The Beginning of The End

"Have you ever wondered about how it would feel to live a countless amount of lives, to be reborn throughout history: the past and the future as the hero, victim. Reborn powerful or weak, having to relive so many different lives, it all begins to blend into a singular pit of despair. Having to see anyone you ever start to care about die over, over and over again. A life made up of many but with no goal or meaning.

There is a famous saying that "if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." For me, that Abyss was the endless circle of regression throughout history. Everyone wishes they could travel throughout time, and so did I in my youth. The idea of living in different worlds and becoming the hero always seemed fascinating but, in reality, became bitter-sweet knowing that everyone, including you, will die and everything you achieved will turn to dust. All that is left is a legacy as you are forced to live another life.

You begin going through the different stages of grief while regressing as you deny what has happened and continue to adventure as you regress, still hopeful and optimistic. After a few regressions, you begin to feel pain and guilt over all those that died, yet you live another life while they are dead.

This is followed by anger; your resentment becomes apparent. In the subsequent few regressions, you are filled with rage; you become ruthless and brutalise your opponents and kill anyone in your way with a lack of regard for human life. These regressions are usually where you unload all your emotions of anger, leaving you unable to feel angry anymore by the time you are finished.

This is usually followed by a period of depression where you are your own cause of your regression by either not doing anything and seeing the world burn buried under chaos or causing your own regression with your own hands. These are short and quick regressions, but as a result, many worlds are doomed.

Finally, you have reached the end of the line. You came across the stage of acceptance. Again, you accept what has happened to you, and yet again, you become hopeful yet again. In stories, a person would at that point become a hero once again live a fulfilling life and not regress or decide to use their regression for the greater good.

In reality, after you reach acceptance, you do try being hopefully. Still, after plenty more regressions, you become a walking mixture of emotions until they are fused into a lack of emotions. Finally, you become a shell with no regard for life but with expertise in every field. Your existence is that of being filled with success in any world that you are reborn in but never happiness.

Your every existence is filled with despair. It feels as if you are drowning in a sea of despair within the Abyss itself. The sea itself so thick that no matter what you do, you can never escape it. Any voices or sounds become muffled; any person is nothing but just an object taking up space.

Any meaning to life has long disappeared. That is the true existence of a regressor. That is my existence. I wonder how my current life will play out as it seems I have been reborn in an alternate version of the world from my first life where the original me never existed. I thought everything would fix itself if I were reborn in my world, but it seems I was in the wrong as nothing changed"

He leaned back in his chair.

"I sit here thinking about everything I have been through, but I have nothing to show for all my efforts and the lifetimes. A worthless legacy of worthless existence."

"At least I can live the life I never originally even had a chance to begin", he said as he threw his coat over his shoulders and stood up from where he sat, ready to leave.

"Seems I have matters to attend to", he coldly and indifferently stated as he left to attend his university.

"I already made millions presenting future inventions, but when I first was reborn, I made a promise to myself to if I ever had a chance finish my first life."

"Your first life is one you never forget."

He left for his university after getting into his car.

Before he knew it, the driver turned on the radio: "mass riots reported around the world. It seems..."

"I can't stand this human nature filled with selfishness and ignorance", he thought to himself as he reached over and turned off the radio.

Before he knew it, he arrived at his destination. He left his vehicle and thanked the driver, after which he had looked at his university.

"So prestigious yet so corrupted. Even if I had the intelligence of a hamster, as long as I had the money, I could still get in", he said with a bitter taste left in his mouth as initially in his first life, he was never accepted into the institution.

As he sat in his lecture, he spent the time drawing one of the few skills he had learnt over his regressions. He enjoyed it as it was relaxing, and after many lifetimes of practice, he could draw whatever he wished, including his past lives, families, comrades or even battles. It was a bitter-sweet, sorrowful yet warm hobby at the same time, and all he needed was an electronic pencil and a tablet.

As he was busy drawing, not paying attention to the lecture as it was meaningless muffled chatter, something happened.

A screen appeared before his face.

"What is this?" He said aloud, confused.

As he investigated his surroundings, everyone was standing and talking to each other. There was an apparent panic in the room.

The professor tried to calm everyone down, "there must be a reasonable explanation for this, everyone. So let's all sit down and..."

Before she could finish, she combusted her guts spreading all over the electronic whiteboard behind her.

Screams and panic followed. People tried to leave, but the room seemed to be closed off within some kind of a force field.

"This seems different", he thought as a giant holographic image appeared before them.

The creature on the screen spoke, "I am one of the administrators. Welcome to the game where your survival depends on passing trials. Good luck, everyone. If you don't want to finish like that human over there, I recommend you move fast. I will even motive you by cutting the timer in half on the task", he stated before the screen disappeared.

"That is all I need to hear before taking this task seriously."

The Task

Time Remaining: 25min 43sec

Task: Kill At Least 2 other People.

Conditions: Kill at least 2 other people in the same room as you within the given time limit to fulfil the task conditions.

Reward: 250 Credits Per A Person killed (Can kill more than two)

250 Credits For Completing The Task

Unlock The Player Interface

Penalty: Death (Body will combust and explode if the conditions are not met by the time the timer reaches 0)