Everyone except Asher felt normal, though perplexed by his sudden breakdown. Why was he acting up all of a sudden? They all wondered in unison.

Sevlina stepped forward, concerned. Right when she was about to help him straighten himself, Asher looked in her eyes and…

“Arghhh!! D-Don’t come any closer!” he said, as he swung his sword aimlessly at her.

Sevlina backed off instantly, seeing him lose his mind. “What do we do?” she asked the rest of the group. One of them raised their hand. “I, uh, actually have a sedative. Just kept it for the worst case scenario,” they said, before warning, “But, there is a side-effect. One of the sedative’s ingredients is a herb that makes the person rediscover their worst fears, so they’d likely relive their trauma.”

Sevlina hesitated after hearing the side-effect, but she looked at Asher once again, watching him suffer, she decided it was for the best.

They fed him the purple sedative liquid. It wasn’t easy, and they had to curb him to restrict his movements while he was being fed. Before long, Asher’s movements slowed down, his erratic breathing calmed, as he gradually fell into a coma.

Although on the exterior, the problem seemed to have eased out, in the interior, Asher’s turbulent feelings consumed him.

Huh? Where am I? He looked down at his hands. My hands feel weird.

As far as Asher could see, there was only darkness. Endless darkness and amidst that stood he, glowing like a light bulb placed in the deepest part of the ocean.

Is this… my conscious? He formed conjectures, as he strode forward taking tiny, aimless steps. The ground under him formed ripples everytime his feet pressured the ground.

Ah.

There was a woman standing in front of him. She carried the exact same features as Asher. He had called her ‘mother’ once upon a time.

What is she doing in my mind? Well, if it is my mind, then maybe I could make her disappear if I just ignored her.

He kept walking past her, not giving attention to the all-too-familiar person. But she didn’t disappear. Instead, she could be seen in his periphery vision at all times even when he ran, crossing a huge distance.

After a short while, he was met with two more people. One boy and one girl, both of them being a year younger than him.

The emotionless face he carried when he met his mother, was now being swamped in salt water.

Alveno… Iviko…

He desperately rushed toward them, hoping to undo the already befallen tragedy, but it was simply not possible, and he knew that.

The two, kept going further and further away from him while casting a warm smile, as he dashed frantically.

As the kids went away laughing, the surroundings became calm once again, and he noticed something. The ground beneath him, the water ripples were becoming clearer like an actual water body’s, able to reflect his face now.

Before long, his entire dull view became colorized. He now stood on the sparkling ocean reflecting the midday sun’s rays under the vast, blue sky.

Before he could completely absorb the breathtaking view, however, he was met with another distasteful experience. He felt a disturbing shift in the air, so he looked down, at his feet.

Blood. Blood was spreading from the bottom of his feet like ink poured on water. The blood spread like a chain reaction, and soon, the entire ocean became bloodied. The sky no longer looked calm and serene and instead, had turned into an ugly shade of orange.

However, before he could even think about the abrupt turn out, his head spun, no rather, the world around him began to spin, faster and faster like a particle accelerator gaining momentum.

In the next moment, he stood on the middle of a highway, cars passing through his translucent body. And it was not just any highway. It was the highway he hadn’t ever wanted to visit in his lifetime.

It was the highway of death. The highway that instigated his trauma. The place of misery.

The dark events unfolded once again like it was something anew. The time of day changed and it became night—the exact time of tragedy.

Asher couldn’t bear to watch it and shut his eyes tightly. If he witnessed it yet again then there was no telling if he’d be able to recover or not. His mind would definitely be shattered.

A highway passing through a remote part of the city. The two siblings, Alveno and Iviko, could be seen happily chatting away and crossing the zebra, unknowing of the tragic events about to take place in a moment’s time.

The reason for them being out so late in the night was because of the errand assigned to them by their mother. “Fetch some bread,” she had tasked them just before.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Hey, Sis! Wanna race!?” Alveno asked, excited.

“How do you have so much stami— Hey! Wait for me!!” Before the slow Iviko, who struggled to breathe could finish her words, Alveno dashed forward.

They both ran and Alveno crossed the zebra crossing first and continued to run past. Iviko, who was already tired, jogged behind him, still on the crossing.

Although cars were a rarity at this time of night, it was not an impossibility.

… And the worst possible thing, happened at the worst possible timing.

A car, and a black SUV at that, sprang at full speed not minding the girl crossing the road.

The sound of tires screeching and a violent crash sound emanated throughout the remote city on that night.

The girl, who had once been full of life, now lay dead on the road, with her skull now burst open, her brain matter sprayed across the road.

Alveno noticed his sister missing behind him tardily, and ran back the path he had come from, back to the zebra crossing. And there he saw the current situation his sister was in.

“N-No!! Iviko!!!” He bawled and held her corpse in his tiny arms. The bread they had bought was now scattered across, drenched in her blood.

