When Ren woke again, despite what he had ardently hoped, it wasn't just a nightmare within a nightmare, but a nightmare within a nightmare within another nightmare.
And Ren had the sinking feeling that there was an Unending numbering of these Nightmares
An Unending Nightmare so to speak
Staring at the ceiling with a blank face, a face floated by briefly.
Not having the energy to react to the green pair of eyes that had scared him so many times before, Ren felt a twinge in his left eye as he propped himself up off of the ground.
It was slightly uncomfortable right now.
Unraveling the bandages wrapped around his head, Ren felt the cool air strike the left side of his head as he blinked both of his eyes.
He felt his left eye blink with his right one, but despite how many times he blinked, the sight in front of him never changed.
'...'
"..."
'Why isn't is changing?'
Rubbing his left eye and flinching when his hand touched a sore spot, Ren stared at the green face staring right at him
Having half expected the green face to disappear like the few times he was jump scared by it before, Ren was so much at a lost that he briefly forgot about his incredibly gruesome two deaths.
"Who are you? Are you my hallucination?" He asked.
The green face continued to stare at him.
"Ars to whoever you are? Are you a figment of my imagination? Have I gone insane...? Actually that might be the case."
Ren stared at his hands and hugged himself, his body rocking on the stone.
"I'm insane and this all nothing more than a very bad dream. Yeah, I'm still at home sleeping, Mom is still alive, Dad never took that debt and I never went to the army."
Ren stared into the black darkness as his mind thought up several scenarios that were a whole of a hell lot nicer than this shitty reality.
"And because I never went to the army, I never took the family Heirloom with me..."
Ren sighed as he glanced at the dove held tightly in his hands, the grainy wooden wings digging into his palms.
'So I'm not crazy or dreaming...'
Biting his lip until it bled red with iron, Ren broke out of his sadness and blinked in confusion as he stared at the dove in the darkness.
'Was it always this color?'
Tilting his head, Ren looked the dove all over and tried to recall what it looked like.
With two open wings, closed eyes and two legs and a body, Ren couldn't tell in the darkness of the cave, but he swore that it wasn't this shade of grey.
But it was hard to tell
Looking at it all over and not being able to spot any difference he would be able to spot with what little light there was. Ren turned and stared at the green face that hadn't bothered to remove itself from his vision.
"...Are you going to do something or am I just stuck with you?"
"..."
"I'm just stuck with you. Great." Ren threw up his hands as his back struck the stone, his mind whispering endlessly to him when he closed his eyes.
'I'm going crazy, I'm going crazy,I'mgoingcrazy,I'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazyI'mgoingcrazy I'm-'
*Crumble
Hurriedly opening his eyes and snapping to the side, Ren scanned the area and noticed that it was only a couple of rocks finally dislodging from the broken wall.
*Shiver
Only now noticing how cold he was, Ren shivered as he hugged his body covered by a scant amount of clothing.
It was by no means indecent, but it was by no means suitable to withstand the cold.
Hell, from what Ren could tell, the next shipment of goods from the town center would include cold weather clothes in addition to the usual food and spears they brought.
Teeth on the verge of chattering, Ren rubbed his hands as he got up from the ground.
'Let's find something hot first, then I can panic later.' He breathed into his hands to warm them up slightly. 'Or I can just make a candle like how Dad taught me to.'
One or the other, it should solve his current freezing problem and calm him down slightly.
'And maybe I can take a look at the dove in the light.' Ren glanced at the dove hanging off his half ripped shirt. He swore that it was never this color.
'Or was it always this color?'
Not even sure if the dove that he had carried with him for the entirety of the month was even the color that it was now, Ren remembered his family who were probably completely unaware that he was in the cave.
'...Should I be happy that I can't die and can still see Dad and the little biscuits?'
Complicated thoughts flashing through his mind, Ren's eye caught sight of a flickering light near the edge of the bend ahead.
Hurrying his steps. he found a torch lying on the ground besides... a skeleton?
In the grand scheme of a No Eyed Tiger roaming around the caves with the strength to bisect Ren in half with nothing more than a casual swipe, a skeleton wasn't weird in the slightest.
But what was weird was that a skeleton was here in the first place.
'Isn't a skeleton supposed to only appear after someone died a long time ago?'
Vaguely recalling the teachings from that priest that came by his school quite some time ago, everybody had a skeleton in them that eventually appeared when the muscles, flesh and skin all decayed.
'It's weird but...'
Ren glanced to the side where a blue screen was freaking out when Ren had come across the skeleton.
'That's weirder.'
Watching the blue screen flash in a mixture of black, green and blue, Ren watched it worriedly
'And now you're freaking out for some reason... And I think you're the reason.'
Kicking the head of the skeleton which weirdly enough seemed to be the problem of this record freaking out, the skull rolled away to a different corner of the cave where it clattered.
'...Why did that fix you?'
Glancing at the now normal blue screen with the same amount of scrambled text as before, Ren ignored the green face floating nearby as he picked up the torch.
He hadn't noticed it due to how bright it was in comparison to the rest of the cave that he saw, but now that his eyes had readapted to the light levels, Ren noted that it was on the verge of burning out.
But nevertheless, warmth was warmth as Ren warmed his freezing hands.
'Hoo...'
It wasn't until Ren had sufficiently warmed his hands up a bit did he look at the dove.
'Yeah it... definitely wasn't this color. What the hell?'
Almost forgetting that he was in a very very large cave with a very very hungry and deadly tiger, Ren hurriedly looked over the dove with what little light he had left.
