This was a real pain to edit. I litterally felt the cringe as i added all the missing words and was re-wrting the sentences. Anyways. Cheers!

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~ding~

Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky. His ears were ringing as if someone played something really loud in his ears. His body felt limp. He knew it far too well, it was too similar to after effect from an all-nighter of reading a book or gaming. He turned right, fully realizing the severity of his limpness. He then tried to stand up but his treacherous hand slipped off of something, making him fall to the side. The texture of that something was oddly close to that of the wood and a splinter in his palm was further supporting that idea. Sudden pain shaken him, energizing him in a similar way as a kick in the guts energizes a man or makes him grumble and twitch, and Kai was not exception to this. His back felt the rocks and the wooden bars, broken in some places, disjointed by something he couldn't even guess. His palms felt the dusty rocks, the only things left from this house. Kai tried to stand up again. It was... challenging. Kai was not someone particularly fit and him being limp and falling to the side on hard rock didn't help it either. Through constant ringing in his ears, he noticed something yelling and echoing from far off. He heard it but didn't really care to give much attention - his struggle with the rubble was more important.

When he finally stood up, the only thing he saw, was the figure of a man dropping quickly his hand consumed by the shadow of a bright yellow and orange light behind him.

Kai's body twisted to the side, loosing all the balance to stand, falling on its back, hitting his head on the rubble forcing him to gaze at the grey. The shock of it restrained all the pain, flooding his mind with confusion as to what just happened. Suddenly then he tried to take a breath but no air would come through. He tried again, slightly panicking, but it was in vain. Again he tried. Tears started rolling down the sides of his face. He looked down and then he saw it. The constraints on the pain dissipated the moment he realized 'it' was there, the pain awashed him whole, pressing his rationality in thought into small box leaving only despair, submission and fear.

The axe in his throat, no matter how cold the steel seemed, felt to him as hot as only the sun could be. The pain was numbing, sending his body in sick convulsion, dragging his mind somewhere far off, somewhere where echo is, forcing it to drift away, slip through, reach towards that something, that which echoed with his silent screams, echoed cycling them into constant infinite sound flowing into the dark, dissipating into the real infinity. The dying echo called for him, not calling his name but the notes of it like a song his life chanted him to go, it soothed his pain, but as he was reaching closer and closer towards it, the pain like a betrayed lover would slap him back into dying ignominy of what is just barely human,turning off the numbness spreading the shocks of it across his whole body.

Kai tried to speak, call for help, but gargling and fresh blood coming out of his mouth reminded him he couldn't.

“Still alive, huh.”, said the shadow of the man voice rough and deep, walking towards something that is still Kai but almost soon isn't.

Towering over him it placed its large foot on his face and gripping the axe, the slight movement of it reminding Kai he was still alive.

The shadow then pulled.

~ding~

Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky.

He twitched in shock still remembering the spasms, the echo, the pain, the fear. He touched his throat but everything was fine.

His ears were ringing but he had to do it. He had to prove to himself that it was just a dream, a sick nightmare, the child of twisted imaginations and traumas that long happened in the past. But he couldn't at the same time. The doubt was eating away at him. What if it was real? Did the boogeyman under the bed transcend reality? What if it was a precaution of what will happen? Without any wish to move, he remained still, eyes shut tight and breathing rough and panicked. Without making any slight motion, he focused all of his attention on only one sense, hearing in a vein attempt to recognise anything besides the echoes and ringing. And he did. He heard the same familiar screaming, yelling and noise, but he couldn’t quite figure where he heard it. Until he caught a voice. It was a rough and deep voice, the voice of the shadow.

Fear overtook him, this time with more vigor, caging and drowning any thought or possibillity of him opening his eyes or moving. A naive thought crossed his mind that if he maybe pretended dead, he would escape their attention. His body started to shake betraying his mind, following with the emotions rather than the thought. Kai clenched his fists. ‘Stop shaking. Enough!’.

