"Hello?"
"Help us… please…"
Cautiously, Raka approached. He pulled away the heavy canvas. Huddled beneath were two figures: an older man, likely a merchant judging by his torn, once-fine clothes, clutching a bleeding wound on his leg, his face pale with shock and pain. Beside him, a boy, no older than twelve, eyes wide with terror, trembling uncontrollably.
"It came… from the trees," the merchant gasped, wincing as Raka knelt beside him. "So fast… gods, the screams…"
Before Raka could ask what 'it' was, he heard it.
Click-clack-skitter.
Like oversized claws tapping rhythmically on stone, but faster, more menacing. The sound echoed strangely, seeming to come from the trees bordering the road.
Raka's head snapped up. The boy whimpered, burying his face in the merchant's side. The merchant's eyes widened further in abject terror. "It's back…"
Raka slowly rose, sword held ready, turning towards the sound. And then he saw it emerge from the dense treeline, pushing aside low-hanging branches with contemptuous ease.
A Siltfang.
Arlen's memories offered nothing, no name, no context, but Raka's own instincts screamed monster. It was massive, easily eight feet tall at its hunched shoulders, its body a grotesque fusion of insect and nightmare.
A glistening, segmented carapace, black as obsidian, covered its back and limbs. Its multiple legs ended in wickedly sharp points, digging into the earth. Its two primary forelimbs were elongated, serrated horrors, like jagged butcher knives forged from chitin. Its head was low-slung, dominated by multifaceted eyes that glittered with cold, predatory intelligence. Its mouth, horrifyingly, opened vertically, splitting its face to reveal rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth dripping thick, viscous saliva.
The creature paused, its head swiveling, taking in the scene. Its multifaceted eyes fixed on the movement beneath the cart, then snapped to Raka. It let out a high-pitched shriek, a sound that scraped raw nerves, and charged.
It moved with impossible speed for its bulk, churning mud as it closed the distance in heartbeats.
"Run!" Raka yelled, shoving the thought of the merchant and boy aside for the primal urge of survival.
He bolted, not back down the road, but sideways, into the relative cover of the forest. Branches whipped at his face, thorns tore at Arlen's cloak. Mud sucked at his boots, threatening to pull him down. His lungs burned. Behind him, he heard the Siltfang's heavy tread, the splintering crash as it likely demolished the remains of the cart, followed by a choked scream that was cut off abruptly. Gods, the boy… He couldn't think about it.
The clicking pursuit was relentless, terrifyingly close. Faster than anything that size had a right to be. He risked a glance back – the creature was gaining, its horrible mouth gaping. Panic surged.
He saw a slight dip in the terrain, a narrow game trail leading down towards the sound of running water. He veered onto it, stumbling, sliding more than running down a short, steep slope overgrown with roots.
He tripped. A root snagged his ankle, sending him sprawling. He rolled, momentum carrying him down the last few feet, and crashed hard into the icy water of a shallow, fast-flowing river. The shock stole his breath.
Scrambling, gasping, he tried to get his feet under him in the knee-deep water. But it was too late. A huge shadow fell over him. The Siltfang stood on the bank above, then leaped.
Instinct, pure and desperate, took over. With a ragged cry, Raka twisted in the water, raising the dead guard's sword—a flimsy toothpick against such a beast—and thrust upward with all the strength in Arlen's failing body.
There was a grating scrape as the sword tip skittered off the creature's impossibly tough underbelly carapace. It didn't penetrate. Not even close.
And then the Siltfang landed.
Not on him, but through him. One of its massive, pointed legs, driven by the force of its leap, punched straight through his gut.
Pain. White-hot. Blinding. It obliterated thought, sound, everything. He felt a horrific internal rending. Air punched from his lungs in a wet gasp. He tasted blood, thick and metallic, flooding his mouth. His vision swam, the world dissolving into fractured colours and grey light.
The creature shrieked again, a sound of surprise or perhaps frustration, pulling its leg back slightly, sensing something fundamentally wrong with its prey. Raka felt a hideous sucking sensation as the limb withdrew partway.
He started to laugh.
A strange, choking, wet sound bubbling up with the blood.
"Dying… again, huh?" he gasped, the words barely audible over the rush of the river and the ringing in his ears.
"Third time's the charm… or not…" He stared up past the monstrous shape of the Siltfang at the indifferent canopy of leaves far above. He didn't even try to move, didn't try to fight the impossible. What was the point?
The world turned grey, then faded entirely.
And as his soul, this tenacious, cursed spark of awareness, slipped free from the ruined body of Arlen Veyr…
…it felt the familiar, sickening lurch. The pull into the infinite, silent void.
Darkness. Absolute and consuming. A brief suspension, timeless, thoughtless.
Then light. Harsh. Unforgiving.
Then—pain. Again. Always again.
Raka sucked in a ragged breath, his lungs burning as if they hadn't tasted air in minutes, or perhaps years. Cold, rough stone pressed against his back and limbs. The clink of metal. Heavy shackles chafed his wrists, biting into raw skin. His head throbbed with a deep, percussive rhythm, each beat sending waves of nausea through him.
