Conquer the pain

Normally, after days, or a few weeks max, Vrak would once again wake up in his bed, returning to the real world.

It was hard to keep track of time in the dream, especially so since Vrak never managed to summon a working clock. Therefore, he was only guessing how much time had passed by feeling.

The sun never moved, and he never got hungry He never felt the need to... use the restroom, either. His body wasn’t getting any less pale, nor had he suffered any sunburns, no matter how much the sun assaulted him. He wasn’t even getting thirsty, no matter how much sweat his body produced.

At first, everything was normal. As normal as things could be in this god forsaken nightmare.

Eventually, though, it started to take longer than usual for Vrak to wake up. Initially, he dismissed it, thinking that he was just counting the time wrong. But in time, he felt the days, and even weeks go by, still being stuck on the tranquil meadow.

Vrak really began to suspect something was amiss when a whole month passed, at least what felt like a month to him, and he was still laying on the hard ground, unable to even fall asleep, with only his thoughts keeping him company.

By now, Vrak had learned how to clear his mind, making it practically blank and devoid of almost all thoughts, to better pass the time. So, while still being incredibly hard to not become crazy from doing basically nothing for days and weeks on end, this method helped him stay somewhat sane... to a degree.

Rolling over on his back, squinting his eyes from the intense light, he cursed, not even aware he did so aloud.

“Fuck! God fucking damn it!”

The silence that lasted on the peaceful meadow for over a month was broken. He yelled for a long time, but there was no answer. He was utterly alone, with no one to hear his desperate cries.

Needing to catch his breath, Vrak paused his screaming for a moment. He didn’t waste more time than needed, as if suddenly pressured to act fast. Getting up on all fours, he started punching the ground and tearing at the grass with both hands with a furious expression on his pitiful face.

But no matter how hard he punched, or how much strength he put into ripping the seemingly soft grass, it did nothing.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Despite appearing as simply soil, the ground was as resilient as steel. His knuckles started bleeding after punching it too hard for too long.

The soft looking grass was indeed soft, but also indestructible somehow. Regardless of how desperately he pulled, the grass wouldn’t budge, remaining intact, only swaying with the wind occasionally. As if not being enough, the more he tried to rip the grass to shreds, the sharper it got, acting as incredibly thin and sharp blades, slicing the skin and flesh of his palms, painting the greenery red.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!”

Forced to stop due to the harrowing pain, tears streaming down his frenzied eyes and blood flowing from his mangled palms, Vrak cried silently:

“Damn... it.”

All those days, all those weeks, all those months... for nothing. Wasted. Pointless... Useless.

“Useless... It’s all useless.”

Gritting his teeth, Vrak got up from the ground and stood up straight, staring at the distant and by now all too familiar dot with rage and unrestrained malice.

“No. No, it’s not useless... I am. It’s me who’s useless. I’m the worthless, good-for-nothing piece of crap...”

Vrak took a step.

‘It’s futile, why even bother?’

“I don't care! Who says it’s futile, anyway?”

He took another step.

‘You’ve tried to reach that dot, or whatever it is many times, yet you always failed. Why would it be any different now?’

“Shut up! I don’t give a damn! I’ll reach that fucking dot even if it’ll be the last thing I do!”

‘Even if you do reach it, why are you so sure that it’ll be of any help? Do you really think that you will find some kind of salvation there?’

“I don’t care if it isn’t there. I don’t care what I find there. Even if I don’t anything at all, I’ll reach it. No matter what it takes. I...”

‘...Just give up.’

“I refuse...”

‘It’s not worth the effort.’

‘Give up...”

“I... refuse.”

‘It’s not worth the suffering.’

‘Give up.”

“I refuse!”

‘It’s not worth the madness.’

“Give u-’

“I SAID I REFUSE!!!”

Vrak screamed at nobody. He screamed at nothing.

Vrak screamed at himself. He screamed at the world. He screamed at its unfairness. He screamed at his own hypocrisy. He screamed at... everything.

“Just shut up already! I refuse to give in anymore! I’ve given up plenty of times already. I don’t care if I’m a nobody, or a useless piece of shit. It doesn’t matter if I don’t achieve anything. Everyone, and everything, who’s ever mocked me, bullied me, looked down on me, they can all go to hell!”

Vrak started walking forward faster and faster, almost breaking into a sprint.

“I’ll reach it... I’ll reach that damn dot today. I refuse to wake up before I reach it!”

‘But... remember what happened the last time you tried that?’

Vrak froze mid-step, his pupils widening slightly in fear. He remembered, of course. How could he forget? He will probably never forget that pain. The panic, the horror... The helplessness.

At that moment, he finally, completely, made up his mind.

All the dread, doubt and fear. All of it was gone, replaced by nothing but determination.