The sound of footsteps decimated his thinking, the sound becoming louder every passing second. Any rationality thrown out na his body overtaken by terror, crushing him, swallowing him whole and then breaking his will to shreds, like a blender leaving only gooey mess. His eyes started to water and his throat not coping with stress making strange sounds, oddly similar to that of whimpering.

When the footsteps stopped, he heard a sharp sound as if something smooth and solid touched something rough and soft, resulting in the friction resonating into the air. Wind howled synched with his wimper.

“Sorry, no captives they said”, quietly said the voice over him.

Kai opened his eyes seeing an average looking clean shaven bald man with small scar across his chin and really broad jaws. What took Kai’s attention the most was the size of the knife the man held in his hand.

His scream was silenced by the sound of ripped flesh.

~ding~

Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky. His breathing was heavy and his face was covered in sweat. He looked around.

His vision was blurred but he was still able to discern the brightness of fire on the buildings from the grey blackness of the sky and shadows, dark shapes against the fire, people, living people, scavenging through the area overlooking over something, occasionally stabbing it…

Kai then remembered where he was, what is going to happen to him, what will happen to him, if he’ll just stay playing dead. His body started to tremble, but his mind, even though blurred by fear and panic, had the solution – escape.

He clumsily turned, tried to stand up, but in haste his hand slipped off the wood, almost putting him off balance, but not enough to make him fall. Before he stood up, Kai looked at the splinter in his palm with shock. He swallowed hard, will already crumbling from all negative thoughts passing through his mind.

He looked away from his palm to the side. There he saw a man crouching over something, the man looked bald from afar. A tingle of chill touched Kai’s back.

Kai slowly stood up and had a quick look around him again.

He tried to ignore blazing houses and especially that something, that seemed to lie everywhere on the ground. A little bit afar 100-150 meters away he saw a forest.

A solution.

Salvation.

He didn’t hesitate and set off in a dash.

A lot of people back in his school thought that he was a crap of a runner, but despite being bulky and unfit he had his fair share of speed, on small distances, far smaller than 100 meters. Despite being unfit he was not obese, rather slightly overweight.

Kai put his whole self in running, clearing his mind leaving but one goal, reaching the forest no matter what. All of his surroundings didn’t matter to him anymore, not the burning houses nor the screams of their inhabitants, nor the corpses on the ground. He skilfully jumped over or moved around any obstacles that were in front of him. For him it was like running in a big dark maze with white lane outlining his path.

And then he reached the end of the village. The forest was just in his grasp. A minute or two and he would be unseen in its dark thicket.

Until the image of the forest in the distance, changed into dirty mud under Kai’s nose. Some of the mud also got into his nose, mouth and eyes, but the main problem was the excruciating pain under his right shoulder blade. His eyes started to water, while he himself was screaming in agony. Out of breath, he glimpsed at the forest. It seemed to be just within his grasp. ’Just a little bit. Please… just a bit’, Kai thought while attempting to crawl a little. He gave it up as moving even a little made him grumble even more.

“Hoh, fast one ‘ey. Bit loud, bloody bastard but…”, a woman spoke with a grain of age in her voice.

“P-please”, he cut in with a hoarse voice, sobbing. “L-leave me… alone. I-I’ve done nothing. P-please….”

The woman sighed and placed her bow on her back. She crouched in front of him and while unsheathing her dagger, she grabbed him by the face. The view of the forest was blocked by a figure of a woman dressed in the dark leather jacket covered in cape.

“P-please… no more…”, begged Kai voice slightly muffled by her hand.

She looked him in the eye and placed the dagger under his throat.

She was of middle age, but despite that her hair were white, her eyes, black as the night, reminded Kai of that feeling, the feeling of the infinity, the feeling of touching what he thought of death.

“No more.” She repeated.

~ding~

Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was a view of great dark cloud dragging itself across the grey backdrop of the sky.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then quickly stood up, being careful not to slip off.

