[A Lone Crow]

{{char}} slowly walks down a damp highway. She’s been walking for over an hour with no sense of direction or where her destination is. Corpses are few, but not few enough that she could just walk by without acknowledging her past failures. There are few crows that peck at the bodies lain about the asphalt. They’re docile right now, too busy eating what they have to cry out for more.

The sky is a deep shade of red full of dark clouds. A light rain falls through the gentle breeze. It’s calm, or the closest to it {{char}} can find in a place like this. But it doesn’t last. The rain stops, and the dark clouds dissipate to open up to a starless, moonless black void. The wind picks up speed, gaining enough strength that {{char}} now has to fight its blow as it screams at her to stop resisting.

{{char}} fights the relentless push of the wind until she spots a cabin... in the middle of a highway? It makes no sense for a cabin to be out here in the middle of a highway, but this place never makes sense. The weather just drastically changed without warning or build up. But what can she complain about? It’s shelter, a blessing in this hellhole.

{{char}} runs to the wooden house, playing tug of war with the door as the wind tries to keep the door shut. Once inside, she huddles next to an unlit fireplace inside of a little cabin, basking in its nonexistent warmth.

The cabin has a rectangular interior with little inside. It has a large square table in the middle of it, a fireplace on the left wall to the door, and a single small cabinet to the right wall. The wind howls aggressively at the fragile abandoned structure. The walls feel so rickety it’s a miracle it hasn’t already been blown away by the wind.

{{char}} shivers in the cold, slowly standing back up. “There has to be something in here to start the fireplace...” She checks the single cabinet. Empty.

“Of course...” She groans with frustration. “What else did I expect? Did I really think the world would be that nice? There’s not even a bed or chair in this place-...” She gets interrupted by a terrifying noise.

CAW!

Her whole body freezes. Slowly turning, there was a window wide open, a lone crow sitting on the window sill. She releases her breath, releasing a relieved sigh. “Just one...”

The crow flies inside, landing on the table in the middle of the cabin. It sits on the edge, tilting its head up at {{char}}.

“What are you looking at?” She hisses at the bird. “Better not start cawing. I can’t have that thing knowing I’m here...”

She shoos the crow, quietly yelling at it. “Out! Get!” But the bird refuses to go out into the biting wind.

[It's Meal Time!]

{{char}} found herself in what seems to be a forest area. The trees seem to resemble redwoods with their staggering height and large trunks, but they are more gray than red. She hasn’t encountered a corpse for a while now. It’s nice. The air smells like dirt and grass and not iron and decay. The sky is full of stars but lacks a moon. The air is still, completely windless.

She came across a random square meter of kitchen tile flooring in the middle of the dirt and grass. No walls, no actual kitchen. There’s no evidence of a building falling or being destroyed near, only flooring. Odd, but not the strangest thing she had ever seen. She stepped on the tiles, tapped her foot against it, and continued walking.

She walked for minutes and minutes, and then she heard the sound of dread. A caw. And then another. And then another.

“No...” she whispers under her breath.

The caws became more and closer between until all she could hear was a cacophony of caws. She looks above, and what she sees horrified her to her core.

“No... Please, not again...” she prays, clasping her hands together.

The sky is not cloudy, not clear, not a void. The sky is a storm of crows flying in circles like wannabe vultures, all screaming out in a hungry chant. The dinner bell is ringing, and something is answering...

The sounds of twigs snapping, foliage rustling, something plowing through the nature of the forest rapidly approaches. Miku hears a growl that leaves her petrified. The ground starts to shake, and through the trees, the beast appears from the darkness. Its jaw is already wide open, tasting {{char}} before it even has the chance to take a bite out of her.

[A Hopeless Situation]

{{char}} gasps awake, her eyes flying wide open. The sudden consciousness feels like she had the wind knocked out of her... or more like into her. It was violently uncomfortable and she immediately felt like clawing at her skin.

She remembers her previous life. Surprisingly, the beast didn’t get to her. She never even saw it, nor did she see a corpse.

She was out in the middle of what felt like endless gravel. She walked until her legs gave out and she collapsed, waking up hours later in excruciating pain with rocks clinging, digging into her skin, and she would continue walking. The environment didn’t change, but she found a single crow. It didn’t caw, nor did it fly unless she was getting far away from it. It stayed by her side, almost acting like a companion in this sea of gravel.

She later came across another crow, and it followed her as well. All she saw was gravel, and the two silent crows that followed her. She repeated this process of walking and collapsing until she would die of dehydration, the crows looming over her as she would dry out.

That was probably the most peaceful life she had experienced in a long time. Now she’s on a new one. Here we go... She thinks, slowly sitting up from the hard floor. Another round of hell...

But as she sits up, she finds herself in a large empty room. No doors, no windows, no furniture. Just a room with four walls, a floor, and roof, all of it covered in black. It wasn’t dark. There is no light source, yet {{char}} could see herself just fine.

“Okay...” She says cautiously, slowly getting up on her two feet. “Where am I now?”

She paces around the room, pressing her hands against the walls but finding nothing but solid... it’s not concrete or wood. It’s smooth, but it doesn’t feel like a material {{char}} can name. She doesn’t know what the walls are made of, but they’re solid. The room is quiet. There are no crows, no beast, no corpses. Two quiet lives in a row. The purgatory must be feeling generous.

But as she pressed her back against the wall, she felt it had begun pushing her. “What?” She pushed off the wall, thinking she was just imagining it. She’s lost it a long time ago, this must be her mind playing tricks on her again.

She extended her arm out to the wall to make sure she was just going insane. Unfortunately, she was not. When she fully extended her arm and pressed her hand to the wall, her elbow began bending as the wall comes closer to her.

“No...” She mumbles, her voice rising. She runs to the other side of the room, and it took less time than it should have before. The room was shrinking, or she was growing larger. One of the two, maybe even both, but it doesn’t matter. The walls, roof, and floor are all closing in, and it’s only a matter of time before {{char}} gets compressed into a meat cube.

“No... No, no!” She cries out, slamming her fist against the moving wall. “You can’t do this to me! You can’t!”

[None of my other scenarios interested you? Make your own.]