The Dungeon Child

I have no eyes, but I see everywhere.

It almost seems as if time has stalled in this instant. My human body toppling forward with a spike puncturing the pulsating red core in my chest, my lungs and innards torn to pieces. Theory's legs are splayed outward, her fangs bared in pain as the mana is leeched from her and pulled into the school's dungeon system. Richter is laughing, his teeth exposed in a white rictus of triumph.

It all feels... amusing, really.

Disconnected as I am from my human body, I can't help but wonder exactly what's going on. I'm aware that the only thing keeping me alive is the core sitting beneath my bed, the core which presently holds the entirety of my consciousness.

Something tells me the core won't last forever. In fact, it doesn't feel as though it'll last very long at all without my body. Part of me had hoped that my core would continue operating autonomously once my human body had died, allowing me to be as immortal as I once had been.

Apparently, I'm wrong again.

I stare at Charlie. She's... so young, now that I'm not a child. It's almost as if a veil has been lifted, some construct that sat before my eyes that prevented me from seeing the world how it is.

Her eyes are squeezed tight, a fascinatingly complex arcana surrounding the inside of her hands. Has she been practicing without telling me? I never thought of her as the type to keep secrets.

I can tell that I'm somewhat... disconnected, one might say. I should be attempting to prevent my demise somehow, should be finding a way to mend the damage done to my body.

Instead, I think of the dungeon I used to be. The Great Dungeon Argus. One hundred floors of incomprehensibly powerful and intricate magic, uncountable monsters, artworks, and treasures. I was once the center of all trade in the world, the crux of everything sapient life had built in a thousand years.

Now I'm a corpse, falling to the ground of a parking lot after a miserable and ill-spent six years of life. What a failure.

I turn my attention to the house I grew up in. It's a small thing, hardly worthy of the souls that occupied it. Inside, I can see Frank and Anna frozen in an argument. Pops and The Mother. What immature names to give to such plain people.

Upstairs, Thesis is... surprisingly fine. I can read panic in her eight eyes as she sprints for the window, and although the world is frozen, I swear she sees me. Her eggs are coming along well, a healthy orange glow suffusing the sac. Something tells me that isn't normal to most spiders, but Thesis was no normal spider even before I improved her.

A curious stab of emotion strikes me as I recollect it. I can clearly remember when she was so small she fit in even my tiny hands, when she dug holes through the entire house. I wonder if her children will share that affinity for digging.

All I can feel is anger when I look at Frank. The man was responsible for throwing Thesis out. I never forgave him for that. I never intend to.

Anna, on the other hand... I have no idea what to feel regarding her. She brought me into the world, assuming the process is anything like Thesis' reproductive methods. By no means do I harbor any malcontent towards her for that fact - there isn't an ounce of mana in her. Whatever happened that launched Argus the dungeon into this world to become Jason the human child has nothing to do with her.

What I can remember is her sympathy when I believed Thesis was dead. I'd never experienced anything like that either as a dungeon or as a human, however much of a disparity there might be between the two lifetimes.

Sadly, I don't recall ever thanking her for that. Now I'll never get the chance.

Would it have occurred to me to thank her, or did I assume that I deserved to be comforted? I could have filled half my dungeon with the bodies of the adventurers I slew in their quests for glory and wealth. Although I'd never thought about it, did their Mothers have anyone to comfort them?

With all these thoughts comes a strange sort of clarity, a disconnected disassociation that I normally never would have experienced. It grants a sense of reality, an acknowledgment that this, more likely than not, would be the end.

Hopefully, there will not be a third life. This one was painful.

As I observe the frozen world, I mentally sit down and simply... exist. Nothing to think about, no dungeon to run, no body to maintain.

With that hollow nonexistence, I sense something strange.

A nexus of consciousness sits just outside mine, on the boundaries of reality.

Muted as my feelings are, I remain curious and expand outward to it. Precise minds connects to mine, each one sharply individual and seamlessly whole, unlike anything I've ever met.

Hello, Stranger.

I was many things in life; looking back on it, 'rude' was one of them. I suspect impoliteness would be a catastrophically bad idea here. Greetings. I am Argus.

Amusement flicks me, a rustle of inaudible laughter from a hundred throats. We know.

How?

In my opinion, it seems a fair question, but their amusement only increases. You were the traveler. We traveled with you.

Traveled from where? And to where? Even through the muted fog I occupy, I still feel frustration at their evasiveness. What are you?

Slowly, they grow solemn, and a long moment passes before they reply. The veil was broken. Between this world and that one and the one the Watchers occupy. We are not the Watchers.

Then what are you?

A trickle of extra perspective flows into my mind; a web spanning the universe, folding in on itself and repeating endlessly. We are not the Watchers, but we watch you as they do. Their window is a silver screen, ours the veil. Even broken it has power. They watch even now.

I find myself humbled for the first time in either of my lives by the sheer breadth of what lies in front of me. Why do you watch?

Their somber aura rests heavily on me. We watch because you draw to a close. We watch because without the Watchers there is no existence. We watch because without the Ȧ̶̤n̶̋ͅg̸̛̦ṛ̵̔y̵̦͘ ̷̫̎S̵̱͛p̷̩̚i̸͉͆ḓ̷̛e̶̥͗r̵̥̕, there is no reality at all.

The name worries me. What close?

The close of everything.

If my core still worked in my body, it certainly would have stopped. Even if I had not died, the world would have ended.

Indeed. How will you end?

How would I end?

I would not end at the hands of Richter.

I will not end like this.

Immense satisfaction. Good. Will you end proudly?

I will end with Thesis and Theory, with Anna and Charlie close by, and with Pops nowhere to be seen. I will end after Richter, and the Spider you speak of will never forget me.

No, they agreed. He will not.

And I opened my eyes.