An absolute silence filled the place, a cold, funerary stillness like the chill of death that had swept through the village. Yet deep within that forgotten cave, the silence began to crack. A faint sound emerged—heartbeats beginning to pulse slowly, with a strange and solemn rhythm, like bells announcing the birth of something new.

  Thump… Thump…

  Thump… Thump…

  They were not the ordinary beats of a human heart. Their echo carried something deeper, a subtle vibration that made the cold particles of air tremble around it, as if nature itself were holding its breath while witnessing this moment—like a pulse linking two worlds together. A pulse proclaiming that the stillness which had lasted for years had finally been broken, and that a new era had just begun.

  With a trembling hand, he felt his chest while still lying upon the cold soil of the cave. His vision was blurred and hazy as he stared at the towering rocky ceiling, lost within a strange sensation of cold that emanated from his heart with every heavy beat.

  He raised his hand before his eyes, which were veiled by a gray film. He tried to examine the traces of his wounds, recalling how his strength had failed him before he had collapsed into unconsciousness beneath the weight of darkness.

  Then suddenly, the fog vanished from his sight all at once, and he saw his hand clearly.

  That was when the shock struck.

  He sprang to his feet with a light body, as though he had never known pain. The cursed petrification was gone. The traces of the black liquid had vanished. No sign of the disease remained upon his skin, which had returned pure and unblemished, as though it had never been touched.

  His terrified gaze swept across the cave as he tried to comprehend what was happening. He quickly turned toward the place where he had always seen the boy lying throughout all those years—but his body froze.

  There was no boy.

  Not even the place where the boy had been.

  At that moment, a jolt of shocking realization struck him. He found himself standing precisely where the boy had lain for years, as if he had risen from that very spot. His eyes searched the dark corners of the cave for the fourteen-year-old youth, yet he found no trace of him.

  Nothing remained in the silent darkness of the cave except himself.

  Jumanji’s eyes drifted toward the cave’s exit, where pale daylight seeped inside. He decided to step outside and discover what had happened.

  But the moment he attempted to take his first step, his balance betrayed him, and he collapsed to the ground with a sudden crash.

  “What is happening?” Jumanji murmured in astonishment.

  He felt a terrifying contradiction—a vast chasm between his mind and his body. It was as though his soul was trying to move limbs that did not belong to it, or as if his body refused to obey the commands of his bewildered mind.

  He tried to stand again with all his determination, intent on reaching the cave’s exit. Yet he fell once more, as though invisible threads holding his body together had been cut.

  “Is it the illness?” he wondered bitterly. “Has the disease eaten away at my bones to the point that I’ve lost control of my movements?”

  He had not yet realized that what he was experiencing was not the lingering weakness of illness, but rather a hidden struggle between his former identity and the new entity he now possessed.

  Jumanji fought a bitter battle with his rebellious body. Every time he tried to stand, his strength failed him and he fell again. Yet he continued to try with stubborn determination until he finally began to take unsteady steps, swaying like someone learning to walk for the first time in his life.

  Slowly, he emerged from the cave’s darkness while his mind roared with questions about that boy.

  Why had he moved now of all times?

  And where had he disappeared to after all those years of stillness?

  As he walked, he noticed a long wooden staff lying on the ground. He bent down and picked it up, leaning on it for support, so that his walk resembled that of a frail old man—or perhaps a strange creature whose feet had never touched the earth before.

  At that moment, a burning thirst struck Jumanji. It was a thirst unlike anything he had felt in twenty years, as if flames were devouring his insides.

  Knowing that the river flowed nearby, he forced his heavy steps toward it. Within minutes, the gentle murmur of water reached his ears.

  When the river finally appeared before his eyes, he tossed the staff aside and rushed eagerly toward the bank. He bent down to drink—

  But he froze before his hands touched the water.

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  Reflected upon the still surface was the face of a stranger.

  A face that did not belong to him.

  Jumanji stood motionless. The words dried in his throat before his hands could reach the water. His thirst vanished before the terror of what he saw, as though his fiercely beating heart had stopped for a moment.

  On the river’s surface appeared a face he had never possessed.

  The face of a fourteen-year-old boy.

  It was a face carved like flawless marble, with eyes whose deep darkness held a dignified mystery capable of stealing hearts.

  He raised his trembling hand and touched his face while staring in disbelief as the hand reflected in the water moved at the same moment.

  It was not the reflection of someone standing behind him.

  It was his own reflection.

  A muffled cry escaped him as he stumbled backward, staring at his small, smooth hands which were no longer rough like before. His large body had vanished. The marks of years and exhaustion had disappeared.

  In their place stood the body of the very boy he had guarded within the cave for twenty years.

  The shock was too great for a human mind to comprehend.

  While he had believed himself to be dying, he had awakened to find himself inhabiting the body that had listened to all his secrets—as though his soul had been transferred, or time itself had turned back within the body of another person entirely.

  He sank into a whirlpool of bewilderment, unable to grasp how he had become the very being he had once watched over.

