The morning winks of light came down in sunbeams, piercing the canopy above. The sound of birds and life filled the forest, somewhere something splashed in murky waters. Insects buzzed, trees swayed in the breeze.

And I stared at the floor, where the brick of the plaza was cut cleanly, spliced with a muddy shore. None of it was a nightmare. It was all real. That certainty pinged in my head with mounting dread.

My mind flashed back to that horrible scene, eliciting tremors in my hands. His face, lifeless, unaware of being eaten, nibbled on. I could’ve saved him. If I’d been there earlier and hadn’t spent so much time afraid. If I’d gotten there quicker.

“If I’d killed the thing faster,” I whispered, eyes aimless. “If I stood lookout. If I stayed and helped dragged him out.”

I’d been a coward. If I’d paused to help Horace through the webs, he could yet live. Instead, I left it to my clone. To half of my strength. Wracking sobs gripped me, my stomach twisting in pain, gouging sorrow and emptiness like a knife to my chest. Like two fangs to my chest.

I doubled over, grabbing my sides. “Why, why, why,” I repeated softly through tears, face scrunched up in indescribable pain.

I wanted to feel it. I needed to know, for it to mean something other than pointless death. My tears ran dry, the pain faded, and I felt wrong for it. Wrong that something like this could just fade. That I had no more tears.

Hunger eventually called me back to the present. Third was already there, handing me a bag of berries. And Second?

He—I—was there again, standing over the body. Forcing myself to remember, crying. I stayed there so long, seeped in blood and gore, that the memory itself burned into my irises. I would never forget the scene, I couldn’t anymore.

The smell, the sight. Dark blood ran across the floor. My eyes stared at Horace and I found myself whispering apologies, my gaze as dead as his.

[Notice]: You have leveled up multiple times: Level 8.

[Notice]: You have gained the Class Skill: [Low Profile]

Skill: [Low Profile]

You are immune to unwarranted magical and technological scrying. Abilities, spells, or equipment that reveal your location or details are negated. Your presence can only be detected by the physical senses.

It was a punch to the gut. I didn’t want it, I wanted none of this to be real. This was nothing compared to what I had gone through, no compensation could ever match the horror. And looking at it, a part of me shattered again, wondering at whether the new Skill was tailored to what I had done.

Hide, run, and cower. Left a stranger for dead. All to escape unnoticed.

To keep a low profile.

The guilt hollowed me. Even more when my stomach rumbled, that I had the audacity to feel anything but guilt. That I had the right to feel hunger.

I ate mechanically, the small motion of picking berries and fruits from the bag, distracting me enough to be functional. I chose a small blue one, reminiscent of a blueberry. The sweetness burst across my mouth as tears fell down my face. It was the most unfair thing I’d ever tasted.

I was crying across all my clones.

Every now and then, one would pause, stare at something, and keep moving. Gathering firewood, tinder. Bringing it below. It was the only thing I could think of. The only thing I thought might erase the atrocity and purify the evil I witnessed.

I sparked the tinder and watched the entire scene go up in flames. It became hot, smoky, and I was forced to leave. To stand outside and watch the building burn. I stood near enough that my tears evaporated, enough for the heat to bear pain, to cleanse me of my sin. To rid me of my guilt.

It didn’t work.

I needed to go. I didn’t know where or how, but I needed to leave. I was a man who had died three times over, all in less than a day. A walking corpse with a [Spidersilk Backpack] full of water, fruits, berries, and any other useful things I could find.

I wondered if that had been a hint at what lay beyond the cave. Spidersilk, spider. I watched the building burn down before I left, I needed… whatever it was that lay there in the ashes. Closure? Assurance? I needed to know nothing was left.

I ducked into the blackened stairwell, sending a clone, and found the scene gone. Replaced with piles of ash, drifting motes of grey dust filling the air enough that I returned with a lab mask. I forced my way into the wreckage and found no bodies, no trace of anything left.

Even then, I wasn't sure if it was enough.

I spent days, days, roaming the swampy forest. I called the thick roots my home, traversing the twisting terrain became easier as time went on. I stared at the sunset, cowered in the night as beasts howled and foreign noises took to the air.

And I sat in the mornings, staring languidly at a forest I knew was hell. I hadn’t known hell would look so peaceful. So unassuming. In this place teeming with life, I found myself with only my thoughts.

I never spoke, not even to myself, not even for the false sense of company. Second and Third ranged the forest, on constant lookout, watching for danger or hazard. They often turned the other way, to spot him.

A broken man, stumbling across the roots, tripping, falling, sometimes laying down. He was… slow, lethargic as if he walked a world without meaning. It was a harsh truth when you could stare yourself in the eye and see yourself for what you were.

That man was me.

It took me up until that moment to find my anger again. To dare to survive, if only that I never looked so pathetic. I addressed my reality, my nightmare.

[Notice]: For enduring the mental trauma of death three times over, your WIL has increased by 4. Your WIL is now 19.

[Notice]: For indirectly enduring the physical trauma of death three times over, your CON has increased by 2. Your CON is now 7.

Name: Evahn Wynst

Level: 8

Class: [Solo]

STR: 6

CON: 7

DEX: 5

AGI: 6

PER: 9

INT: 10

WIS: 13

WIL: 19

CHA: 4

LUK: 4

Stat Points: 7

Skills: [Never Alone], [Low Profile]

Willpower was my highest value. Would a lesser person have shattered completely, never to put the pieces back together? The meaning of the value came to me almost instinctively, like I’d know it all along.

It was a measure of control, determination, and resolve. It was also so much more than just that. I couldn’t put its entirety into words any more fitting than those, only know it as an aspect of myself. That part of me that stubbornly refused to kneel before hardship, the part of me that balked at surrendering.

The rest of the attributes were likewise encompassing.

I knew too little. Should I increase by Constitution? Boost my survivability? My Strength? Or my ability to run away, my Agility? None of those helped me, not really. I realized as a [Solo], I had to use [Never Alone] as a force multiplier. To scale what I already had. An extra clone gave me half again of what I had in physical stats, another set of eyes, and another perspective.

The line of thinking rang true.

I did the math, brought Wisdom to 17, and said hello to Fourth.