Ayanokouji Kiyotaka was an anomaly that went against the very meaning of the Spell.
The Spell was cruel but never unfair. This was the fundamental truth every infected soul believed until now.
It was a cosmic law that provided a path for those it cursed.
But Ayanokouji was being treated with a specific kind of injustice. He originated from a world that shared no logic with this one. He was not aware of the rules. He was navigating the dark without a guide.
The Spell was so distinct in its hatred that it refused to even let Ayanokouji acknowledge it's existence.
For reasons hidden behind the veil of the supernatural, Ayanokouji was a man rejected by Fate itself.
He remained unaware of the cosmic scale of this unfairness as he knelt beside a puddle.
It was the final puddle before the terrain turned into a barren stretch of dry ridges.
Ayanokouji reached out and took a small amount of water. He dropped it onto a patch of dry ground. He watched as the droplets were pulled downward. The liquid vanished into the earth instantly.
'So... this is yet another inconsistency.'
He dismissed the observation once the data was filed. He reached back into the puddle and pulled out a handful of thick mud.
In his other hand, he held a white object. It was a bone structure with a single vertical slit and two hollow openings that were once ears.
The white object was the skull of the Vowalker.
Ayanokouji began to press the wet dirt into the openings of the bone.
He handled the remains of the monster with the same lack of emotion one might show toward a piece of discarded plastic.
He had decided that the creature which came to harvest his life would instead serve as his most basic tool for survival.
He pushed the backside of the skull into the mud, positioning it so the hollow interior looked up toward the sun.
Ayanokouji sat by the edge of the puddle. The thin fabric of his clothes grew heavy as it soaked up.
Ayanokouji slowly pulled up both of his hands and connected them with force as he began clapping.
CLAP.
CLAP.
CLAP.
The sound was lonely in the silence of the wasteland, he was mimicking the rhythm of the rain that had tried to crush him earlier.
He continued this for a long time. He waited for the exact moment the skull became watertight.
Once the seal was perfect, he dipped the skull into the puddle.
He watched the water fill the skull.
The skull was going to be his canteen.
He looked out toward the distant hills.
Ayanokouji isn't the type of person to use plans that has low success rate, If he ever does something means he has analysed everything .
***
Ayanokouji stood up and gripped the base of the skull. He flicked several droplets onto the ground in front of him. They were absorbed instantly.
He then threw more toward the right. They were swallowed by the earth just as quickly.
Finally he turned toward the left as the water lingered on the surface for a second before sinking into the dirt.
'Everywhere I looked I saw only uneven ground and few patches of grass. Rare puddles were scattered far from each other and even rarer hills broke the horizon.'
Ayanokouji started walking toward the left. After each step he dropped a small amount of water to confirm the ground remained stable.
He searched for a pattern to exploit and make the progress easier. Sadly there was no pattern.
The path was completely random. Sometimes the path went right, sometimes left and sometimes forward. But it was the safest way he had found.
'There was not a single tree no matter how far I looked. The Vowalker had emerged from the ground earlier. If there was no place to hide on the surface, then it was obvious. They were beneath me.'
Ayanokouji continued tracing his path until he reached a patch of yellow grass. This time he did not bother throwing water. He simply stepped on it.
Grasses only became yellow when something remained below them for a long duration. The chances of this being an inconsistency were close to impossible.
It was ironic that someone who had not touched grass for first thirteen years knew so much about its biology.
'But then another inconsistency appeared. If the Vowalker could hear a small pebble falling meters away in that supernatural rain, how come other Vowalkers hiding below the surface cannot hear my footsteps? This was the reason I clapped. I was making sure my theory was correct.'
The heat and the isolation were beginning to corrode his mental efficiency.
Over the course of the next few hours Ayanokouji traveled using his canteen method. Whenever a source of water appeared in his path he made sure to fill the skull.
Time became a blurred and suffocating loop. His processing speed had slowed to a crawl as he spent hours cycling through the same deductions just to form a single continuous thought.
Every conclusion felt like it was being dragged through thick mud.
