Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) by James Callum (reading tree .txt) 📕

Swirling shrieking screams filled Jacob’s ears. His thoughts careened and spiraled out of control. So close to its goal, the Incomplete Vessel was dragged into the depths of madness with Jacob.

The Incomplete Vessel’s every attempt to combat the madness was met with futility. It could not copy what was not sane. The barbed twists of Jacob’s rapidly deteriorating mind stymied its every attempt to reestablish a semblance of control.

He saw his mother and father again, not as the people they were, but as the Vacant they became that day out on the lake when the waters boiled and the sky went black. When the Collapse happened.

Broken fragments of his worst memories replayed over and over again. Insanity swirled around him. It was a cyclone with sharp, bright memories of terror and horror like shards of glass which looked onto moments terrible and dark.

At the eye of the storm, Jacob huddled up, pulling his knees to his chest. He was a child again, helpless and weak. Even if he could lift the sword at his side, there was no way he could wield it effectively.

One of the fragments of his swirling memories flashed, and out came the Fire Oppa. “This protection will not last,” he warned, padding over and pressing his head gently into Jacob’s shin. “You cannot stay here.”

“I can’t face it again,” he replied, though it came out as more of a whine than he intended it to. “Not again.”

“It has already happened,” Fenris tried to explain, crawling up his leg to perch on his knee. “They are memories. And they cannot harm you any more. But we must leave, now.”

Tentatively, Jacob reached out to the Fire Oppa, who merely shook his head. “I cannot join you,” he explained. “These are your memories. And only you may face them.”

That nearly made the young boy collapse in on himself. He was afraid of being alone. More than anything, he feared abandonment. But he pushed to his feet and even scooped up the [Duskblade] at his side.

He couldn’t lift the thing, so he dragged it on the formless ground like some childhood toy in the hands of a toddler.

Jacob walked into the storm of painful memories that would cut and wound him as surely as if they were jagged glass.

Every flash of pain was worse than the last. His first steps were twisted recollections warped by the emotional weight of the memory more than the actual facts.

His first breakup, his first bully, they all loomed larger than life and more terrible than he knew they were. Jacob walked through them, trudged on, and with each memory laid behind him, he grew a little.

By the time he walked into that cabin to find his parents as shambling thoughtless husks of their former selves, Jacob could just barely lift his sword. Conscious thought failed him as he bore witness to his caring, loving mother lunging for him with bloodied fingertips scraped to the bone.

Jacob’s mind seized up, but his muscles remembered the forms he studied for years. Wind Parts the Grass split her in half. Two steps forward to his kind father whose soft green eyes were now milky white streaked with blood. Jacob was already moving into the next form. Lightning Cracks Stone split his father’s skull like a melon.

Tears streamed down Jacob’s face as he tried to remember the jovial man that always had time for a joke and a laugh. There would be no more laughter.

Flickering memories played out before him. He barely survived his first week alone in the woods, attempting and largely failing to find food and shelter. With his sword in hand, he rewrote the fear-filled memories with blood.

Back then, he didn’t know how to hold a blade properly, much less use it. Form after form cut down the fiends that tormented his addled mind. Even twisted and larger than they had ever been in life, Jacob felled them.

And with each victory, he grew stronger.

He fought his way out of madness, one warped memory at a time. Alone. When he emerged, he expected to find something profound, some deep realization of who he was.

Instead, he found the Incomplete Vessel. Its bloodshot yellow eye twitched violently as it reacted to the shared madness within Jacob.

With a great bellowing roar, Jacob tore off the feelers holding him in place. Black ichor sprayed into the air. He leaned back on his left foot, drew back the surprisingly still flaming [Duskblade], and thrust it forward into that unseeing yellow eye.

Hummingbird’s Kiss took the Incomplete Vessel in its lone eye, burrowing the blade up to the hilt and beyond. Jacob’s hand punched through the gelatinous mass until the tip of the blade made a muffled ping.

Abruptly awakened, the Incomplete Vessel let loose a blast of sickly yellow energy that threw Jacob back with such force that it nearly zeroed out his Health. Stunned, he barely managed to twist away from a barrage of spiked tendrils aimed for his head.

Cold seeped into him, and even the fire of his blade was quenched. The Incomplete Vessel lashed about but was clearly blinded. The air whistled with its sharp whipping tendrils.

And then just as abruptly as it began, it stopped.

The Incomplete Vessel shook and quivered. Cracks appeared all over its bulbous body, spilling gouts of fire and bright light. With a high keening cry, the Incomplete Vessel shattered with a brilliant explosion that washed the world in white.

Where the Vessel had been was only Jacob’s shield, the [Phoenix Tree Crest Shield] pulsing with golden light. A pair of wisps stood above it. One was golden, the other black as pitch.

Jacob crawled forward, watching the fiery form of the Fire Oppa materialize out of the burning crest of the phoenix tree emblazoned on the shield.

As soon as the little fiery creature saw Jacob, he sprang toward him, and Jacob caught Fenris in his arms. He hugged the warm and healthy creature, overjoyed that he was okay.

Better than