The insidious voice in his head disappeared without a trace.

Stopping his march, he concentrated all his focus into one single action. His mind was devoid of any hesitation or uncertainty, full of cold resolve.

For a while, nothing happened.

Then, at the next moment:

“AAAARGH”

The skin on Vrak’s back turned red, then tore itself apart. His back muscles and spine exploded, only to regenerate and be destroyed again. Blood was flowing down his back like a furious river escaping a dam, only to fly back to his body a second later, forming newly appeared muscle tissue.

Vrak involuntarily fell down on the ground, his entire body convulsing and writhing in agony and unimaginable torment. His mind was blank and in turmoil at the same time, both sides competing to overwhelm the other.

His face was twisted and pale, losing the little color it had. He bit down on his lips and tongue, blood running from his mouth like a torrent of crimson.

And yet, despite being tortured—by his own hand no less—he was smiling. He was grinning, his deranged face almost beaming. His brown eyes were full of dark glee and joy.

His scream turned into an exhilarating, demented laugh.

If someone was there to witness the whole thing, they would be quite disturbed. Not even mentioning the mortifying sight of someone’s body being destroyed and rebuild, over and over again, new bones, muscles, skin, and eventually feathers growing from the persons back with tremendous speed, and yet also slowly, with vivid detail...

No, the most disturbing thing about it all, was that the human it was happening to was seemingly enjoying it.

His face was contorted, with a deep frown and an ugly expression. And yet, his lips were formed into a sneer, his eyes burning with mad jubilation and determination.

His laugh was hysterical and terrifying, traveling in all directions, breaking the peaceful tranquility of the vast and quiet meadow.

Pushing through the pain, Vrak pushed himself up, kneeling at first, then finally standing up and straightening his disfigured back, his face frightful and hideous, yet triumphant and proud.

And after a few more infinitely long seconds...

“Ha... Hahahahaa... HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAAHAAA!!!”

He did it.

His body was trembling from the pain and torture he willingly put himself through. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, falling on the once again perfectly green grass. All the blood he spilled had either flowed back into his body during the transformation, or disappeared somewhere else entirely, perhaps absorbed by the unbreakable soil or simply seizing to exist.

‘I did it...’

Once that thought appeared his head, he forgot all about everything else for a moment.

“I... I did it. I really did it. Well, how about that, huh? Where are you now, you asshole?! Suddenly got nothing to say, eh? Yeah, that’s what I thought!”

And indeed, no answer came. His mind was clear of doubt, full of satisfaction and fulfilment instead. In fact, Vrak hadn’t felt this good in quite a while.

‘Is this what it feels like to finally succeed at something?’

Vrak shook his head.

No, that was not entirely right. This... this was what it felt like to finally not give up at something, seeing it through all the way to the end, no matter how tough it gets in the process, regardless of the outcome.

‘Actually succeeding is a nice bonus though.’

He nodded in satisfaction.

‘Wow... I feel like a philosopher. But... Aren’t I forgetting something?’

Vrak looked around, his gaze eventually landing on the distant dot, almost indistinguishable to the eye.

“...Right.”

He took a deep breath and steadied himself.

Now that Vrak had a little time to collect his thoughts and assess the situation, he realized what it was that he had actually done. In short, it was nothing short of staggering.

“Wings... Did I really grow wings?”

Vrak found it hard to believe. It sounded kind of absurd to even think about. He was still in denial, but the memory of what he had put himself through to prove he had what it takes to not give up was burned vividly into his mind. It was hard to remember pain, but recalling the emotions one felt and the thoughts flying through his mind at lighting speed what all too easy.

“I wish I could see my back right now... Wait, why can’t I?”

Vrak once again concentrated and cleared his mind. The process was all too familiar to him by now.

First, one had to remove any unnecessary thoughts and distractions from the mind. The more complex the thing he wanted to summon, the emptier his mind had to be.

The second step was to form a clear image of what one wanted to summon. The easiest were the easy-to-understand things he was greatly familiar with, such as his most worn clothes, for which he didn’t even need to create an image of, having the option to simply rely on his subconsciousness to form the image for him.

For more complex things, he needed to concentrate much more. The more difficult the summoning, the more backlash his body and mind would suffer.

For the third and final step, Vrak had to take the image from his mind, focusing on maintaining its form for the entire time, and... wish it into existence.

As absurd as that sounded, that was literally what Vrak was doing—at least what he thought he was doing. It was working for him, so he was pretty confident that he was right.

The more complicated the image he was summoning was, and the less he was familiar with it, the longer it took for him to summon it.

Everything he had made appear until now was rather simple, so it always took anywhere between five to ten seconds.