'I am sure of it. These Vowalkers cannot awaken unless you step directly over them. This is the only explanation all my theories are pointing toward.'
Ayanokouji kept walking until he started to feel a lingering ache in his muscles. This was another proof that this was not his body at all. This vessel was fragile and prone to failure.
He stopped for a moment and wiped away the sweat from his forehead.
'The name Vowalker itself is obvious. You just have to focus on the word Vow.'
While moving Ayanokouji looked towards the right, then left and back.
He was making sure that another inconsistency he was unaware of did not rush him.
His thoughts were looping again. The same definition of a Vow repeated in his mind for hours until it finally solidified into a clear realization.
'A Vow was a command etched into the very essence of a thing. It was a rule that deleted hesitation. If a Vow set a path, that path became the only reality. It would not stop for pain or broken parts. The drive stayed active until the body was destroyed and the motion finally ended.'
The ground began to slope downward as Ayanokouji saw a landmark that took all his interest.
He saw a gigantic well and a hill rising just a few meters away from it. It was nearly a kilometer away but the lack of obstructions allowed him to see it clearly.
Ayanokouji began making his way there until he suddenly stopped.
There were only three puddles he could see on the path ahead.
To manage his resources Ayanokouji started dropping even less water on the ground. The margin for error was vanishing.
'That Vowalker only possessed hearing. It makes me believe that there are others. Some might have chosen eyes, some a nose and some a mouth. The Vow seemed to rewrite the body structure itself because this skull had no sockets for eyes, nose and mouth.'
Ayanokouji reached the first puddle as he filled his skull again. He continued walking while taking slow breaths and wiping away the sweat.
'I refuse to believe that this is the only pathway present. It is more likely that this is just the only one I found. If there are multiple pathways, isn't it possible that there are multiple humans here like me?'
Ayanokouji reached the second puddle as he filled the skull again and kept his pace steady.
His mind fought to stay ahead of the mental fog that threatened to reset his calculations.
'I did not bother thinking about such things for long. I could use this time to think through more useful data. I can always revisit the topic once I get more information.'
Ayanokouji reached the final puddle as he filled the skull one last time and made his way toward the gigantic well.
***
Ayanokouji stood at the edge of the gigantic well. His eyes widened at the sheer scale of the construction, measuring thirty meters across.
He walked along the stone surface until he reached the ledge. He peered into the depths, but the bottom remained invisible. The water was nearly at the brim, reflecting nothing.
Ayanokouji knelt at the edge and began flickering the water.
While flickering, he suddenly yanked his hand away.
'I expected a monster to be within it and tried to time my response to its surge, but there does not seem to be any monster.'
Ayanokouji continued to flicker the water for several minutes as the sky began to bleed into evening.
He finally considered the well safe for his immediate needs. He filled the skull one last time and continued his walk.
Night was approaching. He needed to find a spot to camp and secure a source of food.
"Huff."
The sound of his own breath felt heavy. After hours of walking, a dull exhaustion had finally begun to settle into his bones.
Ayanokouji made his way toward the hill using the same method of checking the ground.
He reached the base of the hill where the path sloped upward. He set the skull down and began to hop across the large rocks embedded in the incline.
He moved from one stone to another to save time. He doubted a Vowalker could exist within the solid mass of this hill.
Soon Ayanokouji reached the summit. He looked ahead and let out a dreadful sigh.
There was no longer a single puddle in his way. There was no yellow grass. Only green stretched out before him.
For the next kilometer, there was not a single safe pathway. But Ayanokouji was sure of his destination.
A small river sat in the distance. He could not pinpoint its width from this far, but its luminous shine confirmed its nature.
Beyond that river lay a forest of dead trees. As far as his eyes could reach.... It was quite horrific to look at, One side you had grass and other side Nothin but death.
It was the most ideal place for a scary movie.
Ayanokouji sat on the edge of the hill and closed his eyes.
He was really tired, slowing his mental processing to a crawl. His thoughts began to loop again. The same observations about the Vow, the soil, and the water cycled through his mind for what felt like hours.
