Limits
chapter-74

I fell asleep very quickly. I was already tired from all the training and building I did those past couple of days. My consciousness faded quickly towards the lands of dreams. I opened my eyes and saw the same scene I usually saw during those couple of weeks. The dark hooded figure was there, standing and talking away as usual. I no longer tried to do anything because it didn't matter what I did, the dream would always end with a punch.

I waited for the dark figure to stop talking and throw its punch to finish this weird dream. After a while, the dark figure stopped talking and ran at me. I thought 'Good, finally this weird dream will end'. The dark figure punched me in my stomach and the next thing I expected was to wake up but it didn't happen. I was shocked when I saw the dark figure moving backwards couple of metres and then started to talk again.

I looked down and saw a gaping hole in my stomach with dark flames surrounding it. Black blood was gushing out and although I felt pain, it was not comparable to the wound I received. With that kind of wound, it would be very hard to move or even stand on my feet. Yet the pain I felt was much lower compared to the injury. I checked my surroundings and tried to find anything that could at least stop the bleeding but there was nothing. There was nothing on me either. If this wound was not taken care of in couple of minutes I would die.

The dream was different this time and I didn't know if that change in the dream would affect me in reality or not. I would usual wake up when the punch arrived but now I was still in this dream. I decided to attack. If the dream was different maybe I could perform different actions as well. I moved towards the dark figure step by step. When I got more momentum I started to run, the pain was more intense the more I moved but I gritted my teeths and ran with my full strength at the dark figure.

When I was about 3 metres away from the dark figure, it simply stopped talking and threw another punch this time straight at my head. The dark figure was simply too fast, I couldn't even see it move when my vision got dark and I died. Or so I thought. I tried opening my eyes and I saw the same scene again.

The dark figure was talking away like usual and I was there standing with no pain or wounds on my body. I was confused and scared 'What the hell is going on? Why do I dream it again? And will this stop?' I thought to myself. I tried calling out to the dark figure "Hey, what do you want from me!" but I heard no response as the dark figure simply talked away as usual.

I thought about it some more 'I will try to remember all the words the dark figure speaks. Although I don't understand what is being said. I can still memorize that and maybe if I repeat those words, I will be able to leave this damned dream'.

I tried to memorize the words spoken by the dark figure but it was not as easy as it seemed. Not only it was a dream and everything was hazy, it was also very hard to say these words. The dark figure again stopped talking after a while and ran towards me to punch me. But I was wrong again, this time the dark figure kicked me. I could feel a great force pushing me away as I flew through the air and landed on the ground. I either died or fell unconscious again.

After a while, I managed to open my eyes again and well I don't think I have to say what I saw. I again tried to memorize the words of the dark figure before I got punched or kicked till fainted or dead. This repeated for 10 times and I noticed that some of the words that the dark figure spoke were repeated many times. This would mean they were probably pronouns and conjunctions. Stuff like "I, You, Me, And or But" which would mean that the most repeated words could represent similar things as in human language.

With that thought in my mind I started to separate the most used words by the dark figure to the ones used less often. After fainting couple of more times, I could distinguish about 10 of the words that were used the most amount of times in the whole speech. They were Fer, Lak, Ak, Ji, Ki, Rei, Lan, Peris, Fal and Kroh . I didn't know the meaning of these words but I knew they were the most used in the speech, this would probably mean that they were the equivalent of words such as "I, You, But, Or, And". Now the problem was to find out what these words mean. If I could manage to learn the meaning, I could try and further decrypt the meaning of other words that the dark figure spoke.

After the 20th repeat of the same dream, I finally woke up in the shelter. I was very tired, as if my whole body has been through hell and back. My mind was tired as well. It was as if I stayed up for couple of days without any rest while focusing on something very hard.

I checked my whole body and couldn't find any wounds or scars but I could see that my body became a bit thinner and I could feel intense hunger rising inside of me. When I turned my head towards Shelly's bed I could see that Shelly was still sleeping. I called out "Shelly, how long was I asleep?". Shelly woke up after a while and looked at me confused. It showed me that I slept only one night, the same as it did. I then said to Shelly "Bring me some food, I'm starving!". Fortunately we did have some cooked food stored just in case and Shelly brought me some of that. I gobbled the food that Shelly brought and only said one word when it was gone "More".

I ate all the food we had stored and only felt a bit better. I then got up and opened the door in order to go and hunt more food. I knew Shelly was able to do it but I couldn't wait. It was the same feeling that I had in the past, it was as if something ate away my strength. This time I didn't have to wonder what caused this for a long time. It was this stupid dream I had every night. I was now afraid to go to sleep as I might not be able to wake up again.

I ran through the forest with my dagger and killed anything that moved. In such frenzy, I killed about 10 bears as well as 20 wolves that were in the pack of about 30. I didn't think straight at the time and only hunted. I was running on basic instincts while Shelly was always following and guarding me to make sure I wasn't killed. Shelly by itself killed about a dozen of the animals present on the ground.

When I finally calmed down, I saw carnage behind me. I was astonished myself and thought 'I did that?'. When I looked at Shelly, it had a worried expression on its face but also exhaustion which would be normal after such a battle. I said "Don't worry Shelly, I'm alright now". I said that but I was starving at this point. I made the fire as quickly as I could and cooked the meat from wolves as well as bears.

I devoured the food in heaps and couldn't satisfy my hunger at all. 1 bear, 2 bears, 2 bears and 1 wolf. I stopped only when I ate 2 bears and 3 wolves. If I were to have that much meat, it would usually last mes about a week of time, yet I was able to eat that much in one sitting.

Shelly also ate a lot because it saw me eating so much. When I was finally full, I looked at my body which had changed a bit. It was a bit less skinny but nothing other than that. It was as if the food just disappeared inside my stomach. I then thought about the whole situation with this dream. I knew when it started and there were only couple of things that could be linked to it. 'I only got those dreams after we left the cave of those furry deer and got our reward' I thought.

The first possibility was the hidden room. There could've been some kind of poison in there that would produce these kinds of dreams. In that case, I would have to put up with it until it is gone by itself or until I find a cure. Of course the worst case scenario would be my death from those dreams.

The second possibility was the cave we got out rewards from. The herbs I got in that cave could not produce such effects and even if they could, they would have to be mixed together in order to produce such effect but I never mixed them together. I reached into my bag and saw that the herbs were still there. On the other hand there might've been some kind of poison spread there.

The last possibility was the book. It was weird that it could last like that on the table but when I touched the book, it turned into dust. What's more, this dust blew straight into my face which I also inhaled. It may be that the book contained poison of some sorts or perhaps it was haunted or something.

I discarded the 1st possibility because Shelly was there with me in the basement and didn't have such weird dreams. I also had to discard the 2nd possibility because Shelly always followed me, so we were together in both cases. The only place that Shelly didn't follow me to was the table with the book. Shelly also didn't inhale the dust from that book. 'Deducing it like this, it had to be the book in that case!' I thought