Chapter 16: Stubborn (Patreon)

Author’s note: Hey guys

Enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter 16: Stubborn - link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101935640

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Chapter 16: Stubborn

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'I hate this world,' I wailed silently into Sage's hair. No matter what I wished for or did, the world always seemed to find a way to kick me in the guts, determined to make my life a living hell. 

• You were poisoned

One moment, my skull was tingling with notifications of my poisoning, bringing forth the hope of the end, and the next, a new notification was rousing me.

• You died

While my apple poison did its job, the damn world just wouldn't let me go. What happened wasn't hard to figure out, though; after taking a short nap with my face buried in Sage's hair and my head resting on my knees, the beast-like regeneration of mine brought me back among the living.

And then a few more times.

• You were poisoned

• You were poisoned

• You died

• You were poisoned

• You died

"Why the bloody hell can't I die?!"

My loud lament - more of a grumble, a whimper - did not meet with a warm response from the birds in the treetops. Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd swear they were shrieking at me to shut up. As if that wasn't weird enough, they fell silent when I whispered an apologetic "Sorry."

Once again, the forest fell back to its tranquil state; the ambiance soothing my aching soul and making me feel . . . well, safe.

Quite a rare thing in this world - suspicious, even.

But me sitting in the middle of an age-old forest wasn't what bothered me the most right now. No matter how many times I buried my nose deep in the hair of my tail to inhale the poison in the hope of never waking up again, I didn't get the justice this murderess deserved. As if infected by the stubbornness with which I clung so tenaciously to hold on to the remnants of my freedom and humanity, my regeneration always got my heart beating again.

How long did it take, though?

Honestly, I had no idea. 

Telling time by the sun was never my thing, and even if I did know, the burning star this planet orbited was hidden behind the treetops, anyway. It was far more annoying that the Lattice, as convenient as it was, lacked any features that did not involve the weaves, not to mention the fact that instead of a watch, shackles wrapped around my left wrist.

So, for all I knew, after the apple poison had done its job, I could have sat there without a heartbeat for merely a few moments or easily all day. Although I was leaning towards the former.

Why?

Mostly because of my hunger. 

Not that I wasn't hungry - quite the opposite. The fault of my regeneration, I suppose. It always took a lot out of me. But I wasn't as starved as I would have been after several days of sitting in the woods without food. 

'Oh, perhaps . . . '

My stubbornness kicked in, and the thought of trying to starve to death crossed my mind. At some point, my regeneration had to run out of stuff to draw from, right?

Thinking about it a bit more, a shudder went through my body. 

There was no guarantee that it would work. It was more likely that this world would find a new torturous way to beat the shit out of me again. Something changed with me turning into a beast . . . and back. Before, when the deranged asshole marveled at my ability to heal, he never went so far as to take my life. Sure I would die he found it, in his own words, to be a waste to kill me, especially since he had other plans for me.

'How did those plans of yours turn out, huh, y-you bastard?!' I shouted in my mind, mindful not to anger the treetop dwellers again, but broke down in tears again. 

He had turned me into a monster, a real monster - a ferocious beast, a killer with her hands drenched in blood.

'What did I do to deserve this?'

As if being a murderess wasn't enough, to make my inner torment worse, I couldn't shake the feeling that the monster, not the beast, but the primal ferocity that took away my reason, had been buried deep inside me all along. The vile concoctions gradually turning me into a beast had merely stirred it up, given it a shape, and brought it to the surface.

' . . . perhaps, I did deserve it.'

Staying alive with the guilt of what I did might be justice in itself, after all.

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The sun, blocked by the treetops, had moved quite a distance in the sky before I came to terms with what I was enough to stop bawling about it and hoping it was all just one of my many nightmares.

Mostly, the hunger started getting to me. And unlike in the cellar, I couldn't sit here all cooped up and wait for that deranged bastard to bring me food, regardless of how convenient it would be.

'The asshole wasn't around, was he?'

After a quick glance at the surrounding forest and listening to its sounds, my panicked heart calmed down. However, the momentary dread of not finding myself alone here reminded me of something else - something I had been dying to do since I got into this world, and that asshole had put the accursed collar on me. I delved into my mind, entered the Grid Forge again, and tried to swap my array.

All it took was a thought, and the options I was previously denied to choose appeared in the sky. [Employee]; [Student]; [Florist]; [Dishwasher]; and much more. There before me were all the things I had ever been and if everything hadn't gone to shit, could still be. As mundane as they were, I would choose any of them over the Array of Slave I was forced to choose. There were even arrays as plain as [Two-legged Walker], [Woman] or [Daughter].

'No [Murderess] or anything like that, though?'

Was this world so cruel that washing dishes by hand at home guaranteed me an array, but killing a dozen and a half people elicited no response? Was that a normal thing in this world? As sick as the notion was, a sigh of relief escaped my lips, quickly replaced by the frown creasing my brow. 

'Shiiii . . . fuck! Why? Why, why, why? Why am I not allowed to do it?'

It was so maddening, but no matter what I chose, what I tried, or how intently I stared death at the hexagonal Array of runes, the Lattice always came back with the same answer.

• Your choice has already been made

Once again, I was forced to be, or remain, if you would, a slave, and this time by the world itself.

'This is so . . . unfair . . . '

Of course, the whining didn't help me in any way. As for the last year and a half, all I could do was stare helplessly at the inconceivably complex runic lines forming the hexagon.

Actually, not quite true. 

The weaves - or the skills, as I prefer to think of them. There were six of them, of course, each placed at the peak of the array hexagon, and I hated each and every single one of them in its own way.

"You know what, fuck you . . . " I whispered aloud in the real world with no small amount of satisfaction, taking one last look at my current grid before throwing myself into getting rid of what I could.

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Name: Korra Grey

Race: Human

Gender: Female

Age: 27

1st Array: Slave

Master: None

Sigils: 97 - ○○○○○○

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Weaves: 1st Array (6/6)

Eleaden Standard Language (General): . . 15 glyphs - ⦿⦿

Indomitable Will (General): . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 glyphs - ⦿⦿⦿⦿

Master's Toy (Slave): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 glyphs - ⦿⦿⦿

Silent Suffering (Slave): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 glyphs - ⦿⦿⦿

Faint Presence (Slave): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 glyphs - ⦿⦿

Unnatural Regeneration (General): . . . . . . 36 glyphs - ⦿⦿ 

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Author’s note: The familiar Status Screen, or Grid as I like to continue to call it, yet different. As you've probably gathered by now, I'd like to rely less on figures  and make Lattice more of what it was meant to be than a mess that I just kept correcting because I missed a percentage here and there.

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That said, I'm not sure about the labeling of (General) and (Slave). Don't get me wrong I want to leave the weave/skill division, it's just the way I'm presenting it in the Grid right now doesn't quite work for me. So it may change.

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