Talent Awakening: I Awakened With The Rewind System

Fifteen Revivals.

That was how long I had endured. How many times I had clawed my way out of death's cold grasp. Each time, the screams- grew louder, the agony felt sharper, the darkness deeper.

I had died in ways I had never thought possible. Horrors beyond comprehension had torn at my mind, and creatures I would have dismissed as mete myths hunted me down. Yet, each death felt like a cruel teacher, carving lessons into my fractured soul.

I could feel it.

I was slowly losing myself.

I was tired.

Worn out.

Stressed beyond my limit.

I wanted nothing more than to lie down.

Nothing more than to rest in a families embrace.

I want to be loved.

Cared for.

And to have any of this, I have to survive.

And so I made a vow:

No matter what it takes me, I will survive.

That promise birthed something inside me- a flicker of darkness on the horizon. Not the menacing kind, but one that talked of strength, of hope buried deep within shadows.

I learned to think faster.

To plot deeper.

To outmasrt the monstrosities lurking in this cursed land.

Each life I treated as my last, each death reminded me of the harsh reality that I couldn't falter. The longer I survived, the more I understood. But the price...oh, the price.

It was something I would have avoided at any cost.

My soul...my soul felt corroded, my mind broken into splinters and shards.

Still,

I pressed on.

***

When death felt inevitable- its icy grip crawling closer with each breath- I grew desperate. Exhaustion seeped into my bones, frustration clawing away my resolve.

I pushed harder, ignoring the madness threatening to swallow me whole.

And then, in my despair, a thought struck me like a hammer to glass.

Katcha!

I need a plan.

A map. A way out.

Armed with nothing but determination, I began carving. The cobblestones floor resisted my efforts, its unnatural hardness cutting into my skin as I dug with broken nails and shards of glasses.

Blood streaked down my fingers, the sharp pain grounding me.

It meant I was still alive.

Sooner than I had expected, the map began to take shape, a testament to my willpower.

I called it the three zones of salvation:

The Red Zones: The lands of overwhelming danger, where even stepping foot could mean madness or annihilation. I had ventured there once- just once- and met something beyond description.

It wasn't a creature. It wasn't a force. It was something else. Beautiful in its horror. Devastating in its presence. It destroyed me in seconds, though the agony stretched into lifetimes.

The Blue zones:

Safe zones or sanctuaries. Here, the horror of the cursed land is held back, repelled by strange oils and arti... I discovered. These places allowed one to rest, through it was fleeting and fragile.

It was still better than nothing.

And then, came the white zones- also known as the fluidity zone:

The worst of them all.

Unpredictable.

What offered safety one day could consume you the next. The rule of the land bent and twisted here, and surviving these zones requires more than cunning- it demanded sheer luck.

***

With time, I memorized the map, every dangerous inch carved into my mind. Yet the vastness of this cursed land felt insurmountable, its scope a nightmare of infinite suffering.

And then came the arti...

Weapons- beautiful, terrible and incomprehensible. I found them scattered across this damned place, etched with intricate designs, both ominous and enchanting.

But when I tried to wield them, I was met with a harsh truth:

I was too weak.

For the first time in what felt like eternity. I laughed- a bitter, hollow sound. A laugh that mocked my pathetic self.

No matter how many times I tried, the weapons rejected me.

And eventually, I had to know when to give up.

***

In one of my revivals, I stumbled upon a blazing fruit. Hunger had gotten the best of me and I bit into it.

A decision I was quick to regret.

Pain unlike anything I had ever known tore through me, consuming me from the inside out. I screamed, clawing at my own body as the fruit grew, its root burrowing through my organs, devouring me bit by bit.

Slow and steady.

It chewed through my intestines, shredded my liver, and gnawed on my heart. The agony was endless, and when it finally ended, the memory lingered- a scar etched into my very being.

I named it the self-infliction fruit.

Even now, the though of it sent shivers down my spine.

***

.

.

I had seen things I shouldn't see.

Creatures that defied all sense of reasoning, and forces that mocked logic.

And yet,

I survived.

The memory of the dire wolf stands out.

Desperation drove me to tear off my own arm- tears streaking down my face as I hurled the limb into the distance. I hid, breathless and trembling, behind a ruined house as the wolf pursued the scent of blood.

With what little strength I had left, I ran.

The world blurred around me as my legs screamed in protest, lungs burning with every gasp for air. My body weakened, but I couldn't stop.

Not then.

Not ever.

I stumbled into a room, collapsing on the blood-streaked floor.

The wolf didn't follow.

It wouldn't.

For I was in a safe zone.

On the walls, in my handwriting were the word Durakxis!

A word that meant emotion in Duraks language.

It was a warning.

A message from a version of myself I could no longer remember.

But I was confused.

Why had the past me left this message?

What was I trying to warn myself of?

The questions clawed at me, but the answers never came. Instead silence filled the void, cold and suffocating.

And then,

Despair gave way to anger.

Why couldn't the past me be clearer?

Why couldn't I leave myself the answers I so desperately needed?

B-ut anger.

Anger would get me nowhere.

I wiped my tears from my face, stood, and made a promise:

I will survive. Not because I hope for something better, but because survival is all I have left.

***

.

.

.

Throughout my revivals, I uncovered forbidden knowledge. Names that shouldn't be spoken, truths that shouldn't exist.

And one name lingered.

Delphis- The sunken siren.

Throughout the fifteen revivals.

I had seen and read myths and tales. The most fascinating being the myth on the world tree.

A tree rumoured to stretch beyond the heavens, its root entrenching itself deep into earth's soil. According to the myth, the world as we know it was sprung from this so called World Tree.

Of course, I had scoffed at this.

Somehow,

I didn't buy it.

Along with tales and myths, I had also found cryptic messages that spoke of a dark one.

-When the aurora aligns with the crimson moon, and the blood of the innocent stains the earth, the Dark One shall rise. Bringing with him an era of endless darkness... and perhaps hope.-

From this, I was able to deduce they were other people.

Somewhere beyond the depths of this cursed land.

They were others.

Others like me!

A strange feeling ignited within me, a wave of adrenaline coursing through me.

***

And then

The most fascinating of them all, also the most interesting was my ability to decipher codes.

Most of which were strangely easy to me.

It almost felt like i had been doing it for years.

I had made use of the simple substition method- replacing each letter in the plain text by a fixed number of positions.

Most of them were in the 2's Aeger cipher with a shift of 3. A becomes D, B becomes E and so on.

Unlocking it.

I had found notes.

And just as I'd expected, they were written by me- the past me.

And they were just as cryptic as always.

Often prompting me to curse the past me.

But upon thinking hard about it, for the past me to take such extreme measures to hide the informations even to the extent of being so cryptic.

Then, they must certainly have been a good reason for it.

And I hoped I would be able to figure it out.

One way or another. No matter how long it takes.

I will unravel them all.

Not one less.

Written in Amaera language.

I had read the message:

Ethereal Sea!!!

Ethereal Sea!!

It had repeated over and over again.

As though trying desperately, to pass across a few set of information.

I desperately tried to cling on to them, to somehow wrap my mind around them.

Yet it proved futile, my efforts useless and not worth mentioning.

I thought hard on it.

What exactly was I trying to jot down?

What was I trying to pass across?

I thought even harder, yet the more I thought on it.

The more it slipped through my hands.

Slipping down my fingertips like grains as it slowly floated into darkness.

An unreachable darkness.

Taking a deep breath,

I rose to my feet.

And with nothing but newfound resolve, I stepped into the endless darkness.