Cycle

Turning left, I headed down another corridor. I had been walking for what felt like hours, and my feet were aching with blisters. In an attempt to keep going, I had taken off my shoes and left them behind me, hoping that going barefoot would help.

It did in fact help, but at the same time the damp stone was cold, and my feet quickly started to feel the pain of coldness within them.

*Bang, bang, clang, boom*

A noise came from ahead, the sound of metal smacking metal and someone screaming. Speeding up I walked up to the next turn in the path and stopped, before peering out and into the corridor. What I saw disturbed me to the core. There were three humans, and to... things that seemed to be giant green people. I had heard of them from the villagers back home, but never imagined that I would actually meet any, Ogres. There were three ogres all attacking a girl, who seemed to have a magical dome around her. Every time that the ogres hit the shield with their giant stone clubs the girl would sink closer and closer to the ground, as if they were hitting her, and her stamina was running out.

Focusing internally, I circulated my mana inside my body, instead of trying to cast magic, focusing on enhancing my muscles, and speed. For some reason it felt as if it was second nature to me, and I quickly felt a burst of energy circulate through my body, enhancing it and strengthen it to blunt damage. Realizing that I grew and inch, and my body bulked up slightly, I thought that Mabie, my mana that was infused with blood Essene was making my body grow and appear as if I had worked on strength training my whole life. Takins a step forward, a burst of pain flared in my head, and I lost all bodily functions, collapsing to the floor.

[Warning: detecting high levels of stress]

[Warning: Memories are being affected in an unknown way]

I quickly blacked out, hoping that I was not seen by the Ogres.

"Jason, come on! I know you can!" A girl with blond hair was shouting at me from a river she had just jumped in. Grinning, I jumped in after her, quickly descending to the level of the water, where I splashed into the water beside her.

"hehehe, you look so goofy!" She said as Jason resurfaced a couple feet from her.

After a while of swimming, splashing, and playing, they both climbed out of the river, exhausted. They were both laden down with water, due to them both being in their normal clothes, and with a sigh Jason took off his clothes, before turning and laying down on a sunning rock in nothing but his underwear.

From behind he could feel a warm body press up against him as the girl laid down next to him, also stripped to nothing but her underwear.

Trying to turn around, the girl put a hand on his shoulder.

"No no no, just lay their idiot, don't turn around." she said in a hurry, sounding embraced.

"Jason... do you think you will ever leave this place? I don't want you to leave, please. Stay here with me." She said, before burring her face into his back.

"Please Jason, don't leave me!" she screamed, with tears streaming down her face.

Jason tried to reassure her, but he could feel his body fading, leaving her there alone on the rock, cold, and lifeless, with a knife through her chest.

It repeated again.

and again

again...

Each time was slightly different, as if he was somehow changing the outcome through sheer desperation. He didn't know who this girl was, but he felt that he remembered her from somewhere. Her beauty was unrivaled and divine.

"Come on, Jason! I know you can do it!"

"no, no, no, no NO, NO!" I screamed. All of the sudden a black mist seeped into wherever I was, and a dark figure stepped out of it and onto the other side of the broken bridge, staring at me from over the gap.

"Do you want to save her?" The figure said, with a deep and gravelly voice.

"Who are you? I asked with poorly counseled desperation.

"Boy, you know who I am, but Mabie you need a couple more cycles."

And he left, as time resumed around me...

*splash*

"Come on, you can do it!"

*splash*

"Jason, don't leave me, please!"

Death of a loved one

Blood of the innocent and the desperate.

The ruining of something that was supposed to be happy.