Chapter 2: The Twenty-Sided Die

Here we go again.

Wade stared at the floating twenty-sided die before him.

The suspended icosahedron had different organs carved on each facet – eyes, nose, lungs, feet, ears, and so on.

Whenever Wade entered dormancy, his consciousness would arrive in this blank, empty space.

He knew clearly he was “dreaming.” Such lucid dreams were truly rare. Being a skeleton for the first time, he didn’t know whether this was normal or abnormal, but after experiencing it so many times, he had grown accustomed to this dream.

The only thing in the dream was this twenty-sided die.

Wade had examined it closely before – it actually had twenty-one faces. If you circled around it, you could see the hidden twenty-first face from a specific angle, carved with a heart.

Not knowing what these patterns represented, Wade simply grabbed the die and threw it.

Toss, guess which face would land upward, pick it up, toss again – repeating endlessly.

This was one of the few ways he could relieve his boredom.

Based on experience, after about twenty-one thousand six hundred throws, he would leave the dream and wake up in the wasteland, refreshed and ready for a new day.

What should he do tomorrow? He hadn’t thought about it yet, just as usual, throwing the die absentmindedly, watching it fall, spin, and make crisp clattering sounds.

Once again, he saw the hidden twenty-first face – the one with the heart.

He froze. That heart he just saw… had started beating…

Was it an illusion?

Just as this thought occurred to him, the empty space transformed.

First came the sound of wind and snow, like rippling water, then a “mirror” appeared before him.

An overturned oil lamp, a burning house, a barking dog… chaotic images flashed across the “mirror.”

This was the first time Wade had seen this dream change.

Was it because he had thrown the die a million times, triggering some magical mechanism?

He couldn’t remember exactly how many times he’d thrown it – maybe it really had been a million. In any case, he picked up the fallen die and examined it carefully. The die looked completely normal, showing no changes whatsoever.

Standing opposite the “mirror,” he had an intuitive premonition that he could… pass through this “mirror.”

It resembled a transparent door. Of course, he wasn’t ready to cross this suddenly appearing threshold yet – he always maintained vigilance toward unknown and unfamiliar things.

After all, he couldn’t even be certain whether everything before him was truly just a dream.

Though dead and transformed into a skeleton, there were still too many things about this world he didn’t understand.

Magic, undead creatures – these things beyond common sense were shrouded in mystery. What was real? What was illusion? It was hard to tell. Wade didn’t know what would happen if he passed through this door.

The only certainty was that this dream was special. Who would have the same dream over and over again?

Wade circled the door. Aside from sprouting like bamboo shoots after rain, it didn’t seem to affect the dream otherwise.

If he didn’t interact with it, everything remained largely the same as before.

If he pretended it didn’t exist and just finished throwing the remaining twenty-one thousand five hundred ninety-nine times, he could act as if nothing had happened and greet a new day in that featureless wasteland.

He could sit dazedly at the cave entrance, or take his hammer outside to wander, maybe encounter another skeleton brother and have a fight with it.

Well, that did sound rather boring.

Wade had to admit – this door had piqued his interest tremendously.

Would the door still be here during his next dormancy?

An undead’s life was dull and monotonous. Thinking back, he had initially kept his distance from that die too, but now he was bored enough to throw it twenty-one thousand six hundred times.

He suspected that if this door remained, within five or ten more dreams, he wouldn’t be able to resist entering.

Rather than forcing himself to wait until he couldn’t bear it anymore, he might as well get it over with now.

Wade realized that while it seemed like he had a choice, he actually didn’t.

He stepped toward the mirror and passed through.

There was truly a sensation of crossing some boundary – like waking from sleep and throwing open the curtains in one motion, letting warm, bright sunlight wash over you.

After a wavelength similar to tinnitus, the next moment, Wade stood firmly on wooden planks.

An unfamiliar ceiling…

Was this a dream?

He wanted to say it was, but it didn’t feel like one at all.

He could clearly see the cobweb hanging from the rafters, a hapless fly trapped in the upper right corner, its thin wings glowing golden-yellow in the faint firelight, veins branching like tree patterns.

Wait… golden?

Wade was startled – he could see colors again.

It had been so long since he’d seen anything beyond shades of gray and white that he’d nearly forgotten what a colorful world looked like.

This sight delighted him, and he eagerly looked below the cobweb.

His gaze fell upon a row of iron hooks holding a hooded sheepskin coat, a fir wood longbow, and a curved skinning knife – typical hunting weapons and tools.

Before he could examine them closely, his attention was immediately drawn elsewhere.

It was the fire in the oil lamp – the orange flame inside the wick reflected in the cup-shaped earthenware filled with congealed fat, illuminating this cramped wooden hut.

The lamp’s base sat in a corner. What caught Wade’s attention wasn’t the lamp itself, but the small corpse beside it.

A girl’s body, typical of northern folk, about eight or nine years old. She wore a woolen cap covering her ears, her reddish-brown hair splayed out, freckles dotting her cheeks, lips pale.

Wade hadn’t expected to encounter a dead person immediately upon stepping through.

He was certain she was dead – skeletons could easily distinguish life from death, an instinct as natural as humans knowing whether thorny brambles could be bitten.

Where had he come to? What had happened here?

Wade listened to the wind outside as his eyes scanned the hut.

The hut was completely enclosed, but it was clearly nighttime. If it were day, sunlight would stream through the gaps between planks, but here there was only lamplight.

The wind howled outside – a heavy snowfall. Wade saw snowflakes on the girl’s gray sweater.

Blood had soaked through the woolen outerwear meant for warmth. At the girl’s feet lay a tinderbox for starting fires, tiny sparks still emerging from the slender wooden tube about an inch long.

A black-feathered arrow had pierced the girl’s lower abdomen. Bloodstains trailed from the locked door to the innermost corner.

Wade approached the entrance. The wooden door was barred shut.

Looking back at the small corpse, he noted snow on the girl’s clothes and cap, but none on the oil lamp or any watermarks from melted snow – meaning she had lit the lamp after entering the hut.

From these observations, he deduced the girl was familiar with the area, having found this hut alone at night.

She had locked the door – perhaps to block the cold wind, perhaps to prevent something outside from entering.

On her knees, Wade saw a roll of emergency gauze. She must have lit the lamp to tend to her wound.

But she hadn’t made it. Too young, outside a winter night of howling winds – likely blood loss and hypothermia had taken her life in this silent, dark corner.

With a glance, Wade roughly understood what had transpired. Though many details remained unknown, it was clear this child had been killed, coming to this hut fleeing for her life.

The blood on her was still fresh, the fat in the lamp melted less than a fingernail’s worth – this fire couldn’t have been lit more than five minutes ago.

At that time, she had still been alive.

But now, she was a cold corpse – her heart stilled, blood no longer flowing.

Wade felt a pang of sorrow. He hadn’t known this girl, no relation or connection between them, but witnessing the passing of a vibrant life was always saddening – it made one reflect on themselves.

In a few days, she would begin to rot. Eventually, her bones would turn to dust, leaving no trace she had ever existed.

Death is the ultimate fate everyone must face.

The human Wade had already died. One day, the skeleton Wade would also return to dust, remembered by none.

Everyone meets the same end. The fairest thing in this world is death.

But dying with grievances unsettled was too tragic. Wade bent down, intending to close the girl’s eyes.

He thought, at the very least, he could give her a proper burial.

But before he could touch the body, an incredibly faint sound – even slighter than the wind – reached him.

A soft, mournful weeping that sent a chill through Wade.