Once up, he decided to take a look around. Despite his vision blurred he could easily discern reddish fire of houses from the dark smoke in the air, dark brown colour of mud mixing with the dark colours of the smoke and the shadows darker than anything lurking around, crouching over… something, and then standing up moving to another something, vividly in the distance he could see the green outline of the forest. He looked down at his hands - both dirty but no splinters.

’So it changes.’

Kai looked at the crouching shadow of a man in front of him then at the forest. He gulped and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. ‘Would running again, do ? Or should I sneak past them.’, he thought . He recalled how good he used to be at playing hide and seek with his friends as a child.

Rubbing his eyes, he decided to look again at his surroundings, in hope that it would help him to come up with something more solid than just ‘sneaking’. ’It’s too bright. And there are too little things to hide beside. What to do? Run?’ the forest looked even further and further with every moment he was spending thinking.

Then Kai coughed, colouring his lips in crimson. Confusion took him by surprise enveloping him, until it let him go into embrace of terror, as he noticed an arrowhead under his chin and the pain quickly following he discovery.

His body, like a sack of meat, fell on the rubble hitting his head on something sharp.It was inconsequential to him by now. Overwhelmed by despair, slowly choking on his own blood and bleeding from the back of his head, he resigned to his end, knowing that it would only repeat once again.

“Hoh, nice shot there, Moira”, he heard in the distance as his mind was drifting away towards infinity.

~ding~

Kai opened his eyes. What he saw was the same sickening view of the same cloud dragging itself over the same sky.

Tears started to form in his eyes, then fall down his cheeks. Trying not to whimper, his breathing became ragged, producing quiet choking sound. Swept away by the emotions and his reasoning misted, he couldn’t come up with any rational thought or idea. He broke and now was confined by despair as he was before. He knew that this will just continue on and on and on. Everything around him started to feel cold. His heart was shattered and trampled upon as the glimpse of hope became the ultimate trap for him.

Life seemed bleak and pointless to him for most of his life. He didn’t see any value in it but never really had the resolve to end it. In a sense he was a coward or perhaps just a normal person. But now he would pay any price just to escape living.

‘Maybe, this is hell? They say that hell can be personal?’, he thought. Daydreaming, imagining different possibilities in different fantasy scenarios, wondering what it would be like to live in mid-ages, how awesome it would be, escaping his bleak reality deluding himself in his own dreams. And now here he is, finally on an adventure - constantly suffering in the circle of never-ending doom. This hell had everything, physical torture and mental – the forest, the shimmer of hollow hope something that is given just to be taken away..

Then it hit him. Maybe this is a game. Like a roguelike. Something akin to a shitty text game with ridiculous. Except realistic, extremely realistic, if not real. The forest is objective. And the bandits are the challenge, a real challenge. A troll by developers, to force players to rage and to get good. If the forest is the bait then he shall take it, escaping the trap meanwhile.

Kai clenched his fists and with tears on his face stood, not caring about the splinters nor the sound he was making. No more falling this time and once he was up, started to run.

It was the same route with the similar pattern. Jump here, dodge there. The illusionary tunnel was quite similar too, except the obstacles, were corpses now. The place seemed more hellish and hellish the longer he spent his time here. ‘Quickly to the forest, before I completely turn insane…’

He was out of the village now; the forest was just in front of him.

‘Four’

‘Three’

‘Two’

‘Now’

Then suddenly he ducked, or more precise his body fell, landing his face on the mud and getting a mouthful of it. He coughed, getting the mud out of his throat, letting air to his lungs and then tried to move - there was no pain, then quickly stood up and continued his dash towards the forest.

---

Climbing the tree was not easy for him, but he still managed it in spite of his constant failure.

He repeated words like ‘Life is struggle. You know that.’, or ‘You can’t escape it, get used to the pain.’ to motivate himself, not to give up or at least try not to. He was after all used to giving up.

The thicket of the tree branches was covering the grim sky but still he was able to recognise that the day was coming to an end, both by the creeping darkness of twilight and the cold that usually follows closely after it.

