4 Swirling thoughts (1)

Sebastian and his mother descended the creaking wooden staircase, each step a familiar echo of memories long held within the recesses of his mind.

The corridors, dimly lit and adorned with faded family photographs, seemed frozen in time.

Pictures of birthday celebrations, family gatherings, and cherished moments adorned the walls, like pages from a forgotten chapter of their lives.

As they reached the kitchen, a wave of nostalgia washed over the man. The kitchen, with its rustic charm and the scent of home-cooked meals, appeared just as he remembered it.

The worn wooden table sat at the center, bathed in soft lamp light streaming in from the side. The stove stood in the corner, a relic of countless meals prepared with love.

"What would you like to eat?" Mary asked.

"Do we have pork?"

Sebastian was already salivating. "Pork? Did you forget what I told you earlier? You ate enough meat already."

Sebastian didn't reply, but his mother noticed his weird look. In the end, she conceded.

"All right. But don't blame me if you won't feel well."

The man remained silent but sat at the table. While his mother took the kitchen utensils and the pork meat, he asked something.

"What day is today?"

Mary turned. "What do you mean? Is Thursday."

"No, the number, no, the year."

"The year?" Mary was even more confused by the sudden question, but then she laughed. "How could you not remember what year it is? It's 2456, 1st of June."

<2456? 30 Seriously? The pendant brought me years back?!>

However, Sebastian faked just having forgotten. "AAAH right! 2456!"

As Mary finished preparing Sebastian's night meal, she couldn't help but cast an observant gaze upon her son.

Her maternal instincts sensed something amiss, and as she looked at him, her eyes focused on his features.

She noticed his black short hair were drenched in a glistening layer of sweat.

Beads of moisture clung to his brow, his hair matted to his skin, and his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his frame.

However, a weird look was also present in his piercing blue eyes, as if there was an unmistakable difference. Mary couldn't tell what it was, but it was like there was a glint in the way he looked at his surroundings.

This unusual sight prompted concern to flicker in Mary's eyes as she, once again, voiced her worry, "Sebastian, are you feeling alright? You look quite overheated."

No. I mean… yeah. I just had a nightmare and sweat a bit."

"You must go take a shower, then. I won't accept no as an answer. You will catch a cold if you go to bed drenched like that."

Sebastian didn't mind taking a shower. The times he was able to do so during the past thirty years could be counted on his fingertips.

"Yeah, after the pork."

The man then ate with gusto, cleaning the plate from oil and fat with some bread. He went back to the second floor and jumped into the bathtub after seeing his mother's stare.

<What the hell? All of this is absurd.>

Many thoughts crossed his mind, especially regarding the pendant and his father. Then the thoughts of the Butcher of Exidia went back to those he killed. For 30 years, Sebastian fought against the four sacred clans in a solitary battle.

He killed many, but that didn't quench his thirst for vengeance a bit. The only thing that would have done that was kill the leaders of the four sacred clans.

He slouched inside the hot water and started counting.

"1, 2, 3, 4,"

"1, 2, 3, 4,"

This was a habit the man got as his insanity blossomed through the years, and that apparently he couldn't refrain from doing even now.

"1, 2, 3, 4,"

"Erika Luttrell, Elizabeth Ashford, Jessie Crowe, Gabriel Argent."

Those were the names of the individuals who had conspired to assassinate his father, Argus Wells, the revered leader of the formidable Tide breaker clan, once considered the mightiest Thespian alive before his tragic death.

Yet, they were not the sole targets of Sebastian's relentless quest for vengeance. Before he fought against Erika Luttrell, the first of his last four targets, he had unleashed devastation upon cities, leaving countless lives shattered, regardless of age or gender.

There was a reason he was called a butcher. The Butcher of Exidia. That was an epithet he got when he grazed Exidia, Starhaven's capital, to the ground. Exidia, the same city he was born in, and where he was currently living if he really came back to the past and wasn't in some kind of limbo.

Among those marked for retribution were Lucas Wickens, Miranda Markwell, and Martin Exley.

They had been his father's trusted comrades, members of a formidable Thespian party poised to conquer the enigmatic realm of Somnium, only to betray their friend by aligning with the treacherous four sacred clans.

Somnium, the mysterious world, remained shrouded in mystery; it was unclear whether it was a dream, a nightmare, an illusion, or a real place.

What was certain was that Thespians, those who had awakened, were forced to enter it every time they fell asleep, at least until the third compression level.

The only way out before that was through one of the many portals scattered through the place, but reaching it was fraught with danger, as the dreamworld was inhabited by the Fangeds, nightmarish man-eating monsters called as such as they, most of the times, had one or more fangs.

Luckily, if a Thespian got out from the portal, it could stay for a week in the real world, but then, after those seven days, they were forced to enter Somnium again, without the chance to leave for at least a month.

However, if entering the dream was already weird, it was what it brought with it that scared the people.

When a Thespian died, he or she turned into a fanged, and that didn't happen in Somnium.

No, but in the real world. This, of course, made it so Thespians had to fight not only in the weird world, but even in the real one.

That prompted the creation of clans and families, and ultimately, of the Four sacred clans.

Upon awakening, Thespians were endowed with a unique system, a mysterious gift shrouded in enigmas.

Little was understood about its inner workings, but one undeniable fact emerged—it granted them access to a peculiar energy known as mana.

This arcane force allowed Thespians to harness incredible power, enabling them to confront and combat the nightmarish fanged creatures that roamed within Somnium's unsettling realm, and that were slowly spreading to the real world too.

The system spared no one. People could awaken at any age. Even children weren't spared. That made it harder for people to kill them, but once turned, nothing of their innocence remained. Only endless, evil hunger.

Over the course of three decades, Sebastian had relentlessly hunted and killed many Thespians, crossing names off his list one by one, but the four leaders of the sacred clans remained.

He had come close to achieving his vengeance when Erika Luttrell, in a twist of fate, had cut short his quest by killing him.

<Fuck. Do I have to start over?>

He had. If his mother was alive, then the same could be said for all those he killed. However, now there was a small, tiny problem.