(Dylan)

> Death 1 - The First Death

>

> Dylan had never died before. Death was something only mortals—and careless immortals—experienced. Now, without a body, he couldn’t move; without a mind, he couldn’t think. He existed only as the barest concept of a soul, drifting aimlessly in voidspace. A newly formed tether was the only thing preventing his soul from slipping away, from discovering what truly lay beyond. Suddenly, the tether pulled—yanking Dylan back into existence, resetting him.

[Time orb]: [Dejavu] triggered. Wait.

Dylan blinked and found himself back in the cell, seated on the cold bench. The dead woman’s body lay once again at his feet, while the shirtless elf and bronze-scaled woman casually played cards at a nearby table, as if nothing had changed.

She tossed a comment toward Dylan with a vulgar inflection.

[Time orb]: Thirty-Four Resets remain.

He sat there in shock, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. The world around him felt more real than ever. He was consciously breathing—in and out.

‘Am I hallucinating?’ he wondered. It was funny—because of course, he was hallucinating—but could hallucinations have hallucinations?

The rough fabric of his toga draped across his shoulder, bunching in his lap. Every shift of his feet sent gritty crunches of dirt and hay echoing under his bare soles, the sounds too loud in the stillness. His hands, he noticed, collected an impressive amount of filth and grime. He saw the dark lines of gunk under his fingernails as he curled and flexed his fingers.

“I died,” he whispered, the words feeling hollow, as if his brain refused to fully process them. The problem it wrestled with was that he couldn’t remember ‘not being alive.’ A part, deep inside of him, was different. Something happened, an experience he couldn’t recall—like a suppressed trauma that left a mark on his soul. Even if he didn’t have those memories, he still knew he had died.

Movement from the other side of the bars caught his attention. The overly aggressive Argonian cosplayer, who’d killed him, shifted on her stool to get a more comfortable position as she surveyed the cards splayed on the table. A potent combination of fear and anger welled up inside of him.

With the experience fresh in his mind, his hand cradled his stomach as he glared at her. Without thinking, his hands balled into fists. He wanted to hit her almost as bad as his desire to run away. Adrenaline couldn’t pick one, so it fed both needs.

A dark thought crept into Dylan’s mind: ‘She should know what helpless feels like…’ he thought, dangerous darkness simmering in his chest.

Dylan’s jaded scowl shifted toward Abs and his impossible physique. The shirtless elf sat there, leaning over the table as he played with his stupid cards, shuffling them, placing them down, and turning them sideways.

‘Little help you were. Ran away and left me last time.’ He had to stop himself from boiling over and having a repeat of his previous demise. ‘Calm down…’ He took a deep breath, letting his composure return as he exhaled slowly. ‘That’s how it started last time,’ he reminded himself. He goaded the feisty lizard-woman, and then she stabbed him to death. That wouldn’t happen again.

He forced his mind to change gears, thinking about other things, and accidentally sent himself on a sidequest.

‘If this isn’t a dream… Do I have magic powers?’ The thought was sudden and unexpected, but his logic concluded he’d made a terrible mistake. ‘Damnit, why did I skip all those prompts?’ He regretted Past Dylan’s decision and really wanted to know more about how that magic worked.

“Options,” Dylan said out loud.

The bronze-scaled woman glanced up from their game. Dylan shrank back against the bench under her piercing stare, feeling the latent hatred in her eyes. Abs ignored him, not even bothering to look up from the game. Content that Dylan wasn’t trying to cause trouble, she returned to finish her turn.

Dylan continued trying different commands, whispering to himself. “Replay. Menu. Messages…” A dozen commands later, and still nothing happened. He tried them again mentally, something that had worked for him before. Nothing—the Time orb remained stubbornly silent. He sighed in frustration.

Another realization came to him; ‘This isn’t a convention…’ Dylan’s brain cooked with that new logic. ‘No convention means no cosplayers, no cosplayers means…’ He stared at tiles on the floor as he cooked. It helped him focus and avoid going down any tangents that inevitably came up. There was a ninety-nine percent chance Abs was an actual elf… or maybe a vulcan. If he could just get to his ears, he’d know for certain.

Slowly, his eyes made their way toward the ‘woman’ slinging cards with the shirtless elf. She wasn’t just some person playing dress up as an Argonian or Gorn. She was something else entirely. Like a slow-motion freeway pileup happening in front of him, his brain finished cooking to reveal that he’d been deluding himself the entire time.

Finally able to see without the protective veil of self-deception, he watched her lip curl back as her tongue picked at a chunk of meat stuck between her upper row of sharp teeth. Something as simple as picking up a card and flipping it over showed she could feel micro tactile responses through her fingers, which would be impossible with a glove. Even the way her eyes focused and reacted when her gaze moved about the room, or how her nostrils flared with every breath. She wasn’t a person.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

‘She’s a monster.’ Dylan realized he was being held captive by monsters.

‘Calm down,’ he thought again. The deep breath was much less effective this time. Reining in his fear only forced it to prowl at the edges of his mind.

‘Are they going to eat me?’ Dylan’s thoughts spiraled. ‘Holy crap, they’re probably going to eat me. Wait, aren’t vulcans vegetarian? Or maybe it was vegan?’ He couldn’t remember whether elves ate meat.

He needed a distraction before he had a panic attack. Not that he’d ever had one before, but now would be a terrible time to start. Focusing on his Dejavu ability, he tried to piece together how it actually worked.

