I stagger through the wasteland, turning my head to the right as a massive rock flies out of nowhere and nearly decapitates me. Although, that rock did decapitate me twice already before I finally dodged it just now.

Little further Polly, then you’ll reach The Eye. After that… I don’t know.

Shitty thing about this curse… If I don’t die from it, I can’t reverse any damage dealt to my body. So I was covered head to toe in cuts and bruises from tiny rocks flying through the wind.

Few hours later, I take the final step over the barrier and bring my head up for the first time in three days. I shift my shoulders and shrug my backpack off, chock full of weapons and equipment and let out a big groan before falling asleep on the spot.

I open my eyes to see a woman squatting down right next to me, all my aches and pains had disappeared, and I was feeling like I was back to normal.

“Who are you?” I ask.

No response.

I sit up off the ground and brush the dirt off my sleeves. “Did you take care of my wounds?” I ask, inspecting my arms and legs.

No response.

“Alright, if you’ve got nothing to say then I’ll be off.” I say, before lifting my backpack off the ground and trudging off deeper into the sanctuary. Food…

I munch down on some roast beef, it looks like I managed to get here just in time, today was the day that one of the cows would be slaughtered. The people here seem to be very particular about maintaining the animal population so everything’s put on a very specific schedule, all maintained by a woman named Torika. “I haven’t seen you around here, you just arrive in this place?” A man walks up to me and asks.

“Mmh, about three hours ago.” I say in response.

“Are you any good at fighting? Think we could train each other a little?”

“I think I’m okay, I am an Aga—“ I say.

“Stop! Don’t tell me anything about yourself. Once we go pass the barrier, we leave our pasts outside, this is just a place to train and get stronger.” The man holds his hand up in caution.

I back off a little bit, surprised. “Makes sense.” I say.

“Disregarding that, you up for a practice round? I’ve never fought with a Shesuan before.”

I tilt my head in thought, “Yea, I’m interested, although let me eat a little bit more, I’m still recovering from my journey.”

I pull my two seks from out of my bag and hold them in a battle stance, flipping them so I was using the dull side. I also bring out my sling but don’t load any bullets into it. After all, the point of this fight wasn’t to win but to learn from it. We stare each other down in a standstill.

He lunges first, I let his blade slide across one of my seks and throw it off course to give me an opening, only to find his elbow dangerously close to smashing in my face.

He deflected the energy from my parry into a second attack? His elbow brushes against my nose as I duck down in the nick of time. I then try to kick him away to create some distance; however, he catches my foot midair with his other arm, then lifts his arm up and flips my entire body over.

I thud on the ground, painfully smacking my face into the stone.

“Sorry about that, I probably wouldn’t have gotten that hit in if you were using the sharp side of your blade.” He says while returning one of my dropped seks back to me.

Indeed, the second he grabbed my foot, I slashed at his stomach with my free arm and successfully made contact with the dull side of my blade. Although that didn’t really matter since it was dull after all.

He pats his stomach at the spot I struck him. “Since my organs would be spilling out right now, that’s your win. Now let’s keep going.”

“Ready whenever you are.”

Thus began my new life for the next three years.

“Who is this Torika person… I keep hearing her name but don’t actually know anything about her.” I asked one day, about a month into my training.

“That means you’re lucky you haven’t been in an accident yet.” I was training with someone different today, a girl with short blond hair.

“What do you mean?”

“She very knowledgeable with Sananku and comes out whenever someone gets a major injury. She also usually comes out to greet new arrivals. Otherwise, she’s usually holed up in her little house all the time.”

I make an x shape with my Seks and using my full power, throw her off my body. I then load my sling with a light wooden ball and fling it at her while she’s still in midair.

She manages to deflect the slingshot and land safely. She was also using twin swords like I was.

“Why, do you want to meet her?” She asks me.

“I was… just curious.” I say, fully telling the truth.

Later that day, I stare into the night sky rapidly losing blood from a hole in my stomach. That blond girl was a little careless and had actually stabbed me while we were practicing. She then furiously ran away to get Torika, leaving me alone in the meantime.

I feel so cold… Of all the ways I’ve died so far, I haven’t bled out like this before. It’s becoming hard to think.

