4 The ------ Elemental

In the instant that the silver ball of light entered Luke's chest, he staggered. He held onto a wooden chair next to him to keep his balance. This all still felt very unrealistic to him. His head started pulsating, as if following the rhythm of his heartbeat.

'Augh.. I feel like my head is going to explode…'

He could barely keep his eyes open as he weakly sat down on the chair and clutched his head.

His head finally stopped pulsating after a few minutes.

Luke's mind completely cleared up, so he stood up.

But as he did, he could now feel a strange, uncomfortable sensation coming from his chest.

He unbuttoned his shirt and noticed something very strange.

'What is this weird symbol? It looks like a tattoo…'

Luke touched the left side of his chest, right where his heart was. There was now a small, strange tattoo-like symbol residing there. It looked like a silver hourglass with blue sand on the inside, but what was really strange was that the blue sand was actually flowing down, almost unnoticeably.

'Could this be that elemental that the old man mentioned? I mean, some weird light did float above his corpse just as he died, before entering me.'

He buttoned his shirt back up and started thinking about what to do next.

Luke approached the old man's corpse.

He felt his heart tense up.

'...Did I really have no other choice?'

Luke couldn't calm down while the old man's corpse was still nearby.

Although he did have a reason for killing him, he felt as if it wasn't a fully justifiable one.

'I think I'll have to move him from here; otherwise, I don't think I'll be able to clear my head.'

Luke grabbed the corpse by the shoulders and lifted it up. The corpse was heavier than he thought.

Luke's face contorted. The old man's corpse had already almost completely lost its warmth.

'Sorry, old man...'

Luke made his way to the door and opened it. It was pitch dark outside, prompting him to grab a lantern from the house and attach it to his belt. When he stepped outside, eerie noises came from all around him. He could hear some screeches from far away as well, reminding him of the bird-like Gleem monsters that had previously almost killed him.

'I just hope I don't run into any of those weird creatures.'

Luke started walking, carrying the old man's corpse over his shoulder.

But after a couple of minutes, he had to come to a stop.

'What the hell is that thing?!'

His pupils started shaking, and his arms went limp.

*Thud*

He even forgot to hold onto the old man's corpse.

He was shaking out of fear in front of an overwhelming presence.

If he focused, he could barely make out a shape in front of him of a creature that looked oddly similar yet different to the bird-like Gleem monsters that he had run away from earlier. The problem was, even though there was just one monster, it was at least ten times larger than the Gleem monsters Luke had previously seen, even surpassing the size of multiple adult elephants combined.

The creature directed its blazing red glare at Luke. It had obviously heard the old man's corpse hit the ground. Luke's shaking eyes couldn't even cope with the pressure, causing him to look down at the ground below. He then felt a faint breeze blow by his ear.

"Dinner."

'Oh no.'

A creepy whisper sounded next to him, even though the creature still hadn't made its move yet. A small whirlwind started gathering below Luke's feet and started lifting him into the air. Luke belatedly realized what was happening and tried to escape by thrashing his limbs around.

That's when the wind that was surrounding him started whispering again, making fun of his weakness.

"Futile. Weak. Useless. Give up."

The whirlwind carried Luke to the creature's beak, which was slightly opened. Luke was powerless to do anything. Even the old man's corpse, which he was supposed to get rid of, was brought to the inside of the beak alongside him.

The inside of the beak was even darker than the forest outside. The only source of light was the lantern that Luke had brought along with him. Luke could tell that the giant creature had started moving. His fate was now in someone else's grasp.

After an unknown amount of time passed, Luke felt the giant creature come to a stop. It slowly opened its beak. What Luke saw next made him shudder. He could barely make out the silhouettes of dozens, if not hundreds, of Gleem monsters below him. His mind shifted into sixth gear and started racing.

'Don't tell me… When this creature said "dinner", it couldn't have possibly meant…'

Confirming his doubts, the Gleems started screeching loudly, as if excited for the return of the giant creature. A whirlwind surrounded the old man's corpse first, and it was slowly brought down to the Gleems. The Gleems started leaping upwards, as if wanting to greedily swallow the corpse whole. The whirlwind dissipated, and the corpse hit the ground below. It was devoured in no time at all, not even leaving the old man's silver robe behind.

Luke gulped. A whirlwind started surrounding him next. He began panicking.

'No, no, no, this can't be happening! I'm not gonna die in such a way! This is simply not happening!'

As if to deny reality, Luke's mind went blank.

But soon, the whispers from before filled his mind yet again.

Maybe it was futile.

Maybe he was weak.

