The sound of an alarm clock blazed to life within the apartment’s living room. Reed’s eyes shot open and he stared up at the ceiling from his position on the couch. The seconds ticked by as he lay there unmoving, the relentless clamoring of the phone beside him falling on deaf ears.
“You. Moron.” He muttered, continuing to stare holes in the ceiling.
Eventually, the alarm turned off of its own accord, providing the push needed for Reed to finally extricate himself from the couch. He lifelessly went through his morning routine, his body language resembling that of a programmed machine. He rode the bus to work, made his way through the halls of the recreation center, and proceeded to shut himself within the cluttered room he called an office. Reed went about his duties, a detached look in his gaze attracting the concern of his colleagues, but nonetheless made it through the day without disturbance. Before he knew it, Reed was back home again, throwing frozen food in the oven and changing out of his clothes. He ate quickly and instead of indulging in the distractions of television and a good book, made a beeline straight towards his bedroom.
Reed opened the drawer of the nightstand sitting beside his bed and withdrew a small container from it. He twisted the cap off of it and poured several pills into his hand, which he proceeded to swiftly throw down his gullet. It was only seven in the evening, but Reed climbed into his bed and shut his eyes, waiting for the sleeping pills to kick in. And kick in they did, slipping into unconsciousness sometime later he woke up on the stone street.
Betraying little emotion upon his face, Reed went through the steps he had last time. Making his way to the courtyard and retrieving a sword before hunkering down within the labyrinth of cages for an hour or so to avoid the prowling creature. When he left the large facility of beasts, Reed made his way straight towards the research building where he had died previously. He ignored the first floor and climbed the stairs to the second, laying his eyes on the deathly-still body hunched over a desk. He crept up behind the dormant creature until he stood directly behind its chair. Gripping his sword with both hands, Reed wound up as if to hit a baseball, and in a swing, severed the thing’s head from its shoulders.
He watched anxiously as the head fell to the ground, the stump of its neck writhing as new flesh and bone rapidly grew out of it. The blood spilling out of the creature shaping itself to aid in the creature's recovery. Reed stood over the regenerating body, sword still held at the ready should he need to cut the thing to pieces. The necessity never arose, however, as after several long moments the warping body parts finally came to a still. For good measure, Reed kicked the detached head across the room.
He then made his way to the table that held the spiraling sheath, fastening it to himself and stowing his sword. Reed’s eyes searched around the room for a time, before he noticed the platform above that provided a view out the large circular window. He yanked on the connecting ladder a few times to confirm its safety before proceeding to climb up to the platform. Standing in front of it, the window was easily three times his height. The research building’s elevation afforded Reed a spectacular view of the sprawling stone city, yet it wasn’t even close to being the highest structure within sight. There were several massive buildings and high-reaching towers, but the real showstopper was an enormous cathedral-like structure that occupied the center of the city. It dwarfed everything in sight, with towering pointed steeples reaching into the fleshly glow that permeated the sky.
Reed gazed out the window for a long while, admiring the haunting magnificence of the city and peering at the lumbering monstrosities he could make out from a distance. They were scattered throughout the city, too far to make out details, but their vague misshapen forms enough to send a shiver of fear snaking down Reed’s spine. At last, he tore his eyes away from the horrifyingly fantastical view and made his way to the center of the raised platform.
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He sat down cross-legged and stared at the hand which he had experimented with last time. It took a long moment before Reed let the arm fall back to his side, taking a deep breath and letting it out. His jaw clenched and he took control of the magic within himself. Moments later Reed grimaced as a crack burst open in his skin. Blood started running down from the location it had occurred on his shoulder, but this spilling only lasted a scant few seconds before abruptly stopping. The opening in his flesh began to wriggle and writhe, pulling itself back together and healing the self-inflicted wound. Within two minutes the tear had healed, with no sign of it ever having occurred in the first place.
Another tear erupted on Reed’s opposite shoulder, following the same process of stopping the blood flow before the wound wormed its way shut. Then another tear opened and closed itself. Then another. And another. They erupted all across his body, and gradually the time for which it took to heal shortened. Eventually, the time it took each tear to heal was compressed to ninety seconds. Next, the initial spurt of blood ceased to be, the cracks in Reed’s skin opening without the faintest trickle of the red liquid. The time required shrunk to a minute, then to half of that.
At this point, the cuts opening across Reed’s body deepened. Whereas before they were but light gashes in his skin, the wounds now cut deeper, tearing into fat, muscle, and veins. His first attempt at this rewarded him with over half an hour of healing, losing so much blood during the process that he was forced to take a break from wounding himself and devote his powers towards producing more blood to recover. Nevertheless, once he had recuperated enough blood Reed tried again. The time for healing got shorter and shorter until the wounds were made worse yet again. As the difficulty of healing continued to rise over time, so too did the time required.
Eventually, the period which Reed had spent sitting on the illuminated platform approached three days. He had spent every moment of this time within the cycle of harming himself only to improve his healing prowess. It had been remarkably easy to stay focused on the goal of improving his control over the newly gained supernatural powers. The majority of his brainpower was tied up in controlling the magic, and what little attention he could spare was devoted solely to the healing of his injuries. Reed had been in something of a trance for the past several days.
This all ended as a wave of fatigue and weakness threatened to send him into unconsciousness. Reed was forced to brace himself with a hand to prevent himself from toppling over. The tear he was currently working on was near finished, therefore he regained control and finished healing himself in the next five minutes before releasing his influence on the power within him. For the first time in a while, he was capable of thinking clearly, and it was miserable. He was exhausted beyond belief, while thirst and hunger ravaged his body to a degree he had never experienced before.
This gave Reed an idea, and he once again took control of the bodily power. This time he willed it throughout the entirety of his body, attempting to recover from his dehydration. Reed used his magic in this way for several hours, the degree to which his thirst worsened slowed down greatly while he was doing so. But, it worsened nonetheless. He didn’t have much time left.
Reed unsheathed the bone sword from his hip and turned the point to face towards his heart. He held it there for several long moments as his hands began to shake uncontrollably.
“Damn it!” He yelled into the vast research room, lowering the sword and returning the blade to its sheathe.
With a sigh, he weakly got to his feet before slowly making his way back down the ladder. Every step he took through the building was slow and deliberate, the dizziness and nausea threatening constant collapse. Reed made his way down the steps and through the bookshelves, stepping out through the broken wall and out onto the streets endlessly shrouded in fleshly light.