Cold

Trevor ground his teeth.

The young man didn't expect this to happen, he was so tired from fighting those guaras that he ended up letting his guard down without realizing it. At that moment, Trevor was faced with risks, and when an opportunity to forget about it arose, his devious brain didn't hesitate to seize it.

'My biggest enemy is myself. I can never allow myself to relax like this again!'

The promise he made didn't stop him from continuing to run out of the cave. In the only remaining hand he had, the silver-colored lighter he hadn't used so far gleamed as the sunlight reflected off its metallic casing.

'That's it, time to bet my life for the second time in a damn few hours!'

Trevor got angry, every time he nearly died or lost parts of his body, he ended up exposing old weaknesses and creating new ones.

'I won't allow myself to die until I find him!' The lad no longer wasted his precious brain thinking of trifles: he needed to survive first. His eyes glittered wildly, and what followed that look was Trevor removing his clothes.

His naked body appeared in full, being watched by the eyes of the small invertebrate creatures that spread across the same skin that covered his naked body. Trevor showed no limit to his actions, he lit the lighter and set fire to the shirt he wore until recently.

'Little ones, be careful when eating hot food. If not, you guys could end up getting burned to death!' Trevor chuckled, rubbing that flaming shirt down his body. Tongues of fire licked everything in their path: devouring the bugs, the air and the lad's skin.

"Aarrhg!" The pain was insane. It was similar to feeling a thousand needles penetrating different parts of your body at the same time, with the difference that the pain of being burned still lingered even after the fire was out.

The smell of burnt flesh rose into the air, being scattered by the morning wind.

Flaming fragments fell to the ground, threatening to set fire to all the local vegetation.

Trevor used his flaming shirt like a whip, swinging it toward his own back as if he wanted to pay for his sins. If someone who didn't understand Trevor's situation better observed the scene, that someone might even kneel down to pray at the event.

Such pity!

Such dedication!

What a holy man!

Trevor then stopped whipping himself with that improvised masochistic object. At that instant, the insects that were all over his body had either been sent to hell by that fire, or had been quick enough to escape this purge.

In fact, there was another possibility to where they could evade.

'Now comes the worst part. I hope I manage to burn my left arm without killing myself in the process.' The fabric of his shirt was running out, he needed to be quick.

The flames consuming the fibers of the shirt were like an odd hourglass, which used the ashes that fell on the red ground to measure the passage of time instead of conventional sand.

Laughter and sweat flowed from Trevor's face through the air that smelled of burning coal. Through the silver lining of the lighter on the floor, you could see the black-haired lad burning what was left of his left arm.

The bandages he used to cover the wound that crippled him also burned. That distinctive white fabric darkened, melting and merging with the flesh of the insects and the idiot human who started this whole reckless plan.

Trevor couldn't control the expansion of the flames.

From that left part of his body, the fire began to spread.

The first victim was his shoulder, followed by his armpits and ribs.

'Fortunately, I've anticipated this before.' Trevor tossed that burning shirt away, not caring about the consequences of his actions. Now that his hand was free to use, he used his fingers to dig into the blood-colored earth.

Desperate haste caused some of the earth to stick under his nails, but the young man could barely feel discomfort with this minor detail. Trevor's hands then opened and dumped the earth, much of which fell to the ground without stopping the fire.

Trevor's frown softened at the sight of that.

'Great, it's working as expected!'

More dirt was collected.

More dirt got into his nails.

More dirt poured from above and fell into the fire, successfully extinguishing the latter.

Trevor wanted to collapse to the ground and relax, but he didn't. After almost dying from things like this, the green-eyed lad wasn't about to see it happen again so soon in his life.

'I'm still burning inside.' Trevor sighed, the pain of the thousand needles hadn't gone away just because dirt was dumped on it. He then looked to where he had thrown his shirt, noting that the fire had spread through the surrounding vegetation.

'It would be nice if this fire could actually do something useful. If it was in another part of the world, maybe, but here?' Smiling crookedly, Trevor stopped thinking about it and headed for the lighter on the floor. After retrieving the item, his gaze hovered over its reflective surface.

'The silver lining in all this is that my wounds are no longer open.'

In that reflection, Trevor's face was the only thing that could be considered clean. He found himself being stared at by his own cold eyes as he considered what to do. The fire in the distance continued to rage, but Trevor's figure was nowhere to be seen.

He returned to the entrance to the burrow, carrying leaves and dry branches.

The light-eyed lad showed no signs of madness for being alone in this forest for so long, like talking to himself constantly, and just threw all that stuff he brought with him into this lair in front of him.

