- But we both know that’s not what happened.

None of it. Not the scorpion life, not us saving the fairy-mother, not us rising up to a beach and enjoying the nice view and warm air. No. I’m still floating. Still here. Still forgotten. I open my eyes, despite not having any and all I see is darkness.

I float, having never left limbo at all since my last life as a magic-tome.

Hello?

Hello? Is anyone there? Dungeon-master?

How long have I been floating here? Just meandering through the void with myself and you, guy. What? Oh, yeah. Eyeyoume’s here too. Haha, sorry. I’m not used to it, you know? Yeah, you know. It’s hard being surrounded by people all the time if you’re used to being alone like I am.

I float. Alone.

Has the dungeon-master forgotten me? I’ve never floated for this long before. It’s cold. I feel… empty. I shift around, contorting and squirming as I vaguely swim through the nothingness, swimming through an ocean that has no shore. There is no beach. There is only black-water for as far as the eye can see. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Am I dead?

Like… dead-dead. Is this what being dead is like? Don’t I… sleep? Don’t I get to close my eyes? Do I just have to float forever? Is that what death is? A persistence of a spirit that no longer has a body? Trapped forever in the darkness, aware, wriggling.

I squirm and wiggle. Wiggle-wiggle, jiggle-jiggle as I squiggle my way through the empty. A single cloud in the empty night sky, devoid of stars and light. There's no one here but me.

It’s empty.

There is no bmmmmmm-. There is no scuttling, no scampering, no wiggling or jiggling, no scooting or scratching or clawing or humming, no ambient roar of the water. There is simply…

Nothing.

I float.

How long have I been in here? Hours? Days? Is time even a thing that exists here? Or am I simply… floating without a context or space. Just a droplet of blobby me floating through the void for no other purpose or reason than for the sake of floating.

I close my eyes and pull myself together into a fetal position. It’s not that I have any body warmth to hold inside of myself. It’s simply what I feel like doing. Not that I even have arms or legs or a body to begin with. I’m just…

Me. This. This thing. This thing that floats. That drifts. I exist. But…

I sigh. Sort of. It’s complicated.

This is my comeuppance. This is what I get for trying to do the right thing. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. Some people just don’t have eyes like I do. It’s not their fault, they just don’t know. My hands reach for my head to scratch the itch, but they simply go through me. The joints that I don’t have don’t stop my arms that I also don’t have and they begin pulling through my entire self. Like two great worms digging and burrowing through a mound of meat.

Stolen novel; please report.

Meat floor. Meat floor. Meat floooor. Remember the meat floor? That was gross. Hope we don’t see too much of that. Haha. I dig into myself, squeezing and pressing on my insides that itch. But no matter how hard I scratch, I can’t touch any of it. No matter how hard I rake my nails against my eyes, they don’t stop seeing. I see it all. I see it all. Meat floor. Meat floor! Meat floor. Meat four? Meat three. Meat two. Meat one.

- Hello? Is anyone there?

I really want to go now. Please?

I float.

Look around you, Piotr? What do you see? I hum to myself. There’s nothing to see. I liked Piotr, what a fun guy. It’s a shame I couldn’t save him from the dungeon-master’s storyline, like…

I float.

Have I ever even saved anybody?

What have I even done, apart from walk up some stairs? Have I ever actually helped anyone? Saved anyone? After the resets. Things that ‘count’. The thief? She’s missing. Piotr? Nope. Madison? She’s dead. Everyone I get involved with who ‘knows’ me has had something bad happen to them. Because I got involved. I’m trying to get out of here, but… have I ever done anything good? Don’t I just end up destroying things wherever I go?

I float.

Am I the bad guy?

I open my eyes as I float and look around at the empty void that is limbo and I think about it, the realization is rather unsettling. I don’t want to be the bad guy, I want to be the hero. He has friends, you know? He has a destiny and a fate, you know? He has strength.

What do I have?

I have eyes and CONVICTION. But neither of them seem to be doing me any good. My eyes only see black-water and my conviction only gets me into trouble. Maybe it would be for the best if the dungeon just…

Stopped.

