I turned towards Bark, who remained motionless against the chamber’s wall. My heart sank as I took in the sight of his battered body. There was no doubt he was seriously hurt. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about first aid. Wait, what if Killa packed some of those red potions?

I turned to see that a thin barrier of web kept the door we entered through closed. After quickly retrieving my dagger, I ran over and cut through the web. I retrieved our packs and set them down close to Bark. Bark’s pack felt so much heavier than mine, and I dragged it more than carried it. Killa’s pack had the food I had to tear myself away from; otherwise, I would have eaten all of it and still needed more.

It was in Bark’s bag I found two of the red vials. If I remember correctly, these were regeneration potions. I also found two green potions, a blue potion, and a violet potion. Blue was the mana potion, but what were the others again? Wasn’t one of them an acid or a sleep potion? I grabbed the red potions. It can wait until I ask Bark or Killa later.

I approached Bark, my hands trembling. I had no idea how to provide first aid and even less of an idea how to force-feed someone. So I went with the more sane route and rolled him onto his back and splashed some water on his face.

His eyes fluttered open. “Wha… what? Where? When?” There was a slight rattle in his voice that was probably important. He looked at me, then tilted his head to look past me. “Did you kill it?”

“Yeah, it’s dead.” I held up the bottle of red fluid. “Here.”

He started to lift an arm to his head but winced with a sharp inhale. “About that.” His other arms weren’t moving. “It’s pretty bad if you notice that I need help. But actually, it’s worse than you can see. My head is swimming, and I need you to put my arms back in place.”

I looked at his limp arms. “You want me to do what now? Won’t this potion take care of that?”

Bark shook his head, only to wince even more. “Not all of us have a miracle cure-all built into our bodies.” His eyes turned to the ground, and his voice got really quiet. “Yet. The regeneration potion will help me recover quicker, but if the bones or joints aren’t set correctly, they’ll heal incorrectly.”

I bit my lip. He’s right. I’m taking my nanites for granted already. Just a few minutes ago, I was missing most of my organs and probably seconds away from dying. Yet, if you looked at me, you wouldn’t be able to tell.

I looked down. Although, my wardrobe is in dire need of repair.

I had never been in a situation like this before, but I followed Bark’s instructions as best I could. There were more than a few mistakes and a lot more screaming from the poor man. After I finished, I poured the bottle into his mouth so he could drink it. I told him about everything that happened and Killa’s state.

Bark let out a sigh as he leaned into the wall more and closed his eyes. “Now I’m going to sleep as much of this off as I can. You’re on guard duty. Killa will need something to eat. So just throw anything into her body, and she’ll passively eat it. Give her time. She’ll be fine.”

Okay, so Killa’ll be fine. He also said that I could feed Killa something. But speaking of feeding. My body had its own demands, and the gnawing emptiness in my stomach was now impossible to ignore. The flashing red light around my energy bar was also another reminder of what I had to do. A painful growl from my stomach was all the warning I had before. It felt like my stomach was eating me from the inside. I scrambled through the pack, took one of the bowls of food, and scarfed it down without tasting or seeing what it was I ate.

The pain eased slightly, but my energy hadn’t started displaying. I can’t eat everything. It’s not fair to Bark. There was only one option left for me, and it was one I wished I didn’t have to do. My eyes drifted to the remains of the giant spider, and I swallowed dryly. Why me?

I walked over to the spider. My trembling hands dug into the leg Bark cut off. At least this will be just muscles and no organs. My breaths came in ragged gasps as I held the first piece to my face.

Go insane. Go insane. It’ll taste like chicken. Just like chicken. I closed my mouth and popped a piece in.

Taste like chicken. Taste just like chicken.

My denial didn’t make the meat taste any better. But it wasn’t as bad as I had originally expected. The spider meat was mostly bland. The texture was the most repulsive part. It wasn’t so much melt in your mouth tender, as it was more crumble in your mouth and turned to paste with saliva while tiny little pellets refused to break down further.

I had to force myself to swallow. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, but it was still horrible. The horror was that I needed more—a lot more. Each bite was harder than the last to take, but I needed all of them. One by one, I fought back the urge to vomit, even though I knew that my nanites were absorbing it faster than I could eat it. Slowly, far too slowly, my energy bar filled up. But after I hollowed out one leg, I shuddered as I knew what the next step was.

I grabbed Bark’s other sword and wedged it between the joints of another leg. My strength alone wasn’t enough, so I tried to leverage my body against the rest of the corpse and pried the leg off with the sword. It worked, and I set to eating another leg.

I tried to think of anything and everything else as I ate, but the texture of the meat would always leave me gagging every couple of minutes. The second leg filled my energy bar halfway. That’ll have to do. I just need to avoid getting hurt to make it last longer.