As soon as he finished putting everything in there, Trevor used his lighter to start another fire. The flames rose, and the black smoke reached his face carrying with it the characteristic smell of burning coal.

Without delay, Trevor left when he was sure the fire was all over the interior of the lair. He then walked out of the den, watching the distant horizon before returning his gaze to the area that had been on fire so far.

'Having part of my memories back is really helpful. I seem to be able to retrieve them once my brain recognizes some arrangements or configurations that refer to them.' The scenario in front of him unfolded as he had predicted.

Although there was fire jumping from tree to tree like a monkey hungry for fruit, those plants were already used to this jumping monkey. The region Trevor was in was the Central Plateau, but the vegetation that covered it extended far beyond its domain.

Interestingly, this same vegetation had a unique feature: fire resistance! Over several years of evolution and adaptation, those plants learned to deal with fire and use it to grow. Even some seeds did not hatch until they were bathed in flames, regardless of whether they had access to water and nutrients or not.

'Too bad, I can't remember what I forgot to know where to begin my search.' The poisoned spear was all the while in Trevor's hand, providing support as he stared into the den. The smoke kept coming out of there, it was like the chimney of a Maria-Smoke¹.

The sun's rays penetrated the atmosphere and hit the water drops in the sky, making the last ones glow white: creating great white structures in the atmosphere. Those clouds roamed the skies, denoting the flow of time.

Trevor stood there for all the necessary wait for the black smoke that was emanating from the den to fade and finally disappear completely. After that, he entered that familiar place only to see the massacre he had unleashed.

Charred bodies were everywhere, insects had been roasted beyond oblivion. Trevor didn't say anything, he just concentrated on inflating and contracting the organ that oxygenated his blood.

Trevor's lungs sucked air from the room, causing an air current carrying a foul smell to enter his nostrils. However, even with the unpleasant smell, the young man continued his inspiration. His mouth opened and he exhaled the air he had just inhaled.

Then his brow furrowed. 'I think the air here is breathable, but to avoid taking risks I'd better sleep near the entrance, even if the price for it is that I'm less likely to react if any creature appears.'

Trevor then did what he had planned to do moments ago: sleep.

As soon as his night-colored hair touched the rough earth, they stopped moving.

.

.

.

'Again this…'

Trevor was floating in the middle of nowhere.

That black nebula on the white background was extremely beautiful.

But to Trevor's eyes, this beautiful sight was as sexy as the barrel of a gun pointed at his head.

'Okay, what the hell is this? At this point, it doesn't seem like it was caused by Liman.'

Trevor was in his spectral form. The white sea that spread on all sides created a profound contrast to his dark figure. The only colors besides white and black were in the small fragments that littered the strange nebula.

'Otherwise, why would he have left those things to me? Also, it sounds far too absurd to consider that the fluid that was injected into my body has remained in my system for so long without being altered or worn out.' Trevor wasn't dumb.

He continued to float in the colorless void, his ghostly eyes investigating this unique space with curiosity and calm.

Even standing still, barely moving, Trevor's illusory body was like fire made of black shadows: it flickered constantly and faded every time it got far enough away from him. Another interesting thing was the intersection between his body and the white sea, which was gray and separated from each other as if they were made of water and oil.

'This thing has grown, but the number of colored fragments has decreased.' Trevor was looking directly at that fabulous dark amalgam that had expanded like a spider's web. Compared to your last visit to this place, the nebula has increased in volume by several measures.

As for the colored fragments that originated from the small planet's explosion, Trevor saw their number dropping to about half of what they had been in the past.

However, even though it grew larger, this nebula was still far from being comparable to the white sky. That whole structure could literally be compared to being a drop of ink in the limitless ocean.

'The final question still remains the same as before, how am I going to get out of here? Knowing the nature of this dream will help me, but there's still no sign indicating the way out of here.' Trevor brought his right arm up to touch his chin, but his eyebrows rose slightly and roused him from his pensive state.

His left arm was back!

'How strange…' The feeling of being able to have that member of his back was so natural that Trevor's brain took a while to register the event. He reached out that arm, spinning it to the sides before touching it with his right hand.

'I forgot that this dream makes me lose sensation... No, it's possible that even the very act of thinking here is limited in some way. Now that I'm dumb, I can't continue the luxury of totally trusting my senses.'

Trevor had no easy solutions in front of him, he was forced to bite into that tasteless hard bone. The rules governing this dream limited him to the point that his genius lost its luster, like gold being shrouded in horseshit.

Still, man's reality was not that of Heavens.

'Hm…?'

Contrary to what Trevor had expected, the young began to feel sensations.

All over his body, he felt that something was going through him.

This feeling could be described with just one word: Cold!

He felt himself being frozen alive!