Within the cave, I concentrate on my breath, a rhythmic cloud of white smoke dissipating over my shivering hands, barely carrying any warmth. My lips thin into a line as I draw my hands together, dredging up the skeletons of nearby corpses. A family of mice died in a hollow outside of the cave; I call them to myself. When they appear, their scampering forms trailing needle-point prints in the exterior snow, I wave my hand and send their bones into a flying tumult around myself.

I sigh in contentment as the bones settle beneath my clothes and over my face, warming my body. Even after making soul gems and moving the bones, I feel an insatiable itch: Now that I’ve started practicing, the thought of stopping is almost unbearable

So I continue to make soul gems. After making another ten or so, I cross my arms and shake my head. I’m feeling jittery now, but not in a good way, as though forming the most basic soul gems isn’t satisfying whatever...whatever I’m feeling.

Nobody’s monitoring death energy out here, are they?

I shake my head, dismissing the desire to create larger, more energy-intensive gems. If the regional Guardians measured my death energy far off the coast, there’s a good chance they have this entire area covered from top to bottom.

My mind wanders as I consider the best way to deal with my compromised condition. When I snap out of my thoughts, I’m confronted with a rather gruesome scene. Did I really do this again? I wonder to myself, sneering in self-deprecation. The bones in my hands extend out past my fingertips, and blood from the exit wounds has dyed my forearm red.

This is something I used to do to ease stress closer to the beginning of my time in Menocht. Back then, I considered it good practice for manipulating my own bones and flesh, but in reality, it was just a bad habit, a perverse form of decemantic teething.

I shake my head and decide to at least make use of my blood-letting. I sit down and crane my face until it’s no more than three inches away from my hand, watching the blood drip into a growing pool until I start to feel lightheaded. Then I retract the bone and use a swell of carnimancy to close the wounds.

Finally, I manipulate the fresh blood into a tight, gyrating sphere. After a minute or so, a crimson pearl drops into my hand; I pocket it, then head out. While I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve truly found release, I’m feeling better.

—

Before I know it, finals are over. I head back home on a train, thoughts of warming up by the living room fireplace making me drowsy. I close my eyes and rest my head limply on the seat. When I open them, I find myself shrouded in complete darkness. I can’t see or hear anything around me.

I clench my fists, my entire body suddenly trembling. I’ve moved on? The test was to make it successfully to the end of the semester?

Tears stream down my face, spattering off as I convulse in a fit of humorless laughter. So that’s how it was. Simple enough, right?

But where am I? In a cave? I stomp my feet on the ground, noting that the sound isn’t producing an echo. I advance forward, hopeful that I’ll eventually find the way out.

After a minute of walking, I sense a disturbance in the ambient energy. There’s a kind of death energy manifesting, rapidly assuming the form of a skeletal monstrosity with mismatched bones.

I grow genuinely confused. Is it here to help me? I can’t think of any other reason the watchers would place it here. I wave my hand and beckon it over, replacing its fel-green eyes with soul-violet embers that crackle brilliantly in the dark.

Only seconds pass before another swirl of death energy appears, heralding the arrival of a panther-like skeleton. It stands around aimlessly, solidifying my suspicion that the undead must be here for my convenience.

After an hour ticks by, I have a veritable army of skeletal undead around me and I’m still nowhere close to figuring out where the exit to this endless chamber is. I know that there must be an exit...

Half an hour more goes by before an enormous energy disturbance rocks the area, causing the ground to tremor. A winged flesh-and-bone humanoid the size of an apartment building–I’ll refer to it as a seraph–pops into being, giving me a better sense of my current location. Keeping in mind a lack of echo, I can only presume that I’m in an open space outdoors, though a space unnaturally devoid of light.

Like everything else in this space, the seraph would be completely invisible without my ability to see its turbulent vital energy. The most disconcerting part about the enormous, angelic skeleton is that its motion is completely quiet: I can only feel, not hear, a gust of wind riding off its wings, unlike the other skeletons under my control whose bones click as they move.

“Come,” I whisper under my breath, my voice hoarse. The seraph moves, its wings pumping it robotically forward until it towers before me. I can only see the green coals of its eyes as it stares down and the faintest wisps of coiling red outlining its bones.

I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I smile, then swipe my right hand down. The skeleton writhes for a second, but it only takes an instant for its eyes to glow violet. I wonder what–

I blink, and suddenly, I’m somewhere else. This new place is bright, and I close my eyes reflexively. As I slowly open them, blinking rapidly into the glaring light beyond, I become aware that this place is extremely loud, as though I’m amongst a large, cheering crowd.

“Welcome, challenger,” a booming voice announces. I now see that I’m on a field with a full stadium of people spectating around me.

What kind of layer is this?

“This is the Pit of Brutality. Your only job is to survive! Good luck!”

I snort incredulously. What? I look around at the frenzied spectators, wondering how this kind of thing could ever be legal. I suppose it doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not if it’s in a dilation loop.

At least the instructions for this layer are refreshingly direct.