The loop became a suffocating trap. Each time his mind reset, the dread of the invisible field between him and the river grew.
It was an unfair game designed to make a pawn collapse before reaching the last square.
He opened his eyes. They seemed to shine with a cold, luminous intensity. He clapped his hands one time.
Clap.
The sound echoed and died. Nothing happened.
He clapped a second time, louder than the first.
CLAP.
Still, nothing happened.
Ayanokouji stood up from the edge of the hill and began to stretch his aching body.
He turned his head back and looked at the gigantic well one last time.
He looked back at the kilometer of green grass that hid an army of monsters beneath its surface.
The loops in his mind finally snapped into a singular, sharp intent.
'I... will erase every single thing that stands between me and that river.'
***
Ayanokouji picked up the skull from the bottom of the hill. He threw droplets in an entirely different direction than where he had originally come from.
He started walking toward the right. He moved away from the well and away from the hill as he continued his journey.
Evening had arrived. He had to finish this before night fell or he would not be able to see a single thing in this wasteland.
"Huff."
Ayanokouji's heartbeat began to surge. Sweat started to cling to his skin and he felt starved from the sheer exhaustion of this foreign body.
Yet after all this he did not stop. He continued walking away because he had to do it. There was no other way for him to survive.
Ayanokouji found another puddle far toward the right as he made his way there and filled his skull to the brim.
He pushed forward until he was nearly one hundred meters away from the last source of safety. He flicked the last of his water onto the dirt.
The ground absorbed it instantly. He reached into the skull for more but his fingers met only dry bone.
He noticed that the further he went the dirt was becoming more and more dry. The ground looked cracked and thirsty.
He was stranded in the middle of a killing field with no way to test the next step. There was no puddle nearby to save him.
Ayanokouji stood frozen at the middle of no where.
Slowly, Cruelly and fatefully his head began to turn back.
He had to turn back. He had to walk all the way back to the old puddle just to refill his singular tool.
"Huff."
Every step back was a reminder of his own weakness. His legs felt like lead and his vision began to blur from the lack of nutrients.
The loop in his mind was becoming a nightmare. He was walking over the same cursed ground for the second time just to stay alive.
It was a dreadful cycle. He was wasting hours of effort and precious energy only to end up exactly where he started.
He reached the old puddle and knelt down. His hands were shaking as he dipped the skull into the shallow water.
The sun was dipping lower.
Ayanokouji stared at the water in the skull. He was exhausted. He was hungry. But he stood up and prepared to walk the same path for the third time.
He reached the one hundred meter mark again. His breath was a jagged rasp that tore at his throat.
He managed to push seventy-five meters further before the skull ran dry once more. The dirt here was even more dry than before.
The ground was so parched that it seemed to scream as it swallowed his water. It was an unfair environment that stole his resources faster the further he moved.
The genius of the White Room was being broken down into a staggering shadow of a man.
He turned back again. His knees buckled and he nearly collapsed into the dirt where the Vowalkers waited for a single mistake.
He dragged his feet through the dust. The back and forth movement was stripping away his dignity step by step.
He reached the puddle for the third time. He didn't even have the strength to kneel properly. He just fell to his joints.
His mind was looping so violently that he forgot his own name for a second and unknowingly the loop was making him use way more water than he intended.
Only the image of the river kept him from giving up.
He filled the skull. His eyes were hollow and sunken into his face. He looked like a corpse trying to remember how to live.
He stood up and began the trek again.
***
Ayanokouji stood at the two hundred meter mark as he felt his entire soul leaving his body.
This was pathetic. Just a few hours of walking had made him so exhausted that he hated seeing himself this weak.
Huff. Huff. Huff.
He kept trying to catch his breath. His water had run out in just twenty five meters now.
The dirt ahead was like scorched bone. It was so dry that it seemed to mock the very idea of life.
But thankfully this much distance was enough for what he had planned.
Yet he just caught his breath for a moment as he knelt down again.
