Another awkward ride, another half hour spent running in circles casting out mana pings, and Levi finally found the Control dungeon as evening began to fall.

He’d only been in a handful of these in the past, and that handful had been more than enough.

Control weren't one of the standard elemental types, which had well-documented strengths. Control seemed to somewhere in the vicinity of light or illusion, or perhaps mental manipulation. Due to their intensely disorienting nature and the difficulty of facing them, items or materials from Control dungeons were among the most expensive and valued.

The last time Levi had been in a Control dungeon, it had slowly convinced each of the delvers that their allies were foes, and the resulting chaos led to less than a quarter of the team surviving. The whole dungeon was full of a mind-numbing miasma that made it harder to think clearly, making everyone more susceptible to the dungeon’s suggestions. He'd only made it out by sheer luck.

At level 1 it shouldn’t be so extreme, but it was still with trepidation that he approached. This time the location was correct.

Control Dungeon: Level 1

Levi didn’t step into the dungeon just yet, though; he pulled out the map and pressed it against the glimmer in the air. The map turned blue, glowing with an ethereal light, then flashed to ash.

Control Dungeon: Level 1+

“Let’s go see what our bonus is.” Levi had only a moment’s regret that the map led him to a Control dungeon of all possible options, but he wasn’t going to back down. He was best suited for physical confrontations, the type of mental games a Control dungeon played were outside his forte.

The first room gleamed, white marble walls and floor polished to a reflective shine, with no shadows or anyplace for an enemy to hide.

Entirely empty.

Levi tested the ground for traps, scanned for tripwires or any ambush, and found nothing. The room was perfectly square, with only a flat rectangular opening into the next room.

Gremlin Two clung to his leg, making small fearful sounds.

“Yeah, I agree,” Levi murmured. They crossed the room without incident, though everything about the situation set Levi on edge.

The hall was dim, but just as eerily empty.

Levi spent as much time looking back over his shoulder as scanning ahead, sure he was missing something. But the walls were utterly flat and solid, no seams, no sign of anything but solid marble.

The second room tilted downward, forming a faint slope but otherwise identical to the first room.

Empty. No traps, no enemies.

“Has someone else already cleared it today?” Levi wondered, as they entered the next corridor - this one branching off to the right.

The third room was the same. Empty of adversaries, but tilted slightly more downward.

The door was in the floor this time, and it was closed.

Levi stared at it, conflicted.

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” he said, to which Gremlin Two nodded vehemently.

But he’d already used the map. If he didn’t follow through and claim the treasure, whoever came here next would get it instead.

He circled the room slowly, pressing on every part of the wall, then backtracked through the dungeon, checking every wall in the same way. Nothing. All were as solid as they seemed. He found no secret branching, no hidden panels, no cunning traps. Only three empty rooms with halls connecting them, the last of which had a door in the diagonally-tilted floor.

Levi cautiously cracked the door and peered inside. Another short hall, this one sloping quite steeply downward in the opposite direction from the room they were in, and another brightly lit white marble room just visible beyond.

Levi cautiously stepped into the hall, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the transition between floor and ceiling. The floor was smooth enough and the incline steep enough that he all but slid down. He kept his balance, barely, and skidded out into the next room.

A wide golden eye met his gaze, staring into his soul. Sudden panic choked him, strangling him as shadow tentacles reached out for him—

Levi gasped awake, disoriented and confused. His heart was racing, sweat soaking his pajamas, the thin fabric clinging to his arms. He sat up, staring wide-eyed around the dim room.

Sunlight peeked through the window, sliding in cracks around the blackout curtain and giving the room a dim cozy ambiance.

He blinked and stared into the sliver of golden light. Something wasn’t right. He couldn't bring to mind exactly what.

Irene mumbled sleepily and rolled over, tugging the sheet away. He turned and tucked it around her reflexively, doing his best to preserve her bubble of warmth before it could slip away in the crisp morning air, then sat up and swung his legs out from under the covers.

His feet found his slippers right where he expected them. His robe lay draped over the chair beside the window, and he pulled it on against the autumn chill.

“Bad dream?” Irene murmured hazily, eyes closed, still half asleep.

Levi frowned, unable to articulate the feeling nagging at him. He paced for a minute, trying to think through the haze.

Irene’s breathing returned to steady rhythm as she slipped back into slumber.

Levi couldn’t concentrate, thoughts fuzzy and dancing away just out of reach, but he knew he’d be unable to sleep either.

