Chapter 9

The knocking on the door now turned into heavy banging, like the sound of a fist hitting a wall. Rainer walked to the door and let out a sigh, hoping it wasn’t the guard. Unfortunately, it was, and before he could say a word, Rainer was dragged down the hall by the collar of his shirt. 

“You’re twenty minutes late!”

“I. Can’t. Breathe” He muttered, choking on the collar of his shirt. Arthur let go of the collar and watched Rainer gasp for air. 

“You don’t keep your elders waiting, that's rude.”

“I just overslept because of your training! My body isn’t used to this kind of intensity. I’m still in pain from two days ago, and the pain from yesterday hasn’t even reached my nervous system yet.” 

“Either you willingly follow me and train, or I drag you there and whack you with a stick.” 

“Fine.” Rainer grunted as he got up. They made their way to the arena in silence, and started practicing immediately. Rainer was beginning to understand not only how to swing the sword but was mentally creating his own variation of certain skills. 

One in particular was in the back of his head, but he was unable to test it due to the ferocity of the guard’s attacks. He gave up trying to execute it and focused on his leg work. For the next few hours, they practiced hard and silently unless Arthur had any input. By the end of the session, Rainer was able to stand on his feet and dodge some of the attacks.

As the sun fell below the horizon, Rainer fell on his back gasping for air. 

“Hm, well I guess it is late. Hopefully you absorbed enough to get you through tomorrow” said Arthur. 

“I think I absorbed enough to get through life. Just, let me sleep here. I can’t feel my legs!” 

“Did you know this planet has flesh eating bugs that come out at night?”

Rainer quickly jumped up to his feet and began walking to his room “Right, back to bed!” Once he had turned the corner, Merlin walked out from behind the entrance to the Arena itself. 

“How did he do?” asked Merlin, with some excitement. 

“He’s a quick learner, very quick. I find it hard to believe he never tapped into his own power even once on Earth. Something must have been suppressing it for all these years.”

“From what I know about this universe, there are dead zones for magic. They use these dead zones to banish criminals. If I had to guess, Earth might be one of those prisons.” 

Arthur placed his sword in its sheath “Whatever the case may be, he will start showing signs any day now. I can’t wait to see what he can actually do, once his body attunes to the natural laws of the universe.”

“Well it wasn’t easy setting up that ruse to glitch the randomizer. By the way, you talk about him almost as if he might be stronger than you,” Merlin taunted with a smirk. 

“He’s half a millenia too young to be able to stand against me. Do me a favor and have Myrddin give my father the report. On that note, I’m going to head to bed as well. Good luck in your matches, Merlin.” 

“Good luck to those who have to deal with me.” 

The two went their separate ways, and Rainer finally made it back to his room. Too tired to even think, he immediately fell asleep from exhaustion.

Rainer found himself back on the crystal staircase behind the Phantom. He loudly sighed “I’m trapped in the physical world and in my own mind. Just free me already!” 

“Hm? But we have almost reached the peak, look” the Phantom pointed to the top of the stairs and sure enough there floated a very large platform with the appearance of a stained-glass circle. 

Rainer wasn’t able to make out the image on the platform, but the closer he climbed, the more his body tingled. It was almost as if something inside him was happy to see it. 

Rainer was unable to keep his eyes off of it “Hey, what is that?”

“That, is your soul. Everything you have been, and everything you are, lies there.” The Phantom stopped short of the next step.

Rainer looked up at his back “Why did you stop?”  He peeked around the Phantom and noticed the next set of steps were not made of crystal like the ones before, they looked almost as if water were flowing inside the steps. “If red was the blood I spilled, then what is the blue?” Rainer asked in a hurry. 

“The next set, I cannot climb.” The Phantom stared off at the platform that wasn’t too far off. “Tell me, Rainer. Do you know what you want to do with your life from here on out?” 

The question caught Rainer off guard. “I’m not” he started to say, until he was abruptly cut off.

“This is where you have to decide. These steps are where you have to make a decision.” The Phantom stepped aside and the path to the top was visible to Rainer for once. 

Rainer was speechless, he didn’t know what to say or do. "My decision? What kind of decision?” he thought to himself

“You have already decided to live. Now decide where you will take that life, what will you do with it? That is the purpose of these blue steps. If you try to climb them without a purpose, you will only fall and be unable to come back.” 

“So what?!” Rainer yelled. “Fine, this feels more than just a dream! I admit it. But what the hell is so damn important that I have to climb to the top?” He paused for an answer, yet received none. 

“Everyone here keeps telling me to get over being betrayed by people I actually cared for. I know I didn’t acknowledge them but it still hurt! For some reason none of you seem to understand that. You all seem to have your own agendas and I’m still stuck trying to figure out where I am. How am I supposed to answer your damn questions so easily? Why do you all think that by telling me to get over it will somehow force me to get over it?!” Everything Rainer had held inside, started to burst, like a container that had been overfilled. 

“Why don’t I ask you a question? Why me? Why was I chosen?!” His voice began to fall apart, and a slight whimper made its way through “There are billions of others on that planet, so why me?” he fell to his knees, clenching his teeth and holding back any tears that might fall. 

“No matter how hard I try, I always lose everyone around me. I lost Cleo, I lost the trust of the same kids she told me to protect, I lost my whole world. I’m in the middle of life and death and I’m afraid. So very afraid. There is nothing else for me to lose except my life. At first, I thought it would be easy to just fall over and die, but now that I’m close to dying, I want to live. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just don’t know!”

The Phantom found his chance to speak “My dear boy.” He knelt down and placed his hand on Rainer’s head. “I cannot tell you because this is your choice. This world around you is your world. It is your life and therefore your decision means everything. What you want to do is decided here. This is where you stop following orders and rise up on your own feet. I am not pushing you to forget the past, I know better than anyone that it should not be forgotten. Your past defines you, use that to decide your future.”