Pain struck first.
—sharp, searing, electric. The dagger in his back tore through muscle, dragging blood and agony with it. James staggered forward, knees weak, vision swimming in red and black. Panic should have consumed him. Fear should have rooted him in place.
But it didn't.
Not this time.
Five goblins.
He remembered now.
His legs trembled as he stepped back, nearly slipping in his own blood. His right hand clenched around his knife until his knuckles turned white. With his left, he fumbled blindly and found it—
He gripped his knife tighter, fingers white as bone, and his other hand snatched the goblin's dagger from the floor. His vision blurred, and the room twisted around him like a living nightmare. Shadows melted, shifting into faces he hadn't dared remember.
The room spun.
His vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in like ink dropped into water. The goblins before him shifted, their outlines warping, stretching—
The first goblin became the man who had groomed him as a child. The three others morphed into his high school bullies, smirking, cruel, mocking everything he had ever been. Their eyes shone with the same hatred he had felt for years, as if the universe itself had sent them back to torment him.
"…You," James whispered.
The man who had groomed him stood where the goblin had been.
The others shifted too.
The fifth goblin remained unchanged, watching silently, patient, cruelly calculating.
Rage ignited like wildfire.
Everything James had endured, years of isolation, bullying, abuse, rejection, despair, boiled inside him. It wasn't just anger. It was grief, humiliation, fear, and every unshed tear compressed into pure, blinding fury. Years of swallowed words, buried fear, hidden tears, everything he had locked away detonated at once. Rage surged up his spine, drowning pain, drowning fear, drowning reason.
James screamed.
He charged.
He screamed, not a shout of fear, but of release. The sound tore from his throat raw and wild, echoing off the walls.
The first goblin—the groomer, didn't even react before James's knife sliced across its throat. Hot, wet resistance met metal, and he ripped upward, slashing until the creature's body sagged, twitching violently, then went still. Blood splattered across his arms, sticky and warm, but it felt like a baptism, a liberation.
The other goblins shrieked in terror, backing away. Their fear was palpable, feeding the frenzy inside James. He didn't hesitate. He ran, knife and dagger swinging with violent precision.
One goblin charged. James met it mid-step, twisting the knife and tearing a deep gash across its chest. It fell screaming. Another tried to flee—he threw himself forward, knife plunging into its back, forcing it down to the floor in a spray of red. The third high-school-bully goblin tried to crawl away. James's dagger skewered its leg, then spun, slicing through its torso. Its eyes met his for a fleeting instant—wide, terrified—before it went still.
James didn't breathe. He didn't pause. Rage had taken over completely, turning pain, exhaustion, and fear into fuel. Every strike carried decades of hurt, every swing screamed at the world, I survived this far, I will not die now.
Finally, only the fifth goblin remained.
James staggered toward it. Pain tore through his abdomen and back like twin hammers. His legs finally gave out. Pain roared back into his body, worse than before. His abdomen burned. His back throbbed. Blood pooled beneath him as he fell to his knees, then forward, catching himself just short of the goblin's feet. Blood dripping hot and heavy onto the floor. He fell to his knees, clutching at the wound, vision swimming. The goblin didn't move. Didn't attack. Just stared.
Then it shifted.
James saw himself, his college self, pale, hollow-eyed, knife in hand, poised to end it all. The memory hit him like a tidal wave: the dorm room at night, the silence, the suffocating loneliness, the knife he had held to his own chest. Every hopeless, aching thought, every moment he had considered letting go, now embodied in this monster before him.
Tears streamed down James's face. Blood mingled with sweat, dripping into the puddles forming on the floor. His chest heaved with ragged sobs, but rage surged over grief now. The memory slammed into him with unbearable force—the night alone in his dorm, the silence so loud it screamed. The thought that maybe the world wouldn't notice if he was gone.
No.
He would not die here. Not by a goblin. Not by himself. Not by the shadows of his past.
Tears poured down his face, mixing with blood on the floor.
"I didn't survive all of that," he sobbed, voice breaking, "just to die here."
Summoning every ounce of strength, every memory of pain, fear, and injustice, James lunged. Knife and dagger moved in a blur, slashing, stabbing, twisting with terrifying precision. The goblin shrieked in terror, clawed, twisted, but it was too late. James's fury was a storm. Every blow was decades of suffering unleashed. Every strike screamed: I am not powerless. I am not alone. I survive.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Finally, the goblin collapsed. Its body quivered once, then fell silent. The hallucination of his college self faded, leaving only the cold reality of his victory.
James sank to the floor, gasping. Pain tore through his abdomen, through his back, through every muscle in his body. His knife and dagger clattered beside him. His vision swam.
Then he saw it.
A stone, glowing with brilliance. Not gray, not dull, but alive, a spectrum of colors dancing within: red, blue, yellow, black, orange, violet. It pulsed with power, humming with potential.
James's shaking hand reached toward it.
Unknown Rune Detected
Absorb Rune?
[Yes] [No]
His finger hovered… and then his body finally gave in. Darkness swallowed him.
And James passed out, cradled by blood, pain, and the chaotic weight of survival.