Chương 23: Do or Die

[Name], [Breath], [Blood], [Memory], [Joy] What was that? You've received a new objective: Recover your life. Living things don't come to Limbo. Search for signs of life where no life should bloom. The exit is just ahead, but only the living may leave. A door with a dark exit sign was just ahead. It was flanked by two hallways leading to other rooms. The room he currently found himself in lacked walls, save for the one holding the exit door. He took one step forward and heard the clack of a wooden sandal.

"Is that… mine?" His voice seemed to echo through eternity. He looked around frantically, trying to find something that made sense. It was so cold, and he didn't feel right at all. He wanted to leave as soon as possible, so he rushed to the door ahead and grabbed the handle. He just had to be alive, right? No breath detected. No pulse detected. No name detected. No memory detected. No joy detected. The pawn is not alive. Exit denied. What the fuck?

He didn't remember much about his current situation, but he was pretty sure he was alive. Dead things don't stand around thinking about the weird grey cube they're trapped in. But then he looked at his hands. They were as white as fresh snow. The cold wasn't coming from the room, but from his own body. It was only then he realized that he wasn't breathing. This was a moment for panic, right? For some reason he didn't feel anything bubbling up inside. That had to be another artifact of whatever stole his life away.

You have 12 hours to leave Limbo. After that, you may find yourself wanting to stay forever. Shit. Okay, he had to focus. The weird blue thing told him to search for signs of life. Anything alive in this drab hellscape had to stick out like a sore thumb. Nothing in the general vicinity looked different, so the only way to go was through the hallways. The one on the right seemed like a fine place to start. It led to another floating wall with a door.

The sides of the hall emptied into the same grey void, so he tried grabbing the edge of the floating wall and peeking behind it. Nothing. Just more emptiness. He tried the doorknob and it impossibly opened into a dusty living room. Cobwebs covered every sofa, chair and table around. There was another door to the side.

"What the fuck? What kind of spatial magic is this?" Oh yeah, magic. That was something that existed in whatever world he was from. That was inconvenient. He was hoping he was either dreaming or on a really bad drug trip. Magic made this void plausible in real life.

"Nothing to do about it. Just have to keep moving forward before time runs out." He hoped nothing in here had his blood. He didn't want to know how blood and cobwebs mixed together. If he had to guess, the specific "sign of life" he was looking for would be some sort of breeze pushing the webs and dust around that was meant to represent his breath. Nothing in his current line of sight was moving, so he got on his knees and searched under every piece of furniture. Still no dice.

He was starting to feel the lack of blood. When he stood up, he tilted to the side and crashed into the wall. He put his hand on the wall to support himself. Little cracks ran under the bricks. That was it! There had to be a hole somewhere in the wall. Something so tiny it barely registered as a breeze to human skin. He dragged his hand over every crack he could reach. He finally found it just below the empty tv-stand pressed against the far wall.

A little cylinder of wind was pushing its way through a hole in the cement binding the bricks together. He awkwardly put his mouth an inch away from it and sucked in the air. The wisp became a gasp as he felt oxygen returning to his lungs. Not that it was super useful without his blood to carry it around, but he'd take small victories where he could get them. You've found your [Breath]. You have 10 hours to spare. That was probably the most useless thing to find first.

Now he had to remember to breathe every few seconds, but the world didn't spin any less after each gasp. He'd ought to find his blood next lest he lose the strength to keep going. He went through the door to the side and entered a graveyard bathed in fog. How subtle. Of course, not a speck of green plant life lined the ground. No signs of life yet. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Each headstone was marked with a name, but he couldn't see well enough to make them out. He'd have to kneel down again to get a closer look, and he'd really prefer having his blood before doing that. As he moved towards the center, he felt his feet sink into the earth. He was now walking through mud, which meant this barren land had a water source. What better sign of life could a place have? He picked up the pace and waddled deeper into the muck until the mud's resistance gave way to a splash of water.

He was standing in a pond with no life to be seen so far. How was he supposed to find anything without a proper life source? The water was pitch black. It was probably teeming with microbials, but he had no idea what that had to do with him until he felt a pinch at his ankle.