He took off his red school jacket, soiled in mud and possibly other unknown substances that were mixed with the dirt. He didn’t give much thought to it, both because he was too tired to think about it and because he simply didn’t want to.

He took a deep breath of cold air in his lungs calming his nerves as he leaned his back on the tree trunk and adjusted his seating position on the branch so that he wouldn’t fall, afterwards covering himself with his jacket as if a blanket and then closing his eyes, attempting to fall asleep.

When his eyes were close, other senses started to function more effectively. Afar he could hear the sounds of owls, but in the end didn’t pay much attention, simply acknowledging their existence subconsciously.

Usually he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep in such circumstances, the forest, the cold, the dirt, no average man would. Still his mind drifted away into nothingness with ease, the moment after he closed his eyes. Perhaps it was all due to the mental exhaustion or maybe he was still clinging to that hope that this all may be just a dream and as tomorrow will arrive and today will fade so will the ‘dream’ disappear, leaving only the faint memory of the nightmare.

A loud howl broke the silence of the forest, dragging Kai out of his sweet illusions. Kai, abashed, looked down from the tree only to see shadows scurrying around in the night. The ear-piercing howl repeated, it was so sudden it almost made him lose his balance. He hugged the tree trunk while holding the jacket, in distrust to his sense of balance, especially now that he was shaking.

‘Thank God I climbed this.’, he hugged the tree tighter, making the bark dig into his palms.

Looking down as he heard growling, he saw silhouettes moving through the darker parts of the forest, away from him. They gave him a final howl before they disappeared into the darkness. He didn’t think they left him though, as he saw or he thought he saw shades moving through the trees on the edge of his sight.

Paranoid he was unable to let go of his concious, trembling on the tree until the morning sun was up.

When the sun has risen high enough for the light to banish the dark, Kai paranoid about the wolves threw his jacket on the floor. His jacket was red so the wolves may mistake it for flesh, is the line of thought that he was following, but to his surprise nothing happened. No wolves appearing from afar, nothing. Sighing with relief he climbed down, carefully so that he does not fall.

Once he was down, he picked up his jacket, put it on and then started to walk through the forest, not really knowing where he was going but knowing enough not to walk back to that burned place or towards the wolves. Finding a source of water was a priority to him. An average human can last a week without food, but without water not even 2-3 days. Plus he knew that there are generally settlements near rivers as well as…

‘Animals, damn it.’ – grunted Kai as he realised it.

He stopped and leaned on the tree, thinking, weighing his chances, as well as taking quick breath.

‘All right. Let’s do it. I don’t even know where I’m going so I’ve got nothing to lose.’- he thought, then chuckled with a tinge of hysteria.

Wiping his eyes, he set off, with something close to a resolve, walking forward towards the unknown.

*click*

Kai heard a sound of mechanism followed by a sound of something metallic closing, as if a sheet of iron was hit by a hammer. This sound was mixed with a strange sound of something breaking, collapsing a sound similar to the one that he heard when his mother was cooking a shank of beef, when she was hooking at it with a cleaver, until eventually the sound of broken bone could be heard.

He screamed as he fell and continued to do so as he was lying on the ground facing the grass. His scream broke the silence of the forest, possibly inviting more predators to finish his misery, for an example a predator that this trap was made for.

When his voice broke from the strain on his throat he started to quietly whimper. He didn’t even look at his foot, he knew in what mess it must’ve been. The shock and the thought combined would’ve made him spew, if he had anything to spew.

“Why…”- he whispered with a hoarse voice – “Why is this… happening?”

When the pain subdued, he realized that he couldn’t feel his legs anymore, but it was of no matter to him now. He rubbed his face on the grass and cried a little bit more.

Despairing not only at his demise but the fact that he had to go through this nightmare over again, he slowly waited until he would be empty of blood and embraced by nothingness.

As his body grew colder only the warm grass was heating his face, tickling it at the side.

He felt his end coming soon as he took probably his last breath.

“It changes. It will.”

~ding~