Except for the wings, of course, which took about one to three minutes. It was hard to remember the duration of the transformation due to the tormenting pain and his partially shattered mind.

Vrak still did not know why he had even been able to grow his wings in the first place. As far as he knew, the structure of wings was anything but simple. So, why was he able to summon them, and not a car, for example?

Was it because a car was actually more difficult to grasp and understand then wings? Or was it something entirely different?

Vrak didn’t care about any of these questions right now, though. Because the thing he wanted to summon was finally manifested into existence.

It was a mirror, rectangular in shape, with thin and silver edges. The mirror was about half his size in height and twice his size in width. It was clean and without any smudges or dirty spots.

This was a mirror from his school bathroom, or rather, a replica of it.

Vrak was holding the mirror with both hands, only now realizing that the wall it was usually hanged on was obviously not summoned along with it.

Wanting to face palm, but being unable to due to holding the mirror, he proceeded to summon the desk from his homeroom, resting the mirror on its side.

Taking a step back and facing the mirror, Vrak finally saw what he now looked like.

Vrak involuntarily took another step back from shock, his mouth hanging agape and his eyes wide as an owl’s. Slowly, the surprise was gone, elation and euphoria surfacing instead. He grinned, checking himself out while wearing a peculiar expression on his boney face.

Vrak was probably the happiest person under the shining sun in the whole world at that moment. As well as technically the only one.

He was turning and jumping like a five-year-old, trying to glance every millimeter of the new parts of his body.

The first time he tried to summon the wings, he passed out right before the process was finished, and all he knew was the wings were white. Now, he saw so much more, all of it leaving him in awe.

The wings were entirely white and blinding, without any imperfections or blemishes. As if all the other colors in existence seemed reluctant or terrified to paint themselves on the pristine and glorious wings.

Their feathers were almost too clean, as if the words like dirt or filth were erased from existence, unknown to the laws of the world when faced with the angelic creation.

They were soft and comfortable to the touch, making one want to caress them for eternity. Any living being laying their head on a pillow made from them would most like fall asleep instantly, feeling as if they were sleeping on fluffy clouds in heaven.

Not that anyone would dare to desecrate these heavenly feathers by turning them into something so unworthy as a pillow.

The entire wings reflected the sunlight almost perfectly, blinding anyone who would dare to stare at their magnificence for too long.

Some sort of strange, unfathomable, and holy power seemed to be hiding within the marvelous white feathers, waiting to be released. Perhaps if their owner would take flight, spreading the wings and showing them in all their beauty and glory, that power would be set free, bringing unimaginable effects upon the world.

But there was one problem with that. No matter how the owner of the practically flawless wings tried, he could not for the life of him move them even a centimeter, let alone fly up to the skies.

“Fuck!”

Regardless of how hard Vrak tried, the wings wouldn’t budge. Every time Vrak thought he was close, the control of the wings would slip from his grasp, remaining elusive and unreachable.

Similar to the distant dot that would not get any bigger or clearer no matter how long he traveled.

“Damn, so I go through all that shit, and I can’t even use the thing I suffered for?! This is bullcrap!”

Even while cursing loudly, his voice swiftly dispersing into the endless expanse of the meadow, he refused to give up trying to control to wings. He refused to believe that all of it was for nothing. He refused to believe that he was still stuck, with no better method than walking for reaching the faraway dot.

His wings remained unresponsive.

But right as he was about to give up, exhausted and his mind drained, it finally happened.

He felt his wings twitch slightly, as if trying to spread from his back, only to cease their movement once Vrak lost his focus due to his surprise that he finally succeeded.

“Ha... Hahahahaa! I get it! I get it!”

Not wanting to lay down on his wings, not knowing how fragile they were, he got on all fours instead, laughing madly while gasping for air at the same time. He grinned, his mouth’s corners so apart from each other he looked like a mad clown who sliced them with a knife to make his smile wider. It was quite a frightening sight.

‘So obvious. It was so fucking obvious! Why didn’t I think of that? The answer is so damn simple.’

The answer was, indeed, rather simple, but at the same time, really complicated as well.

Did a human infant—or newborn wild animal—learn to walk in a day? Did human children learn to use their hands to do all kinds of complex and fascinating tasks the first time they tried? No. They had to learn. They had to fail, try again, and fail again. It took time and patience. And most importantly, it took countless failures.

So, all Vrak had to do was be patient, incredibly so, and basically learn how to use a new limb. The wings were a part of his body now, after all. The same way his hands or legs were.

Vrak stood up again, seemingly looking at nothing in the distance. But in fact, his eyes were dead focused on a single, almost invisible and maybe even entirely unreachable dot, far away across the infinite and sickening green meadow.

“I’m coming for you, you stupid dot, or whatever you are.”