Chapter 21: Euphoria
When many people face death or any kind of crisis, they tend to develop a defense mechanism. For Jack, one that stood out and one he had relied on more than once was the ability to downplay the situation or behave as if it had never happened at all.
He had tried to use this tactic multiple times to overcome his fears, but no matter how often he tried in his past life, he always ended up falling into the abyss, a fear that came from thinking about it alone.
But now, as Raiden, he was going to give it one more shot. His fear wasn’t real; it was a story he had been forced to believe. So he was going to create a new story, one that wouldn’t hold him down, but help him rise.
He knew this wouldn’t happen in a day, but as he sat calmly on his bed, eyes closed and the back of one palm resting in the other, he was willing to take all the time he needed to shape a story strong enough.
The mind is a playground of its own. It loves to analyze, summarize, and interpret anything that sparks its interest, and once it dives deep enough, that’s when it finally finds peace.
So as he remained there, he let himself drift into random thoughts, giving his mind the freedom it needed to visualize. He moved from killing to killing, revenge to peace, Jobe to Jack.
This continued for a few hours as he sat silently on his bed like a monk. Before long, his mind began to find solace in the thoughts, and in that very instant, his heart started to rise.
But fear crept in, as every part of his body urged him to give up. There was no point in fighting a battle he was destined to lose.
Trembling from within, his breath growing heavier and his fingers twitching with anxiety, he hovered on the verge of surrendering to the story his fears were telling him. And then, in the midst of it all, his thoughts returned to killing once more.
His mind then shifted from solace to reconnecting with all the people he could remember killing—those who begged for their lives and those who accepted their fate. That was when he began to wonder: how exactly did he feel after spilling blood?
At that very moment, fear began to creep in again. He clenched his fists in frustration, but this time, he chose not to fight it.