Killa’s body was still an undefined blob. Let’s get her something to eat. I pried off another spider leg and dragged it into her gooeyness. Small bubbles formed around the leg, leaving me to assume she was slowly dissolving it. Killa’s form quivered slightly, and I hoped that meant she was doing better.

Exhaustion tugged at the back of my mind. I pulled out and unrolled a sleeping bag before curling up inside. I covered my head, so I couldn’t see any webs or the spider’s body.

This has got to be the worst kind of hell. Not only have I nearly died so many times, but I think I’m going to have a new and very real phobia by the end of this dungeon. We’re only on the second floor, and the third floor is going to be worse than this? I cried until I passed out.

Almost immediately, the nightmares started. After waking up screaming a couple of times, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t want to. It was all in my mind, and I knew that. But that still didn’t stop the nightmares from ruining my sleep. There was something deeply wrong with me, but all I could do was stay curled up in my sleeping bag with my eyes open. Even though I had so much compelling me to not sleep, I drifted off once again.

Without fail, my mind spiraled down into another nightmare. I hadn’t killed the giant spider; instead, it had swallowed me whole. My body was forced down into its stomach, and I could see the acid soaking into my skin, breaking it down. But at the same time, my nanites were regenerating the skin as fast as it was being burned away. I wanted to scream, but that only forced acid down my throat, causing the same reaction to happen inside my body. The endless destruction and reconstruction of my body, inside and out, was maddening. And I couldn’t wake up.

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A sharp pain separate from my nightmare snapped me awake. My cheek throbbed for a second before the nanites hummed to work. I opened my eyes to see Bark kneeling over me.

“What’s wrong?” Bark placed his hand on my shoulder. His other arms stayed bound and splinted to his chest. “Why are you screaming?”

I blinked a few more times. “Was I screaming?”

Bark’s eyes opened wider. “Yeah, it was like someone had dumped you in a pit of acid.”

I turned and rolled back over. That’s because my mind did. “It was a nightmare.”

I heard Bark sit down next to me. “You alright?”

I scoffed. “Not even remotely.”

“I don’t know what kind of life you lived before, but things in the Nexus won’t be cushy.” Bark’s voice trailed off. “Not that I know any different.”

“My life, lives, have been anything but cushy.” I sat up and turned to see the moping shaylip. “Before I died, I was a petty thief, only stealing so I could survive. Before you ask, no, I didn’t steal food or clothes. I stole cell phones.” Bark looked confused. “They’re little tiny devices that let you talk to people over long distances wirelessly, access the internet, and do all kinds of other things.”

I shook my head. “But that’s not important. It’s just that I’ve been ignored so much that I could get away with being a criminal because I couldn’t get a regular job. Sure, my life wasn’t easy, but I was never in any danger. Not like this.”

I waved my arms at the web-covered walls. “This is too much. A few days ago, I was happy that I was going to stay at a hotel for a few days instead of sleeping in the street. Now, I’m fighting oversized spiders in a dark, smelly dungeon, so I can talk to this guy I know nothing about since you two won’t tell me anything about him. Just that he’s supposed to have answers. I am gaining levels, like my life is now a game. I’ve replaced my eyes with a system from some nanites that heals me whenever I’m hurt. Like earlier, when my entire insides were liquified by the spider.”

I stood up and started pacing. “That shouldn’t be possible. By all accounts, I should have died. And the worst part is that I don’t know if I’m happy that I didn’t. At least then, all this will be over. Oh right, I can’t die because I’m an artificial soul. I’m not allowed an afterlife. And because of that, I have this murderous shadow guy hunting me until he kills me.” My knees felt weak. I sat back down on my sleeping bag and pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them. Tears started trickling down my cheeks. “I don’t know if I can do this; climb the Soul Nexus, I mean.”

I felt empty, scared, tired, and lost. But letting them all out felt good. My shoulders felt less stiff, even though I could still feel the anxiety in the back of my mind.

We sat there in silence until Bark cleared his throat. “Are you done?”

“Yeah, for now.”

“Good.” Bark turned me to face him. “I’ve got no idea about half of what you said, but it sounded like just saying that stuff helped. Am I right?” I nodded and wiped my face on my sleeve. “Now, you said you’re going to fight for your right to live. Is that still true?”

Do I? To what end? Why do I want to live so badly? Because I’m afraid of dying? But if I died, I would no longer see Killa and Bark. I’ve never really had friends like them before. It’s nice. So maybe, just maybe, living just to see them is a good start. Also, I really want to know who created me, and why. If I’m dead, I’ll never know.

“Yes,” I said.

