The gods are infuriated with the outcome of everything, thus restarting everything once again. However, with time rapidly slowing they needed to add back a variable. One that had no use in the beginning. 

*

"..!"

The man had just woken up with agonising pain all over his body. With no clue regarding who he is, where he was, and why.

One thing that sparked his interest was the thing eating his arm. He tried flinging it, but ultimately to no avail. All effort was wasted, thus he payed his attention elsewhere.

Everything was wooden starting from where he was laying, the tables, chairs, roof. Only thing emitting any glow was the candle. 

He could hear sounds outside - heavy rain. The roof was leaking water, drop by drop. It wasn't all that eerie, though there was something beside him.

Taking a closer look, it was clearly a branch. Though it looked odd, he felt it was quite strange. he had no recollection of anything but this branch was drilled into his instincts.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

This branch, too had a parasite. The parasite seemed to freely move in and out. The man was curious yet wasn't brave enough to approach. He was afraid the parasite in the branch might suddenly lunge towards him and switch targets hence causing him to have two headaches.

But if nothing was done, he feared something worse might occur. Taking the branch, he carefully avoided the parasite and led it under the leak.

He was just experimenting to see if any change would happen, unexpectedly the only thing that had the slightest change was the branch. It had turned pure white, soon vanishing.

The parasite was still there, but now it had nothing to munch on. Switching targets, it looked at the man. The man acted on instincts and swiftly ran. The man still had no recollection of anything all he knew was that he could think and understand the stuft he was spewing.

Closing the door, he soon saw a figure. He wasn't sure what to make of this figure, the figure had similiar arms to his and similiar feet. He himself didn't know what he looked like but he felt some sort of kinship towards this figure.

They stared at each other for a while, but not a single sound was made. Soon the figure walked past and parted ways. The man wanted to reach out, but something was stopping him. Again, it was his instincts acting up against him.

He didn't want to feel this way but everything he felt so far was determined by this instinct. He was curious as to why but ultimately stopped pondering as he was sure he would never think of the anwser this way.

Now he had another problem, where was he right now? He had just avoided the only contact he possibly had due to his instincts. It was like a restriction, yet still gave him a feeling of comfort.