This wasn't a forest. This wasn't the aftermath of a monster attack.
It was a cell. Small. Damp. Reeking of stale sweat, fear, and mildew.
He was chained to the wall, the heavy iron cuffs linked by a short, thick chain.
And this body—this new temporary vessel—felt ravaged. Broken before he'd even arrived. He could feel it instantly. The lungs wheezed with every shallow breath. Bones deep within him seemed to ache with a profound weariness, some perhaps cracked or broken. A steady, sluggish trickle of warmth oozed from a wound on his side – blood. Someone had beaten this body. Recently. Thoroughly.
Where...? Who...? The questions barely formed before heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor outside thick iron bars set into a stone archway. The clang of boots on stone grew louder.
A figure appeared, silhouetted against the dim torchlight from the corridor. A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, clad in utilitarian black leather armor, scuffed and worn. His face, as he stepped closer, was cruel, marked by a jagged scar across one cheek, his eyes small and hard. He stopped before the bars, peering in.
"Still alive, traitor?" the man sneered, his voice rough like grinding stones. He delivered a sharp kick to the iron bars, making them rattle violently, sending fresh waves of agony through Raka's borrowed body. "Impressive. Most rats like you are whimpering for their mothers by now."
Raka didn't respond. Couldn't. His throat felt like sandpaper; his tongue thick and unresponsive.
The guard chuckled darkly. "Doesn't matter. Execution's scheduled for dawn tomorrow. Gives you a few more hours to contemplate your miserable life. Pray you don't soil yourself before the headsman swings his axe."
He spat contemptuously onto the stone floor just outside the bars, the globule glistening wetly in the torchlight. He lingered a moment, seeming to relish the sight of the broken form chained within, then turned and walked away, his laughter echoing back down the corridor until it faded.
Traitor? Execution? Tomorrow?
Raka sagged against the chains, the cold metal biting into his skin. He looked down at the hands shackled before him – calloused, scarred, but possessing a strength that was currently negated by injury and chains. He didn't know who this man had been.
A rebel fighting a losing cause? A common thief whose luck ran out? A political prisoner caught on the wrong side of a power struggle?
It didn't matter. The 'why' was irrelevant. What mattered was the reality: this body was already doomed. Caught, condemned, and awaiting imminent death. And Raka, trapped within it, could do absolutely nothing to stop it. Not this time.
There was no forest to run into, no lucky sword thrust (not that it helped last time). He had no Ki, no mana – remnants of whatever his original self might have possessed felt impossibly distant, like legends from another life.
This body lacked even the basic strength to properly test the chains, let alone break them or overpower a guard.
His soul had landed in a dead-end. Literally.
"Damn it…" The whisper was dry, rasping, barely audible even to himself.
He started to laugh again. Not the choking sound from the riverbank, but a low, bitter chuckle that shook the abused frame.
It was absurd. The universe had a sick sense of humor. Resolve not to waste a chance, immediately get eaten. Try not to die in silence, immediately land in a body unable to even shout before its scheduled termination.
Mira's words echoed faintly: Don't die in silence. He tried to inhale deeper, to gather strength for a yell, a curse, anything. But the effort sent sharp spikes of pain through his ribs and side, ending in a weak, wheezing cough. Silence it would have to be.
He wouldn't be here long. He closed his eyes, not in resignation, perhaps, but in weariness. A weariness that went soul-deep. The cold stone leeched warmth. The distant sounds of the prison – dripping water, shuffling feet, a muffled shout – faded into a monotonous drone. He drifted, not sleeping, but existing in a grey limbo of pain and futility.
He wasn't sure how much time passed. Hours, maybe. Enough for the throbbing in his head to settle into a dull, constant ache, enough for the bleeding in his side to slow to a sticky seepage.
Then came the sounds. Heavy boots approaching again. The jangle of keys. The grating screech of the cell door being unlocked and swung open. Rough hands grabbed him, hauling him upright.
Pain flared anew, making him cry out weakly. They didn't care. They half-dragged, half-carried his barely responsive body out of the cell, down the dim corridor, and into a larger chamber where more guards waited.
Stronger chains were fastened, binding his arms tightly behind him. They pushed him forward, out into a cold, grey pre-dawn light that stung his eyes. A courtyard.
Soldiers lined the perimeter, their faces impassive. A small crowd of onlookers – other prisoners perhaps, or staff – watched with morbid curiosity. Jeers and insults floated on the damp air, but Raka barely registered them.
They forced him to his knees before a crude wooden block, stained dark with history. He could feel the rough grain of the wood against his cheek. He saw the headsman approach – a large, hooded figure, testing the edge of a massive, gleaming axe.
There was no trial, no last words offered or asked for. Just the cold inevitability. He thought, fleetingly, of Mira, of the Siltfang, of Arlen's weary face. He thought of the sheer, impossible absurdity of it all.
Third death in... how many days?
The axe swung high.
For a fraction of a second, light glinted on the polished steel. And when the blade came down, swift and brutally efficient, he barely even felt it. Just a sudden pressure, a disconnect, and the familiar, terrifying rush of being pulled away once more.
Into the dark. Again.