The wasteland stretched endlessly, a cracked and broken landscape bathed in the sickly glow of a dying sun. Desperate for water, a man stumbled upon a shimmering puddle of green sludge, its surface bubbling with an eerie phosphorescence. Ignoring the warning stench of decay, he plunged his hand into the viscous pool, scooping the toxic liquid to his parched lips. Agony followed in an instant—his skin blackened, his veins ignited with an unnatural fire. A guttural scream tore from his throat as his flesh melted away, his hand sliding off his arm and sinking into the glowing abyss. His lifeless body collapsed beside it, another victim of the nuclear hellscape.
But death was not the end. The severed hand, now grotesquely twisted, rose from the sludge, its fingers curling, its surface pulsating with a terrible awareness. The man was still inside—his soul, his thoughts, his fear—all trapped in this hideous form. The eyes embedded in his palm opened wide, taking in the ruined world through an alien perspective. He tried to scream, but no voice remained, only the silent horror of his new existence. Crawling forward on malformed fingers, he searched in vain for salvation, but there was none. The wasteland had claimed him, reshaped him, and left him to wander as a cursed fragment of himself—forever alone, forever aware.