If I just floated forever and in the meantime, the hero-party clears the dungeon with such overwhelming force that none of it can ever exist again. Cleanse it. Cleanse us. Cleanse me. Make it stop itching. Maybe then the world could turn further, maybe then at least some people could go on and live happy lives. Like the monk. I hope she meets somebody nice after all of this is over. That thought makes me oddly jealous. Is that selfish?

Not the wizard though. She’s a jerk.

I sigh.

No, that’s not fair to say either. She is what she is. I am what I am. It is what it isssss-

I flick my ‘tongue’ like a snake would.

I just wish they could all see it. Just for a second. Just all of them together at once. I just wish that they all would have eyes like I do. The hero, the dungeon-master, the slimes and the adventurers, anything and everyone down in the dungeon. I just wish they would all open their eyes for just a second to SEE WHAT I SEE!

It’s cold. The wrapping, reaching tendrils of myself dig through my shapeless soul, slapping and searching and reaching for my eyes. Reaching. Touching. Feeling. Sensing. Where are they? Where are they? Maybe… maybe if I give them some of my extra eyes, maybe then they can see. Maybe then they can finally see! They can finally see! SEE! SEE! SEE!

I squirm and claw and tear at myself, ripping off chunks of my vague incorporeal entity as I burrow, as I seek, as I encroach and push deeper into myself to tear out what’s in the way. I need those eyes. I need those eyes. Why can’t they understand that there’s no-one here but me! It’s all me. It’s all us. It’s all eyes. It’s all guy. It’s all eyeyoume.

I sigh and stop my self-mutilation.

It’s all so tiresome.

Maybe this is why the fairy of the fountain sleeps? Maybe… I close my eyes and I float.

Maybe I can dream again? Like when I was a scorpion just now. Maybe if I close my eyes and go to sleep, maybe I can dream about a new life. That would be nice.

My eyes twitch in agitation. But I keep them closed. Shut up eyes, I run this show, not you.

What kind of life would I like to dream about?

I float.

I don’t know, honestly.

I can’t be the hero, I guess. I tried. I spent the last countless lives trying to be the hero. But I guess I’m just not cut out for it. No amount of hard-work is going to change that simple fact of the universe. I’m as far away from that concept as is possible. The exact opposite. Like some kind of… anti-hero.

Aaaaaah, see what I did there? Pretty clever, right?

Didn’t the dungeon-master say something about an anti-hero party? That sounds cool, I wonder what that’s about. Maybe I can be the anti-hero?

Though… is the anti-hero evil? I don’t like being evil. I cry easily, you know? It’s hard to be menacing when you cry a lot. What? Don’t judge me. I’m just an emotional being, okay? Besides, I don’t want to make the world a worse place. I want to make it better.

What else is there to do? That’s worthwhile, that is.

I float and I try to dream.

But I can’t sleep.

I can’t sleep.

I can’t sleep.

I open my eyes, searching around for that annoying sound that is keeping me awake. Do you hear it? Tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-tap a thousand times over. Tiny, skittering little feet that circle through the darkness of the void. Thousands of tiny little eyes, blinking and squishing and squelching wetly as they move.

Is it here? It can’t be here. Nobody can be here. I float, looking around at the black-water I am submerged in. But nothing in it shifts or moves. There is only the darkness and myself. But I hear it. I hear the tiny little steps encircling me. I hear a thousand little legs pulling on a thousand more behind them, all of them skittering through the darkness.

You can’t be here. Nobody can be here. Nobody can be here but me.

It skitters.

I narrow my eyes, watching the darkness warily. With my eyes. With my ey-

Something grabs me and I flail around, trying to throw it off of me.

I am yanked downward, pulled towards the dungeon once again. Relief welling in my heart as my eyes stare up at the skittering darkness above for just a moment. For just the briefest second before I am reborn. And I see a thousand eyes staring down towards me, a thousand more just behind them, all of them reaching for me as I return to the mortal coil.

But something feels wrong -