4. Cyclic Rebirth

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Source: .writer/books/5. đź“ť Manuscript/1. Sand Veils/4. Cyclic Rebirth.org

1. Short Description

The narrator is trapped in a repetitive cycle of death and rebirth, pursued by malevolent creatures and experiencing amnesia. As he attempts to make sense of his surreal and transcendent experiences, he follows instructions of a mysterious parchment, which leads him to a glowing beacon, then a foreboding cave in a vast crater.

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4. Image

4. Cyclic Rebirth

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5. Content

I recalled experiencing the agony of my demise, as though an immense lance the width of a clenched fist had impaled me from behind. A sudden, numbing tranquility engulfed me as the world melted into darkness. The whole sensation of it was chimerical, surreal, for I could have sworn I was drifting away on a sea beyond my grasp. Then the serenity of my reverie was jarred back into reality.

Life struck me in the hard blow of a gelid wind.

My eyes sprang open. I jolted up in terror. What is happening? Naked still, panting, I returned to the spot of my origin, as though time had restarted. An eerie familiarity engulfed me, yet, at the time, my memory was a void. A complete emptiness, which drew me unaware of the death I suffered or the events that just transpired. I did not even recollect being killed.

The chaos of confusion unfolded anew.

Surprise, shock, dread—everything recurred. I stood vulnerable amid oblivion, striving to extinguish my insufferable itch. At that instance, I reacted differently, collapsing to the ground and screaming for help, but the tempestuous winds smothered my despair. Tears streaming down my face, I buried it in the sand, clutching handfuls with fervor. I soon realized the sand’s bizarre, water-like texture.

What is this?

Eventually, I rediscovered the enigmatic parchment, which again rested in the exact same spot beneath a white stone. As though for the first time introduced to the missive, I stopped thunderstruck, fumbling toward the letter with unyielding haste. The same symbols, the same message, the same riddle bewildering me into fear that compelled me to heed its instructions.

RUN! RUN! RUN! My mind thundered.

Finding the red beacon pulsating through the mist, I recommenced. Soon I encountered a grotesque tableau of decaying bodies littered across the landscape, their pallid forms shrouded in the fog. Once more, my terror doubled upon realizing they were my own replacer. The putrid odor was far more pronounced, forcing me to clamp my nostrils shut. Several strides forward, I lost track of the beam. Despite lingering in my sight, it became elusive. I launched into a disoriented sprint, confounded by the realm's inherent temporal-spatial turmoil.

Minutes later, I was enveloped by those spectral veils of sand. They swirled and undulated around me, entrancing me with their haunting, mermaid-like chorus. "Release me," I pleaded. "Begone!" The spell of their melody shattered to a halt as a demonic shriek tore through the sky. I spun, my eyes darting in panic, then I saw a tentacled mass swooping down upon me like a colossal bat. I attempted to shield myself with my forearms, desperate in my plea, but the creature's descent marked the last sight I beheld.

Again… I died.

Afresh, I awoke back in my initial spot beside the letter, retaining no memory of my previous demise. Even now, as I record this, I cannot recall the number of times I perished in my quest for that beacon. I know it forged a macabre path with my carnage. Limbs, entrails, and gore littered the area as the savage beings feasted upon my disgrace. Enshrouded in terror, they always came along as deathly apparitions with harrowing screams, ever-shifting amorphous forms, and writhing tendrils with mandible-like appendages. The ominous darkness they emanated consumed life itself, hinting at an unfathomable malevolence.

Those creatures killed me by impaling my body with their tentacles, an excruciating ordeal that soon melted my mind into a morbid void. Each time I opened my eyes, the cycle repeated. Identical doubts and anguish assailed me back. I was compelled to start anew, drowned in bewildering forgetfulness. I was trapped in a cyclic nightmare, oblivious to my own predicament.

The letter would always rest in the same position, tucked beneath a white rounded stone. Throughout my sequence of reincarnations, I was not perpetually blessed to perceive the parchment. Often I awakened and immediately succumbed to despair, sprinting without direction only to be slain again by one of those fiendish entities. If I read the message, then I would endeavor to reach that cryptic beacon. Regardless of my actions, a singular destiny would always meet me: death—often by monstrous claws, sometimes by hunger, cold, or disease, or even more sinister fates that I cannot recall. If only I could keep the memories of my experiences, I might better prepare for my encounters. Yet my demise punished me into amnesia, and by that I was mocked by fate.

My plight escalated into madness.

In one of my everlasting rebirths, I sneaked past the nightmarish creatures to a distant refuge. In that secluded space, I survived for numerous days, or at least that I judged to be many. I found shelter in a burrow I discovered, fit enough for my size, thereby evading the itching on my skin, the coldness, and, especially, the monsters. However, outside, they would still be there, as if they could sense my presence. I mastered the art of prowling through the crevices of towering rocks, stealthily navigating the stone-strewn land to evade my aerial predators.

Each day upon awakening, I would scour for the peculiar flora burgeoning in the pallid terrain surrounding my small den. They resembled violet stalks culminating in upturned azure pyramids, with roots clutching the earth with such tenacity that they appeared to shriek when unearthed. They emitted a pink luminescence in the darkness, and sometimes swayed side to side for no discernible cause. I suspected they were matching my position, similar to sunflowers following the Sun.

Their succulent and saccharine taste, juiced out of the pyramidal apex, was delightful. Yet, even with sustenance and vigilance, dehydration and starvation overpowered me. Now I believe my demise came from poisoning induced by those very plants.

How many times had I perished?

To this day, I am unsure. The horrors I endured during those dreadful moments defied natural explanations. Perhaps I had never died, or perhaps I existed forever in a state of death. I am clueless. The oxymoron, here so blatant, remained elusive there. My memory of those occurrences represents humble efforts to decipher experiences that vastly surpassed any rationale.

There, reason did not apply.

Most unsettling, I continued oblivious to the deeper stake of my plight, which lay beyond life and death itself. The cryptic message from the parchment sought not to shield me from the ravenous creatures, the coldness, the hunger, or any material dangers. Instead, from an impending doom far more sinister. Little did I know, while I traversed the treacherous landscape, that the genuine danger lurked ever-present, as proximate as my own consciousness.

One day, I finally reached the elusive beacon.

I discovered it to be a stark, obsidian pillar, lodged in the soil, with a red light pulsating at its apex. However, there was no energy source—no flame, no lamp, no wires, nor anything else. The illumination happened seemingly by sorcery. Moreover, the beacon’s origin and purpose remained a mystery, but such questions paled compared to my overwhelming wish for escape. My thoughts had devolved into sheer insanity, and all I yearned for was deliverance from my grotesque nightmare.

After heeding the parchment’s instructions, I grappled it in my hands and veered right, without hesitation moving onward. I climbed a modest hillock, after which I encountered the ominous cave the letter warned me about. My sight widened in the vast crater that unveiled below.