Beast Tamer's Damned Regression

Chapter 4: The Vision of Death

Varek woke before the sun.

He lay in the dark with the Gnarl pressed against his side and the weight of the borrowed vision still sitting in his chest like a cold stone. He had seen Vespera drop his father's ring before it happened. He had walked into that garden knowing exactly what she would do and exactly what she would say and he had not broken.

But that was a small thing. Just a single moment pulled from a single day.

If he wanted to survive what was coming, he needed to see more.

He sat up and the Gnarl stirred beside him. Its red eye flickered open.

[You did not sleep.]

"I could not stop thinking about it."

[About the woman.]

"About what she will do to me in two weeks , about the cold table, about Aurelius." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I need to borrow again. I need to see my death, not the one on the table. I already know about that one. The other death. The one I feel waiting for me at the end of the road."

[It will hurt more than last time. You are reaching further now. The System will demand a heavier price.]

"I am not afraid of pain."

[You should be. Pain is the System's way of reminding you that you are still mortal. But if you are ready, I will stay with you. I will hold you here so you do not drift too far and lose yourself.]

Varek nodded, he lay back down and stared at the ceiling. The grey light was just beginning to creep through the window. Marta would not knock for another hour so he had time.

He closed his eyes and reached forward with his mind.

The pain came like a spike driven through his left eye. He gasped and his back arched off the bed. It was worse than before, much worse, a white-hot lance that burned through his skull and into the place behind his thoughts. He felt the Gnarl's claws dig gently into his arm, anchoring him.

And then the darkness broke and he was somewhere else.

He was older there, the first thing he noticed was his hands. They were scarred and rough, wrapped in worn leather that was cracked and stained with old blood. He was holding a spear, it was not a fine weapon. He was holding a rusted thing with a splintered shaft. The hands that held it were not the hands of a boy.

He was standing on a broken street in a city that was burning.

The sky was purple and red and full of cracks that bled light across the clouds. Buildings had crumbled into rubble. Fires raged in the distance, the air was thick with ash and the smell of charred flesh. People were screaming somewhere far away and Beasts were roaring.

He was running, he could feel his own heart pounding in his chest as he ran. He could feel the ache in his legs and the weight of the spear in his grip as he searched for something or someone. He did not know who or what exactly. The dream did not give him that. It only gave him fear and the smoke and the terrible certainty that he was already too late.

A beast came out of the smoke. It was massive, a twisted thing of black scales and too many limbs, its mouth full of teeth that dripped with something dark. It saw him and lunged forward.

He fought with the creature, the spear cut into its side. The beast screamed and swung a clawed limb. He ducked and rolled and came up swinging. His body knew how to move. This was not his first fight. He had been doing this for years, he had been surviving for years.

But the beast was fast. It caught him across the chest with a blow that sent him crashing into a broken wall, the spear flew from his hand… he tried to get up but his body would not obey him. Something was broken inside him, he could taste blood in his mouth.

The beast stood over him, its jaws widely opened and then it stopped.

It turned away as if called by something unseen and vanished into the smoke. Varek lay on the broken stones gasping for air, bleeding, slowly dying.

Then he heard footsteps, someone was walking toward him through the smoke slowly and steadily. The footsteps stopped beside him and a figure in white robes knelt down. Varek tried to lift his head to see the face but the pain was too great for him to move like that.

Aurelius the Lightbringer looked down at him with kind eyes. His smile was gentle and sad, the smile of a father watching his prodigal son suffer.

"Poor boy," Aurelius said softly. "You fought so hard, you came so far and in the end, it was never enough… you were never enough boy."

He reached down and touched Varek's forehead with two fingers. The touch was cold like ice.

"You were never going to win."

With that… the darkness swallowed him.

♡♡♡♡♡

Varek came back with a scream locked in his throat and the Gnarl pressed against his chest. His whole body was shaking, Cold sweat soaked through his shirt. He is back in his room alive.

[Breathe Varek. You are here with me... You are not there anymore]

He sucked in air like a drowning man. "I saw it, I saw myself die but it wasn't on the table, this time it's on a battlefield. The Capital was burning, everything was ash and I was alone there… I died alone."

[You weren't alone, the Lightbringer was with you too]

"Yes." Varek pressed his palms against his eyes. "He walked up to me while I was bleeding out. He touched my face and told me I was never going to win."

[Did you see anything else? Anything that could help you?]

Varek lowered his hands and thought hard. The vision was already fading at the edges, the way dreams do, but the core of it was burned into his memory. "I was older, much older. My hands were different, I had scars I do not have now. That means I will survive the cold table, I will survive whatever they do to me and I will live long enough to fight in that war."

[That is good news, that means what you do now matters. You are not walking toward a death you cannot avoid. You are walking toward a death you can change.]

"Maybe." Varek sat up slowly. His head throbbed and his eyes ached badly. "But he knew me in that vision, Aurelius knew exactly who I was, he was not surprised to see me. It was just like he was expecting me… that means no matter what I do, he finds out who I am eventually."

[Then you must make sure that when he finds out, you are strong enough to change the your ending]

Marta knocked on the door. "Master Varek? Are you awake? I heard you cry out."

"I am fine," he responded back. "It was just another nightmare, I am totally fine now."

She hesitated on the other side of the door. "I will make tea to help calm your nerves, come down when you are ready."

Her footsteps faded down the stairs. Varek looked at the Gnarl, its red eye was steady and calm.

"I saw my death," he said quietly, almost like he was talking to himself trying to process it all. "And I saw the man who caused it. The Lightbringer stood over me while I bled out and told me I was never going to win."

[And now you have something he does not know you have. You have seen that moment before it happened. You can prepare. You can change it, he thinks he has already won because he has seen the future but he has seen a future that no longer exists.]

Varek nodded slowly. The fear was still there, cold and buried deep, but it was hardening into something else, something stronger and a little fearless.

"I am going to hold onto that," he said. "I am going to hold onto the look on his face when he touches my forehead and when I see him again, I am going to remember it."

[Good boy. That is how you win, it's not only by being stronger but also by remembering.]

Varek dressed and went downstairs for his tea. Marta handed him a cup of tea and he drank it without tasting it. The world outside the window was grey, cold and ordinary like every other day but inside his chest, a clock was ticking. Two weeks until the cold table. Years until the battlefield and somewhere between now and then, he had to become strong enough to kill a man who had been preparing for centuries.