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

Many of those people were no better than the demons they promised they could protect people from.

He looked at Alec, surprised that his friend was taking this seriously. They’d run into more than a few of those groups on some of their earlier mishaps. How many horrors did those people commit under the guise of “the greater good?”

“You can’t be buying into this,” he said to Alec. Jacob turned to Doctor Jasieux. “Then I’d say you’ve finally snapped because you sound like a cultist.”

She shook her head and sighed, removing her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Mon Dieu! God save me from small minds.” The Doc took a deep breath, resituated her glasses, and looked at Jacob. “Do you believe that a plane weighing several hundred tons can fly?”

“Of course. I used to fly all the time.”

“And do you understand how it would look to somebody born now – God have mercy on their soul – if you proposed that a metal tube with wings could fly?”

“But that’s different. They’re ignorant of how a plane works. If they understood the mechanics behind it they wouldn’t think it’s impossible,” Jacob countered. But even as he said it, he was beginning to catch on to what she meant.

“And do you understand how a plane manages to stay in the air even though every common-sense rule says something so heavy shouldn’t be able to fly?” she asked, tilting her chin up at him.

“Bernoulli’s law?” he vaguely recalled. A lot of information from his high school days was dusty and shoved into a dark corner with all the other useless information from his life before the Collapse.

“Principle,” she corrected, “but close enough. And if I told you the underlying theories explaining how this is possible, you would still be skeptical unless you saw it work for yourself.”

Jacob opened his mouth to object but Alec was at his side in a second placing a hand on his shoulder. “Trust her, Jacob. She’s been at this a long time.”

“All right,” he said, dropping the matter. Alec was more skeptical than even he was. If he believed her, there had to be something there. “So let’s say that you can undo everything.” He jerked his chin toward the panel she accessed. “Presumably that ember is needed?”

“So you are brighter than you look,” she congratulated. “Think of it as the last piece to the quantum puzzle. The rules of Lormar are not the same as on Earth, that much I am sure you are aware, yes?

“Everything we ever thought we understood about the flow of time is distorted in Lormar, the world of Pyresouls. Now that it affects us, we can use some of its quirks to our benefit.”

Jacob looked from Alec to the Doc, then to the FIVR pod. “And somehow you think you found a way to undo everything with that?” he asked, pointing at the pod.

Doctor Jasieux patted the curved glass top. “This is only half of the equation, as you say. We need a person to send back.”

“I thought you were talking about sending back a… I don’t know, a bomb or something to destroy the company that made Pyresouls. You’re talking about sending back a person?”

Jacob took a few steps to the side to keep both Alec and the Doc in his sight. “Just so we’re all on the same page. You’re proposing time travel. Like, literal time travel by sending some poor soul back in time to… what, fix all this somehow?”

Before the Doc could launch into a tirade about how time travel was a misnomer or something along those lines, Alec stepped between them.

He put a hand up to calm the Doc. “I can hardly understand the particulars, but yes. At its core, that is what she is talking about. This is real, Jacob. How much magic have you seen in the last decade? Are you really going to start doubting now?”

Jacob had to concede the point. Time travel was far from the most unbelievable thing he witnessed over the last ten years.

The Doc rubbed her forehead in annoyance. “Not time travel,” she chided. “But now is not the time to be discussing the quantum mechanics of Lormar’s influence on this world.”

Doctor Jasieux shook her red locks. “This, it is serious Jacob. No game. We send one soul back.” She lifted one finger. “One soul for one ember.” She raised another and put them side by side.

You didn’t survive very long in the apocalypse without being able to adapt quickly. This was just another thing to adapt to. Whether it was real or not didn’t much matter to Jacob.

It didn’t have much of an impact on his life. If the machine worked and somebody went back to change the past, good.

He would love if his worst fears and issues were trivial things like scoring well on exams or finding a job. And not securing clean water, shelter, food, and ensuring that they weren’t all violently murdered by superhuman creatures.

For a moment, just a moment, he allowed his mind to wander. Wondering what his life would be like if the Collapse never happened. His relationship with Emily would have ended, for sure. You didn’t up and betray somebody like that if you truly loved them.

Jacob shook his head to clear the bitter memories of Emily and why he quit Pyresouls only halfway through the competition. When he came back to the present he found both Alec and Doctor Jasieux looking at him. “What?”

“You think you’re up for it?” Alec asked, clapping him on the back.

“Wait, you want me to go in that thing?”

“Who else?”

“You!” Jacob pointed accusingly at Alec. “You practically beat the damn game already! How many times have you told me the story of how it happened? How, if you had known the Burgon Beast was going to destroy your Pyre, you would have rested at one much farther away?

“Not to mention all the mistakes in your character build and over what equipment to get. If