Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 160: Spiral House(II)

Uriel put his cutlery down, swallowing what he’d been chewing, then leaning back.

He let out a sigh of satisfaction.

’This food sucks, by the gods.’ He complained in his mind as he ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back before turning to Mariah.

Though he found the food utterly disgusting—worse than even the sludge he’d been forced to eat in the prison for years—he didn’t let it show on his expression.

He smiled. "I’m all ears."

Mariah smiled back, unbothered by the rather exaggerated proximity between the two of them. The chairs alongside the semi-circular table were quite close, and now, so were their faces.

"As I said, you were allowed into the Spiral House due to your miraculous achievements, which impressed the House itself."

"Normally, to enter, you would’ve needed to decipher the runic puzzle, then from that puzzle form a runic key and then use that key to enter the House."

"The key would then be valid for a day, after which you’d be expelled from the house. From that point, you’d either have to solve the new puzzle, then repeat the cycle over and over again, or simply travel through the desert for alternatives."

"Now, that is not needed. You can stay in the House for as long as you’d want, but to exit it, you’ll need to solve the puzzle, otherwise—"

"—I’m stuck here." He chuckled. "Would it kill them to give me anything other than rotten apples..."

He shook his head.

"Alright. I’m trapped in here until I can form a runic key, noted. What else must I know?"

Mariah smiled, unbeknownst even to herself, as she noticed the amusement in Uriel’s gaze and his lack of care regarding the relative direness of his situation.

She found it rather charming.

"The Spiral House has multiple floors, each with a specific purpose meant to help the person inhabiting that floor."

"In all truth, even I don’t know how many floors the House has since it always changes based on who inhabits it, but there are a few floors that never change."

"Your—"

"It changes?" He interrupted her. "There were others before me here? Who?"

She tilted her head, half amused and half confused. "Oh?"

"And why would you have assumed you’d be the first?" she asked as she licked her lips.

"As narcissistic as I am, I find it quite hard to believe many would’ve been able to either find a solution to the puzzle easily," he said as he leaned in.

"Or even worse, be able to perform a feat comparable to my core creation." He continued while feigning a pompous air.

Mariah suppressed a chuckle and rolled her eyes. "Uh huh."

"Well, I suppose you’re right, in part. The puzzles required to enter the Spiral Houses aren’t always the same, and they’re usually not even runic in nature."

"It changes based on who takes the test." She paused.

"But fortunately, or unfortunately for your heart, no, you are not the first to enter the House, just a name amongst countless others."

Uriel touched his chest, pressing a palm against his heart as if it had been stabbed, shock written across his face.

"How ruthless."

"How ruthless, heartless, and soulless of you."

...

Uriel spent quite some time chatting with Mariah.

Though he didn’t ask about her nature, or how she’d suddenly gone from a mannequin to a normal human, he found her incredibly fascinating.

After a while, though, she excused herself and simply vanished.

Left with nothing much else to do—and not necessarily thrilled to eat more of the food in the kitchen—he simply made his way up the spiraling stairs of the house and back to his room.

Sat on his bed, he stared out the window, a neutral smile etched across his features.

He watched the cycle of daytime rage across the desert, tsunamis of sand rising and falling to spread havoc and allow chaos to reign.

He almost seemed nostalgic as he stared at the white horizon.

’...’

He’d gone through a lot in the past few days. Perhaps too much.

Namely; falling from the skies and surviving the fall itself, surviving the falling and rising waves of sand all while stripped of magic and his core, having to suddenly operate on his limbs while buried deep within sand in a makeshift bunker of vines and sand, causing a massive explosion to launch himself across the air and crash into the ruby wall, tying himself to the ruby wall for an entire day as he survived the ruthless sand waves slowly shattering his shells, surviving the chaotic and intense rain of the desert night, and surviving against the monstrous fox all the while constantly gambling with his life again and again to beat odds he had no right to face.

All this leading to him losing half his face, limbs, and eyes and somehow surviving by nearly killing himself and having his mind travel across time to witness the birth of a dimension and use it as inspiration to be reborn—it was a lot.

It was so much that most would crumble under the weight of it all, finding the situation utterly ridiculous.

And now, after surviving such endeavours, he woke up in a foreign bed, forced to deal with the reality that he was now trapped within a structure he may never escape, alongside a strange yet amiable and mysterious shape-shifting mannequin.

The pressure was high, relentless, and merciless.

But Uriel, though, didn’t think it to be so. He didn’t feel any of it. In fact, he found it all to be quite...fun.

Back in the settlement, on his way back to Ayah’s house after their Simulation training, he’d been deeply pondering the meaning of his life and existence.

The question had been simple—’and then what?’

That had been the issue. He had no purpose and no desires.

What was he doing it all for then? Why was he fighting to survive the tutorial?

He was a cripple and barely physically capable and would die in a year anyway. Not only that, he was surrounded by monsters and schemes beyond his comprehension.

Everyone knew him and his secrets, but he knew no one and none of their truths.

Part of him back then had held onto the faint hope that he’d maybe one day regain his past memories, but his sin had viciously burned that path.

Not only had it done so, it had instead given him his memory of his life back and made him realise just how...miserable his life had been.

It was all so bleak and bland and pathetic.

So, he had lost hope.

His life had no purpose, so he would let himself die.

But facing death—truly facing it—again and again, and each time defeating it, rising beyond the odds and keeping his name deeply etched into the book of life left him feeling strange.

It made his heart burn like the brightest and largest of stars in the universe. It overwhelmed his mind with glee and jubilation that pushed him to the brink of madness and allowed him to see it...the light.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

’What was it that I called myself again...a stupid bipolar masochist? That seems fitting.’ He shook his head, waking from his daze and sighing.

’What would Ma think if she heard me be so excited about risking my life? She’d kill me if she heard me reminisce so fondly about throwing my life away...’

Shaking his head, his body loosened and he let himself gently fall back onto the bed, relaxing and—

"Hm?"

He felt something between his back and the bed.

A soft, seemingly furry ball of—

"KIH!"

Hearing a soft squeak, Uriel reached behind his back and pulled whatever he’d laid on up to his face.

Looking at the small ball of fur in his hand, he was taken aback.

"Well, would you look at that?"