"Ow!" He reached down and tried to feel for whatever just bit him. There was a slimy critter still attached to him. A fucking leech. On one hand, he wanted to be happy since this had to be how he got his blood back, but what was he supposed to do, gut and drink from a thousand leeches? He'd rather just die. More started clinging to his feet and lower legs. Strangely, he started feeling a little better. It wasn't like the leeches could take blood from what was essentially a corpse.

They were actually giving the blood back! He still didn't like this solution, but it was better than eating blood worms. He let the weird habit he was wearing fall off, spread out his arms, and walked into the pond until only his head was above water. The leeches swarmed him, and he tried to think about anything else as they returned the blood that was rightfully his. The thought that came to mind was a golden braid. It made him smile. You have recovered your [Blood].

You still have 10 hours to spare, and now your heartbeat can accompany you the rest of the way. Maybe the door will even consider you alive at this point, if you're willing to leave behind the rest of your pieces. There was plenty of time, so no reason to panic and quit the challenge early. Not having his name or memory would be inconvenient. Was it weird that he didn't feel even a little panicked about the situation? Now that he didn't feel like passing out, it was even… fun?

He was eating his words as soon as he left the pond. It was cold before, but it wasn't really bothering his lifeless body. Now it was fucking freezing, and he had to crawl across the mud to read the stupid headstones. None of the names were ringing a bell until he found a headstone with a purple rose placed before it. HERE LIES SIDOR SOKOLOV. BELOVED SON AND BROTHER. IF YOU'RE READING THIS, IT MEANS YOU'VE RECOVERED YOUR [NAME]. Right, Sidor – Sid.

That was his name, but he felt like the beloved son and brother part was insincere. Still no memories. Still no context. The hallway's route ended there. The graveyard's pond looked like it went on forever, and Sid wasn't going to tempt fate and try wading through the entire thing. He turned back until he reached the beginning where the exit door was. He looked at it for a second before moving on to the left lane. Escaping would be a piece of cake at this rate.

He already found the majority of his pieces, he just needed his memory and he could stroll right out. Wait, was he forgetting one thing? Ah, he'd probably remember it once he recovered his memory. Whatever magical beast created this void was a hack. The left hallway didn't lead to any door, but it had actual side-walls with pictures hanging every few feet. Each one showed an event. Some were violent portrayals of war and other atrocities, others showed the mundane lives of random people.

At least he thought they were random, he couldn't discount that everything here was something he experienced. His clogs scraped against the floor until one of the paintings made his heart stop. A golden braid. The woman's face wasn't visible, but the sight of her hair made him want to rethink everything he had ever done despite not remembering a single minute of it. But he knew then that he had done some terrible things. He was a liar that started out doing what he had to in order to survive. Until he wasn't.

He couldn't even tell the truth to Allani and her glorious golden braid. You've recovered your [Memory]. Congratulations, my dear boy! I was getting tired of talking like a robot, but I couldn't have you remembering things without doing the work yourself.

"Actually, can you take my memory for the rest of the challenge? I'd rather not recognize your voice." Haha. Just remember that you have 7 hours left to find the last missing piece. Sid tried continuing down the hall of paintings, but it just went on forever. There was no joy in that. Everything else was so linear. Three things to one side and one in the hall. He backtracked to the rooms on the right, but absolutely nothing sparked joy. It felt like something was missing from the challenge itself.

How could Sid find joy in a dusty room, a graveyard, or an endless hallway? He wasted three hours walking in circles. It only made him more miserable. He looked at the exit and longed for the game outside of this little pocket-dimension. That was where Allani was. More importantly, that was where his purpose was. The place where he felt special in a good way, not the failure way that his old school imparted on him. Great job, Sidor. You've found your [Joy]. It's right outside that door.

It didn't exist before you came here. Good luck on the other side. You've completed the First Ring of Hell. Your reward awaits you in the vehicle that dropped you off. For your efforts, you get +400 XP, 2 [Learning], and +1 [Resolve]. The exit door swung open by itself to reveal a bright light. Sid wanted it to be some sort of trick. His joy was still stuck somewhere in the void. He knew that wasn't the case. Ring was his joy, and it was about time he returned to it.