Kamcy

  I woke up with a huge smile pstered across my face.

  It felt wrong, honestly. Considering where I was. Considering what had been happening to me. Considering the fact that I'd died more times than I could reasonably count in a pce that seemed hellbent on grinding me down into something less human with every resurrection.

  And yet—I smiled.

  Because for the first time since this nightmare began, I felt it.

  Control.

  Not mastery. Not even competence. But the beginning of understanding.

  I was starting to get a handle on the application of this esoteric energy. I still couldn't consciously use it the way I wanted to—not the way characters in stories casually threw fireballs or reinforced their bodies like it was second nature—but I had an idea now. A direction. A starting line.

  I didn't bother getting up.

  There was no point.

  I could feel the creature at the cave entrance.

  Not just hear it. Not just smell it. I felt it—like a needle pressed against the back of my skull, like a piercing gaze digging into my spine so intensely it almost hurt. It wasn't physical, not exactly, but it made my skin crawl all the same.

  A perk of the energy? I wondered. Enhanced senses? Threat detection? Or is it just paranoia finally eating what's left of my sanity?

  Whatever. I didn't have time to dwell on it.

  Lying there, ft on my back, I turned inward.

  I dove into myself—not physically, but mentally—trying to sense the energy again. I didn't force it. I didn't panic. I just… reached. And this time, it answered.

  Warmth bloomed inside me.

  Not explosive. Not violent. Just there.

  For the first time, I felt the energy without the creature's help.

  A slow grin spread across my face.

  Suck it, you pervert, I thought.

  Then—

  Pain.

  No. Worse than pain.

  Dread.

  A suffocating, full-body warning smmed into me like ice water poured straight into my veins. Every instinct I had screamed at once—an overwhelming sensation of impending doom, of something massive and unstoppable bearing down on me.

  Run.

  That wasn't a thought. It was a command.

  I didn't even get time to ask what the hell was happening before the world exploded.

  A massive human leg—fused grotesquely to the spider-like lower half of the creature—smashed down where I y. Stone shattered. The ground cracked. My vision went white, then bck.

  I woke up again.

  This time, I didn't smile.

  But I wasn't confused either.

  I had a pretty good idea what just happened.

  Without making a sound, I tapped into the energy again.

  Instantly, that same sensation flooded my body. The warning. The pressure. The dread. But this time, I didn't hesitate.

  I poured everything I had into my legs and arms.

  Muscles screamed.

  Veins burned.

  I moved.

  I twisted sideways, throwing myself out of the way as the creature smmed down again, its weight obliterating the spot I'd been lying in less than a second ago.

  Stone sprayed everywhere.

  I tried to move again—

  And my worldview spun violently.

  I saw my body.

  My own body.

  Lying there, limbs twisted at impossible angles, blood pouring from ruptured veins and torn arteries. Muscles shredded from the inside out.

  "So that's how it is," I thought calmly as darkness crept in. "The creature can sense this energy even more vividly than sound."

  That realization was the st thing I registered before my mind went dark.

  I woke up once more.

  This time, I ughed softly.

  "With my amateurish use of the energy, I must've employed too much and torn my muscles," I muttered to myself. "That's why I can't dodge properly, huh?"

  I exhaled slowly.

  "Well," I continued, staring at the cave ceiling, "let's see how many times I die before I get good enough."

  And thus began a new dance.

  I would wake up.

  Activate the energy.

  Feel the warning.

  Dodge.

  Die.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Each iteration sted less than five seconds at best.

  Sometimes I dodged too te.

  Sometimes I overcommitted.

  Sometimes I tore myself apart from the inside.

  Sometimes the creature adjusted just enough to clip me anyway.

  But each time, I learned.

  Each time, I felt the flow a little clearer. Controlled it a little better. Used just a bit less than before.

  When I woke up again, a devious smile stretched across my face.

  "What number is this?" I wondered. "Eight? Nine?"

  I paused.