Huff. Huff.
Slowly Ayanokouji looked up at the sky and saw that the sun had almost dipped. One more hour and night will darken everything.
Ayanokouji looked all over the sky trying to find anything. There was not a single star or moon anywhere.
If the sun goes down it will be just darkness. A void where no calculation can save him.
He had to finish it under thirty minutes.
Huff.
Ayanokouji stood up as he closed his eyes just for a moment and massaged his legs.
He was tired of the loops. He was tired of the dirt. He was tired of being a masterpiece.
Ayanokouji gripped the skull one last time. He did not look at the ground.
The skull soared through the heavy air.
Ayanokouji stood and watched the bone descend toward the cracked earth.
The moment it touched, the world detonated.
The impact triggered a violent eruption of soil that chained into a dozen more blasts. Dust and debris choked the air.
Out of the haze they appeared.
A sea of Vowalkers surged forward in a blur. Some were featureless except for a single nose or a twitching ear. Others stared with wide hollow eyes.
The ones with ears recoiled. Their heads jerked as the echoes of the explosions shattered their focus.
But the others did not hesitate.
They locked onto his scent and his silhouette and closed the distance in a heartbeat.
Ayanokouji spun on his heel. He did not look for his safe path. He sprinted diagonally and his feet hammered into the inconsistent patches of soil.
A Vowalker lunged from behind. Its grey fingers were inches from his spine.
BAM.
A Vowalker ripped upward from the dirt and smashed into the pursuer.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
The ground became a series of violent geysers.
Every step Ayanokouji took triggered another Vowalker rising from the depths. They burst into the air only to be met by the swarm chasing him.
BAM. BAM.
The sounds of impact were constant. Vowalkers slammed into each other at full speed.
BAM.
There was a sickening crunch as bone shattered bone. Bodies were pulverized and turned into a spray of grey fragments and dark blood.
Ayanokouji did not look back. His mind was a fading loop of white noise and survival. Every breath felt like inhaling glass. He kept his pattern and baited the Vowalkers into each other's paths.
More clusters of Vowalkers moved in for the kill. Their limbs reached out to snag his clothes. They were nearly on top of him when the earth buckled again.
BAM.
Explosion after explosion rocked the wasteland.
The Vowalkers rising from the dirt were instantly crushed by the Vowalkers giving chase.
It was a slaughterhouse of grey limbs and distorted faces as they destroyed themselves in the crossfire.
Blood sprayed in every direction. The air became thick with the heavy scent of iron. Severed Vowalker body parts were flying through the red mist.
Ayanokouji was running on nothing but the momentum of a dying body. His vision was blurring into a dark tunnel.
One Vowalker with only eyes dived. It was a horizontal leap meant to catch his leg and drag him down.
Ayanokouji felt the tips of its claws graze his skin..
But he had reached it.
He had reached the place.
In that final millisecond he launched himself into the gaping mouth of the well.
He vanished into the black and silent throat of the stone.
The Vowalkers behind him were moving too fast to stop.
They followed his arc into the void and their bodies disappeared one by one into the lightless water below.
***
Ayanokouji felt his entire body ache as he dove into the well and began to swim down. He felt his heartbeat and tears in his eyes.
But he did not stop. He did not look back. He just heard the muffled resonance of countless explosions going on above and continued to dive down.
Ayanokouji had no idea how deep this well truly was.
But he did not stop.
His muscles were breaking apart with every stroke. His mind was a fractured loop of movement and darkness.
Above him the Vowalkers rained into the thirty meter wide expanse. They fell into the water in a chaotic mass of grey limbs.
The Vowalkers were being pushed one over another. The sheer weight of the pack drove them deeper as they collided in the depths.
The Vowalkers started to absorb the water into their parched skin.
They were sinking anchors of waterlogged flesh that dragged each other down.
Ayanokouji pushed deeper into the silence. His lungs were burning.
His fingers finally brushed against something solid and cold.
Ayanokouji reached the bottom.
