Kaiser of the New World

Kai... was crying?

Ha, why was he crying, what reason did he have to cry? He was completetly fine. Actually, he was better than completetly fine.

Am I actually losing it?

Kai laughed madly as he lifted a hand up to his cheek, placing a finger against the wetness, stopping the tear drop before it could roll off his chin.

Then, another tear rolled down his other cheek, which Kai quickly stopped with his other hand.

But then there was another tear.

And another.

And another.

Soon, Kai's face was a mess of tears and he had no idea as to why that was. He was feeling sick sure, but that was no reason to cry.

"What the actual fuck."

Quickly turning on the tap in his sink, Kai lowered his head and let the cold water coat his face in an effort to get the tears to stop. The water was nowhere near as cold as the blizzard outside, and nowhere near-

"Bleh!"

Grimacing, Kai pulled his head out from under the tap and spat into the sink, the feeling of sick rising up his throat threatening to send him back to being hunched over the toilet once more.

Any time he had washed his face in the last month it had been completetly normal, no strange taste or anything.

So why the hell did the water taste so disgusting all of a sudden. It was like it hadn't been filtered and was taken right from a swamp. And it was so slimy, it didn't even taste like it was remotely similar to water.

Gripping a towel that was laying on the side of the bathtub, Kai spat a couple more times before drying his face roughly.

If there was one good thing from the horrible tasting water is was that he had stopped crying, but now he felt even more sick than he did before.

Slowly, Kai stumbled out of his bathroom and was just about to make it to his bed before he collapsed onto the carpet that coated the floor. He let out a soft groan on impact and took a couple of seconds before rolling over onto his back and staring up at the ceiling.

Am I-

Mid thought, Kai frowned as he thought he noticed something strange with the roof of his bedroom. At the very corners it looked like it was peeling off, and was that... mold?

But as soon as Kai blinked, all was back to normal.

By now, Kai really did think that he was losing his mind, that was the only way to explain all the horrible things that he was seeing.

Unless...

The strange part was the normal things he was seeing.

No, that couldn't be, that made even less sense. He was happy here, how could it be bad if he was happy?

Happy.

He had spent a month here and all was normal, so why was all this happening now?

Happy.

After all, this was where he was going to stay until the next Tournament of Time.

... Happy?

An overwhelming pressure assaulted Kai's mind, making him feel like his brain was about to explode and flow out of every hole on his head. He let out a cry of pain as he squirmed on the ground. It burned, it burned so horribly that Kai didn't even realise that tears were streaming out of his eyes once more.

However, the next moment, Kai found himself staring calmly up at the ceiling, no pain at all and his cheeks completetly dry, no trace of any previous tears.

What...

Was that pain just another thing that he imagined?

Why was he imagining all this stuff? He didn't think he was crazy, did the tutorial secretly mess him up and he actually needed therapy or something?

No, why would he need therapy? He was perfectly fine.

In fact, there was a way that he could tell everything was okay, a way to tell that he wasn't losing it, a way to tell that all was normal and those things he was seeing were just in his head.

Pushing himself off the ground, Kai made his way back through the castle and out the main door, back out into the eternal blizzard.

Somehow, in the twenty or so minutes that he spent in his bedroom, the blizzard had gotten much, much worse.

But Kai didn't care, he simply gripped his tunic and gritted his teeth before pushing himself out into the cold.

He nearly slipped whilst hopping down the stairs, but he caught himself and continued running.

He was cold, he was sick, he was losing it.

Well, maybe losing it, he was about to figure out if he actually was.

Every step made Kai's brain ache, like there was something inside him that shouldn't be there, something messing with his mind that was making him see all these horrifying images.

As soon as he made it back into the city, Kai-

"Ah!"

Kai fell over as he tripped over the leg of someone who was sitting down against the corner he just ran around. He muttered a silent curse as he pushed himself up, turning to apologise to whoever he just kicked.

"Sorry."

Kai's breath hitched as he realised what he was face to face with. The man he tripped overs face was deathly pale and his cheeks were hollow. His lips were incredibly chapped and his eyes were even more lifeless than Annie's

The man was a corpse.

Kai let out a cry as he flung himself backwards like a cat that got put in a bath. Instinctively closing his eyes to hide what he saw, Kai crawled backwards another few metres before opening them again and-

"There's no need to worry young man, it's my own fault for sitting here."

Kai's eyes widened as he stared at the cor- the man. He was sure that he had been dead a moment ago, so what...

Scurrying up, Kai didn't say anything else and broke out into another sprint, trying to ignore everything that he saw.

