In a silent, lightless void, William held his head in his hands in distress, as the floodgates had finally been opened.
The emotions he had so desperately tried to lock away overrode his consciousness, and so, he had to bear the pain of them all in one fell swoop. Every single time the attribute had been activated, a memory was stored away, ready to wreak havoc on William's psyche the moment they were given the chance, and now was that very time.
An echoing series of claps rang out in the dream world as a man with platinum-blonde hair, wearing a strange mask, appeared not far off in the direction he was facing.
The mask was shaped like a goat's head and covered his entire face. It had odd lines of crimson red and golden yellow plastered throughout it upon a snow-white base, giving onlookers a harrowing feeling.
"So this is the real you…I have to say I'm quite impressed with your resilience to pain. Watching your little short story unfold was more entertaining than any novel I've read before. Let's break it down…shall we?"
Without waiting for William's response, as well as not expecting one, given his current state of mind, he continued.
"That battle against the muscly man's previous cohort was when I first stumbled across you. You were magnificent…but held back by something."
The man paused, manifesting a long wooden cane with amber inlays.
"You are a boring individual, and that's what makes you so interesting. You would scoff at a child who had lost their toy, yet turn back and return the toy to them." A scene of William, a few days ago, returning a lost toy to a child would appear in the void.
William's gaze shook, as light crystal beads began to form in his eye sockets.
"There are…numerous examples I have witnessed, of your inner humanity leaking out of that raggy disguise of yours, and so I decided to intervene personally, to change your story for the better, and to make a good memory out of it."
His head tilted upwards slightly, basking in the darkness of the dream world. "To put it simply, I am here to save you."
Hearing this, William looked up at the man, still staring blankly.
"Let's see…The first thing on the agenda is a bit of nostalgia." He smirked as the dream began to shapeshift into a memory of Williams. It was a very average-looking day, sunny with a hint of cloudiness permeating the skies. A young boy sat at his school desk with a dazed expression. On all the other desks, his classmates chatted loudly, working together on a school project of sorts.
"I'm bored…" He yawned whilst speaking to himself, adjusting his gaze toward the window.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Young Will watched the clock's movements like a hawk stalking its prey; the teacher's words went in through one ear and out the other while this was happening.
Dong! The ringing of the school bells signaled his release from this prison. He and the other students all jumped up from their seats to their teacher's dismay, sprinting out of the classroom with giddy faces.
Walking on the street home, young William yawned tiredly, his eyebags drooping, desperate to catch some shut eye. Walking by him were groups and groups of students wearing the same uniforms as him, but not actually seeing him.
Stumbling into his home, he dragged himself into his room after closing the front door, trudging along snail-like. The room was divided into two halves: on the left was his desk, where several notebooks and textbooks lay stacked, and on the right was his bed. Burrowing deep into his navy-blue bed sheets, he picked up his phone from underneath his soft white pillow and began frantically scrolling.
"My…life….is..boring.." A calm voice called out.
Reiner's eyes thinned as he smiled at William. "Ah, so you can speak after all." He casually walked towards him and sat next to him.
A hand desperately grasped onto Reiner's neck and clenched it as hard as they could, crushing his windpipe and dealing a fatal blow.
"The pain I feel today…It's a sacrifice I make to my tomorrow." Reiner whispered through ragged and torn vocal cords, as his neck grotesquely reformed itself through the dream.
He craned his neck to look William directly in the eyes, as he was around half a head shorter than himself. "So, how do you feel?"
Fingers shaky and breath tired and ragged, words flooded out of Zhang Jiewei's mouth like a tsunami. "I…I want to cut…butcher…and maul you to pieces with every fiber of my being right now…" The words he spoke were as shaky as he was. "E-even though I know…any attempt at it is futile…I can't help but want to take action…It's taking… everything to… stay here and talk…Hah…Isn't this pathetic…" He remarked.
Meanwhile, the dream showed a young William eating instant noodles, playing games, and lying on his bed for hours and hours, just waiting for time to pass. His expression was as empty as it could be while consuming sentence after sentence of his favorite webnovels.
He sighed silently as he was enveloped in a world of make-believe.
'I wish I could live in a fantasy world with magic, dragons, and powerful, challenging enemies…' The young one thought to himself brightly.
A time-lapse was then shown, as the ticking of the clock grew ever louder. The left side of his room became more and more…alone.
Reiner smiled, his goat-like mask hiding him from perception. "How mundane…So this is how you people live…" A muttering was heard.
The dream continued to play forward as the young William stared at his personal computer on the desk before his eyes. His gaze was fixed and immovable, just like his body. It was a somber night, just like always.
Snapping his fingers, the goat-masked man materialized a cinema within the dream, with red, velvety seats and golden, buttery popcorn. "Don't you think this fits the scene much better?"
William sat motionlessly in his seat, avoiding the gaze of his past self with stubborn defiance.
"Enjoy the movie." Reiner chuckled while saying.
Eventually, the young William dragged himself to the desk and booted up the computer. For someone of his age, he was surprisingly disinterested in things like video games; he much preferred doing something else.
Inside that blazing white monitor screen, line after line of words and letters appeared in quick succession, accompanied by a loud 'clickity-clack' sound. With each word written, his somber mood seemed to deviate. His expression turned concentrated, and his fingers danced across the keyboard with haste.
Reiner turned his head to face William. "So, your very first manuscript, a shame I'm unable to read it...did you really have to forget?"