Ayanokouji pressed his back against the floor forty meters below the surface. His lungs burned. He gripped the silt to keep his body from floating upward.
He held his breath. One minute passed. Then two.
Above him the thirty meter wide expanse was filled with sinking grey shapes. The Vowalkers fell through the water.
As they descended their parched skin drank the liquid. They became rigid. Their limbs turned into heavy inflexible stone.
Groups of Vowalkers made their way toward him in the dark. They moved in slow grinding clusters. They reached out with hands that were becoming harder with every second.
Ayanokouji watched them. His heart hammered against his ribs.
He was scared. Tears mixed with the well water as his body demanded oxygen.
His eyes remained the same. He stared back at the descent.
The Vowalkers were getting closer. Their movements were becoming incredibly slow as their joints turned to solid rock.
Hundreds of Vowalkers stopped moving altogether. They became a forest of frozen statues anchored to the floor.
One Vowalker reached the closest. Its fingers were inches away from his eyes.
The creature was fixed on him. Cracks formed in its petrified skin.
Ayanokouji stayed there. He did not move. He did not release the air.
Three minutes. Four minutes.
The silence was absolute. He was buried under a graveyard of frozen Vowalkers.
Five minutes passed.... And everything was silent now, There no longer was any sound of explosion.
Ayanokouji remained at the bottom. He stared into the eyes of the hundreds of statues.
***
Ayanokouji began to swim up as air escaped his mouth and tears escaped his eyes.
He was scared. He was scared of everything that surrounded him.
His body wanted to die. The muscle fibers were frayed and the nerves were screaming for the end. This nightmare was too heavy for a shell made of meat and bone.
He did not care what he was feeling. He did not care what the body wanted.
His hand moved to a Vowalker and ripped the organ from its slit. Then he moved to the next. He took four organs from four different Vowalkers.
Just then his body began to move on its own.
He began taking out more organs at the expense of his own breath.
The water turned red. It was a thick, dark crimson that tasted of iron.
His eyes began to close. His brain was shutting down from the lack of oxygen, yet his hands remained precise.
He kept taking out organs to give the Vowalkers a quick death.
His body failed as he came out of the influence of the loop. With all his might, he pushed seventeen Vowalkers toward the corner of the well.
Only after that did Ayanokouji swim up again. He went past hundreds of Vowalkers that stayed there moving extremely slowly. They were statues of misery, waiting to die once their bodies could not absorb any more water.
Ayanokouji came out of the well and fell to the ground.
He opened his mouth.
"Huff."
He took deep breaths, but they did not satisfy the void in his chest. His body shook that made his bones ache. Tears kept coming.
He curled into a ball on the dirt. He began shaking from the cold and the numbness. His teeth hit against each other.
He looked like a child broken by a world that never wanted him.
His eyes stayed the same. Ayanokouji forced himself to stand. He did not listen to the sobbing of his own lungs.
His legs gave up and he fell down once more.
Ayanokouji did not care. Night was around the corner. He could not stop moving because of a broken body and a compromised mind.
He stood. He staggered. He refused to fall and made his eyes look at what he had done.
The right side of the world was destroyed. As far as he could see, there were only the destroyed bodies of Vowalkers. There were craters and blood.
The right side of the world was no more.
"Huff."
Ayanokouji caught his breath. He did not stop. He walked up the hill with the four organs in his hand.
He stopped and looked at an organ.
He had originally planned to eat. Now he looked at it clearly. It was three hundred grams and shaped like a heart.
Ayanokouji looked at it and began climbing the hill again.
He wanted to rest. He wanted to rest for a second. But in half an hour, the night would fall and the sun would disappear.
He could not afford even a second of peace.
He threw the four organs down the hill.
He began running down again. He did not wait for a Vowalker to come out. He did not wait to make a trap.
He ran down the hill and jumped back into the well.
The world was surrounded in explosions again.
He ignored his own heartbeat.
***
Ayanokouji heard them again. Hundreds of explosions detonated above, followed by the heavy rhythm of footsteps charging toward the opening.
