Cillian was getting really fucking tired of getting knocked out. Really fucking tired.

He was still safe, laying on a bed of flowers, and all of his limbs were intact, meaning the cats hadn’t come running at the sound of his scream to eat him alive. His whole body felt warm and fuzzy, buzzing with some unknown energy, and he sat up with a groan, rubbing at his eyes.

No pain, which was somehow more concerning than if it had been there.

Slowly, he crawled into a kneeling position and rubbed at his face, only succeeding in getting dirt in his eyes.

“Agh, ow,” he mumbled and blinked back tears. “Uh, status window…”

The status window blinked into focus and he blearily peered at it.

CILLIAN JAMES

LEVEL 7

STR 21 (18+3)

DEX 21

INT 15

WIS 21 (15+3)

MANA 24

VIT 20/43

LUCK 159

SKILLS: TIMELORD, REWIND

STAT POINTS TO ALLOT: 0

ITEM BOX: 0 ITEMS

No new stats… Wait. New skill?

Cillian clicked on it and stared at the new stupidly OP bullshit the Tower had given him.

Rewind

You’ve made a lot of mistakes. If only there was a way to take them back. Then, perhaps, you could finally be happy.

Rewind time by five seconds. 15 mana.

That was… stupidly OP, but he didn’t know how his mana recovered. What if he could only use it once in a dungeon? Would he have to be careful about everything? What if he used it wrong and ended up dying because he decided to rely on it? This didn’t seem to be the kind of thing he actually wanted. But… it was hilariously OP, and he couldn’t deny that.

Oh, gods he needed his propranolol. How long had it even been since he took his aripiprazole? 24 hours? How was he supposed to get through this entire thing without any medication?

"Whose big idea was it to take a fucking paranoid diagnosed anxiety disorder bitch and put him in a Jigsaw trap?!" he screeched to the sky. "Do you want me to die? Is that what you want me to do?! I'm gonna die!!"

There was silence, not that he expected anything from anything.

"Whatever! Fine then! It's my funeral anyways!" he screamed and kicked up a wall of red flowers that fluttered back down in such a lackadaisical manner it almost hurt.

He was breathing heavily. No, he needed to think. First, he gets one OP skill he can't use. Then, he gets a second he can use. It had something to do with the tree, which meant he needed to investigate the tree. Maybe it would trigger a quest that would let him take a shortcut like last time.

Upon closer inspection, he realized the tree itself had once been planted in the center, given the way the ripped up cobblestones made a strange, uniform circle around the trunk. That paired with the glass ceiling proved to him that this tree had some kind of religious significance.

There was a broken slab on the ground, and he crouched down to dust it off.

The Holy Tree of our Mother of the Earth. May she always Bless us with her Wrath. We welcome the Mother's Hunger.

"What the fuck is her wrath?" Cillian muttered as he sat back on his heels to get a better look at the tree in question. There were… it was very much alive and blooming, but there were a lot of holes in it. What did that mean?

Slowly, he looked back at the cathedral to take in the sight of a massive stone platform split down the center he hadn't noticed before, a mere ten feet away from the massive tree, in the center of the room. There were old, rusted manacles on it, and Cillian swallowed.

"Not to lay it heavy on the pop culture references, but I have a bad feeling about this," he said aloud, and stood up to slowly start backing up.

Why did the cats not come near here?

Why was this place a ruin?

… Where were the skeletons?

"I should run, shouldn't I?" he asked, and his voice was so quiet, so small, that a bolt of discomfort shot through him that rocked him to his core. The tone was enough to convince him, and he abruptly turned on one heel and started to run.

He ran like he was going to die. He didn't know what he was running from, but he knew he needed to do it right now. Before he died, and he knew it wasn't his anxiety talking. It wasn't anything close to anxiety. It was a bone deep, primal fear, and his anxiety was just trained enough to react to it.

The Holy Tree will now collect its payment.

Oh. Oh, he was right, and there was suddenly the sound of a million and one insect wings batting in the wind. Cillian didn't look over his shoulder. He didn't need to see. He just needed to run.

And run he did, as hard and as fast as his legs could take him, his lungs burning and eyes whiting out in the tunnel vision. He didn't care if he ran into the cats, or if he fell into a pit and died. The only thing he cared for was if there were bugs. Bugs that were undoubtedly going to strip him down to the bones and then eat the marrow.

