Chapter Two: The Twenty-Sided Die
It was happening again.
Vaid gazed at the floating twenty-sided die before him.
Suspended in the air, the die bore carvings of various organs on each face—an eye, a nose, lungs, feet, ears, and more.
Whenever Vaid slipped into dormancy, his consciousness would drift into this blank, empty space. He was acutely aware he was “dreaming”—such lucid dreams were rare, and since this was his first time as a skeleton, he couldn’t tell if it was normal or not. Yet, after countless occurrences, he had grown accustomed to this dreamscape.
The die was the only thing here.
Vaid had studied it closely. In truth, it had twenty-one faces. If he circled it, from a certain angle, he could glimpse the hidden inner face—engraved with a heart.
He had no idea what these symbols meant; he merely grabbed the die and tossed it.
Throw, guess which face would land upward, pick it up, throw again, repeating endlessly.
It was one of the few ways he could stave off boredom.
From experience, after about twenty-one thousand six hundred tosses, he would exit the dream and awaken on the wasteland, his fatigue gone, ready to greet a new day.
What would tomorrow bring? He hadn’t decided yet. For now, as always, he idly tossed the twenty-sided die, watching it fall, spin, and clatter with a crisp sound.
Once more, he saw the hidden twenty-first face—the one with the heart.
He paused, startled, for just now he had seen that heart…begin to beat.
Was it an illusion?
As he pondered, the emptiness around him began to shift.
First came the sound of wind and snow, rippling like water. Before him appeared a “mirror.”
An overturned oil lamp, a burning house, a frantic dog barking…chaotic images flashed across the “mirror.”
For the first time, Vaid witnessed his dream change.
Had he triggered some mysterious mechanism by tossing the die a million times?
He couldn’t recall how many times he’d thrown it—perhaps it really was a million now. He picked up the fallen die, scrutinized it, but it looked perfectly ordinary, showing no signs of change.
He stood opposite the “mirror,” a sudden intuition stirring within him—he felt as if he could…pass through it.
It resembled a transparent doorway. Yet, for now, he didn’t wish to step through this unexpected portal. Vaid always approached the unknown with caution.
After all, he couldn’t be certain that everything before him was merely a dream.
Though dead—and transformed into a skeleton—he still knew far too little about this world.
Magic, necromancy, things that defied common sense brimmed with mystery. What was real, what was false? It was hard to tell. Vaid didn’t know what might happen if he crossed that threshold.
One thing was certain: this dream was special. Who else would repeatedly have the same dream?
He circled the doorway; aside from sprouting up like a bamboo shoot after rain, it didn’t seem to affect the dreamscape.
If he didn’t interact with it, everything remained as before.
He could pretend it didn’t exist, finish the remaining twenty-one thousand five hundred ninety-nine tosses, and then nothing would have happened—he’d awaken on that barren wasteland, ready for the new day.
He could sit at the cave mouth in a daze, or pick up his hammer and wander outside, hoping to bump into a fellow skeleton for a friendly brawl.
Well, that sounded dreadfully dull.
Vaid had to admit, he was deeply intrigued by this door.
Would it still be here next time he entered dormancy?
The life of the undead was monotonous and tedious. In hindsight, he’d been wary of the die at first, but now he was so bored he could throw it over twenty-one thousand times.
If the door remained, it wouldn’t take long—five, maybe ten more dreams—before he’d be unable to resist stepping through.
Rather than wait until his patience wore thin, why not act decisively?
Vaid understood: it seemed he had a choice, but in truth, he did not.
He strode toward the mirror and passed through it.
He truly felt as if he’d crossed a boundary, like waking from sleep and flinging open the curtains to let warm, brilliant sunlight flood in.
After a brief wave of sound, reminiscent of tinnitus, Vaid felt solid ground beneath his feet—he stood upon wooden planks.
A strange ceiling…
Was this a dream?
He wanted to say it was a dream, but it felt nothing like one.
He could see the cobwebs hanging from the rafters, a luckless fly ensnared in the upper right corner, its thin wings glowing golden in the firelight, patterns stretching like veins.
Wait…golden?
Vaid was startled—he could see color.
He hadn’t seen anything but gray and white for ages, nearly forgotten what a world with color looked like.
The sight delighted him, and he eagerly looked beneath the web.
Below was a row of iron hooks, holding hooded sheepskin coats, a longbow of fir, and a curved skinning knife—tools and weapons fit for hunting.
He hadn’t time for a closer look; something else drew his gaze.
The flame of an oil lamp—a flickering orange wick reflected in a bowl of congealed fat, illuminating the cramped wooden cabin.
The lamp sat in a corner, but what caught Vaid’s attention was the small corpse beside it.
A girl’s body, clearly from the northern lands, about eight or nine years old. She wore a wool felt hat covering her ears, red-brown hair spilling out, freckles on her cheeks, lips pale.
Vaid hadn’t expected, upon stepping through the door, to encounter a dead child.
He was certain she was dead; skeletons could easily discern life from death—an instinct as natural as a person knowing not to bite a thorny bush.
Where had he arrived? What had happened here?
Vaid listened to the wind outside, his gaze sweeping the cabin.
It was fully sealed, but clearly nighttime. If it were daytime, sunlight would stream through the gaps in the planks; here, only the oil lamp cast light.
Outside, the wind was fierce—a blizzard raged. Vaid saw snowflakes on the girl’s gray wool sweater.
Blood had soaked the sheepskin coat meant for warmth; at her feet lay a tinder tube, its tip sparking, tiny embers spilling from the finger-length tube.
A black arrow made from raven feathers had wounded her lower abdomen, blood staining the floor from the bolted door to the farthest corner.
Vaid approached the door; the latch had been dropped and locked.
He looked back at the small corpse. Snow rested on her clothes and hat, but not on the oil lamp, nor any trace of melted water—she must have lit the lamp after entering the cabin.
From what was visible, he surmised the girl was familiar with her surroundings, managing to find the cabin alone at night.
She’d shut the door, perhaps to keep out the cold, perhaps to bar something from entering.
On her knee, Vaid spotted a roll of bandages for first aid; she had lit the lamp to tend her wound.
Yet she hadn’t survived. Too young, and outside was a winter night howling with wind. Likely, blood loss and hypothermia claimed her life in this silent, dark corner.
A glance told Vaid the general course of events. Though many details were missing, it was plain this child had been murdered. She’d come to the cabin to escape.
Her blood was still fresh; the oil in the lamp had melted hardly more than a fingernail’s worth—the fire had been burning less than five minutes.
At that time, she was still alive.
Now, she was a cold corpse. Her heart had stopped, her blood no longer flowed.
Vaid felt a pang of sadness. He had no connection to this girl, yet witnessing a vibrant life fade was always sorrowful—it inevitably made one think of oneself.
In days, her body would rot; someday, her bones would turn to dust, leaving no trace she ever existed.
Death—the ultimate lesson for all.
Vaid the human had died; one day, Vaid the skeleton would also become dust, forgotten by all.
Everyone was the same. Death was the great equalizer.
Yet to die with open eyes was just too tragic. Vaid knelt, wishing to help the girl close hers.
He thought, at least, he could give her a proper burial.
But before he could touch the body, a faint, feeble sobbing—so delicate it made the wind seem loud—drifted to his ears.
The eerie weeping sent a chill through Vaid.