Rule Horror: My Multiple Personalities Let Me Win Without Trying

A piercing ring in my ears cut through the chaos. It wasn't the smell of disinfectant, but the salty, fishy scent of seawater, mixed with an overpoweringly sweet aroma of crab roe that made my chest feel tight.

I jerked my eyes open. Instead of the familiar ward in the psychiatric hospital, I saw mottled yellow walls covered in irregular holes. When I touched them, my fingertips met a rough, fibrous texture. These weren't walls so much as the inner surface of some enormous fruit. Beneath me was a soft yet sticky “bed,” covered with faded checkered cloth. In one corner lay several square-cut pairs of trousers, washed nearly white, along with a short-sleeved shirt printed with pink flowers. A dark red stain marked the collar, like dried blood, but even darker.

The headache still tore at my nerves as fragments of memory collided in my mind: the white prison of the psychiatric hospital, the doctor's cold gaze, the diagnosis of “split personality” in a notebook, and, on the other side, the unfamiliar briny smell, the eerie yellow space, and a faint voice circling in my mind: “You have been chosen, Chosen One.”