He grit his teeth and forced his limbs to move, swimming deeper into the dark.
He kept swimming down, but his head turned upward against his will. Fear crept into his very being as he watched the surface.
Through the distorted water, he saw a tide of Vowalkers. They were more than last time, all of them crashing down toward him.
His body betrayed him and his strokes slowed as the terror took hold of his muscles.
Ayanokouji closed his eyes and squeezed them shut to continue pushing through the cold resistance. He refused to acknowledge the descent above him.
Finally, he reached the corner of the well where he had pushed the seventeen Vowalkers earlier.
The hardened bodies had formed a shield. He found the small opening he had left and pulled himself through the narrow gap.
He grabbed the corpse of another Vowalker and dragged it into place to seal the entrance and plunge himself into absolute darkness.
He was trapped in a tomb of hardened flesh.
The first impact hit the shield.
THUD.
The vibrations traveled through the bodies and into Ayanokouji's own chest. He curled into a tight ball in the tiny and freezing space while his lungs began to burn.
His chest felt like it was being crushed from the inside. He fought the urge to open his mouth and gasp for air that wasn't there.
Every second felt like an eternity of agony as the carbon dioxide built up in his blood.
THUD THUD THUD THUD.
Another thud shook the barrier.
THUD.
And Another.
THUD.
Many more.
The weight was increasing as hundreds of Vowalkers piled on top of his hiding spot. He could hear the muffled sounds of bone hitting bone through the water.
He was terrified in the silence of the blackness. His heart kept beating hard, Tears mixed with the salt and water of the well as he realized how thin the line was between his life and the Vowalker's surrounding him.
He gripped his own arms to stop the shaking.
He was buried forty meters deep and forgotten by the world above.
The only thing that mattered was the air he didn't have and the fear that refused to leave his mind.
He stayed there in the dark and waited for the pressure to either break his shield or for his own heart to finally stop.
𓁹𓁹
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I just wanted this noise to stop.
I could not bother thinking about how my heart was beating or how I was feeling scared.
I did not want to think the same thing for the fifth time.
I moved my hand and covered my face with it.
This body was trying desperately to open its mouth and end it all. My lungs were screaming for oxygen.
THUD.
This body had its own consciousness; I was sure of it. It felt fear on its own, and at times, it even moved without my command.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
This message just kept on ringing in my mind. I was not aware if this was one singular message that was being looped or if this was just how many Vowalkers had died.
THUD THUD THUD.
The crashing bodies of Vowalkers kept falling against the shield I had prepared. My eyes were closed so this body would not freak out more than it already was.
THUD.
I knew for a fact that this barrier would not break, but this body did not seem to believe that.
It shuddered with every impact.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I was sure of it, this body had-
Uh. I looped again.
Uh. I looped again.
Uh-
...
If I had known this body would move on its own, I would not have bothered using such a strategy.
To put it simply, this strategy originally had a ninety percent success rate in my mind. Ten percent was the chance of the debris somehow getting to the left or front side of the world and not staying at the right, but that did not happen.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
But now that I knew just how compromised I was, I would say the chances of this strategy working were around fifty percent.
These chances were way too low for my liking.
If I had known this body would move like this, I would not have made such a plan.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
...
Now that the sound of Vowalkers crashing down had ended, I decided to go out of the shield. And so I did. I pushed one of the corpses away and swam out.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I did not bother thinking about my heartbeat or breathing. My head was filled only with messages about Vowalkers being killed, and I had become sure that they were not being looped.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
In front of me in the well were just so many Vowalkers that I could not even count them with my current body.
I could not even look far now.
The water was dyed red with all the blood, and even the water that touched my skin felt thick. I could feel blood.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I began swimming up, going past all the Vowalkers, but I stopped for a moment and took out three hearts from them.
I continued swimming up again and soon reached the end of the well and went out.
I reached the ground and my body failed me again.
I felt something building up inside of me, but before I could even understand what it was, I fell to the ground and started breathing heavily.
I once again felt my teeth clattering.