He felt like he needed to cry, but he needed the oxygen. No, he needed it desperately. His throat felt like it was made from sandpaper, and his legs were burning from the exertion, but the buzzing was only getting louder and louder, overwhelming everything as he vaulted over a low wall.

He needed to run. It didn't matter where or how, but the buzzing was getting so, so loud. He needed to plan now for Rewind, and he knew it. Okay, okay, the second he used it, he needed to call up his status window and start counting. That was the first thing. He needed to know how long mana took to recover.

And then… and then… And then he didn't know. He had no idea and---

BAM!

The tree root came out of seemingly nowhere, and he fell flat on his face in the grass and dirt.

…. Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, fuck, it was all he could think as he tried to scramble to his feet, but then he made the mistake of looking back.

It was a cloud of red, so red it was back, and it was on him in seconds. Pain like he had never known before lit up every orifice of his body, and he felt his skin be peeled back from his flesh from every exposed piece as the bugs proceeded to start to eat him---

"REWIND!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and suddenly---

He was running, and there was a tree root mere feet away, and he leapt over it and kept running, but a sob, a forbidden sob, was working up from his mouth, because he had just nearly died, he was dead, there was no way he wasn't dead, and now he was running and he just had to keep running and he had nothing to live for here, so why was he even bothering? He was never going to go home to his rattling boiler and---

Shit.

"Status window!" he howled as he ducked under a branch, and the status window flickered to life.

MANA 11/24

"One," he practically sobbed as he leapt over another wall and bolted through an archway. "Two, three, four, five---"

MANA 12/24

That wasn't good enough.

"One," he started again as the long grass caught at his legs and the buzzing grew into a cacophony. "Two, three, four---"

Another branch came out of nowhere and he neatly dodged it, trying his best to continue running.

"Five, six, seven---"

Another wall and he leapt over it, his hand slapping down and scraping against rough hewn stone.

"Eight, nine, ten---"

MANA 13/24

Ten seconds. That meant he had to hold out for twenty more. Could he? Could he hold out?

Actually, did he even have a choice? No, not really, huh?

He had to keep running. His legs and chest were burning, and his eyes were tearing up. This was a living nightmare. Why was this even happening to him? How was he supposed to adjust to this?! Huh? Was he just supposed to live?

Fuck!

Fuck, he should have just accepted Julius’s request. What was he thinking? That the guy was creepy? Like he had the luxury to care about creepy people right now!

He had to keep running. There was no way he could look back, or he would stumble. But the buzzing was getting so loud, and he felt like Orpheus, except it was so, so much worse. And not romantic in the least. His brain drifted to the theory that it was ultimately Orpheus’s love that was his downfall, and oh, no, he couldn’t be thinking about Greek myths right now. He had to run! Oh, gods, what was he even doing with his life? Gambling it away?!

A bush was coming up on him, too big to jump, and he glanced up at the mana counter.

MANA 14/24

Cillian swerved to the side, and bright pain exploded on the back of his neck as he felt something physically rip away. The buzzing somehow grew louder, and he almost stumbled, but he could take losing a little skin. Skin was a low cost to pay.

A branch, and he ducked, and something got his finger, but it was almost instinct to smack it against the tree and smash its guts everywhere. He didn’t even get a chance to look at the bleeding finger as he broke out into a clearing to see a rushing, deep river.

Salvation, he realized with a start. Bugs rarely ever swam. He could…

His eyes darted left, right, and he calculated the fact that the river would slow down his movements if he barged right in there, but if he jumped…

Right there, a hill.

MANA 16/24

Normally, people wouldn’t willingly jump off a cliff to undetermined water beneath, but normal people weren’t chased by murderous holy bugs trying to suck the marrow out of their bones, so he was going to have to suspend his logic for the moment and just go completely feral. Cillian bolted up the hill, and smacked on instinct at pain lighting up on his ear. The bug smashed against his head, but he didn’t even care at this point as he sprinted for the cliff and… leapt.

It was better to not look down, he thought as his stomach leapt into his throat and the free fall of gravity enveloped him. He felt heavy and light all at the same time, and the wind swept around him. If there were rocks, well, it was a better way to go, if he had to choose.

Ah.

This was better than a bathtub.

Way better than a bathtub.