Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (best adventure books to read .TXT) 📗

to observe the room, I noticed a heavy feeling of drag on my body, as if I were submerged in a tank of viscous liquid.

“This is a dream,” I stated out loud, mostly for my own benefit.

The sound of creaking wood caught my attention. “Oh, you’re a quick one, aren’t you?” asked a familiar female voice. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I turned to find Amaya lounging sideways in her usual chair, watching me with amusement. “How’ve you been, love?”

I sighed. “Seeing as you’re just me, shouldn’t you already know that? We’ve done this dance before.”

Her head lolled backwards over the arm of the chair lazily, spilling a golden cascade of hair down to brush along the floorboards. “If we’re both aware of that, and I’m still asking, I guess that shows just how much you want to talk to me, doesn’t it?” She giggled as she turned to face me upside-down. “So, spill it!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I took your advice after our last, uhm, conversation. Lia and I talked, and I told her how I feel. It went really well, all things considered.”

Amaya clapped her hands excitedly and shot back up to a normal sitting position. “Oh, that’s so great, Elden!” Her smile was shining and full of joy, just as I remembered it. “I bet you’ve been feeling better since then, right?”

“Well, yes and no,” I said, tilting my head to one side in consideration. “It’s been great spending time with Lia, but recently I’ve been having these...episodes. I get so angry that I lose track of myself, and my flashbacks have been so vivid it’s like I’m actually reliving the memories.” Hearing the thoughts spoken out loud helped me to realize something. “I’m scared, Amaya. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Her smile faded to a pursed frown. “I’m sorry to hear that, love.” She stood up and crossed the room to stand in front of me, taking my hands in hers. “I wish you could remember everything. You wouldn’t feel so terrible if you did.”

“Remember...what?” I asked, confused. “I would never forget anything about you.”

She shook her head. “Not consciously, no. But there are memories that you’ve locked away, for one reason or another.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Amaya,” I told her, forgetting I was in a dream. “What memories? What am I forgetting?”

“I can help you remember,” she said sweetly, caressing my cheek, “but you have to promise me something.”

“Anything,” I said immediately, gripping her hand tighter.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sharp sound of glass shattering. It pierced the dreamlike fog around us and cut straight into my chest, where it began to reverberate and grow in strength. A chill raced down my spine and tingled out into my extremities, and I felt every alarm rage out in my head all at once.

“When the time comes,” Amaya whispered, lowering her face to within a few inches of mine, “you need to promise you’ll keep your eyes open.”

“What?” I asked vacantly, too caught up in my panic to fully take in my surroundings. The shattering sound crashed over me again, deafening this time, and I closed my eyes and flinched away from the sound.

“No, Elden,” she whispered again, her voice now buried within a dissonant collection of screams. My eyes shot open and beheld a scene of horror before me; Amaya’s face was riddled with pulsing black veins, branching out from the smoking pits that were her eyes and mouth. Her skin had faded to porcelain white, and her beautiful golden hair was burning within black, billowing flames. The cacophony of voices called out again, seemingly from everywhere at once.

“EYES OPEN, ELDEN.”

---

I screamed and threw my body backwards with every ounce of strength I had in a desperate attempt to escape the vision before me. I felt a sharp impact against my shoulder blades, followed a moment later by the sound of wood smashing against wood. My sword materialized in my hands, and I held it out in front of me, putting distance between me and the rest of the world.

Although my eyes were open, the information they transmitted was lost before it reached my brain, and I stood in an undefined, dark world. It seemed as though time had frozen solid around me as I stood alone, defending myself against an unknown threat. My mind was too electrified to remember what it was that had caused my panic in the first place, but whatever it was, I could still feel its presence in my head.

After what felt like hours, a sensation that had been hidden among the chaos inside me suddenly became clear: I was expending an enormous amount of mana. The revelation led to another, and another, and set off a chain reaction that brought my mind screeching to a halt. In just a few moments, the world around me had become crystal clear. I was standing in Marin’s guest room among the shattered remains of the guest bed’s wooden frame, and I was pointing my sword directly at Lia.

My now clear mind processed the information with stunning efficiency. Lia’s arm was out towards me, and her eyes were wide with terror and concern. It looked as though she were frozen in place, but when I watched for long enough, I could see that she was actually approaching me at an almost imperceptibly slow pace. I attempted to lower my sword, but I found that my body reacted at a significantly reduced speed as well, though it was leagues faster than Lia’s movement.

I woke up from a nightmare. My body reacted by putting distance between me and what I presumed to be the source of danger, which destroyed the bed I had fallen asleep against. My mind is processing information at such an accelerated rate that the world seems frozen in comparison, due to the Combat Acceleration enhancement which is being fueled by a massive expenditure of mana. There is no threat present.

I cut