For some reason, his first thought was ‘I went back in time again?’ which didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t gone anywhere. Time travel was one of those fanciful things that made for a thrilling TV show, but had about as much relevance to his life as winning the lottery.

He softly opened the bedroom door and slipped into the hall. Somewhere in the house the drip drip of a leaky pipe provided the only sound to break the morning stillness.

Levi reached the familiar door, pale wood with childish scribbles still faintly visible behind the racing poster and personalized nameplate. PETER MORRISON, the letters stylized and colored to match the 24.

Drip. Drip.

Drip.

Levi pushed the door open, and his heart froze in horror.

Vorish the Scythe sat on Peter’s bed, licking blood off his too-long blade-like claws, a pile of cracked human bones in his lap. The Demon Lord’s eyes gleamed with blue flame in the darkness, lighting up his obsidian black exoskull in eerie light.

Blood dripped from his overlong blade-like fingers as he slowly licked each one. Then he leaned over and plucked two mangled fingers from where they lay among Peter's superhero figures, now toppled and scattered and splashed with blood.

“Hello again, human." Vorish laughed, a harsh cruel sound that pierced through Levi’s heart. "You thought you’d be safe from me here? That running to the past would save your family?”

The demon crunched down on the tiny fingers, one joint at a time, watching Levi with a mocking grin. “I’ve already killed you once. Don’t think I can’t do it again.”

Rage flickered faintly in Levi’s heart, but stronger was the deep grief, the certainty that he’d failed.

No, not even that. It didn’t feel like loss, but like… a return to normal. Like letting go of a hope he’d known all along would end up being futile.

This was as it should be. He’d only been deluding himself, imagining he could have them back.

He was meant to be alone.

Drip. Drip.

Vorish licked his fingers one last time, then slowly got to his feet, stretching his wrongly-proportioned body with a series of sharp clicks and snaps, stretching the thick ivory hide beneath his intricately patterned obsidian exoskeleton.

Easily half again as tall as Levi, Vorish’s presence made the entire house feel small and tight. "Wait here, I’ll be back for you soon.”

As the Demon Lord left the room, some of the paralyzing terror eased. Levi still felt choked and stunned, his emotions remained oddly blunted. He should have felt something more, shouldn't he? It felt disloyal to be so dispassionate now.

He stared at Peter’s galaxy bedspread, the stars stained red against the dark background, the pile of broken bones stark in the bright sunlight streaming through the window.

Shouldn't he be crying, or raging?

He only stared, sorrow pressing against him in subdued waves. Dampening rather than heightening his emotions.

From the master bedroom, Irene screamed.

Still Levi couldn’t move.

Wet squelches and the repeated snap of bone. He shouldn’t be able to hear them so clearly.

Irene’s pained, desperate voice cut off in a gurgle. Silence.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Shouldn’t he be grieving? Fighting and screaming? His hand twitched, grasped uselessly at his waist, feeling for… something, something that wasn’t there.

“Why would you bother fighting?” Vorish asked. He stabbed one clawed finger through Levi’s stomach and lifted him into the air, like a piece of meat on a fork. “You know how this ends.”

He did know. It was all futile. Earth, humanity, all doomed. Children screaming against inexorable fate.

“Give up,” the Scythe whispered, fingers tightening around him, sharpened claws pressing into Levi’s vulnerable skin.

It would be so easy. Just let it happen.

Why had he been fighting so hard? Nothing but pointless anger.

Throwing a tantrum at the universe. It had hurt him, and he wanted to hurt it back.

What a waste of energy.

“Yes, give up…”

The fingers around his throat tightened, the claw in his stomach slicing slowly upward, leaving a line of dull discomfort in its wake.

He should have died already, Levi knew. Why hadn’t he?

It didn't matter. He slumped in defeat. What was the point?

Something pierced his leg.

He looked down, confused. He saw nothing, and this pain felt different. Distant yet more acute. Demanding in a way the claw through his stomach wasn’t.

Familiar?

Something tickled at his memory, something he was forgetting, something…

Green. And this pain...

Someone?

Memory sparked alive. An alternate path. A truth he'd forgotten.

Levi suddenly recalled everything that had happened, the memories that had slipped hazily from his grasp returning in vivid detail. The future; the past, his second chance.

It wasn’t too late.

It wasn’t futile.

And this wasn’t real.