Should I just try to bleed out right now? Save everyone the trouble of having to go through with all this? If I slash my wrists to lose blood faster... I would then be sent back in time the moment before she stabbed me and we could avoid all this hassle.

I grab my sek off the ground and hold it against my wrist.

Ahh… I’ve never done this on purpose though, how much is this going to hurt? Is there some easier way to do this?

I take a deep breath, grip the handle tightly, and start pushing, ignoring my instincts.

However, the blade doesn’t budge, I look up to see a disheveled looking woman holding onto my sek. I instantly loosen my grip and let her take it away, in an act of surrender.

“I got her she’s here!” The blond girl comes running in from behind a wall.

“Mmh, thanks.” I say plainly. Man… even if this gets healed how long am I going to feel it for? 6 months? A year? I shouldn’t have hesitated and I should have went through with it.

I open one eye to look at the woman that blond girl brought. “We’ve met before haven’t we?” I ask her, if my memory serves correct she was the one who healed me the first time when I arrived to this place.

And like last time, she doesn’t respond. I look at her for a couple more seconds looking for some reaction, before dropping my head back down.

“You’re an odd fella.” I remark before deciding that I wouldn’t make any more attempts at communicating with her. If she doesn’t want to talk with me that’s just fine, must have her reasons, no need to pry.

I relax as she gets to work on fixing my body, I should probably nod off after this. The reason I got stabbed was probably due to how dark it was anyways, and good sleep is just as time well spent as good training.

I feel the life return to my limbs as Torika continues filling up the hole in my stomach. At the same time I gradually grow thirstier and thirstier as the treatment progresses, guess she’s trying to replace the blood I lost by stimulating my body to make blood. She definitely knows her stuff, I’d say that much.

The pleasant flow of Sananku suddenly stops. I look up to see the hole in my stomach completely filled up, I gingerly touch the affected area.

The blond hair girl had ran away in order to get some water for me, so in the meantime the two of us were left completely alone.

“Wow, was that only thirty minutes?” I couldn’t even feel a thing anymore, it was completely back to normal. I jump off onto my feet, feeling a little bit energetic.

“Thank you, you are very skilled at what you do.” I compliment her as I reach out to grab my Seks away from Torika. However she pulls them away from me as I try to grab them.

“Those are mine, can I have those back?” I say with a little confusion.

I reach out for them again, yet once again, Torika plays a game of keep-away.

…

“What are you trying to do here.” I say threateningly while reaching for my heavier lead balls, I then begin whirling my sling around slowly. Is this going to be a fight? Was her goal this whole time to take away my weapons?

Torika looks at me unintimidated then holds one of my seks up. Anku slowly spreads throughout my body, pooling around my sling arm.

We stand there in a tense silence for five seconds.

“Talk to me damn it. I don’t know what you want, but I need those back.” I tense up my hand and relax my shoulder, preparing to release the projectile, from the shoulder to the fingertip, the anku needs to flow with the order in which each muscle activates.

Suddenly blood begins gushing out of Torika’s right arm, erupting so violently that it spatters all the way too my face. I back up in surprise as Torika slashes her wrist with one of my Seks.

“Hey what are you doing!” I stop spinning the sling and run forward. Changing the rhythm of my body’s Anku to that of Sananku, I bring my hands up to her wound and furiously try to remember my lessons from brother.

“First, slow the rate at which the heart pumps to stop the bleeding.” I begin mumbling all the steps. However, I’m promptly stopped by Torika who places her hand on my hair, softly pulling my head up to eye level.

You should value your life more. She mouths the words, yet no sound comes out. At that moment I realize that her tongue was completely missing when she opened her mouth. All this time, I was under the impression that she didn’t want to talk to me for some reason, but now I realize that she couldn’t.

“Was… was this about what I was trying to do when you got here?” I quietly ask.

Torika nods her head.

I chuckle. “You say that, but if I managed to slash my wrists all that would have accomplished is sending me back before I got stabbed.” I say, never before having revealed my secret to anyone else. “I can’t die; I’ve been cursed.”