As I inspect the surroundings, I realize that the entire back quarter of the stadium functions as a giant sliding door. Just what kind of stuff are they going to pit me against?

The first monster to emerge is blue and scaly, with disproportionately large teeth and a misshapen head. I wonder how it’s supposed to eat with all those overlapping teeth getting in the way.

The announcer said that my only job is to survive, I recall, frowning. But then why are there so many spectators? I have a hunch that part of the test in this layer is to provide the audience...entertainment.

When blue-and-scaly gets within twenty meters of me, I form my hands into claws and swish them apart, tearing the creature apart from the inside. It tumbles limp to the ground, already dead.

Oops.

I walk forward, ignoring the cries of shock from the crowd. I shuck the monster’s skin away and fashion its bones into a set of armor, deciding that if I’m stuck in the equivalent of a gladiator ring, going along with the scenario and acting like a gladiator is the best way forward. I flay the hulking blue corpse’s skin from its body until I only have dead, bloodless epidermis. Then I drape the azure skin over my shoulders like a thin cape.

I hope the crowd appreciates my showmanship. Before I have time to form a soul gem from the deceased monster, another one appears on the field, this time looking like a cross between a rhinoceros and a tiger.

I can’t help but feel a rush of anticipation as the monster comes closer, its footfalls sending tremors through the ground. I wait until it’s only a few meters away, then dash diagonally right. I’m not fast enough to avoid the monster completely and it swipes at me with a paw. I laugh as I meet the strike with a bone-clad arm, stopping it cold.

As the rhinocecat makes contact with my arm, I use carnimancy to tear the muscles in its shoulder. I use osteomancy to force a stress break at the spot my arm contacts the monster’s, then push.

The end result is that the rhinocecat recoils and screams furiously as it withdraws its disabled limb. It shakes its head and begins to circle around me, pumping its two horns up and down as it charges. When I run forward to meet it this time, I increase my speed using osteomancy, lifting myself off the ground and dragging myself forward by my own skeleton. I continue to run to keep up appearances; to observers, it should look as though my stride has doubled in length.

Even the monster seems a bit startled by my increase in speed, though it only lowers its horn and snorts as I draw closer. When we make contact this time, all it takes is a palm from me on its forehead: its head caves in, sending blood and brain matter flying out over its back.

I laugh and grab one of the monster’s horns, holding it like a scepter. As another hulking monster races out of the holding area, I separate and add a few of its bones to my set of armor. The rest of its skeleton I hover at my sides.

As my eyes scan over the blood-drenched field, I think to myself that this...this is the first layer of the loop I can actually enjoy.

—

I lose track of time.

I’m jarringly brought back into the present when my heart rate slows down to something below 100 bpm. The monsters have stopped coming and the announcer is screaming something that I tune out. I’m breathing heavily, my shoulders bobbing up and down as I stand in place.

The field is a swamp of gore. I clench my fists and relax them to relieve tension. I look up, wondering when–

I blink and I’m in a pitch-black box.

Where the hell am I now? I push up against the walls of my enclosure. I’m encased in rough, splintery wood, long-since dead, its lamination stripping it of any vestiges of Death energy. I can’t do anything with it.

Shit. I’m not buried alive...am I? I elevate myself forward, only to find my efforts fruitless: there’s something heavy and immovable surrounding the box on all sides, even the ceiling.

Right. So I probably am fucking buried alive. Is this some kind of sick face-your-own-fears garbage?

I want to scream, but I shake my head and keep my composure. The thrice-damned watchers are no doubt watching how I choose to react.

What am I supposed to do? I must be buried really deep underground because I can’t sense any vitality nearby, aside from a few worms. If I were closer to the surface, there would likely be at least a few buried skeletons or dessicated insect carapaces.

Ugh. I really don’t want to do what I think I need to do. But if this is a test of survival...

I grimace and clench my teeth, at once terrified and full of resolve. After deadening the nerves around my left wrist, I pop off my hand, severing the ligaments, tendons, and vessels. I seal off my new stump, snarling in pain despite my precautions, and direct my liberated hand up to the top of the box. First I strip off the flesh and condense it into soupy Death energy; then, I surge the energy over the thin hand bones, empowering them. Finally, I sharpen the finger bones and secure them together so that they won’t fall apart with my energy coursing through them.

I avoid looking down at my stump, wondering if I’d be able–or willing–to cut off my hand in the real world. Just looking at it makes me slightly light-headed: It’s my first time participating in my own self-dismemberment.

A few minutes after the drilling begins, the shock of losing my hand wears off. I begin to make out a pinprick of light as my drill-hand finally reaches the surface, the light small enough to suggest I must be a thousand feet under ground.

I curse the fact that I’m not an earth elementalist while my hand widens the tunnel on its way back down. When the drill arrives back at the wooden box, I jerk up and out into the air and accelerate toward the light above, my clothes rustling up against the roughly-hewn tunnel.

When I reach the surface, I roll onto the ground and breathe heavily, my hands shaking with relief. Y’jeni, was it really necessary to bury me so far underground?

I blink my eyes and find myself, surprise, somewhere else.