Maybe simply giving up and coming to terms with what was about to happen would make it less painful.

But he couldn't just stay still and let some random monsters eat him alive.

At least, that's how Luke felt.

Although reality couldn't care less about his feelings.

Before he could even start thinking of a plan, the whirlwind slowly lifted him up and brought him outside of the beak and towards the starving Gleems. Luke looked at the bird-like creatures leaping towards him, feeling as if he were simply a small worm wiggling atop a fishing hook.

The whirlwind dissipated, and he started violently falling towards the Gleems.

Luke closed his eyes.

'If only I were stronger. I'll train harder if I ever get a second chance.'

Luke smirked, as if finding his thoughts funny. There would be no second chances.

Luke felt something stab into his right leg, then into his left arm.

"Arghhh!!!"

Luke started screaming out in pain.

Then the razor-sharp beaks stabbed into his stomach, his back, and his chest.

Luke kept on screaming, the sound almost reaching the shrillness of the Gleem's screeches.

He was being eaten alive, piece by piece. His muscles were being torn apart, strand by strand, his innards being taken around for a spin, as if someone were eating noodles, using his stomach acid as the broth.

How long has passed by like this?

Luke's cold, dead eyes reflected the hundreds of Gleems, soon becoming a tasty snack for the gluttonous creatures.

He was dead.

Suddenly, the hourglass tattoo on what remained of his chest started shining brightly in a blue hue and flipped upside down, causing the blue sand to start flowing in reverse.

In an instant, the incessant Gleems, as well as the giant creature towering above them, stopped moving.

It wasn't only them. The whole world paused at that single moment in time.

This was both Luke's blessing and his curse.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Luke slowly opened his eyes. He was standing in a familiar room, his eyes devoid of any light.

A glass vial slipped from his hand and shattered as it hit the wooden floor.

Snapping out of his daze by the sound, Luke audibly gulped and wiped off the cold sweat that had formed on his forehead.

His knees gave out as he slumped onto the floor.

He wasn't able to think straight, as he kept recalling what had just happened to him.

He had been used to dealing with severe stress since his early childhood, but this kind of mental abuse wasn't something he could handle easily.

Luke kept breathing in and out until he eventually managed to calm himself down, if only by a little.

He took a deep breath of air and slowly stood up.

What he saw at first were the broken pieces of glass strewn across the wooden floor.

Then, the wooden table and the wooden chairs.

Finally, his eyes landed on an old man's corpse.

It was the same old man who had forced Luke to take his life.

It was the same old man that Luke had carried outside and into the forest after doing the deed.

It was the same old man whose corpse was devoured in front of his eyes by the bizarre-looking bird creatures.

'Am I just going insane? Almost everything that I had seen up until now makes no sense.'

Earlier, he convinced himself that it was all real merely by pinching himself, but now what he needed to do was think about it rationally.

The pain that he felt was undoubtedly real.

The fact that he was basically forced to take the life of another was also real.

But aside from these two facts, nothing else added up.

Appearing in a random place with monsters and magic? A random old sage saving his life in a cliché way?

He needed to get to the bottom of it.

'What can I even do?'

Luke felt helpless.

'I am sure that I was eaten alive and died. But how am I still alive? I appeared here after dying, and the old man's corpse is still intact, as if I hadn't picked it up in the first place.'

He then had a bizarre thought.

'...Could it be?'

The reversion of time and space.

'Time travel?'

Luke's eyes widened.

'What could've been the trigger? Was it a done-and-gone kind of deal? The last thing I remember is... my death...'

Luke didn't want to believe it.

'Was that really the trigger?'

It was more painful than anything he had ever experienced.

Both his body and mind shivered at the thought.

Luke then remembered the mysterious orb of light that had entered his body.

'An hourglass... The reversal of time... No, there's no way.'

It was ironic in a way.

'When the sand in an hourglass completely runs out, you could just flip it upside down and make it flow once again. Was this what the old man meant when talking about a curse? Being unable to permanently die?'

Luke couldn't be completely sure about this theory, but it would explain a lot of what had happened to him.

'Even if I actually did acquire the ability to go back in time by dying, I absolutely do not want to die unnecessarily and for no reason. For all I know, it might be something like, 'You can revive three times by going back in time', and then the power is gone.'

If this world actually did follow at least the basic clichés, since there were monsters and magic, there was only one sure way of surviving in Luke's mind.

His dark brown eyes regained their lost spark and began shining in a blue hue, resonating with the elemental on his chest.

'I have to get stronger. No, scratch that... I have to become the strongest.'