It started out as a mild headache.
The worse it got, the harder it was for Alex to concentrate.
His focus dwindled and he grew more erratic.
And the pain seemed to originate from that word.
But what exactly did it mean and why does it seem to be so important?
Alex struggled to keep a coherent thought long enough to solve this puzzle.
At some point, he completely abandoned anything related to Leokhares’ case in a bid to resolve his own dilemma.
With a hand to his temple, he struggled out of his chair and tried to walk away from the desk only to drop to his knees as the pain became unbearable.
Instinctively, he looked down at his right hand and then he saw it.
The flesh rapidly decayed, accompanied by the muscle and the blood, leaving behind a dessicated hand before returning to normal.
Then, it happened again... and again.
Until finally... a scream of agony escaped Alex’s lips.
By the time Arwen rushed over, alarmed by the scream, she found Alex on the ground, lying on his side and trembling while completely covered in perspiration.
He seemed to be finding it hard to breathe as she hurried to his side and helped him lie flat on the ground with his back.
"Alex, what’s going on?" She inquired in a panic as she struggled to make sense of his current condition.
Taking a deep breath, Alex muttered in a hoarse tone. "It all makes sense."
"It’s a loop." He breathed out as he grabbed her arm, a crazed look adorning his features. "We are stuck in a fucking loop."
Thirty minutes later, Alex was seated in the living room with a warm towel on his head, a blanket over his shoulders, and a cup of herbal tea in his hands.
Arwen was seated across from him, silent, observant, searching for any sign that something was wrong.
After several minutes of intentional silence, she finally spoke up, unable to hold back her curiosity. "What do you mean we are in a loop?"
"You don’t remember anything?" Alex inquired to which Arwen shook her head.
"Nothing at all?" He asked with Arwen responding.
"What’s there to remember?"
"The previous loops," Alex remarked.
"Are you sure you are alright?"
"Yes, Arwen, I’m certain."
"Hmm." Arwen pursed her lips. "Okay, so let’s say I believe you and we are in a loop, how come you are aware of it and I’m not?"
"Ana." Alex calmly replied as he took a sip from his cup. "She reached out to me, I think, in a dream."
"And what did she say?" Arwen asked.
"That we are in a loop and to get out of the loop, we need to destroy the source."
"I think she wanted to say more but someone... or rather, something stopped her from finishing. The last thing she said was, it’s impossible."
"I have no idea." Alex breathed out in slight annoyance. "Whatever the case may be, we need to..."
A sharp pain coursing through his body caused him to grit his teeth, barely stopping himself from screaming out in agony once again.
"What’s wrong?" Arwen inquired only for an agonized scream to reach her ears the next moment.
Confused, both exchanged perplexed looks only for realization to dawn on them the next moment.
No words were said as they got to their feet and hurried to the basement, with Arwen in the lead and Alex struggling to keep up.
They found Douglas screaming out his lungs in the basement.
He’d broken the bindings placed on him, resulting in horrendous wounds on his body but those didn’t seem to be the cause of his screams as he used both hands to grab his head, his nails digging in almost as though he intended on splitting his head apart.
"Douglas!" Arwen exclaimed in a panic as she immediately summoned a Headless Horseman to restrain the hybrid.
Unfortunately, just as the Horseman drew close, Douglas ran into him at a pace so quick, all they saw was a blur.
The Horseman shattered to dust and Arwen was sent flying by the shockwave into a wall in the darker parts of the basement.
Alex, pushing through the pain wracking his senses, snapped his fingers while exerting his unfocused Will on the aether.
Several chains forged of black and white light emerged from the ground around Douglas, ensnaring him in an instant.
But the hybrid, driven more insane by whatever it was that was causing him pain, did not appear too pleased with the chains holding it down as he began to pull against them.
Under normal circumstances, these chains, capable of ensnaring both physical and spiritual entities, should have held, but due to Alex’s unfocused state, their true strength was lost, making it easy for Douglas to escape their ensnarement.
One after the other, the chains broke with Alex forced to snap again in a bid to summon more chains.
Alas, yet another sharp pain coursing through him caused these newly forged chains to dissipate before they got a chance to do anything.
Alex took a step back as he pressed his right hand against his temple.
The moment the last chain holding Douglas broke, his heart lurched and he began to panic.
Douglas sped forward like a phantom with Alex barely able to leap to the side before the former swept by, taking his right arm while at it.
The basement was immediately covered in Alex’s blood as he fell to the ground, unable to scream, not because he couldn’t but because he had no strength to do so.
Just as Douglas moved to attack again, several skeletal arms burst out from the ground underneath and grabbed his legs before proceeding to pull him down.
The more he struggled, the more skeletal hands that burst out until the area underneath him was filled with skeletons covered in pale flames.
Out of the shadows, Arwen stepped out with one hand out.
"I’m sorry, Douglas, but you are going to have to go away for a while."
After saying that, she closed the hand she had stretched out, causing the skeletons grabbing Douglas to forcefully drag him down with them after which the ground sealed up.