  "Oh. Fifteen, if I count the deaths before finding this energy."

  I rolled my shoulders, feeling… not fresh, but functional.

  I pushed a small amount of energy into my eyes and limbs.

  The dread came again—but it wasn't paralyzing anymore.

  I pushed myself sideways while still lying down, sliding across the cave floor and transitioning smoothly into a kneeling position as the monster smmed into where I'd been moments earlier.

  "Gotcha!" I said out loud, feeling bold for the first time.

  The creature turned, shrieking, and sshed at me with its gleaming cws.

  I stepped back.

  That was it.

  Just… stepped back.

  And the cws missed.

  I blinked.

  It wasn't slow.

  But it wasn't unreadable anymore.

  Before, I couldn't even track its movements before I was dead. Now? Now it was just fast. Predictable, even.

  I anticipated its next attack and dodged again, stretching out my hand toward one of my statue-like corpses.

  I grabbed an arm.

  Bone cracked as I broke it free in one fluid motion.

  I jabbed it straight into the monster's lower half, right into its stomach.

  A grin split my face.

  "How's that feeling, you prick?"

  The creature shrieked—half in pain, half in rage—and smmed me into the wall. I felt the impact—but I'd already enveloped my body in energy. The pain dulled to a manageable sting.

  It brought its palm down, trying to squash me against the wall, to sptter me like paste.

  I raised my arm to guard.

  Instead of crushing me, it only pushed me a few inches into the stone.

  Dust filled my mouth. I spat and muttered, still thinking.

  "So the stun still works despite the energy," I noted. "Makes sense."

  I pushed back.

  The creature struggled.

  It opened organs in its lower half and sprayed viscous liquid toward me, trying to web me to the wall.

  I ducked.

  The slime spttered uselessly against stone.

  "Come on," I groaned. "Don't do that. You're ruining every mental image I had of that thing."

  Angry. Disgusted. Joking—because that was how I really had to cope.

  I poured energy into my fist and punched.

  The blow sent the creature flying several meters back.

  I shook my hand, hissing. It still stung—but the damage was undeniable. Red blood poured from its wounds.

  It shrieked again, stunning me briefly, and ripped the arm from its abdomen.

  The moment I was free, I ran.

  I grabbed a bone spike.

  Broke another arm from my statue body.

  Watched as the creature healed in real time—and observed how it moved energy through its body, trying to replicate it to soothe my own soreness.

  "Now that isn't fair, is it?" I shouted.

  I dodged under it and stabbed the spike into its private organ.

  This time, it didn't shriek.

  It howled.

  "How's that feeling, huh?" I taunted. "Not so good having something jammed where it doesn't belong?"

  I ducked another attack, grabbed loose skin, flipped onto its back, tearing flesh as I went.

  Blood sprayed.

  I climbed and stabbed the parasite fused to its spine.

  The scream shook the cave.

  I feared it might colpse.

  The creature finally dropped.

  I stumbled off it, breathing hard.

  "That'll teach you," I muttered, "not to catfish a man and viote him."

  I took a few steps toward the cave entrance before my legs gave out.

  I colpsed, sitting.

  My entire body was wrecked.

  "Well," I sighed, watching the rain flood outside, "I can learn to use this better after I find a good resting pce."

  I checked the HUD.

  "Jesus. Twelve days of continuous rain," I joked weakly. "Is the god of this virtual world trying to flood it?"

  I rested my head in my palms. I was exhausted—both mentally and physically. Mostly mentally, though. Sitting down there, I felt it all come back to me: the exhaustion from trying to escape, from being tossed from one level of hell to another, from dying in ways more brutal than the st, and worst of all, from being turned into a goddamn incuba—

  Then I felt something stir behind me.

  I turned.

  The creature was standing again.

  Healing.

  Pulling spikes from its body.

  "…Now you've gotta be kidding me," I groaned. How could it do that? Is this some kind of ULT?

  But deep down—

  I smiled.

  Now I had a way to properly vent my grievances.