A man with an unknown face emerged from the car and looked stupefied, but soon his expression turned determined, and he sat back inside.

Within a few moments, the sound of bones being crushed could be heard. The pained screams of the victim rang, but to no avail.

The ruthless SUV driver had reversed in order to kill the remaining survivor—not just once or twice, but as many times as it took for Alveno to give up his struggle and crush him. Just like that, the witness to his crime was now dead—just what the criminal had wanted.

After a long time, Asher emerged in the scene. It seemed like Alveno and Iviko’s mother had asked him if he knew their whereabouts since they were long gone, and since he was their closest friend, he was the first to be inquired. He had calmly replied “No” at the time, but deep down he got worried.

And so, he went on his own search for them, but what waited him was something gruesome developed by an unhuman being.

Alveno and Iviko could be seen on the road. Their faces messed up, bones crushed, and their clothes drenched in blood. All that could be distinguished from the sight was the grim ending met by the siblings with Alveno dying while holding his dear sister’s corpse close to his heart.

The Asher who had been spectating with his eyes closed was now pulled into the scene breaking the fourth wall. He couldn’t control his actions anymore, as he was forced to relive the exact moments. His eyes were forced open to watch the catastrophe.

“No…” The ends of Asher’s mouth twitched and curved downward. “Alveno!! Iviko!!” He wanted to rush to them and call the ambulance, but he couldn’t. He knew all-too- well that they were long dead.

At this moment, he felt the air on his right shoulder turn cold and windy. What awaited him when he looked was… his mother.

“Do you see that, Asher?” The ghastly voice began. “That is because of you. You failed to save them. If you had hurried up and arrived a bit earlier, you could’ve prevented the deaths of two innocent children.”

“Huh..?” He was heart-broken at first, but then he realized. He realized what this all meant. He knew he was reliving his trauma due to the sedative.

Indeed, it had always been like this with his mother. He’d try various things, pulling off stunts to get his mother to acknowledge and be proud of him, but that never happened in his sixteen years of life. She’d only continue to torment and blame him for their family’s misfortune.

It all began when Asher was a child. Around the time he joined elementary school, his father was terminated from his job. To cope with that, he got addicted to gambling and burned away the what-little remaining savings he possessed. He also became an alcoholic and smoked every other hour. His mother, watching her husband slowly destroy himself, decided to work more part-times and over-times in her own job to compensate for the lack of sufficient income.

Things moved smoothly for some time, but soon, it took a swift turn for the worse. His father had finally burned away all of his cash and began demanding money from his mother, who was barely managing to keep the family functional. When she refused, he’d resort to stealing and arguing. Eventually, all the stress caught up to her, as she developed a mental illness. She was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and would go around the house yelling and screaming at random times, becoming depressed and totally cutoff from society.

Asher would try to cheer his mother up to lighten her mood and eliminate her stress, but everytime he tried it, he’d fail miserably. His mother would blame him as the root cause for the family’s dysfunctional state, making him guilty and worried. The stress caused by his mother made him lose focus in school and in turn, his grades dropped sharply, he became more introverted and avoided talking to people as much as possible, fearing they’d judge him.

Blaming him for insignificant things, he could bear, but when she had blamed Asher for the death of two of his dearest friends, his heart sank. He felt as if he was being pushed into a river filled to the brim with deadly piranhas.

He wanted to run away. Far from his house, far from his school, far from people who’d judge him, far from people who’d blame him, far from callous psychopaths who show no compassion for others, far from…

In the end, while browsing through the internet, he found just the perfect escape from society—webnovels. He fell in love with them, imagining himself to be the protagonist and admiring their prowess at solving a problem, he was amazed and wished to be in a fantasy world.

Then, one day, he got a message in the same app he used to read web novels—Renfit.

[Would you like to exit reality? Do you wish for the current world to disappear and to start anew? Fret not! That’s exactly what we offer! Click on this link to sign up.]

The message, although at first, looked suspiciously like a shady advertisement, he signed up just for the heck of it, hoping to make his dream true.

…And that led to him being here.

“It’s all your fault.” When he heard those words from the mental image of his mother once again, he got pissed. Why’d he be responsible for the events he had no part in? Additionally, he was in a place where none of the people he knew and loathed existed, so why should he care?

All of this is an illusion of his trauma after all.

Of course, he felt bad about his two friends, but that was unfortunate. It was an accident and that was the end of it. As for his mother, it was her fault for not righting and supporting her husband when he most needed it, and instead she proceeded to blame Asher for it? That is just immaturity at its peak.

So he spoke. He spoke out loud his thoughts. His resolve to overcome his trauma and not let it control him, made him plenty stronger than majority.

“Mother,” he said. “Piss off.”

In the following moments, the world around him shifted. It spun faster and faster, as his mother was reduced to a silhouette, before completely dissolving into the background.

He was brought back to reality.