Trapped Within Myself

The nightmarish nights continued. Each a repetition of the first.

I frequently woke up in fear, exposed and defenceless. The lingering itchiness made sleep impossible, though the constant uncertainty didn’t help either.

I felt weaker each time I woke, whether it was the glaring sunrise or the sudden downpour, today’s duty officer in charge of reveille.

The rain soon faded into a light drizzle. As summer approached the southern hemisphere, temperatures rose while humidity kept climbing, making sleep even harder.

The raindrops fell one at a time, sometimes multiple at once, changing up their rhythm. If different percussion were arranged underneath, this already melodic spectacle would turn into a full-on ensemble, joined by the sound of the wind, gently playing like an oboe, and the rustle of vegetation, adding to the music’s depth.

The usual morning chill was broken by the warmth of nature’s classical concert brought before my eyes.

It was almost the middle of December. Two weeks had passed since I first found myself here. My legs, unaccustomed to effort, throbbed with a persistent soreness. An ache that refused to fade.

I kept journeying upstream, foraging for food but finding little besides the same wild berries and some hard-shelled, insect-like creatures I hesitated to eat at first, their tiny hairs off-putting and often hiding high in the trees.

Unfortunately, I hadn't found any fish thus far. The stream curved and climbed, forming tiered waterfalls as it gained elevation. It was perhaps too shallow for them, algae coating the riverbed.

Each day felt hotter than the last, and an almost all-berry diet was not sustainable for long. However, giving up too soon wouldn't help.

Even after eating, my stomach rumbled. I wasn’t eating enough to satisfy my hunger. Air churned inside me, occasionally coming out as small, stifled burps.

Mana density rose deeper in the woods, so I meditated by the stream every day. After dawn, after food, before sleep, I practised control over both inner and outer mana, unsure of what it truly was and what it entailed, in a world I was failing to recognise as my own.

Improvement was slow, but the effects I felt were a mere shell of what they once were. I no longer got nauseous or blurry vision just by progressing into the forest, only occasionally suffering from a mild headache.

I also formed theories about it. Mana seemed to behave like ambient energy, drawn from living things, passing through matter without much resistance, and carried by currents in air and water, which might explain why the mana near the brook felt denser than farther away.

Lacking any concrete proof of those ideas, I felt strangely disgusted with myself.

During these last few days, I was lucky to find rocks with similar properties to flint while searching by the stream, breaking them apart into sharp pieces.

By hitting them at an angle, aiming at the sharpest point, I now had an easier way to light a fire. I no longer had to endure the painstaking method of twisting sticks together.

I kept grinding the tip of the spear and hardening its shaft by the fire, all while honing my combat skills, throwing it and stabbing at trees to train strength.

I also took the time to write in the notebook, though not much new information arose.

When night fell, I stayed close to the campfire and wrote anything I thought to be helpful. The smell of smoke was etched all over the pages. A smell I had grown numb to.

Light attracted those strange, many-legged creatures I loosely classified as insects. They didn’t fit any category I knew. Most likely I was simply being ignorant.

Conveniently, I didn’t suffer any repercussions from drinking out of the stream, nor did any of the berries cause some type of side effect from eating them.

The blisters and rashes had healed without a trace of infection, and the irritation and itchiness had disappeared a couple of days later.

I must have burned through a lifetime’s worth of luck in just two weeks. Ironically, the same two I believed to have died.

Despite all the progress, I still felt like I was failing to survive.

Days passed, but I remained unmoved. Trapped in time. Unable to notice any real improvement.

I had grown used to loneliness. To being lost.

The monotony of life crept over me once more.

Entering this repeating cycle of waking up, wandering eastwards through the forest, and falling into a sentiment of dread and anxiety when going to sleep.

My desire to master control over mana was probably the only thing keeping me sane.

I sat up. Drowsy as per usual. Hearing my stomach growl for the hundredth time.

I reached for my bag, taking out the last reserve of berries I had, and ate them slowly, one by one, hoping they would make me feel fuller and give me the energy I desperately needed.

While I ate, I found myself contemplating the vaguely different scenery, absorbing all its sounds and feelings.

At this moment, I had an epiphany. I realised that I hadn’t been bitten by any bug until now, like a mosquito or a similar insect, when I had already been sleeping in the open for two weeks.

Doubts still lingered, but I was almost certain I wasn’t in the real world anymore. Thinking about it that way, those insects could simply not exist here, or just not where high levels of mana could easily be felt. They might suffer from similar effects to those I felt in the beginning.

Already wearing my shoes, leaving them on in case I had to flee during the night, I stood up, packed my belongings, and set off again towards the creek.

The smell of dirt was stronger than usual since the soil was still drenched from this morning's shower. Avoiding the puddles as I walked, I tried to spot any berries on bushes nearby before reaching the brook, but none of them bore fruit.

After finding a large boulder next to the stream, I sat down and began meditating.

My head was emptied. My eyes closed. I focused on the sounds of the forest, the caress of the breeze on my skin, and my points of contact with the stone, noticing my place in this vast world.

I turned my complete focus towards my inner mana, visualising it like a single, long stroke of a Japanese calligraphy pen on my paper body. It trembled and twitched, refusing full control.

Then I shifted to outer mana, guiding it like an air current. But its fluctuations were way harder to predict.

When I finished, I took in the world around me once again.

The moment my eyes fluttered open, my worries slammed into me like a burst of wind. The world remained the same, indifferent to my little escapade.

Ignoring my problems hadn’t made them disappear. The fleeting moments of relaxation had eased my mind, but they were nothing more than a fragile veil. And as it lifted, I was no longer blinded by the illusion of bliss I had built for myself.

Reality had settled in, leaving me no choice but to press on.

I jumped down from the rock, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the bright light, and resumed walking alongside the stream. I closed my eyes and listened to the soothing bubbling of the water, a futile attempt to recapture my calm.

I continued my search for berries, finding some more along the way and restocking my backpack, but the aimless wandering still felt hopeless.

Then, I noticed what looked like droppings on the ground.

Reaching for a stick nearby, I poked at them. The small pellets were almost odourless. But most importantly, they were fresh.

A glint of hope shone in my eyes. It could be a sign of creatures besides the one I met that night. I scanned around for any sign of its presence.

Aside from bent blades of grass, I couldn’t find anything until I looked directly at the stream. Wet paw prints were left on some of the rocks on both sides of the brook. The creature had most likely crossed to the other side not long ago.

I decided to pause my trek upstream and set up a temporary watch, hiding behind some trees in case the animal returned to drink from the creek.

Minutes had passed when I heard a subtle scurrying through some bushes on the other side. Suddenly, a furry, medium-sized creature popped out.

It had dark-brown fur, obscuring some of its features, with a small head and limbs. Visible longer teeth peeked out of its mouth, and its snout twitched as it sniffed the air.

It seemed like some type of rodent, which made sense given the droppings I found earlier.

With a leaping gait and its tail held out behind, it slowly approached the water and started to drink.