The Ultimate Regressor System

[You have died.]

[Regression activated.]

"—why risk the road again?"

Lucas doubled over hand slamming against his own knee as the regression’s vertigo crashed through him, Iris stared at him with a mix of concern and worry.

’The fuck? Did I die?’

The realization hit hard, and panic started spreading fast through his chest.

No attack, nothing just him fighting sleep and then he found himself here again.

’Was it the food? The room? Something in the air? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be watching for.’

He ran through the entire evening in his head, over and over, searching for anything that might have been the cause of his death.

It could have been the food, he could have been attacked in his sleep.

’That can’t be possible. I locked the doors...’ Every single detail felt suspicious and equally impossible to confirm, and the fact that he didn’t know was enough to send him panicking.

"Lucas?" Iris’ voice came, concern bleeding through it... "Are you okay? You look like you’re about to be sick."

He didn’t answer. Or rather, he couldn’t answer. His mind was too busy running through dozens of theories of how he could have died.

A long moment of silence stretched between them before he finally spoke: "I need to think," he said, turning away before Iris had a chance to say any other thing.

***

By evening, he had made no progress at all, and here he was, back at the dinning hall still thinking about what could have actually killed him...

He paced near the entrance instead of sitting, running the same dead ends over and over.

’Was it the food or the air?’ those were the two strongest theories he could produce at the moment. None of it offering a single clue solid enough to act on, until Mark’s voice cut through the loop.

"You look disturbed," Mark said, watching him with mild concern. "What’s going on?"

"Nothing," Lucas said, and flinched because it came out too fast, too dismissive and Mark’s eyebrows rose but he let it go, going back toward his own seat without another comment.

Lucas forced himself to sit down at the same table as before, the same seat, the same evening unfolding with the same suffocating familiarity and Ryker approached a few minutes later, plate in hand, exactly as he had the first time.

"Long day?" Ryker asked, setting the plate down with the same smile.

"Something like that," Lucas said. His might have replied but he was too focused on thinking right now.

’If I don’t know what killed me, how do I stop it from happening again?’

Across the table, Eleanor’s eyes slid away from his the instant he glanced up, exactly as before, and the ache of it barely registered this time. He had bigger things to worry about.

"You’re distracted," Ryker observed.

"You think so?" Lucas said, setting down his spoon. Only a few bites in and he was already too full to go on. "Just tired."

He excused himself early, and left the hall without looking back, paying no attention to the worried glances he got from Mark.

He made his way back to his room with no plan beyond the desperate, stubborn resolve not to repeat whatever mistake had killed him last time.

***

This time, he didn’t lie down.

He sat upright on his bed, arms folded, and eyes fixed on the door, forcing himself to stay awake through sheer, grinding willpower.

Minutes stretched into what felt like hours, the noise fading into full silence, and Lucas held on, refusing to let exhaustion claim him the way it had before.

He’s stayed awake before and he can do it again...

’Fuck sleep. If I stay awake, I can catch whatever got me while I was sleeping.... That has to be enough.’

However before he could get another thought in a wave of pain hit without warning.

It started deep in his chest, a pressure that built fast, and Lucas gasped, doubling forward as his whole body seized with a sudden violent jerk.

"What—" The word tore out of him, and his vision blurred as his own heart began hammering wrong and erratic against his ribs. "What’s happening—"

He hadn’t slept, and the air felt normal. His mind descended into panick as his breathing came ragged.

Unless...

’The... food...’

His vision darkened, and something warm, slid down his face from the corner of one eye. He raised a shaking hand to touch it dawned on him that it was blood falling steady down his face, as he began to see red.

"Hah.." He choked and started coughing, blood pooling into his palms and leaking onto the floor.

His whole body shook now, muscles seizing and blood leaking from both eyes. He tried to call out, tried to reach for the door, but his limbs grew heavy with every passing second as he slowly began to lose every feeling in them.

It was most likely the food.

The air was normal, he hadn’t drank anything all day.

And he locked the doors. He was a sure as he could be right now...

He dragged himself towards the door and his body stopped answering him entirely, bringing him to the ground as neither his arms or legs could move again...

Fear settled in his heart. He was going to die again. Not the quick, painless end he had met countless times up to this point, but the slow agonizing certainty that his body was giving up on him from the inside.

The pain rose and rose, past anything he could endure. He tried screaming but no sound came out of his mouth. Just the steady flow of blood leaking from both his eyes and his mouth.

Soon, he stopped trying to move entirely, his body finally giving up as the world descended into darkness...

[You have died.]

[Regression activated.]

***

"—why risk the road again?"

Lucas’ eyes snapped open as Iris’ face came into view, he was hearing the same sentence for the third time now...

’Okay.’ The thought came immediately as he quickly registered his surroundings, ’It’s definitely the food...’