The ride home passed in a blur of streetlights and his father's quiet humming, and Klaus was asleep against the window before they'd even left the parking lot. When he opened his eyes again, he was home — tucked into his own bed, the daycare's crying and sour-milk smell already fading like something from another life.
"Sighhhhh. What can I do," he muttered, dragging his small body upright. He'd said it out loud without meaning to. Old habits from a much older mouth, apparently, didn't die just because the body carrying them had.
He pulled up the pale blue interface that only he could see, tapping past the header until the quest tab unfolded in front of him.
[Status]
[Name: Klaus Richardson]
[Age: ?]
[Bloodline: Human (Adjustable)]
[Mana: Unawakened]
[Level: 1 (0/100)]
Strength: 3
Agility: 4
Defense: 2
Perception: 3
Stamina: 6
Soul Points: 0
Stat Points: 0
Functions Available:
[Shop] [Quest]
He tapped Quest, then Daily Quest, and the screen flickered into something new.
[Daily Quest]
Do a hundred kicks
Do a hundred punches
Reward: 30 EXP
Simple enough. He rolled off the bed, planted his feet the way he vaguely remembered from a life that felt more like a movie he'd watched than one he'd lived, and started kicking.
By the time he hit a hundred, his little legs were trembling — and the counter hadn't moved.
He drove a fist into the mattress, more out of frustration than any real hope it would help. "So you're telling me those kicks were incorrect?"
He reset. Ignored the ache already blooming in his knees and ankles, ignored the way his small joints protested every motion they weren't built for yet, and kicked again — slower this time, sharper, actually aiming instead of flailing.
[Do a hundred kicks ✓]
The punches came easier after that, though by the end his arms felt like they'd been taken apart and reassembled with hammers. He barely remembered being tucked in before sleep dragged him under.
The forest was waiting for him again.
It always was, lately — the same dreamscape, the same canopy of green swallowing the light into soft, dappled patches on the forest floor. He moved through it carefully now, low and quiet, nothing like the wide-eyed wandering that had gotten him mauled by that ape two dreams ago. He'd learned. Slowly, painfully, but he'd learned.
A branch lay half-buried in the leaf litter, and he crouched to pull it free, testing its weight. His mother would have had a fit watching him grip something crawling with bark and dirt, and the thought pulled a small, tired laugh out of him. After a few minutes of twisting and bracing it against a rock, the branch snapped into a jagged point — crude, but sharp enough to matter.
The bush to his left shivered.
A rabbit stepped out — the kind of small, round shape that should have made him smile on instinct. This one didn't. Its mouth was wrong, split too wide, lined with teeth that had no business being there, and its front paws ended in claws that clicked faintly against a fallen branch as it moved.
He went still. Weight low, branch angled, breath held.
The rabbit lunged first, faster than something that size had any right to be, and its teeth sank into his forearm before he could react. Pain lit up his whole body, hot and immediate, and for a moment all he could do was stand there with tears blurring the trees into streaks of green.
Then something else rose up underneath the pain — hot, fast, and far less patient.
He drove the branch forward and down, into the thing's eye, and felt it slide in with the same eerie ease as a needle through cloth. The rabbit twitched once, twice, then went still, its claws slackening against his skin.
[You have gained 2 Soul Points]
[You have gained 50 EXP]
His legs gave out before his mind caught up, and he sank down into the leaves, staring up through the canopy while the wound on his arm pulsed and bled warmth into the dirt beneath him. The sky above the trees was calm — too calm, considering everything — right up until something broke through it.
A shape wrapped in fire, folding down out of the light in a slow, deliberate dive. An eagle, he realized, a heartbeat too late to matter, its wings trailing flame like torn banners as it dropped.
He didn't have time to close his eyes.
Talons closed around him with a grip that felt less like an attack and more like a verdict, and the last thing he registered before the dream tore apart around him was how final it felt — not pain, exactly, just an ending, arriving on schedule.
Somewhere far above the forest, morning light was already creeping in through his bedroom curtains, waiting for him to wake up and feel it too.