Bark smiled. “Good, because dying in the Soul Nexus isn’t like dying anywhere else. So I’ve been told. When you die in the Nexus, you don’t go to the afterlife. The Nexus claims your soul.” That’s why he said those cryptic things when that guy tried to kill me again. “You’ll be trapped and a part of the Nexus forever. What that means, I don’t know, but I’m not about to find out. And neither should you.”

He scooted over and sat next to me as he wrapped an arm around me. “If you really have been here for only a few days, you’ve been taking this all better than I did once I was old enough to understand the situation I am in. I couldn’t imagine dying and coming here willingly.”

“It wasn’t completely willing.” I returned to resting my chin on my knees. “The Soul Nexus is supposed to tell me who created me and why, so I can use that as leverage for my right to exist. There just was no other way to find out.”

Bark hummed. “I’m sorry. But there is one thing you should give yourself credit for.”

I turned to him and frowned. “Yeah, and what would that be? Only breaking down every couple of days?”

He shook his head. “No. Although, I suspect you’ll find your way past that eventually. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. But what I’m talking about is how skilled you are with that gun. Did you have those in your world?”

I glanced at the weapon that was still lying in the middle of the room where I dropped it. “Yeah, we had guns, but nothing like this. Those guns used gunpowder to fire the projectile, not mana. They were more like the gun the guy used against us that one night.”

Bark nodded. “Ah, so he was from your world too. Or at least he was someone from your world who got possessed.” He pointed to the gun. “So, did you use one as a petty thief?”

“No.” I shook my head and held out a hand. “It’s just that I’ve always had good hand-eye coordination. But it is surprising how well I am using it. So what about you? Why do you use swords when guns like that exist?”

Bark leaned his head back. “Because weapons like that are expensive. And I’ve only learned about them after meeting Gary for the first time. He told me so much about everything in the Nexus. He even told me how to escape this prison.”

“Escape? What do you mean by escape?” Now that I think about it, I don’t know much about Bark.

Bark hung his head. “You’re from another world; you chose to come here in the end, even if you didn’t have much choice. I was born here. Me and all the other shaylips.” He leaned back and laid down. “Nobody knows how the shaylips even arrived in the Nexus, but we know that it wasn’t our original home. We’re trapped here, forced to fight and die from the moment we are able.”

My jaw hung open. “That… that’s awful. I wouldn’t have guessed that. So, if you were born and raised here, what’s your wish? Why do you want to reach the top?”

He looked at me and, with the stiffest expression, said, “I’m going to free every shaylip from the Nexus. We’ve suffered long enough. It’s time someone ends this curse.” He turned to stare at the ceiling again. “The worst part is, of the four who have reached the top, none have ever been a shaylip. That’s why I need your nanites. I’ll make any deal or do whatever it takes to reach the top. I can not fail.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I don’t know what to say to that. That’s a pretty good reason to climb the Soul Nexus. This existence was dumped on him, but he wants to save every shaylip. That’s pretty admirable. Mine and Killa’s wishes feel far more petty by comparison.

“So, how far to the top?” I asked, while staring at the ground in front of my feet. “This is the second level, right?”

“Yeah.” I heard Bark shift and sit up. “But nobody knows how tall the Soul Nexus is. There’s no indication that you’re getting closer. Just when someone reaches the top, there’s a big announcement for everyone else that someone has reached the top. Each level will be harder than the last. Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally too. There’s a reason only four have conquered this place.” He rubbed my shoulder. “Your nightmares are a typical reaction. It’s better to learn how to deal with these kinds of moments now than much later, when things are much worse.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to comfort me?”

He rocked his head from side to side. “Yeah, kind of.” The man sighed. “Look, I’m not Killa and don’t know what to say or when to say it. That’s just what my parents told me when I was learning how to fight.”

I chuckled. He’s trying. That’s sweet. It really is. If this is what having true friends is like and not people trying to use my desperation for their own gain, maybe coming here was not the worst thing ever.

I turned and gave him a big hug. It didn’t last long because, as I pulled him close, he yelped and winced. I flinched away and held my arms close to my chest. “Sorry. I sort of got carried away there.”

He held up his hand. “It’s fine. Just watch my arms. They’re a little messed up. They’ll likely need a couple of days to heal completely.” He paused and looked away. “But, if you want a hug, it’s alright. Just be careful.”

I smiled and gingerly hugged him. He smelled like sweat, but I didn’t care. I got to hug a real friend. And when Killa recovers, I’ll give her a hug too.

He patted my head. “Alright, get some sleep. I’m sure you won’t have any nightmares again.”

I smiled as I curled up to sleep with Bark sitting next to me. He was right. I didn’t have any more nightmares as I slept.