone. Was this what that was?
The thought made his stomach twist.
He didn't understand any of this. His world had been small before. He knew how to chop wood, hunt wild chickens, and carry water from the stream. He'd never seen a room like this. Never seen metal that glowed. Never even heard of water where one could breathe.
So maybe this was the afterlife. Or maybe it was something worse.
He tried to focus on little things to stay sane.
He counted how long the red water lasted. One time, it had lasted until he fainted. Another time, it ended just as quickly as it began. He started making guesses about the figure outside. Was it a martial artist practicing some dark technique? A rogue Martial Artist trying to drain his life essence? Maybe it was a witch—or worse, one of the demons from legend.
He didn't know.
One time, when the figure leaned closer without the mask, he thought he saw its face through the water. A man. Not old, not young with sharp eyes and a scar across his cheek.
"Not a demon," Shuyan had whispered in his mind. "A man. That's worse."
His dreams grew stranger.
When he slept—and he didn't know if it was real sleep—he saw things. Beasts running through burning forests. Rivers made of blood. A sword made of ice. Sometimes, he saw the face of the man again, but twisted and smiling. Other times, he saw his village, but everyone was turned away from him, their backs stiff like statues. It felt like a nightmare. All things felt like nightmare now.
He dreamed of burning blood running through his veins like fire. He screamed in the dream, but no one came.
And then, one day, he saw something new.
Across the room—far beyond the edge of his glass chamber—he saw another tube. It had always been too foggy before, or maybe he hadn't been looking. But now, he could just barely make it out. Another shape, floating inside another tube.
It was hard to see. Was it a person? A body?
His heart raced. Someone else? Was he not alone?
He strained his eyes, pressing his face against the glass. But the fog inside the chamber was thick. He couldn't make out anything due to his own lack of vision. It might be a corpse. Or someone asleep like him. Or maybe... maybe something worse.
A monster in a bottle.
Shuyan shuddered. Maybe it was better not to know.
Still, the thought stayed with him. He wasn't alone.
He didn't know if that made him feel better or more afraid.
Some nights, he talked to the shape in his mind.
"Hey," he'd whisper silently, lips barely moving. "Can you hear me?"
No reply.
"I think... I think we're being used. Like pigs."
Still silence.
"If you wake up before me," he whispered, "don't leave me behind."
The red came again the next day.
This time, the pain was worse. The glyph pulsed three times before the water changed. His whole body felt like it was being stretched, torn apart from the inside. He saw flashes of light, heard voices in his head, and something warm ran from his nose. He was bleeding from all over his body.
And then, came the darkness.
He came back to consciousness, barely. His body trembled and his fingers twitched. His mouth felt like it was full of ash.
But he was alive.
And something had changed inside of him. His body felt warmer like his blood was getting hotter. But his mind felt blurred out. He didn't know what was happening or why this was happening.
He didn't know what yet—but deep in his bones, he could feel it.
Something inside him had changed.