With death comes life. But this life wasn't new. This one was recycled and broken, like something salvaged from wreckage.
Unlike his previous deaths, Benny wasn't as badly injured. Not from his outer appearance, at least. His body was intact. Whole. Unbroken on the surface level.
Before, he lost a part of his memory as payment for revival. But now he lost a part of his soul itself. A fragment torn away to balance the cosmic scales. This power of his was a two-faced demon. It enticed you with what you gained, but then it took more than what you had bargained for. More than what seemed fair or reasonable.
But our little prospect here couldn't even fathom the depths of his own power. It was a labyrinth hidden inside a labyrinth that he couldn't see or even reach out to. A mystery wrapped in an enigma, buried somewhere deep in his being.
He had no clue what was happening to him. No understanding of the mechanics at play.
But then he was brought back to life. As cruel as it sounds, some would say he was lucky. Lucky to have another chance. Lucky to breathe again.
But only if he knew or understood the true cost, he would have rather wished death upon himself than to be revived over and over again. Each time losing yourself more and more in the process. Until the next time you wake up, you might become just one of the many monsters of the labyrinth itself. Mindless. Hollow. Nothing but hunger and instinct driving them forward.
It was unforgiving and dark. Nothing but the murmurs of the hollowed space and the chittering of the monsters that lurked within it. No companionship. No warmth. No light.
Who would want such power in the first place?
Not Benny. No, he didn't even wish for it. Didn't ask for this curse disguised as a gift. A power that only lets you revive within the labyrinth. You don't die of old age. In fact, you never age at all. You remain as you looked when you last stepped outside the labyrinth.
Eternally youthful, at least in his current form.
Escaping the labyrinth would most obviously stop the power. But within it, he was immortal. A broken immortal, though. An immortality that came with the price of forgetting who you were piece by piece.
His eyes began to open. Slowly. Reluctantly.
He was sent back to the entrance, to the beginning of the cave. It was the first floor where he had first understood this labyrinth and tried to survive its horrors. But his eyes didn't have the glow of the living anymore. They were hollow with a hint of madness buried deep within them. Like looking into wells that went down too far.
Benny patted himself to feel if he was real. It was dark, so he thought this might be the void. Or a dream, perhaps. Maybe he was still dead, and this was whatever came after.
Then he moved his hands and fingers. They responded. He breathed in the stale stench of air trapped and unable to circulate. The roughness of the texture from the stone walls around him felt real. The sword at his hip felt real. His armor and shield on hand felt real. His face felt warm, blood still pumping beneath the skin.
Although he understood none of it, and he didn't know what he was doing here or who he was anymore, he was like a confused child who woke up alone in his bed. Lost. Frightened. Uncertain.
There was no light where he had spawned. The darkness was absolute, it was suffocating.
So as any rational being would, Benny looked for a place with light, even if it was barely visible. Even a glimmer would be enough. Anything to pierce this crushing blackness.
Even with this darkness, he moved like he was certain. Like he had been here before. His body remembered what his mind had forgotten. Muscle memory carried him forward when conscious thought failed.
Thankfully, his body never forgot, even if his mind did.
His feet moved toward a place that felt safe. Yes, he moved toward that safe haven he had used before in this place. A place that had given him some comfort in this blinding darkness. His legs knew the way even if he didn't.
He walked and walked. Sometimes he crawled when he felt uncertain, as if he would hit a place where there might be protruding rocks or a wall waiting to crack his skull. His movement and direction were slow. Cautious. He felt the space in front of him as if he was blind, hands outstretched, fingers brushing stone.
That was how unsure his mind was of all of it. How disoriented he felt.
His thoughts were dark and harrowing. He had a lot of questions and all of them were left unanswered. Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? What happened to me?
Who was there to answer for him when even he himself did not know? When the very foundation of his identity had been stripped away?
His memory was wiped clean like a blank slate. Well, not completely, since he seemed to have a sense of self. An awareness of himself and his surroundings. He knew he was a person. He knew he was in danger. He knew he needed to find safety.
But beyond that? Nothing. Just emptiness where memories should be.
It must be fun looking at this pawn from above. His patron god watched from his lenses far away up in the heavens. Observing this struggle like it was theater. Like Benny was a character in a story written for divine amusement.
It must be a sadistic and psychotic pleasure that the god indulged in. The struggles of mortals were entertainment. And now that he had a prospect, a champion of his own, he enjoyed every struggle and every death that Benny had ever gone through. Each resurrection. Each memory loss. Each fragment of soul torn away.
The thought of the next thing this mortal would struggle with next was a dopamine-inducing fantasy that the god took pleasure in. What would break him next? What would he lose? How would he suffer?
Just imagining it while watching the mortal in the dark struggling by himself was fun enough for the deity. Better than any play or performance mortals could stage.
This just shows how much more degenerate these gods were when they took part in this type of leisure. Some of them would even argue that it was a necessary process. That suffering built character. That struggle created strength. That death and rebirth were essential to forging a true champion.
But alas, no matter how you looked at it, it was just madness incarnated through the will of the gods. At least from any reasonable perspective. From any moral standpoint that valued life and dignity.
Now his hero had revived, and now Benny would struggle once more. As brutal as it may sound, even the god would have to acknowledge that. The game continued. The entertainment resumed.
But if Benny knew the truth about what awaited him, if he understood the cycle he was trapped in, he would have killed himself right there and then. Bashed his head against the stone until the life he was given left him. So that he may no longer remember any of it, even if he lived once again.
Because forgetting seemed like mercy compared to knowing.
Benny continued to move through the darkness. His hands found the familiar contours of the passage he sought. His safe place. The small alcove where he had rested before, though he didn't remember resting there.
He crawled inside and sat with his back against the stone. His breathing was ragged. His heart pounded in his chest like a drum.
He was alive. That much he knew.
But alive for what? For whom?
The questions circled in his mind like vultures, but no answers came.
Only the darkness. Only the silence. Only the distant sounds of things moving in the deep places of the labyrinth.
And somewhere far above, a god smiled and watched. Waiting to see what would happen next to his broken little champion.