Author's note: not exactly the same, but I decided to improve a little, my first ones are completely rotten and to this day I haven't had the energy to rewrite them, lol .
"Max, please remain calm." Nicholas tried to be reasonable, but...
The only thing he received was a shot in the leg. Every second inside caused Kayden to be torn apart inside. He might overcome his demons today, but he wouldn't forget them anytime soon.
"Listen, Kayden, your dear and only friend dying because of you." Another psychopath laugh. The boy was getting tired of this.
Another shot to Nicholas' leg and again the same laugh and predictable phrases. It was finally coming to an end . The boy did not remember these scenes as perfectly as he thought.
His emotions were like a storm. Sadness and regret were what reigned inside Kayden. Sadness was simply self-explanatory, but regret was something he only discovered now.
Another feeling also arose within him: hatred for his old world, a place where there were no means to defend himself without depending on external factors. Everything you've worked for could simply be taken away from you.
Ancient families dominated the entire world stage, dictating how the next generations would live their lives. Governments were nothing more than means to manage the monopoly of power. The weak were destroyed every day.
It wasn't a cruel world, it was simply a cruel race that ruled everything.
"Thanks." Kayden said directly to his uncle. Coming to this piece of memory caused something to change within him. He had no idea what it was, but in truth, he simply had yet another part of himself broken.
One of the last remnants of his humanity was taken from him today. After that, the boy disconnected from reality. He no longer cared what his uncle did. This time, the illusion did not go to the end.
The boy found himself in front of the giant staircase again. This time, he didn't go out to the next floor and spent about 20 minutes just collecting his thoughts. Even if he was 100%, he still wanted to make some use of this situation.
As soon as he finished his reflection, he walked calmly to the next steps. As soon as he stepped on 50, he entered an illusion again. This time it was... simply being ridiculed in front of thousands of people.
Each one was making jokes about his appearance or anything related to him. There were hundreds of people laughing and pointing as if he were a freak. After being shocked by the change of scenery, the boy's mind calmed down.
"And that?" Coldly looking at the crowd, he just waited. Little by little, the smiles disappeared, the jokes became dull and the laughs became shorter. Finally, people just froze, not knowing what to do.
How pathetic. Next to everything Kayden has ever experienced, this couldn't even make his heart miss a beat. But the boy had to be understanding. This was a test for teenagers, after all.
Most of them weren't old enough to have a Kayden-level traumatic event. Their worst memories would have to be some particularly painful injury or being dumped by the girl they liked.
Again, the boy found himself facing the staircase and stepped on the next step. This time, he was in a house alone in a forest. It looked like something out of a horror movie, with torches lighting the room in dark red.
"It can't be such a cliché, can it?" Before he could think of anything else, the house doorbell rang. The boy decided to participate in the little show and went to attend.
Opening the door that was falling apart, he saw nothing, just a strange cricket sound playing in the background, practically proving that he was in a horror movie. Closing the door, he sat down on a chair in the center of the room.
After that, several clichéd horror movie things started to happen: the windows started rattling uncontrollably, strange voices in languages he didn't know were heard.
Unfortunately, Kayden was closed off in his own world as he reflected on his path, which he had left untracked for a long time. Reviewing his memories strengthened the boy's determination in this regard, as he got to know himself even more deeply.
"Hello, kid," a voice rang in his ear, making him jump in fright. When he turned around, he came across an extremely tall figure in a suit and with a white cloth stained with blood on his head. His suit was white and a hideously large tongue stuck out of the cloth, dripping with blood.
Author's Note: Don't judge me, okay?
"Finish it already," Kayden remained calm. After discovering a world with magic, he learned that there are no monsters, they are just different forms of life or ways of using magic.
"Aren't you scared of me eating you, little one?" The creature's tongue grazed Kayden's face in a disgusting way. Unfortunately for her, Kayden wasn't completely balanced.
"Put your tongue in here, you piece of shit", landing a well-aimed punch on the creature's face, the boy found himself out of the illusion. "What pathetic challenges," Kayden began to climb the next steps.
This time, he spent practically nothing in each illusion: fear, hatred, anger, loneliness, nothing was capable of bringing down the boy who had already felt this before, in much greater proportions.
Quickly, he climbed up to step 60, leaving behind many people who were still in this mediocre kind of illusion. He easily surpassed Matheus' record and approached Sarah's.
Hoping that the next memories wouldn't be the same boring thing as before, he stepped onto step sixty.
As soon as his vision recovered, he found himself inside a cell with a bed and... that's all. There wasn't even a bathroom or anything like that, the windows were with bars.
"A prison," Kayden quickly realized where he was. For the next few minutes, he tested everything within the room just to see if there was anything beyond what was visible, but unfortunately, there was no.
The minutes began to turn into hours and, finally, a different activity occurred: a plate of food was magically placed inside the center of his cell, on it was bread and cookies with some type of juice.
The boy had to admit that it was more luxurious than it should be in a prison, with the cookies filled with good quality chocolate and the bread completely fresh.
Other than that, nothing else happened for the next few hours and, again, what took him out of his boredom was a plate of food, being the same thing, bread, cookies and juice. Kayden decided to take this time to think about the one thing he could make progress on there.
Quickly, one day passed, then two and three. All this time, he just focused on reflecting, but... he couldn't take it anymore, he needed to do something different or he would go crazy.
Unfortunately, there was nothing. To pass the time, he started doing some physical exercises. Again, a few more days passed.
"9 days," Kayden thought to himself. That was how long he was in there. Slowly, he began to lose track of time, his days were the same always, there was nothing different.