I curled myself in a ball as I started shaking from the cold. What was building up inside me came out. I puked over myself. I did not bother thinking about how it felt.
I realized that I had curled over myself for the fourth time today. Even my actions and what I was feeling seemed to be in a loop.
Was there any way for me to come out of this loop?
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
Yes, can you please shut up now?
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I guessed you could not.
I rolled over my own puke and looked up at the sky.
It had gotten dark, but it still was not at its peak. There were no moon or stars and the sun had not gone down completely. I still had a few minutes left to get to the river.
But what if the river was not the answer? What if I had just miscalculated?
...
The body was also influencing the way I thought.
All this time I was breathing heavily, but I did not bother thinking of that.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I began standing up as my entire body was aching and a headache grabbed me.
I looped a lot of times and I did not bother thinking of that.
I got up and started walking up the hill one last time.
And so I did, and I saw a new world.
In this world, everywhere I looked, only ruin remained.
No matter how far or in which direction I saw, only blood and destroyed Vowalkers and the smell of iron remained.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
My body seemed to be blaming itself for this. I did not bother focusing on that.
I almost fell from loss of balance just now.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I was shaking from starvation or exhaustion or just cold. I did not bother.
My clothes clung to my body and so did my hair. They clung to my face from just how wet I had gotten.
I began walking down the hill. Even its surface was filled with blood and craters. Now all that was left was just one kilometer of walking.
But still, first I looked behind me.
The world had changed because I changed it. What had once been cracked terrain and faded yellow grass was now something else entirely.
Every direction bore the signs of upheaval. Craters. Scars. Ash-gray soil churned into uneven ridges. Some were deep enough to bury a person standing upright. Others were shallow but wide.
It did not look natural. It looked violated by force. Like a meteor field. A sky that fell one piece at a time. I saw no grass now. Nothing but ruin.
The surface had lost all memory of what it once was. The creatures I had drawn out and killed and suffocated and shattered did not just die.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
They had been used, turned into tools of collapse. Their exit tore holes in the world. Their death left it empty. Because the only way forward was through collapse.
That realization did not unsettle me. It did not comfort me either. It simply was the right way.
The world behind the river was different now.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
And only one direction remained untouched: the other side of the river. But for how long?
Each step I had passed until now was gone.
Wherever I had stepped through was decimated.
Every landscape I looked at burned under my gaze.
Wherever I went, destruction followed. And now the world bore that weight.
I kept walking.
***
Sadly, night had fallen over everything. I could not see a single thing. I was walking through darkness alone. I was supposed to walk a kilometer straight this way.
I was walking between craters. Thanks to at least my memory not being compromised, I remembered the layout of the path.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
Can you please shut up?
I could not even see my hair clinging against my eyes.
I did not bother thinking about how I was practically moving half-dead.
***
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I kept walking. I could not see a single thing. The air and my wet clothes pressed against my skin.
I moved through the dark by counting the steps I had mapped out in my mind.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
My foot caught on something stiff and uneven. I lost my balance. I fell forward and hit the ground. I did not move for a few seconds. My face was pressed into the dirt. The smell of iron was thick.
I reached out to push myself up and my hand closed around something.
It was a separated hand. A Vowalker's hand had been torn from its body. I felt the rough texture of the skin before I let it go.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
My body was shaking. I tried to stand but my legs failed. I fell back down into the mud. I puked again. Bitter fluid burned my throat. I rolled over and lay in the ruin I had created.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I was sure of it, this body had-
Uh. I looped again-
...
...
...
Uh-
...
I got onto my knees and started crawling. I felt the edges of craters and the broken remains of more Vowalkers. The blood on the ground made the soil slippery.
I kept moving. I had to reach the water.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
My teeth clattered. I heard them over the messages. I forced myself to stand up. I staggered. I did not look back at the hand or the craters. I kept my eyes forward.
I was heading toward the river.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I kept walking. I did not bother thinking about my heartbeat. I did not bother thinking about the pain in my head. I moved through the dark.
