A resplendent amber field of light galloped through his eyes, inviting his mind to wallow in an odd confusion about this particular morning. With half-opened eyes, he squinted as he refocused his vision that came with naught results, the yellowish scenery remaining but a ghost to his sight. Then, the hints of golden-light beams that trickled in-between the fluttering silhouettes defined what the illumination was. Golden strings of warm light, it seems, had awoken Advers.
With imposing exhaustion, he slowly sat up with both his hands propping him, confessedly confused and roughly disturbed about the coldness, headache, and pangs donning him. Not quite sure about where it all stemmed from as the cold wet smell of dews was inducing but troubling perplexity to him.
But that was until a reserved pitched cry bulleted out of his mouth, sobering his memory to its glorious wake. Flashes of the night's memory gurgling him of the absurdity on how he nonchalantly sat and how something unimaginably grim even slipped out of his mind. But contrary to the pain he expected to burden, it only gave a few yawning aches on his supposed to be doomed of an arm. Though, it didn't stop the blood to lick through his skin towards the yellow that was dyed red when it trickled.
He was about to examine the oddness of his wound when something took his attention away. A fogged, fragile, four-cornered white object, almost translucent, hovered on the back of his left hand. Yes, hovered. It didn't appear as if it was glued crudely, nor was it elaborately painted, nor was it ritually embedded. It just somberly levitated with supernal delicateness atop his backhand. The letter definitely looked strangely evanescent from his perspective, unlike before.
Moving it closer to his eyes, he found the same silver border as it did last night, but this time, with the addition of a few words unknown to him of its real significance.
***
Three items are taken away from the Rewards Letter.
Please begin to delve into your mindbox.
I repeat, please begin to open your mindbox.
***
"Items... Just wha-"
He puzzledly murmured to a halt. A couple of drawn-out blinks, without a hint of concern, escaping over the words before he let his left hand gently quash yellow as did his weight. He looked around to see the trees clearer to him than ever, leaves crashing to each other forming a piece of fine music. Surveying further, he could see his other stuff littering quite far from him that some were even dangling from the branches they tightly held.
Across him, the splintered bed stood still. Further than that was the same paper mound, trees, and flowers of different tints rippling as everything did on his left and right. After that, he looked over to where he rested. Bags, clothes, same flowers but with a different hue, and a trace of blood corrupting the flower beneath him entered alike scrutiny.
It was the same, very identical to what it looked last night with its tranquility. But something, just something and only something was odd. It was a feeling of something awry and vastly wrong that spilled over to his thoughts with suddenness.
So he glanced back to gaze the same spectacle. Silence accompanying him as he tried to find what was immensely different that made something feel amiss. Yet, his further examination provided him nothing he could use to alleviate the disturbing incompleteness that suddenly jabbed him out of nowhere.
Something truly was brutally different than before, and he was absolutely certain that the hounded paper seems to have just triggered it.
So he eyed the white paper with cautiousness and adept perusal. Several words appearing suddenly that appealed to him a certain insight into what his predicament maybe.
***
5 hours have passed.
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Activated: Level One Hysteria. (It's not dangerous. Don't singularly define it as some crave for it.)
Please begin to delve into your mindbox.
I repeat, please open your mindbox.
***
A prick came to his neck, then to his arm, then to his torso, then to his legs. A thunderous stress that appeared to electrocute him out of the blue was accompanied by a wild beat that created a deep dissonance within his chest. The straightforward reminder of what the letter suggests, making a crease wove its way to his forehead with black thread on its trail.
Hysteria. He mentally uttered.
He gingerly thought that the exhilaration and eagerness of yesterday felt cold water washing away with his simple thoughts on how certain unworldly things may bring him solace. And this certain incident was what truly flooded it away.
There was in no way that he could remain at ease and still feel certain excitement right now, as Advers was such a person to have his bearing be kept, at all times, to a still. For it to be utterly broken without even an effort and not knowing how it was done, it challenged him to look at the reality served justifiably before him with pure seriousness on his part, yielding himself as he unstitched the frown with a calming breath.
