Chapter Four: The Shape of Failure
Loop sixty-three began without pain.
That alone terrified him.
He opened his eyes to the screaming wind and the crunch of stone beneath bare feet, and for a heartbeat—just one—his mind was empty. No panic. No rage. No despair.
Just awareness.
I'm still here.
The caravan moved uphill.
Chains rattled.
Slaves shuffled forward like corpses being dragged by habit rather than will.
He did not look around this time.
He already knew every face.
The broad-backed man three links ahead would die screaming when rot ate through his spine. The twitchy man behind him would try to shove him toward the cliff in a blind panic. The gentle-voiced slave would pray to a god that no longer listened.
All of it was already written.
"…Sixty-three," he whispered.
The number grounded him.
He had started counting again around loop forty-seven, after realizing that losing track was how madness crept in unnoticed. Numbers were anchors. Proof that time still moved forward—even if the world refused to.
He flexed his fingers.
Still small. Still weak. Still shackled.
But not the same.
His body remembered pain.
His mind remembered death.
That was his only advantage.
The wind shifted.
His spine went rigid.
Too early.
The monster usually waited until the caravan reached the third bend in the road. Until panic had room to spread. Until the slaves were perfectly positioned between cliff and cliff face.
This time—
Stone blackened ten meters ahead.
The road rotted.
"No," he breathed. "You're changing the script."
The mountain screamed.
The chimera did not emerge from the void.
It stepped out from the cliff face itself, stone sloughing off its body like dead skin. Antlers scraped rock. Claws sank into the mountain as though it were soft meat.
Its eyes found him instantly.
Always him.
"You're late," it rumbled, voice like wet wood breaking. "That means you thought."
The boy did not answer.
He yanked on the chain instead.
Hard.
The sudden force pulled the slaves forward and back at once. Someone screamed as shackles bit deeper. The formation staggered.
Confusion rippled.
Soldiers shouted.
The chimera paused.
Just for a fraction of a second.
That was new.
The boy used it.
He threw himself sideways—into the cliff face—scraping skin, twisting his body to wedge himself between stone and chain. The twitchy slave behind him slammed into his back, swearing.
"What are you doing, you little—"
The monster lunged.
Rot exploded across the road.
Stone collapsed.
Slaves fell screaming into the void.
The boy clung to the cliff, fingers bleeding, breath ragged.
For a moment—
For a single, impossible moment—
He lived.
The chimera loomed over the edge, peering down.
"…Interesting," it murmured.
Then the cliff rotted.
His hand slipped.
Darkness rushed up.
Loop sixty-four.
He woke laughing.
A sharp, broken sound that startled the slaves nearest him.
"…It bleeds time," he whispered. "Not flesh."
The monster wasn't just intelligent.
It was learning with him.
Adapting across loops.
That meant something far worse than simple brute force.
This wasn't a beast.
It was a warden.
He stopped trying to survive.
That was the shift.
Instead of running, hiding, or attacking, he began to observe.
He died deliberately.
Over and over.
Sometimes quickly—leaping from the cliff the moment the monster appeared.
Sometimes slowly—letting rot take him inch by inch, forcing himself to remain conscious through the agony.
He studied the decay.
Rot was not instantaneous.
It propagated.
It followed rules.
Metal went first. Then stone. Flesh last.
Wind carried it—but not infinitely.
"Range," he muttered during one suffocating death, lungs collapsing into sludge. "There's a range."
The monster never used rot on itself.
Never crossed certain points on the mountain.
Never chased him past the second bend.
"Territory," he whispered, neck breaking as the chimera slammed him into the ground. "You're bound."
The creature leaned close.
Its breath reeked of腐敗 and old hunger.
"And you're clever," it said softly. "That's why this will hurt more."
Loop seventy-one.
He didn't wait for the monster.
He attacked a soldier.
Not to kill.
To steal.
The moment the caravan slowed, he twisted, slammed his shoulder into a horse's leg, and ripped the dagger from the soldier's belt as chaos erupted.
The whip cracked.
Pain exploded across his back.
But he had the blade.
He ran.
Not away.
Toward the void.
The monster emerged, amused.
"You think iron helps?" it mocked.
He didn't answer.
He slashed the chain.
Links snapped.
Slaves fell.
The mountain shook.
The chimera roared—not in rage, but in something closer to alarm.
The boy hurled the dagger into the void.
It vanished.
The monster froze.
"…You're removing variables," it said slowly.
"Learning," the boy rasped.
Rot surged.
He died screaming.
Loop seventy-two.
He remembered the soldier with the flask.
The young one.
The hesitant one.
This time, when the caravan slowed, he didn't run.
He stumbled.
Deliberately.
He fell at the young soldier's horse.
The man cursed and leaned down—
And the boy looked up into his eyes.
"Please," he whispered. "You're real, aren't you?"
The soldier flinched.
The whip cracked.
The chimera appeared.
The soldier screamed.
The boy died smiling.
By loop eighty, his thoughts were no longer linear.
They came in fragments.
Chains.
Cliff.
Rot.
Eyes.
Rules.
But beneath the fracture, something else was forming.
A structure.
A strategy.
"…You can't leave," he whispered in one loop, letting the monster impale him slowly. "You're not the trial."
The chimera paused.
Its eyes narrowed.
"…Say that again."
"You're a gatekeeper," the boy continued, blood bubbling from his mouth. "A test inside a test. That's why you reset too."
Silence.
The monster tilted its head.
Then it laughed.
A deep, pleased sound.
"…Good," it said. "Very good."
It snapped his neck.
Loop eighty-nine.
He woke shaking.
Not from fear.
From anticipation.
The mountain loomed.
The caravan moved.
The wind screamed.
He closed his eyes.
And thought.
What am I missing?
Not strength.
Not weapons.
Not allies.
This Nightmare wasn't about killing the monster.
It was about—
"…Choice," he breathed.
The mountain remembered everything.
But he was the only variable that carried memory forward.
The only one who could change.
His gaze sharpened.
"Next loop," he whispered, teeth clenched. "I stop playing your game."
The wind howled.
The chimera waited below.
And for the first time since the Nightmare began—
The boy did not feel small.