***
I finally reached the river. I could not measure its width in this darkness. I just sat down beside it.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I put down the three hearts I had gathered beside me. I could not see them. I just knew they were there.
The grease from the hearts was sticking to my fingers and I could not wipe it off.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
But instead of resting, I went back a few meters and dragged two dead bodies of the Vowalkers. I could not see them but I felt their texture. They were filled with warm blood making their body warm too.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
Then I gathered whatever dry grass I could find. My hands were digging in the dirt. I was searching for anything that was not soaked in the iron of the dead.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I put the dry grass together and started rubbing rock until it started a fire. I went back to find more dry grass in darkness and I somehow found it and added them into the fire.
The small light only made the shadows of the corpses longer.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I crawled towards the river and put my hand in. It was still water. It felt like ice.
Desperately, I found some mud and made a vessel using it and held it against the fire.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
Over for what felt like half an hour, it finally solidified. I had made the fire a little big by keeping adding more grass and gently blowing it in the middle.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
There was another ingredient I had used: the broken bones of the Vowalkers. The fat of the marrow worked as a fuel to keep the fire going for long.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
My vessel was now ready as I filled it with water and left it right beside the fire.
I was not really hopeful for it to work but to fool this body that the water would be good to drink. It was enough.
I was a liar to my own cells just to keep them moving through this hell.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I just had to wake up from this nightmare before the consequences of drinking such water caught up.
Now I began taking off my clothes, starting with the t-shirt, and squeezed the water out of it.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
Then I did the same with the pants. I was essentially naked now.
Hypothermia caught me again. My bones were shaking inside my skin. I quickly went below one of the bodies of the Vowalker I had fetched.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
It would only work for a maximum of five minutes. These were now monsters, so they would be hot for a little bit more time. I buried myself deep within the dead body.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
A few minutes passed and I came out of the bodies and cleaned myself using the clothing.
I wore them again now and drank the water that was quite hot but not enough.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I filled the vessel again and considered cooking the Vowalkers but decided otherwise.
There was a dark secret behind these Vowalkers.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I did not even know what to say to these messages now. I was still tired. Exhausted. But the cold had gotten a little calm.
Or maybe my nerves just died from the trauma of this night.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I now sat against the fire as everything around me reeked of blood. My eyes were heavy; I wanted to sleep.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
But I could not even think of sleeping. I was still thirsty and starving. It was all because of this body. If I only had my original body, I would not be feeling anything like this. I would not be this pathetic.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
This was all the world's fault, not mine. I was the one being wronged.
I was doing everything right and the world was still trying to break me.
I wanted to die.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I slapped myself to get out of this nightmare's influence and sighed.
My hand felt cold against my hot cheek.
I was being attacked in so many ways: Vowalkers, physically, mentally, and now even spiritually. I was being hollowed out.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I just sat down alone by myself in a world where I could not get away.
I sighed.
I was influenced again. The dark was talking to me in a voice I almost recognized.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
I closed my eyes but I was still awake and stopped thinking altogether so as not to be influenced by this nightmare into making a choice I would regret.
I tried to become as empty as the ruin around me.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
The smell of blood was sickening.
I would cross the river tomorrow, if there was anything left of me to make the journey.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
Yes. Thank you for not making me feel too lonely. Shut up now.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker]
[You have received a memory.]
*********
Did the continuous "I didn't bother", [You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker] and other phrases cause you reading exhaustion? It sure caused me writing exhaustion, if that's a thing.
But that was the whole point of this chapter, to make us feel even a fragment of what Ayanokouji is feeling.
Ayanokouji's POV was purposely kept rough here to show his current mental state.
Let's just hope he don't transcend reality to kill me.
Chapter 3: Droplets has been rewritten and changed to Well.
If you come across anything in this first nightmare that was already explained here or is inconsistent to the explanation provided here then that chapter has not been rewritten yet.
And yeah, did the continuous "didn't bother," spell messages, and other stuff make you feel tired and cause reader exhaustion? Yeah, that was the point, to make you feel tired with the MC.
Peace.