Chapter 69 - 68

Chapter 69: Chapter 68 The sky was gray with dawn, the kind of light that hung between two worlds. Not quite night. Not fully day. Neither warm nor cold. Neither bright nor dim. The goblin village was still. No hammering. No drills. Not even the wind stirred the leaves. Lumberling sat alone beneath the old tree that overlooked the edge of the crop fields. His legs were crossed, spine resting against the coarse bark. His spear lay beside him, untouched. His eyes were dull, shadowed by sleepless nights. For days now, his mind had been restless, haunted by foreign instincts, unnatural urges, fractured memories that weren’t his. No amount of sparring, planning, or quiet strategy dulled it. Silence, he’d learned, only made it louder. Skitz had stayed with him some nights, offering ideas, even trying to joke the darkness away. But nothing worked. And the look in Skitz’s eyes last night said what neither of them wanted to admit. Even his most loyal warrior couldn’t help him. Deep inside, Lumberling knew: the problem wasn’t out there. It was in him. Then, like a breeze slipping through a sealed window, a quiet memory rose from the farthest corner of his mind. "Not every problem has a solution... Sometimes, you just have to sit with it." His breath caught. The voice wasn’t his. It was someone from his old life. A man with a kind face, speaking from a glowing screen. A guide through broken minds. "Dr. K..." he whispered. The memory struck deep. Back in his old world, when the days were gray in a different way, he used to watch those videos. Talks about depression. About trauma. About being lost in your own head. "When I was having a bad day," the voice had said once, "I’d go to my room, sit still, and just write everything I felt. It helped. Not because it fixed anything... but because it gave the chaos a name." It wasn’t brute strength that saved him then. It was acknowledging pain. Sitting with it. Not solving it. Just... seeing it. Lumberling closed his eyes. He didn’t know if it would help. But for once, he wouldn’t fight it. Wouldn’t force it. He just... sat. Mindfulness. He focused on the breath. Simple. Human. ’Inhale...’ ’Exhale...’ Thoughts screamed. A bat’s last scream. A wolf’s dying hunger. Panic. Rage. Guilt. But this time, he didn’t push them away. He noticed them. ’There’s fear.’ ’There’s memory.’ ’There’s blood.’ He imagined them like leaves floating down a stream. Passing through, not clinging. He didn’t judge the thoughts. Didn’t run from them. He just breathed. ’Inhale... Exhale...’ The wind began to stir again. Birds chirped, quietly. And for the first time in what felt like weeks... He wasn’t drowning. He was just sitting in the storm, and breathing through it. As the sun crept over the treetops, washing gold over the fields, Lumberling opened his eyes. It wasn’t much. But it was a beginning. ..... The days passed slowly, but differently. He had asked Skitz to prepare a separate house for him. He didn’t trust his instincts, not yet. Staying in the same house with Jen and Old Man Dan... he feared he might lose control. Each morning, Lumberling returned to the old tree at the edge of the fields. Not to command. Not to train. Not to lead. But simply to sit. To breathe. To be. He said nothing of it to the goblins and kobolds, and they didn’t ask. But Skitz noticed. Always watching, always silent, but there was a subtle nod, a quiet respect in his gaze. Perhaps he understood. Each meditation came a little easier. The instincts still stirred, those primal urges, that hunger, but now they paced quietly, like wolves behind a closed gate, no longer clawing at the bars. Then, one evening, as the sun sank beyond the hills and the scent of roasted meat drifted across the village, another memory surfaced, clear and sharp as if plucked from yesterday. A desk. A dim room. A pen trembling in a younger hand. His own voice echoed from the recesses of his mind: "When the day was bad... when it felt like too much... I’d sit on my bed, open a journal, and write it all down. It always helped. Just seeing the thoughts outside of me." The memory hit like a breath of old air. Lumberling stood, left the fire behind, and went to his quarters. He rummaged through a satchel tucked beneath his maps and war plans. At the bottom, beneath charcoal sketches and old blueprints, he found a sheet of bark-paper—wrinkled but intact—and a cloth-wrapped stub of charcoal. ’It would do.’ He returned to the fire, sat cross-legged, and rested the paper on his knee. At first, the words came slowly. Hesitant. Rough. But as the lines unfurled, they spilled freely, like water from a cracked dam. ’I still feel the hunger. The urge to kill when cornered. I’m afraid of losing myself. But I’m trying. I’m still here. My name is Lumberling. I lead. I build. I protect. I am not the monsters I devoured.’ He exhaled. The hand holding the charcoal had stopped shaking. The storm inside had spoken. And the writing... had let it pass. The next morning, beneath the tree again, another old idea stirred. Grounding. Not magic. Not runes or rituals. The kind that once helped him through panic. He pressed his hands to the soil, fingers sinking into the cool earth. Picked up a stone, smooth and round, and rolled it between his fingertips. He pressed his heels flat to the ground and whispered softly: "I am here. This is the earth. I feel it. I feel the sun. The wind. The weight of my body." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the polished stone Jen had given him, tied with twine, worn smooth from touch. It wasn’t enchanted. But it didn’t need to be. It was his anchor. A reminder: ’I am human. I still choose who I am.’ He clenched it in his fist. The monster memories stirred again. But now, they felt distant. Not gone, but quieter. Like echoes from a deep cave. That night, by firelight, he added another page to his journal: ’Fear came again today. But I stayed grounded. I felt the dirt beneath me. I remembered who I was. And for the first time in weeks... I believed it.’ ..... A week had passed since Lumberling began his quiet, unspoken ritual. He hadn’t told anyone—not even Skitz—what he did beneath the old tree each morning and evening. But the signs were there. His voice was steadier. His gaze no longer flickered like a blade always searching for danger. The hunger in his eyes, the one that once teetered just behind the calm was still there. But now it burned behind something stronger. Clarity. And yet... he could feel it. The instincts hadn’t left. They still lingered, quiet, watchful, crouched in the dark corners of his mind like wolves in waiting. Then, one night, he decided to test the results of his meditations. Lumberling walked back from a short hunt when it hit him—the scent. Raw. Fresh blood. The sharp, metallic tang of death hung in the air like a whisper. He froze. His breath caught in his throat. His chest tightened. Something ancient stirred within him. Primal. Hungry. ’Kill.’ His hand moved before thought. Fingers clenched around his spear. Muscles tensed. His vision tunneled, everything fading into shades of prey and predator. In that moment, he wasn’t in control. Not fully. Not yet. But he remembered. ’Breathe.’ He closed his eyes and inhaled, slow, deep. Exhaled. The world widened again. The claws withdrew. ’I need to go deeper,’ he realized. ’The mind is only one battlefield. But the body... the body remembers everything.’ That night, beneath the tree, he didn’t just sit and breathe. He descended. Body scan. Eyes closed. Spine straight. Hands resting on his knees. His breath slowed as he dropped into himself. ’Start at the top.’ He focused on his scalp. His brow. His temples. Tension. It sat there like a crown of wire. He acknowledged it, not with resistance, but recognition. Then he moved lower. Eyes. Jaw. Neck. A tightness in his throat. A locked jaw. A clenched back. The body holding memories in muscle, in marrow. He breathed into each part, not with magic, but with presence. Shoulders. Spine. Chest. A knot sat beneath his ribs like a buried stone. Not pain, not injury. Something else. Fear. ’This is where the monster breathes,’ he thought. ’But this body is mine. And I choose what moves it.’ He continued downward. Stomach. Hips. Legs. With each breath, he welcomed sensation. Not to fight it, but to see it. To say: ’I know you’re there. But I am still me.’ By the time he reached his toes, his body trembled. Not like before, not with the violent shivers that came from bloodlust, from hunger, from losing the line between monster and man. This trembling was quiet. Gentle. A release, not a warning. Not from fear. But from stillness. When he opened his eyes, the stars above seemed gentler somehow. No hunger. No haunting visions. Only breath. Only silence. Only him. In the distance, half-hidden behind the outer treeline, Skitz stood. He didn’t speak. Didn’t approach. Just watched, one hand resting on the bark of a tree. When Lumberling finally opened his eyes, Skitz gave a slight nod—nothing more—and turned away. A silent vow: ’I see you, and I will wait.’ Later, in the quiet of his room, Lumberling sat beside the fire and took up his journal. The page awaited him. His hand didn’t shake. The words came clear and sharp: ’Tonight, my body remembered the fear. But I remembered who I am. This is my body. My will. My life. I carry monsters within me, but I do not bow to them. I am Lumberling. And I choose to be myself, every day.’ He closed the journal with a quiet breath. Tomorrow, he would rise again. And sit beneath the tree. And breathe. Because the monster inside wasn’t the enemy. Forgetting who he was, that was.