Now a shade darker than white but lighter than grey, in addition to its brand new color scheme, Ren noticed for a fact that its eyes were now open.
'What in the hell...'
Gulping down his saliva as the rest of the light died out preventing him from observing the dove some more, Ren hesitantly tucked the Family Heirloom back into the hem of his shirt.
It was weird, but could he really mull on weirdness when its getting unbearably cold all of a sudden?
"Chatter chatter"
Teeth shivering as a cold wind blew in the cave depths, Ren glanced longingly at the now dead torch bearing dimly glowing embers.
He was halfway tempted to use parts of his clothes to feed the flame for some more heat, but that was just exaggerating the problem.
'And if I can come back after every death, then I don't want to die from the cold.'
Feeling the chills slowly push the sensation away from his hands, Ren hesitated around the skeleton before picking up its finger bones.
---
'It's cold'
'It's so cold.'
Shivering like a gambler hitting the jackpot, Ren ignored the scraping sensation of his knees on the ground as his hand fumbled for a rock. Any rock would do.
'It's just. so. fucking. cold'
Trying to grimace only to fail due to the dulling sensation in his skin, Ren stared at the finger bones placed atop a large flat stone as he faintly registered his senseless fingers grasping something.
Stiff fingers slowly grasping the stone at a speed that a snail would call slow, Ren moved the rock above the finger bones and slammed down.
*Thud. Clatter
"Ugh..."
Wanting to cry but being unable to as the sensation of his fingers being crushed reached his brain in real time, Ren forcefully worked the fingers in his other hand to pick out the broken open finger bones.
"Huff. Huff." Cold breath exiting his lungs in visible white mist as a piercing cold penetrated his lungs, he separated the improperly broken bones and the properly broken bones into two rough piles.
Using one of the improperly broken bones edge to scrape at the inside of the bone for that marrow, Ren felt the increasingly cold air become akin to knives in his lungs.
Eyes dazed as the air continued to become an enemy to his body, a small insignificant pile of bone marrow formed in front of him.
It wasn't impressive, but in the current circumstances, it was the best he could do.
Wanting to move his increasingly stiff fingers to rip a part of his shirt but being unable to, Ren resorted to moving his jaw around the neck of his shirt.
Teeth gritting as they strained against the shirt, Ren's head snapped back with a jolt as the fabric came off all to easily.
Now feeling a cold liquid drip from where his head had met the rock, Ren's eyes bore no tears as he tried to mold the Bone marrow clump around the uneven fabric.
Fingers fumbling around as the sensation of pain and touch slowly faded to mere afterthoughts in his mind, Ren forced a smile onto his cold face as the makeshift candle formed in front of him.
It wasn't like he usually could do, but any success was a happy one.
Eagerly moving as fast as he could to where the torch lay prone besides him, the forceful smile on his face fell instantly.
'No...'
The torch had lost its last ember.
'No no no no no.'
Hands falling onto the ground as Ren tried to support his own body weight, the chill in the air continued to enter his mouth and stab at his insides.
'No no no no NO!'
Ren curled into a ball as he clutched as his chest where his heart and dove currently was, the once loud thump now echoing like a fading memory.
'NO NO NO NO NO NO!'
His eyes turned dazed as his breaths came short.
'NO NO No...'
Falling to his side where his eyes met the Green face, Ren stared and thought.
'no...'
The cave fell silent as the sound of breathing echoing throughout its chambers disappeared.
"..."
Ren died of the cold while a green face continued to hover and stare.
That was his third death.
---
Meeting of Nature transcription: 508 - 2
SpM: A totem god from what I have discovered, is nothing more than a Special Barbarian with a set of talents in the Unnatural Arts.
WM: How would that work? Aren't Totem gods all just intelligent Unnatural beasts?
SpM: That's where you would be wrong, see, Unnatural Magic is able Turn Nature into Aberrations, what do you think would happen if they use that very same Unnatural Magic onto themselves?
WM:...How would that even work? Unnatural Magic despite its name can't transform a beast into a different species, only one with the hyper exaggerated characteristics of the same species.
SpM: That's where the Special Barbarians come in. Did you know that the Aberrations are able to radiate Radiation?
WM: Radiation? You mean the energy that comes from the Firestones?
SpM: Yes. As it turns out, that radiation is not only present in the Aberrations created by the Barbarians, but is also able to cause mutations in children allowing for the creation of a totem god.
SuM: Firestones had been discovered long ago, if it could've created more magically talented children, it wouldn't be kept in lead lined boxes where it wouldn't be killing them.
SpM: Don't think that the Barbarians put the same importance on life as we do. The Emphasis we put on Turn isn't without reason.
SuM: That makes more sense than I am willing to admit.
AM: Admitting you are stupid? This calls for- *SpM cast Sp Magic as SuM glares at AM
WM: With the way that those Barbarians create dozens of Aberrations, how come there aren't more Totem gods?
SpM: Usually when a potential Totem god is born, one of two things happen.
WM: And those are?
SpM: Cannibalism to increase their own powers, or a new totem god is formed right before-
*SuM interrupts SpM, breaking Sp Magic with Su Magic releasing AM
SuM: YOU DAMN SALT HEAD!
AM: Not my fault that you don't know what your doing.
SuM: I don't know what I'm doing!? I'll show you that I know what I'm doing!
*SuM and AM fight continues outside of Nature Hall, ending the meeting prematurely.
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Tree that wonders if you like this so far.