"I'm revoking your name Guy. You're just a guy to me now." Sylas whispered as the miner pushed her into the hole in the cave.
As Sylas's long silver grayish hair flapped while she fell, her mind accelerated. With her heightened senses she caught the miner looking down at her, pity written all over his eyes. He walked away. His footsteps echoed throughout the cave, but they didn't go far. She heard a thud, a clanking of metals, then soft weeping.
"Oh Guy, you must be controlled by something. System is there any creatures with"
[You know.]
"No! I don't know! You keep saying this but I fucking don't! I'm going to die! How could he betray me like that? I thought I was part of the family!" Sylas flipped and contorted her body as she fell.
She grabbed her chest and her groin area. "Just take these! System, I offer a sacrifice! I want to live. Take these things out of me." She grabbed her ears, then her horns. She touched all over her body as though ants marched on it. "I don't want to be me anymore! Make me human again. Make me a man at least!"
Sylas remembered the miner's words when he had first seen her. "Devil, he called me a devil! It's cuz of this body!"
She dug her sharp nails into her arms. The pain in her shoulder disappeared as the pain from her nails overwhelmed her. She screamed. She closed her eyes. She felt the force of gravity speed her up.
Sylas tasted sweet milk chocolate in her mouth. She opened her eyes. She wasn't falling anymore. She sat at a long wooden bronze colored table. In front of her was a wide range of deserts: cake, parfaits, crepes, cupcakes, muffins, and chocolate. Her hands were in the pile of chocolate bars.
Surrounding her and the table were concrete walls lined with pictures of Sylas as a man and as the Terror of Dracaelfia. Most of the pictures were of her struggling. The first time she pulled a carrot out of the ground but flew back into a pile of manure; the first time he attempted to reach max level in an MMORPG but died and lost EXP, the first time they died.
"Yo." Sylas jumped, she looked around, her failings were all she could see. She then looked back at the table. The food was gone. The table was shortened to that of a typical school desk. On the other side of the desk was Sylas in her previous life. "If you want to interpret this as one of those, 'life flashing before my eyes' thing go for it. As long as it makes you comfy."
Her face slumped as she frowned. "What do you mean as long as it makes me comfy?" She squinted her eyes and pouted.
"I mean, why else are we such losers?" Sylas, the man said.
"I'll get rich. I'll have real friends. I won't die to some hero, I'll beat them all." Sylas, the terror said, quickly covering her mouth.
They both paused as the terror slowly revealed her mouth to the man. "I didn't say that. Something forced me to say that."
"But you said it before. These are your goals in this world. You just want to be comfortable."
"We just want to be comfortable." She crossed her arms.
The man laughed. "Sure, we. Hey Chk'ulehy, why did you say that phrase?"
"What phrase?" Chk'ulehy asked. "...man up…" Her mouth moved on its own.
"You aren't a man anymore, what do you need to man up about?"
"Well, at the time my shoulder was hur-" She rubbed her injured shoulder, which at the exact moment of mentioning began getting inked with red.
"We know." He interrupted. "Pain is universal, it's not only men that can ignore it."
"I know, it's just a phrase."
"Where'd you learn that from?"
She rolled her eyes, closing them she yelled, "I'm falling to my death!" When she opened them she saw herself in the hole. There was an updraft of wind from the bottom of the hole that caused dust to fly into her eyes. She closed them.
"Falling to my death?" His voice echoed through her mind as she opened her eyes.
She was back at the table. "Yeah," she responded, "We don't have time for this."
"So you've already given up and accepted that you're going to die?"
She raised her eyebrow, "Huh? Are you an idiot? Of course I'm going to die if I fall from this height."
"But the prophecy says you're going to die at the hands of a hero. That crazy miner is a hero?"
"You never know. I don't know jack about this world. For all I know Dracaelfia's heroes are crazy! I still haven't even reached level 1!"
He slammed his fist into the desk. "Spoken like a bad loser! Why do you fear death so much? You already died once, the fear of the unknown is gone."
"So I shouldn't fear getting hit by a car just because I got hit once? I hate getting hurt. I hate losing. Every time I lose I get hurt." They're calves throbbed. "Maybe if I was the model son my father wanted he wouldn't have hit me. Maybe if I was a better person, Valentina would have loved me instead of Mark. Maybe if I wasn't so embarrassed about crying in front of people, I would have been with May. Maybe if I wasn't so desperate for a win in life, I wouldn't have died."
Blood rushed out of Sylas, the man's hand. Soon, lacerations appeared all over his body.
The terror continued, "If I just wasn't who I am, I wouldn't be falling to my death."
Tears poured down Chk'ulehy's face. "I just deluded myself to think I was part of the family. They all hated me. From the moment I arrived, I was the devil to them. Those Rune-Marked women called me the terror. All I've done was use them up and live comfortably on their farm. I always just let things happen. Now I've killed one of their cows." She buried her head between her legs. "I'm a passive waste. If I just wasn't who I am."
"You act like being who you are is all you can ever be."
She raised her head. Sylas, the man's skin had gone gray, he emitted a foul stench. His eyes were gray and opaque. "You died already. Aren't you a new you?"
She wiped the tears off of her face. She looked around at all of her failures. "But the prophecy said I'll lose anyway."
"Chk'ulehy…"
She chuckled. She was back in the hole. She couldn't deduce how far she had fallen, but she was convinced it wasn't for long. She was falling head first, so she pushed her body to flip herself. Once flipped, she used the momentum to launch herself at the walls of the hole. She dug her long fingernails into stony walls. They chipped and broke away, but she was slowing down her descent.
They scraped against the wall. She grimaced. She tried to let out a yell, but her voice was shot. Had she been yelling this entire time? Did the miner hear her pleads? That didn't matter. She swung the lower half of her body out, and kicked at the wall. She pressed her feet into the wall. Gripped the rocks that protruded out of it. They broke away almost instantly.
CLACK!
She slowed to a crawl. Dust picked up. Sparks of fire and lightning lit up the path she had descended on the wall. She took a deep breath in, exhaled. Then she began her climb back.
"I'm sorry."
She took sharp inhales and sharp exhales. When she removed her arm from the wall to climb to a higher place, it shook as much as the world when the wolf that brought the morning howled. She barely had footing. She utilized her toenails to pierce the stone. Her nails were shortened, but they were strong enough to bury themselves deep enough to stabilize her. Though she would grimace at moving her injured shoulder, it seemingly healed at some point. She removed her bandages.
"I was being passive out of fear of punishment for my actions."
She groaned as she heaved her body up the wall. She took frequent breaks. The only thing on her mind was the climb. She did not know how far she was from the top. Still she climbed.
"Sylas Peters, may you rest in peace."
SLAP!
She reached the top of the hole. She pulled herself up onto the edge of it. She crawled on the ground, blood poured from her fingertips and toes. She was drenched in sweat. She wheezed and coughed. She looked up after a few moments and saw the miner.
He stood there dumbfounded.
[WARNING: BOSS BATTLE APPROACHING]
She smiled. She got up, wiping the bitter sweet sweat from her lips.
"I'm choosing to be the good loser!" Chk'ulehy caught her breath.