An overbright, fanatic shine appeared in his eyes as his laser-focused gaze continued tracing line after line mentally. Before long, he had written up an entire chapter-length worth of words. He let out a relieved exhale; however, something still didn't sit right with him, something about the words he used, the lack of descriptors, the prose, the tone, all of it…Upon forcing himself to read the chapter begrudgingly, he let out an audible groan of disgust.
"It's not good enough..." The young William whispered.
Then, just as fast as they appeared, the lines of text began to disappear, erased into the deep trenches of the internet. He scowled in anger as he slapped himself in the face repeatedly.
So he began to write...again, and again. That first manuscript of his was being revised over and over, in an attempt to write the perfect story.
After a brief lapse in memory, a certain iteration of the manuscript caught Reiner's eye, as it wasn't forgotten and hazy like the others; instead, it was clear as glass, so he paused the dream to read.
-On a snowy, ashen winter night. An iridescent shining star plummeted from the skies above, crashing into a barren land known as Terra. Upon crashing, it coalesced into a being of light and warmth, a kind deity that would later become known as Igrith, the savior of humanity.
As a being of immense power and knowledge, Igrith constructed temples, churches, and other architectural wonders that propelled humanity ages into the future in terms of technology, which made them all greatly revere and respect this deity.
With churches and mausoleums in place, the masses began to pray for all sorts of things: food, wealth, and even kinship, which Igrith fulfilled with his vast power. He taught the people efficient farming techniques, forged a currency system based on expensive raw materials as the standard, and educated everyone on the importance of empathy and maturity.
When conflict arose and wars brewed, he mediated as an equal and caring judge to all sides, quelling tensions with unbiased love.
Then suddenly, he vanished. Some people mourned him; others felt betrayed and forsaken, thinking that they had returned to the skies above, spreading hate and despair across the lands. The disappearance of their anchor upended the world.
Within days, the church fell, and humanity gave rise to self-sufficient kingdoms that relied on no god, brandishing the pure might of human Ingenuity.
One day, a young peasant boy walked the streets of the largest kingdom in the world, seeing sights and experiencing the wonders of wealth and prosperity he had never gotten the chance to before.
He walked up to a street vendor. "Good morning, sir! Could I purchase an apple?"
"Why of course!" The young boy handed the man a few bronze coins and continued walking with a snack in hand.
He walked towards the great castle in the distance, the center of the Elenor kingdom. It was built on a tall mountain with a long trail leading up to it. Oftentimes, nobles would ride on carriages led by horses to take them up to meet with the king, while the poorer folk had to climb up normally. And so, he did.
After a few brutal days of trekking, the young child made it to the top. When he did, the king, Harold Elenor the First, was giving a grand speech to those who could make it. He spoke of the despair of his younger days. He stood on a grand podium made of precisely cut and polished golic wood sourced from the local forests.
"In those trying times, there was no food, no ethics, and no humanity within us. It was a gift from a forgotten god that we are where we are currently. They were the ones who made us human, no, gave us the ability to be human. I am a king, yes, but even I know our limits. One day, I will pass on, and my successor will be chosen. Our age limits us, but it is also what motivates us. Remember, as long as we don't give in to our inner darkness, humanity will triumph! The weight of his words left a small smile on the boy's face, while a few droplets of golden light fell from his eyes. As the last sparks of divinity left his body, alongside his responsibilities as their "god".
He stared at the sky, and the stars stared back at him.
'I guess we humans do learn after all. Maybe my life wasn't such a waste...mom, dad, I hope you're doing well.'
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"I was right about you...What a nice fairy tale, I wonder what the moral of the story is?"
William's posture has undergone a big change, where once lay a broken man, now sat a brooding individual who enjoyed reliving the story he had once written.
The young William got up after a tiresome few hours of typing, stepping into the washroom to take a shower and relax a bit. All was well...
Suddenly, he saw a figure with harrowing eyes, a dark expression, and a monstrous appearance. He knew exactly what this creature was: a demon. The very same demon who had ruined his entire life without him realizing it was now coming for him directly. Its eyes were full of pity and loathing, or was it loneliness and apathy?
In a dark corner of the dream, Will-Zhang Jiewei's lips began to curl upwards as his eyes held considerable troves of nostalgia. "Wouldn't you like to know...Get 'em, boy!"
In a flash of instinct, the child reared his right arm back and punched the demon's face as hard as he could to decimate it.
Crack!
Shards of reflective glass exploded across the room, striking the walls and shattering into glass fragments.
You should really stop looking into that damn mirror.
A low chuckle reverberated inside the dream, one that slowly ramped up into a laugh, before breaking out into maniacal hysteria.
"...Thanks...me. I guess...I just needed someone to read it aloud." A calm voice spoke.
"I think I'm finally ready to face what comes next. So thanks, William." Zhang Jiewei smiled softly with a hint of melancholy.
Two notification windows appeared after his words.
[G o o d L u c k , y o u ca n be a r it .]
[Attribute: Monster, has been destroyed.]
Reiner's mask dissolved partially, as his piercing red eyes grinned at Zhang Jiewei. "You're welcome."
"It's time for the finale. Oh, by the way, the moral of the story, is that the impact of a single person can be as great as you want it to be, all it takes is a bit of luck and passion, people will hate you for anything and everything you do, so ignore it and try to help them, because that's what it means to make friends." Zhang Jiewei clutched his head with his right arm while staring back.