Torika considers my words for a couple seconds, then steps away. I look down at her arms as she do this to see that the wound she self inflicted had already completely healed. Torika then begins slowly tracing through the air, I squint in confusion until I realize that she was tracing anto characters.

Still, even if what you say is true, it hurts me when you treat death so lightly. Torika traces through the air.

I slowly nod, not really disagreeing with what she had to say.

“I’m back!” The blond girl runs back with a wooden bucket full of water, not before looking at the ground and hesitating. “Wait… why are there two bloodstains now? And one of them is fresh did something happen?” She asks.

“Thank you, I’ve been feeling really thirsty.” I say, ignoring her question and taking the water.

The girl looks at Torika only to be met with an okay sign and a thumbs up.

The girl then shrugs. “Sorry about stabbing you, let’s meet back up here tomorrow maybe? Continue training?”

“Yea, I had a good time, let’s do just that.” I say before waving goodbye.

Just as Torika was about to leave though I hold my hand out, stopping her.

“Before you go…” I hesitate, unsure if I should say what I was thinking. “Do you… Do you mind if I stop by where you live every now and then? I just wanna… you know… talk about some stuff.” Yea… that’s all I needed, just someone to talk to.

Torika smiles at me and nods her head.

Two and a half years later

“Pardon my intrusion.” I step into Torika’s home, becoming a regular occurrence in this place. Since then I’ve let out my entire past to Torika, revealing my deepest secrets and all my worries. Although it doesn’t change anything, it felt nice.

“New arrival huh?” Torika was looking over her papers, a man with long reddish-brown hair sleeping in her bed. Although it was quite obvious that he wasn’t sleeping well, despite all his wounds been healed.

Torika stands up, and walks over to the man, before hold her palms over his head. She breathes in deeply and begins concentrating. In exchange for healing our wounds all the time, Torika also likes to run a couple of experiments when she gets the chance. Nothing all too bad or invasive though, at least from what I’ve seen. She’s been here for very long time, mistakes are bound to happen at some point.

Curiously, I walk over and glance at the notes she was going over.

Possible connection with the third lobe of the brain and lucid sleep, it could be possible to stimulate a subject to be in a state of waking whilst believing to be in a dream.

Trial#1 Subject does not respond, changing Sananku to Theta rhythm.

Trial#2 Slight change in expression…

Huh, the trials go pretty far, it looks like she’s been experimenting for a while.

“Ahhhh uhhh.” The man begins mumbling in his sleep.

“God damn it I’ll kill all of you…” He says. I continue listening, a little bit spooked but still intrigued.

“Get away from here your majesty, we have to retreat…” Wait, this might be a little dangerous…

“Take the real Yesenia and Hanafin to the North Capital, and we have to set up decoys—“ Torika jerks away before the man could say anything more.

She hurriedly begins to signal her hand signs at me.

DO. NOT. SAY. ANYTHING.WE. HEARD. NOTHING. Torika waves her hand frantically.

“Oi, I remember all of that. What the fuck did you just do to me?” The man’s eyes shoot open as if on cue.

I immediately draw my seks and dash forward, parrying a slash from the man’s sword that was aimed for Torika. Really Torika? You had to leave his weapons right next to the bed?

Torika immediately turns around and tries to grab at his face only to have a stump left of her arm from a lightning fast slash, as the man draws his sword.”

“Calm down you—!”

“Enemies! I don’t know how you’re doing it but you’re extracting information from my damn dreams!” The man feints a slash from a his sword and changes the motion of his attack from a slash to a kick straight into my stomach. I immediately hunch over, all the air left from my from lungs. The man then drives his scabbard straight into my cheek, leaving me tumbling over.

“Die!” The man jumps on me while I’m down and drives his sword straight into my neck.

…

Well that left a sour taste in my mouth… I was back in front of Torika’s house, just about to come in. As I come in, I shoot a glare at the man sleeping on the bed.

“Torika, I just died. Please stop experimenting.” I say plainly.

Torika looks at me wide-eyed for a couple seconds, before nodding her head. She puts away the papers and then stretches her limbs. She then puts her hands in her pockets and yawns.

She then shot me a symbol with her hands.

Want to go for a walk? Which was what that symbol represented.

“Yea, I need to get rid of this bad mood.”