Ethan trembled at the sensation of cold rain running down his body; he was still not used to his improved ability to understand his senses. Not a single bit of data that his senses parsed was missed by his brain, resulting in everything seeming more.

Gadget rubbed against his leg, and Ethan gently pet the animal. Fred stood a few feet away, holding his burnt hand and whining loudly. The blood dripping from his nose was constantly being washed away by the torrent of rain, but Ethan could still faintly smell the blood.

Ethan let out a deep breath as he sat down, trying to keep his mind in one piece. He was simultaneously very good and very bad at dealing with his emotions. Ethan had kept his fears and woes bottled up since this started, keeping his rationality… well, rational, but there was only so long that such a method worked, and it appeared that Alyssa’s mental breakdown was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He’d suffered the consequences of drowning in his emotions before; they were what had ruined his life’s aspirations for years. Like all things, there needed to be a balance, but Ethan wasn’t very good at it.

He’d failed before, but not this time. He refused to drown, and he couldn’t stall his emotions any longer.

Ethan had a hard time getting started with processing his feelings, so he started by going over everything that had happened thus far. With the improvements to his mind, it was not difficult to recall even the details.

On his mother’s forty-ninth birthday, the Earth was ‘consumed’ by the seventy-ninth Tower, whatever that meant. He remembered the System’s message vividly.

Ethan recalled his terror at the weird cloud-pillars slamming into the ground, the strange incident with the television, and the message itself. Ethan wished he’d been faster in deciding to grab a weapon of some sort… at least he’d slipped his flip-flops on.

On his mother’s forty-ninth birthday, the Earth was ‘consumed’ by the seventy-ninth Tower, whatever that meant. He remembered the System’s message vividly.

Earth has been consumed by Tower Seventy-Nine. Your planet has been ranked: Fledgling (Talented). System four assigned.

Then, Ethan remembered being yanked into the pearl white area. He’d thought it was a room at first, but people and animals appeared where he’d thought the ‘walls’ were and beyond. Ethan remembered opening his ‘Panel’ while comforting a panicking Gadget, and he recalled the moment in which he began to suppress his woes and fears, his mind slipping into survival mode.

Soon after that, Ethan recalled his entrance into the Tutorial, where he’d simply… appeared, in the middle of the forest. At first, he’d thought the silence of the forest actually meant something, but apparently not- Ethan had, subconsciously, come to the conclusion that the forests’ sounds simply stopped and started seemingly randomly.

Speaking of which… Ethan hadn’t seen a single bug or bird in the entire time he’d been within the Verdant Gauntlet. His mind was pulled away from that admittedly important thought, as the dam he’d built finally crumbled, and the burden weighing on him increased tenfold.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The upgrades to his Processing meant that, all at once, he was hit with the full power that each of his emotions held. His fear for the safety of his mother, himself, Gadget, the world all flooded forth, each fear enough to cause a panic attack all on its own. The thousands of other negative emotions washing over him were feeble in comparison to them.

It was impossible for Ethan to defeat these emotions with rationality, and so he was lost. Tears merged with rain, and Gadget struggled to provide companionship and love, but the silent tears gradually evolved into heaving sobs.

…Minutes blended into an hour, according to his luckily-waterproof watch, and Ethan eventually ran out of tears. He’d failed to weather the flood of emotions as he’d intended, but… it was fine. The aftermath of these emotions were different from the last time.

‘I bet Nick would’ve been thriving during all this,’ Ethan silently considered, the thought causing him to grimace. It… had been a while since he’d thought of Nick, and that was simultaneously comforting and horrible. It meant that he was healing, but… was he meant to be getting over it all this well?

Before he could stop himself, Ethan recalled the… incident, with unfortunately vivid detail, thanks to the boost to his Processing. Ethan had always remembered it vividly, though.

The image of his older brother’s crumpling body disappearing beneath the hood of a drunken semi-truck on the sidewalk would never leave his mind. It’d been the start of a terrible downwards spiral, where his grades had dropped from solid Bs and As to Ds and his life’s aspirations died. It had taken many long years to recover.

‘Considering I’ve barely been here for a day, I’ve spent quite a while sitting in the rain crying. I need to work harder and spend every moment I can struggling to become more powerful, escape the Tutorial, and get to my mother.’ Ethan thought.

Ethan wiped away still-forming tears and tried to put himself into the same mindset he’d been in when he’d finally got his life back on track all those years ago. He’d drowned in those sorrows, but he’d dealt with these paralyzing emotions before; the only difference was that they’d been depression, and these were fear. With a monumental effort, Ethan shoved down everything besides his most productive feelings. Rage at his circumstances, hope, and a simple will to save his mother.

‘Not just my mother. In a world like this, I have the potential to save, shelter and protect others. The world has become something out of fiction, where every single person truly has the possibility of becoming the Earth’s salvation.’ Ethan thought, excited at the prospect. Assuming that he, his mother and Gadget were all okay, this was almost an opportunity. His life would have a greater meaning than slaving away to make the numbers of billionaires rise.

‘That’s dependent on me and those around me. This world will doubtlessly be brutal, but… I have the potential to make it better. Isn’t that what all humans aspire to do; to have a greater purpose?’ Ethan thought, remembering a particular quote from somewhere; ‘What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans.’

In a world like this, Ethan wasn’t sure if the last bit applied anymore… but it was undeniable that humans longed for a greater meaning in life. In the wild, most animals liked having nothing going on; it meant that they were safe and content, but to humans, that boredom was agonizing.

Ethan shook his head, a genuine grin on his face. He’d gotten a bit lost in the sauce, for lack of a better description, but… it’d worked. Ethan felt motivated in a way he’d never felt before. He wanted to push himself to become greater, so that he could make a difference. The first step to his pursuit for meaning was to escape the Tutorial and save his mother.