The dying sun bled a suffocating orange across the horizon, casting long shadows over the four bodies scattered amidst the clearing.
Three of them were corpses.
The fourth was just waiting to catch up.
I lay there, swallowing thick saliva to wet a throat gone dry, staring unblinkingly at the darkening canopy while the forest settled into an oppressive silence around me.
My head rested right beside Arlath’s.
If one ignored the Kukri protruding from his skull like a horn, a passerby might mistake us for the best of friends, napping after a long hunt.
[Nay, dude?]
All that replied to me were his dead, glassy eyes staring wide into mine, frozen in that final moment of terror.
The blood soaking my clothes had long since dried, pulling at the fine hairs on my arms with every shallow breath I took as a constant reminder of the bath I’d taken.
[Nom... must be home... now...]
The thought drifted through the static in my brain like a detached, alien concept from a life that felt decades away.
I recalled telling her to reach out through the bond when she got home. I told her to tell me about her first dungeon dive.
[What if she calls right now?]
The thought alone made my stomach churn.
What would I even say?
"Hey, Nom. Just finished ripping a man’s throat out with my teeth. How was your day?"
[Yeah, right...] I scoffed.
But then again, doubt Nom would care.
She’d probably eat them all herself.
Heh, she totally would.
Maybe... I’m just being dramatic.
[I... should move.]
The command fired from my brain, but the signal died before ever reaching my limbs.
I just wanted to lie here. Close my eyes, and wake up back in the morning.
Yeah, that’d be nice. If I could just turn back time.
[Let’s... just close our eyes for a moment. Uh-huh... sounds good.]
And so I let the darkness take me.
But the moment I did, the memories detonated behind my retinas in a chaotic, violent strobe.
The sensation of my ribs breaking under the crushing weight. The agony of my own arm being ripped apart. It all came crashing down in a phantom pain so vile that-
-HURK!
I shot upright as my stomach convulsed violently, spewing a thick stream of reddened saliva and bile onto the dirt between my legs as the sensory flashes of being butchered over and over again ravaged my mind.
Heaving and wheezing, I scoffed at my own weakness, wiping the string of spit from my chin.
But at least I was up.
I pushed my body to its feet, swaying like a drunkard, and stared down at the corpse beside me before taking a shaky step forward.
And as I looked down at him, at the man who had tortured me with a grin, a gnawing realization hit me.
I didn’t care.
I simply didn’t care that I killed him. And now that I have sat with it for a few hours, I didn’t care about how I killed him either.
I want to, I desperately want to... But it’s just not there.
My mind has declared it self-defense and thus justified.
That he was a monster and needed to be put down.
But I do care that I may have orphaned a child today. Or widowed a woman. Or have taken away an old mother’s only son.
I couldn’t help but think...
[If I could go back in time... would I have done the same thing?]
As I am now? No, I would not.
No, more like I could not have. I was simply too weak to have the privilege of mercy.
[But what if I had the strength? Then what?]
And I still would not have.
After all, how many children had he orphaned? How many women had he widowed?
[But does that justify me doing the same to his family?]
I may never know the answer.
But that’s fine. I don’t need to know... I just need to carry it with me. I just need to never forget. Not even in my brightest of days.
I just need to get strong enough to destroy all that threaten me and my family.
I just need to be cold enough to never feel this way again. To never hesitate.
I just need to-
-Ding!
{Don’t go there.}
The System cut through my ’awakening’ with a sharp chime.
"What?" I rasped, my voice cracking. "You want me to be all happy-go-lucky? Pretend that didn’t just happen? Get on with my little adventure as if nothing changed? Forget that I’m-"
-Ding!
{Not quite.
But what you’re convincing yourself to become... That isn’t some grand evolution. It isn’t you getting stronger or somehow better.
You’re just taking the easiest way out. The path of a selfish, spineless coward.}
"So, me doing whatever it takes is cowardly?" I spat.
"To make sure nothing like this ever happens again? To nip it in the bud? To embrace the nihilism that it takes to go against the world, and destroy everything that threatens those I care about without exception, no matter who or how powerful? To stop treating this like a fever dream come true... that makes me weak? A coward?"
-Ding!
{Yes.}
The answer was immediate.
{It makes you weak. It makes you cowardly. And makes you sheep. Because I can put just about anyone in your situation, and they’d come out an edgelord.
Host... Nico, to choose the path lesser men wouldn’t dare or simply couldn’t comprehend... That’s true nihilism.
Learn, Nico. Take it. Absorb it.
Don’t be absorbed by it.}
"Che..."
I scoffed, taking another step towards Arlath’s body before gripping the handle of the blade still stuck in his head and stepping on his chest.
"Easy for you to say."
-SHLICK.
I ripped the Kukri free with a jolt.
-Ding!
{It is. After all, at the end of the day, I’m just a voice in your head.
But do you have what it takes to do it?}
As I looked around the carnage in the clearing, then at my own blood-soaked hands, swallowing the thickened saliva in my mouth that was equal parts blood, both mine and his... I couldn’t help but hope I did.
Because I don’t know if I could live like this.