  In his final moments before losing consciousness, the boy had been lying there, while his own body collapsed beside him.

  Yet now his old self had vanished completely, leaving only this youthful body within the cave.

  The mystery of his missing body only deepened his confusion.

  He lowered his gaze toward the clothes covering his new body and noticed they were the same jet-black robe that had remained untouched by the passing years. He felt the red sash wrapped around his waist in disbelief.

  At that moment, the harsh truth revealed itself.

  He finally understood the reason behind his repeated falls and clumsy movements. This unfamiliar body did not belong to his muscle memory. His soul was struggling to tame limbs it had never known before, creating that terrifying contradiction between the will of his mind and the response of his body.

  He realized that standing there would give him no answers.

  First, he had to extinguish the thirst burning within him.

  He bent toward the river with a desperation no human had ever known. Instead of scooping water with his hands, he plunged his face directly into the river until his jet-black hair spread across the flowing current.

  Jumanji drank like a madman.

  Seconds passed, then minutes, without him raising his head. It was as though his throat had become a second channel for the river.

  Despite the long time, the cold water did not quench his thirst.

  He continued drinking hour after hour, his body behaving like a barren desert that had not tasted a drop of water for ages—cracked earth swallowing tons of water without showing the slightest sign of irrigation.

  The sun set while he remained there, absorbing the river as if his very existence had transcended the concept of satisfaction.

  Morning came.

  Then the sun of the second day set.

  Still he remained on the riverbank, drinking endlessly, as if this youthful body were nothing but a black hole devouring everything without ever being filled.

  “What is happening? Why can’t I feel satisfied? Why is this body like a bottomless well?”

  Jumanji wondered in astonishment, trapped in a sensation resembling a nightmare.

  A week passed.

  Then another.

  Then a third.

  Until a full month had passed—days and nights alike—with him stationed upon the riverbank, never leaving it even for a moment.

  He would raise his head only to gasp for breath before plunging his face back into the water again.

  Finally, at the dawn of the fourth week, he lifted his head and leaned his youthful body backward.

  For the first time, he felt the coolness of satisfaction spreading through his veins, replacing the blazing thirst with deep relaxation.

  Yet the calm did not last long.

  The moment he closed his eyes to rest, a loud rumble rose from his stomach, and a fierce hunger gnawed at his insides.

  Fear crept into Jumanji’s heart as he listened to the echo of his own hunger.

  If it had taken such an immense quantity of water to quench his thirst, then how much food would this voracious body require?

  He stood uncertain before this hungry abyss within him, realizing that the journey of feeding this new body had only just begun.

  Jumanji turned toward the direction of his farm—the land where he had spent his life toiling.

  He had scarcely visited it since the illness began devouring the village, and he had abandoned it entirely during his final days.

  He wondered anxiously whether the earth still bore any fruit, or whether drought had consumed it as it had the people.

  His limbs now moved with surprising harmony, as though his soul had begun to tame this unfamiliar body and assert its control.

  Within minutes he stepped onto the land of the farm.

  It was a sorrowful sight.

  Most of the plants had withered, their stems bent low, yet life still resisted in certain corners.

  He found fruits and vegetables that had survived the neglect. Some had begun to wilt, while others still retained their freshness.

  Jumanji began gathering what he could.

  He picked several tomatoes and peppers that were still edible, then knelt down and dug into the soil with his small hands.

  To his surprise, the onions and potatoes buried underground remained untouched—as if the soil itself had protected them from the curse of the air.

  He set the potatoes aside, knowing it would be unwise to eat them raw.

  But he quickly devoured the onions, peppers, and tomatoes as the opening course of the feast he desperately needed.

  With instinctive skill, he lit a fire. Then he brought water from the nearby river and poured it over a pile of soil to form thick mud.

  He coated the potatoes with the mud and threw them into the heart of the fire so they could slowly cook beneath the ashes.

  Meanwhile, he sat there devouring the raw vegetables eagerly, waiting for the moment when his raging hunger would finally calm with the first hot meal of this new body.

  Jumanji continued eating.

  When the potatoes finished cooking, he devoured them in moments.

  What astonished him most was how quickly he felt full.

  Unlike his legendary thirst that had consumed an entire river, this body required only a modest meal to quiet the noise of hunger.

  He leaned back with his youthful body and released a long sigh of relief while gazing lazily at the misty sky.

  In that quiet moment, images of his children suddenly flooded his mind.

  The face of his wife.

  The memories of his parents.

  All the souls that had once lived in the village.

  A powerful wave of sorrow overwhelmed him, and a crushing loneliness descended upon his heart—one he had never felt so intensely before.

  It was as if this new body had doubled the sensitivity of his soul to pain.

  In a faint voice, barely more than a whisper lost in the wind, he murmured:

  “The loved ones… the friends… they have all vanished. Everyone is gone.”

  He fell silent for a moment before adding softly,

  “So… this is what loneliness feels like.”

  End of Chapter