Chapter 1: 00 | rewind; to change the past

[he was a dreamer who never dreamed]

——xxx——

Gone meant it'd forever be absent in life's strange wanderings, but lost meant it'd only needed to be found within the wretched depths it hid.

And one couldn't understand the difference until understanding meant nothing to change what had occurred.

There was a day long ago, when Lucas Silvius lost the person who meant the most in the world to him. He had been too immature to see that, too lost in his own selfish thoughts to understand.

And now, pressed against the shattered ground, he finally thought of it.

It was only seven years later, when a deadly game that played with humanity's lives would begin and that person—the one that was lost—would be in the center of it all. It was only when it was too late to make amends that he discovered the truth of the relentless misunderstandings.

The air was suffocating, drowning in dust and grim that dragged along one's lungs. The wind didn't help, only forcing the dust further down as the red moon glowered almost mockingly above.

A bloody throne sat before him, but he was unable to see it.

"Your persistence is irritating, darling." said a chilling voice that hammered into the man's skull.

He choked out a bitter laugh; the pressure forcing him to the ground, immobile and helpless. "Humans are like that, sort of like annoying flies that won't stop buzzing around you. It's just the way we are, and I quite like it."

When he spoke, they came in broken stammers as tremendous amounts of pain piercings through his chest.

The person responsible for this change stood in front of him.

'Damn bastard.'

"Will you kill me?" asked the man curiously, a surprising calmness in his voice—as if his life or death were beyond his control, and he simply didn't care.

It's not as if he never wanted to live, because in the beginning, he had. But now, he finds it wasn't worth it anymore.

"Hurry up, stop idling."

Speaking was painful, but it couldn't stop his biting remarks and the bitterness in his tone. Perhaps, if it had been in another scenario, he would've trembled and cowered in fear at this person. But standing at the gates of death, fear was something long lost.

He was bleeding heavily, and he thought vaguely that he will die soon. There was no miracle that could save him under the dim glow of these bloody skies, as his cheeks scraped against the ground.

It wasn't this person's fault—the one who arrogantly continues to exist even as he will die.

Yet he couldn't help but blame them.

The voice asked, "Do you want to die?"

Somewhat seductive, almost convincing. Posing a simple question as if it were a statement he couldn't deny. But deny it he would, until his very last breath. 

That was the stubbornness of humanity.

"Of...course not." said the man slowly. "But I'm not stupid enough to hope in a situation like this."

"I could save you."

A laugh spluttered out of the dying man's cracked lips. He growled viciously as his eyes glared in their blurry vision. "Do you... honestly think I want to be saved by you? You damned spectator, are you saying you want to fucking save me now?"

The tone of the voice was indifferent, much to the irritation of the man. "I tried to kill you."

It was as if it was questioning why the man denied salvation after escaping death so many times.

The voice continued. "Now that you want to live, it isn't so interesting anymore."

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"...I'd like to hit you a couple times."

Amusement lingered in the next words. "You could try, hm?"

"Tempting." To have a conversation with one of the world's villains, a catalyst that would bring upon the end, was not something the man could've imagined in the beginning.

"You're so quiet usually, though at dangerous times, you speak a lot, don't you? Though I suppose that makes you rather endearing."

"I'm trying to enjoy my last moments, with this splitting pain all over my body that you certainly did not help with, thank you very much."

He was sarcastic, biting. 

The typical aloofness had faded into insults of all kinds. It was against his character, but perhaps that was the very reason he chose to speak. At least at the very end, he could change.

There was a brief stretch of silence.

"Do you regret anything?"

"Making me think about regrets at death? You're the worst kind of creature."

"If you answer me properly, maybe I could give you a miracle. Don't you want to see?"

Regret?

There was only one thing the man could think of in his dying thoughts. That one person he failed to save at the very end.

He wanted to save them.

There seemed to be a gaze boring into him. "Do you want to do it again?"

The man's mind was growing hazier now, drowsily answering the question as his head no longer lifted in fierce rebellion. He was too tired to argue. "I'm not insane. But... "

"I'm incredibly annoyed."

In the last of his consciousness, a burning feeling flared up in the depth of his soul. Anger. Irritation.

Frustration.

"Why was that person sacrificed for the sake of this stupid game? Who made it in the first place, and why couldn't I see them and punch them? And you too, damn bastard, I want to punch you too."

His throat was burning, but it mattered little anymore. "Why are humans so utterly idiotic? Why am I still alive, here?"

He felt lava boiling in his blood. He hated the entire system behind the game that had no explanation, despised the people who selfishly betrayed and uses, detested the helpless him who could only watch as everything crumbles in his reach.

His voice trembled, caught in his regret and anger. "I loathe this stupid, broken ending where I survived alone."

A shadow cast above him, hands gingerly tracing the tenderness of his cheek, wiping a smudge of blood.

"Then change it."

His consciousness was really on the verge of collapse now, and he thought he was hallucinating things. Ringing ears allowed him only to catch a stray few words that he believed must be taunting and full of ridicule.

"You will not remember this. And yet, let the regret that makes you burn and boil etch into your mind."

The last thing the man felt was the heat on his skin, almost gentle.

"Wake up, dreamer of dreamless dreams."