Every step he took made his mind burn even more, like a warning that he was doing something that he shouldn't be doing, something that was forbidden.

But Kai didn't care, he just wanted to know that he wasn't losing it, that he wasn't going crazy.

Panting- even though he wasn't that tired, it was more of a panicked pant- Kai pushed open the doors of the Singing Vixen and pushed through the crowd of people to reach the top desk.

This was the way he could be sure that everything was fine, Annie always said she loved her life, so if she said it again that would mean everything was fine.

"Annie!" Kai shouted as he collided with the desk, the impact definitely going to leave a bruise.

"What do you think of your life."

The next things that happened... Kai wasn't sure that he was seeing it right.

Annie turned her head, her eyes even duller than they had been earlier. Her clothes were also much dirtier and much more tattered.

Just as Annie was about to open her mouth, a fist appeared just to the left of Kai's vision. The fist came flying in, colliding with Annie's pale face and sending the black haired woman sprawling onto the ground, her not even letting out a cry of pain.

"You damn slut! What the fuck did I tell you about flirting with other men!"

Kai stared blankly at Annie's husband, the one who had just punched his own wife in the face and had her lying on the floor.

This... this wasn't right. Kai knew these two, they were a happy married couple, they loved each other, they always smiled and laughed, they were happy.

They were...

Happy.

Before Kai even registered what he was doing he was already halfway across the desk. Annie's husband turned to face him, only to be instantly punched in the face by Kai's own fist, only unlike him, Kai had over a hundred Strength.

Annie's husband's nose crumpled under the force of Kai's blow, it breaking instantly as his face caved inwards. He closed his eyes as he was sent flying backwards into the shelves that held all the alcohol.

All the shelves broke and all the bottles shattered, broken glass and drink coating the man as he started bleeding even more. He slowly slid down the wall until he himself crumpled up on the ground, unconscious.

The entire tavern fell silent, watching the spectacle unfold.

But Kai didn't care.

After hopping the desk, Kai grabbed Annie by the shoulders and held her up. It was only then did he realised what she actually looked like.

Her black hair, which had been so clean and perfect every other meeting, was disheveled and dirty beyond belief.

Her skin, which had been so fair and pristine, was covered in countless bruises and burn marks caused by those cigars that all the customers here used.

Her clothes were in tatters and she didn't even have a pair of shoes on her feet, dirt and grime caked in between her toes.

The burning in his mind had not stopped, in fact, it was only getting worse.

Kai, desperation and panic evident in his voice, managed to croak out:

"Annie, please... What do you think of your life?"

Annie's head slowly lifted to look up at Kai, her clammy hair sticking to her cheek as she breathed in and out shallowly, as if she was already on the way out.

Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes didn't have a single spark in them, having given up long ago.

"I..."

Annie licked her lips softly, trying to give herself some boost if energy.

The burning in Kai's mind intensified, as if this one answer was going to ruin everything he had going for him, a warning that he should just run out of the tavern and not look back.

"I want to die."

I want... to die.

Kai felt another wave of pain wash over him in response to Annie's answer. Even though he wanted to believe that she was lying, he knew that she was telling the truth just by the fact that she didn't even show a hint of emotion when speaking.

She had long resigned herself to that dream of hers.

But that also meant that...

Everything that Kai knew was a lie.

"No...no!"

Carefully laying Annie back down on the ground, Kai ran out the back of the tavern and burst out the door into an empty alleyway.

Instantly, he fell to his knees and started vomitting again. The disorientation and pain only got worse as his vision became a constantly changing mess between that of a clean, snowy alleyway and that of a bloody, dirty one with rats that were slowly getting closer to him.

No...no...no.

No, there was another way that Kai could assure himself that everything was fine, that all of this was just one terrible dream.

Just as he was about to open his Status Screen, the burning in his mind reached its peak, making Kai cry out in pain and falter.

He shouldn't look, there was no need, just don't look and return to the castle. He was happy there.

Happ-

Letting out another cry of pain, Kai opened his Status Screen and-

The burning stopped.

The torturous sensation instantly disappeared, leaving Kai feeling strangely empty.

It was... peaceful.

But that peace wasn't going to last long.

Instantly, Kai began scouring his Status Screen for anything that could have been causing this, something that had happened to him.

But there was nothing new

Kai laughed madly as he lifted his head to stare up at the sky, snow landing on his face.

He was right, this was all just some horrible nightmare.

There was nothing...

Kai froze as he looked back down at his Status. Yeah there was nothing new, but there was something terribly wrong with one of the categories at the very top of his status, something that shouldn't have changed for another few months.

Name: Kai Reynolds

Age: 18