He checked, finally, the oddness of what his wound seems to have been. He thought, with all the complexities revolving around him, that the absence of severe pain is a sign of it being halfway healed or at least something better, but the delicateness of the dried blood that stuck to the rough edges of the torn skin speaks otherwise. A twitch sneaked past his forehead as he looked the same curvature of a beeline resting on his arm, not a tad bit different except for the dried blood that reeks of metallic taste.
With that in mind, he understood as a fact, that what knocked him out was blood loss from this specific cut. To prove his position further, he contemplated the immense trail of scorched blood that drizzled from the broken bed up to the flowerbed be enough for an evidence. He knew at the very least, without much of medicinal knowledge and for a fact itself, that the amount of blood he had lost was tantamount to having one sent to their demise already.
However, the absence of paleness to his skin speaks contrarily, and he could feel and be sure of himself that he had no trouble of thinking clearly at all.
Which, in itself, definitely and already expresses peculiarity if he's looking for one.
He nudged the slit a bit to grasp how painful it is when touched, and fortunately, varying degrees of prodding makes minimal pain to be registered. Despite that, when he tried to rotate his wrist and flex his elbow, the tension it brought was very reminiscing of the night's repentant accident. And he stopped feeling it up further with that in mind.
He also noticed that while his arm may still have the same horrific display, his legs finally have found its mercy to allow him movement, making it much easier to limp his way to an examined innocuous tree, a few meters on his left, to recline unto.
He observed, once again, the space around him. Espying the sunlight-basked scenery, he found that the supposed to be calming silence was replaced by a grating feeling that gripped his heart to discordance. His eyes squinting sneakily as if he never did it at all. But, one could be sure that Advers was not liking, rather, sincerely not desiring this circumstance in any way possible at all.
***
He sat under the shade of the whistling tree, eyes closed with nothing to see but darkness while shedding sweats of absolute pressure. Idling by for almost an hour rotating between closing his eyes and that of arguing with himself whether what he is doing was making an ounce of progress at all.
Advers thought it would be easy breaking through the so-called barrier that he tried to delve deep into his mind. But, the sheer increase of stress that encapsulates his whole body speaks well for itself, and the building mental strain is drowning him further into hopeless desperation. It made him recount, with all restraint he could generate, all the fortunate things he could muster from the still unknown reality he was forcefully dragged to.
He was tempted to open his anxious eyes to see if the same text he had seen for an hour had changed, but, a burst of mild headache struck him along the feeling as if a certain door has been opened in his mind. The sensation felt so new and yet vaguely familiar to him as if it had always existed somewhere within his mind. However, he let that feeling slip by his grasp as he embraced the soothing warmth of the heaviness his mind and body felt. The discordance that kept his heart in dire suspense waning along as well.
***
Congratulations! You have unlocked your mindbox.
Level One Hysteria dispelled.
***
Few words appeared on his left hand which demanded no one an applaud for this mere feat. And Advers wouldn't jump onto the wagon as his eyes remained closed.
Deep in his mind, Advers could weirdly see, with slight heaviness burdening his mind, an enticing white paper almost at arm's reach from him. He could count, if his hazy mind is correct, about 6 letters atop each other sprawled in the dark space messily. Nevertheless, he didn't fail to observe that there were no noticeable markings that he could see to emphasize the importance of such simple paper.
Further than that, he seemed to notice the weirdness of a much darker space within his mind. There were also letters in there but were few in numbers. Though, what tackled his attention more than that was the feeling of oppression that it exudes as he tried to prod it further. Sensibly, he didn't try to examine it with better judgment on his side. So he took his sight back on the letters closer to him, wondering what he should do now. Which, in turn, was answered by the unfolding of a letter in front of him.
***
All Letters claimed.
***