‘Does it have to do with fate or destiny? Am I still going to die at the same time as before, but in different ways?’ The Final Destination movies came to mind, and he frowned. He’d find out shortly. That moment of truth loomed.

‘What happens if I run out of Resets?’ He thought, which naturally led to. ‘What is a Reset?’ His only guess was some sort of time loop. ‘Why thirty-five, and can I get more?’ His mind buzzed with questions he didn’t have answers to. He really, really wished he hadn’t skipped those prompts. Time trudged on and his regrets on past decisions continued to preoccupy him.

Ding! The terror tube’s chime announced a new arrival.

‘This is new,’ he thought. Dylan was relieved to know he wasn’t stuck in some terrible, repeating time loop.

The ‘woman’ pushed off her stool and moved to greet whoever stepped out of the terror tube. Abs also stepped away from the game to stand at attention next to his fellow captor. It was him, the healing ‘cosplayer’ from before. If they had been human, their white scales and red eyes would’ve been a side effect of albinism. Dylan wasn’t sure whether this was the same.

There seemed to be several of the lizard, dragon, whatever people around. He nicknamed them by the primary color of their scales. It was probably racist, but Bronze had fucking stabbed him to death, so he didn’t care.

White’s previously clean black and gold robes now displayed blue and green stains all over them. Those same colors streaked across his face. Grime covered his clawed hands. He appeared drained, almost exhausted.

‘Now you decide to show up.’ Dylan frowned, crossing his arms.

It’d been less than an hour since he last saw White. Dylan wondered what could have possibly happened in that time to put him in such a disheveled state.

White sighed and then spoke an order to them. Both Bronze and Abs walked toward his cell. A shiver danced down his spine as Bronze stared at him with the same unkind eyes as before. The shirtless elf placed a hand on the slab, unlocking the cell. The grinding of the bars as they lowered unnerved him, and he reflexively flinched at the thunk at the end.

Dylan’s heart quickened as he watched Bronze bend down to reach for the sheathed dagger he knew to be in her boot. He stumbled, tripping over himself. Trying to back away from her, he found himself crammed in the cell’s corner with nowhere to hide.

“Not again!” He closed his eyes and threw up his arms defensively, anticipating the first strike.

Dylan heard White speak, using a scolding tone. He opened his eyes to see Bronze spin around to challenge White. She argued, jabbing her dagger at Dylan to make her point. It was a minor comfort to know that it wasn’t just him she gave a hard time to.

White shook his head, which was universal enough for Dylan to understand. She hissed and narrowed her eyes at White. He snorted and pointed, banishing her to the terror tube. Snorting in kind, she abruptly turned to leave.

Ding! The torture device called out before opening. The mental imagery of her trapped in an endless up-and-down cycle brought a small smile to Dylan’s face.

Whomever White was, he carried the weight of authority in his words. Both Abs and Bronze answered to him and ultimately followed his orders. The shirtless elf took hold of Dylan by his upper arm with a grip so firm it hurt as fingers dug into his soft and fleshy bicep. Another order came from White, and Abs nodded in reply.

His captor took Dylan by the arm and eventually resorted to yanking him after Dylan realized where he was being taken.

“Come on, not the terror tubes again…” Dylan slouched, dragging his feet.

Abs’ gaze shifted to him and then back to the curved doors, letting out a chuckle.

Ding! Signaled the start of another tormenting ride as they went up or down. Dylan didn’t know because he was too busy screaming. The doors couldn’t open fast enough as Dylan rushed to get out of the crimes against humanity lift.

Searching for a distraction to calm his racing heart, he noticed they were in a different hallway from before. It still had stone walls, but the floor was clean of dirt and debris. There were different portraits of Lady Spock hanging on the walls. Her judgmental stares continued to accost him as the shirtless elf perp-walked him to another room down the long hallway.

Dylan wasn’t sure which disturbed him more; that someone was obsessed with collecting so many pictures of this poor woman, or that she was vain enough to commission them herself. Then an equally terrible option came to mind—or both.

They arrived at their destination, a sparsely furnished room. This one had a regular door frame. Well, maybe it was regular. It might have had one of those magical vault-door things, but he couldn’t tell.

Inside the room was a table with a crystal ball and two chairs. One see-through mirror would’ve completed the ensemble.

‘What’s the ball for?’ he wondered.

Obviously, in the interrogation room, he expected White to play the ‘good’ cop while Abs played the ‘bad’ cop. They sat Dylan down on the far side of the table. Surprisingly, there weren’t any restraints or bars above or below the table to connect the restraints to. White took a seat opposite him and waited. Dylan mirrored him and also waited.

‘Don’t piss off the monster,’ he told himself.

White leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands, resting his elbows on the table. Dylan did the same. White’s eyes narrowed as he sat silently, sizing Dylan up.

White’s mouth parted slightly, suggesting he wanted to speak. Instead, he stopped, adjusting himself in his seat. Speaking of chairs, his looked much more comfortable than Dylan’s. It had leather-padded cushions on the seat and armrests. There wasn’t any padding under Dylan’s ass—just hard wood.

The shirtless elf stood against the wall next to the door. Leaning forwards, he pushed himself off the wall to whisper something into White’s ear. It was too soft for Dylan to make out, not that he’d understand it anyway, but that’s when he noticed White didn’t have an outer ear, just a small ear-hole. He assumed it was an ear-hole since Abs was whispering into it.

White raised a clawed hand, and Abs fell silent, retreating to his place by the door. The air between them grew heavy, the tension thickening as they stared each other down, both waiting for the next move.

‘Don’t piss off the monster,’ he reminded himself again.