Chapter 1: Soul Battle

Finn just killed an exact replica of himself.

He stared through heavy lidded eyes at the body lying just beside his, watching as it decayed into tiny flecks of dust that floated up into the black nothingness surrounding the both of them.

Only the twelve feet radius around them was lit up, almost as if this was some kind of stage play, and they were in the spotlight.

But Finn knew this was no play. The hard fight for his life that he’d barely won assured him that it wasn’t.

He wheezed faintly where he lay, gasping for breath through his nearly crushed throat, and his mind couldn’t help but go back to the start of it all…

.

.

Finn had just been preparing for his finals. The last papers in his sophomore year. ​He was a student of History and Anthropology, specializing in Ancient Civilizations and Cultural Myths, focusing on how these cultures used stories of gods and demons to structure their societies.

Despite his straight-A grades, he was one of those that procrastinated the heck out of reading for exams, pushing it forward over and over till the exam week was upon them.

But usually, even with the little time, it had never proved a problem, he’d found that this was a system that worked best for him. No matter how much he tried to read during semesters, it never stuck. Listening during lectures and taking brief notes was enough for him to have a general idea for when he’d finally read during his exam week.

But this time it was different.

For some reason, he’d not been able to focus in the slightest, even with the pressure of the close time interval between his papers.

It started the weekend right before his exam week.

Anytime he slept, he’d wake up the next morning, only to be severely light-headed and unfocused, unable to maintain a steady train of thought before his mind would wander again.

At first he thought his dorm mates had spiked his food with something weird. It even caused a fight, as he wasn’t one to use any substance at all.

But after another day of the same lightheadedness, despite being extremely conscious of every single thing he ate, he knew it was something else.

The thought of visiting a doctor crossed his mind, but he discarded it, waving his current state off as something that would remedy itself in a few days.

He simply made do with visiting a nearby drug store and getting some over-the-counter pills for headache and dizziness.

It unsurprisingly proved useless.

And by the time the exam week was upon him, Finn knew there was no way he could read, let alone write any of his papers unless something changed.

At this point, he’d figured that sleep was the culprit of his lightheadedness. Any semblance of focus he was eventually able to get later in the day was practically reset every single time he slept.

It totally defied common sense.

Wasn’t sleep supposed to remedy mental fatigue rather than compound it? How was resting making his situation worse?

Finn wasn’t giving up just yet though. Since sleep was the culprit, a genius idea sparked his already cloudy mind:

I’ll simply not sleep.

He felt so smart for thinking of it.

All my exams are this week. One on Monday and another on Tuesday, Wednesday is free, and the last two on Thursday and Friday.

He could make it work. Read on Sunday for Monday’s exam, go crazy on caffeine, pull an all-nighter for the next day, rest well on Wednesday, and then repeat the same for Thursday and Friday…

And it had worked… somewhat.

He made it to the last night, but not in one piece. Everyone that knew him noticed something was wrong. Finn looked extremely frazzled and jumpy at the slightest touch, worn out like he’d not slept for days… which was actually true.

Friends and acquaintances asked if he was okay, but he simply waved their concern away and assured them that it was just the usual exam week craziness.

The final night before the Friday exam, Finn had been reading in the library, fighting the urge to sleep with styrofoam cups full of black coffee… but his body had had enough.

Without even realizing, he knocked out into a deep, dreamless sleep, the kind that when you woke up, you felt like you’d just blinked.

That was exactly how it had felt for Finn. Like a blink. The only difference being that, for Finn, there was no time to be disoriented afterwards.

He was immediately jarred awake to a choking pressure, finding himself unable to breathe.

Someone is squeezing my neck!

His hands reflexively went for his neck even before his mind fully processed what was happening or where he was.

He clawed at the hands, trying to pry them off. His body thrashed violently, reacting to the primal need for air, but no matter how much he thrashed, his assailant still held him down in place firmly.

It showed they were either very experienced and knew exactly where to put their weight on his body, or they’d had ample time to prepare beforehand.

But Finn couldn’t even be bothered with that. He couldn’t see anything but a blurry silhouette, his head was becoming light, and he could feel his frantic grips on the assailant’s hands getting weaker.

He immediately stretched his hands up, clawing wildly in the air for the assailant ’s head till his finger finally drew blood. He struck out straight at where the head was, scratching frantically on the assailant’s face, trying to cause them enough pain that they eased off his neck.

But all that his efforts served to do was just make them even angrier. The assailant pressed harder on Finn’s neck, squeezing with everything they had.

Finn’s struggle began to get weaker, he was beyond the point of pain now, barely feeling anything at all, only life, slipping out of him… and for a second he felt like he should just let things take its course.

But why?

Hot white rage from depths he never knew of himself suddenly bubbled up.

Why should I die?

What did I do wrong…?

Why should I allow this person to kill me?!

A sudden burst of strength surged within him, shocking his assailant and even Finn himself. His hand shot for his assailant’s face again, scratching all over till his fingers finally touched the wetness of their eyes.

Without any hesitation, he jabbed.

A deep, unhesitating jab.

His fingers sunk in without resistance and twirled about wildly in the socket, turning the eyeballs to mush.

And immediately, like a recoiled spring, his assailant leapt off his body, granting him access to the much needed oxygen his body craved.

He sucked in air in mouthfuls, wheezing as it stung against the remains of his nearly crushed windpipe.

The pain that had become a distant thing came flooding back in full force, his hazy vision started to clear up as tears streamed down his face. The pained, soul wrenching cry of his assailant pounded like a megaphone blaring in his ears. It was a cacophony of stimuli, flooding his body as every sense returned.

But through it all, something nagged at the back of his mind… the instinct to move, to attack, to make use of this moment before his assailant could retaliate, if he could even retaliate…

And like a zombie with a single purpose, he shakily stood and stumbled towards the figure rolling on the ground in pain…

But when he saw the figure’s face… his assailant’s face… his pain-wracked body jerked to a stop in disbelief…

The face screaming in pain right before him was exactly his. It was covered with scratch marks and blood streaming down the two sockets where eyes were supposed to be, but it was undoubtedly his face!

Finn, still wheezing through his mangled windpipe, nearly took a step back in utter shock, but he lunged forward right after that hesitation. In his moment of hesitation, the other ’him’ sensed his presence and dashed at him with a roar of madness…

What followed after was unsightly. Two identical young men, one wheezing through a nearly crushed windpipe and the other totally blind. Both bloodied and in pain. Fighting as primal a fight as could be. Without any form or any weapon. Just their bodies rolling on the floor in a death dance…

Finn emerged the victor.

He rolled off the body of the other ’him’, watching the replica spasm and twitch in a final death throe. ’His’ hands twitched wildly, searching around for something, anything, to hold on to… Until finally, ’his’ hands dropped, unmoving.

I just killed a person.

The thought crossed Finn’s mind as he wheezed where he lay.

He had never killed a person before.

During the fight, he had simply been moving by instinct. He’d taken a basic martial arts class back in high school, but none of that knowledge surfaced to mind when he’d needed it. Not that it would’ve proved useful in a fight so primal anyway.

As he saw the last heave of the replica’s chest, signaling ’his’ final death, a low chuckle of relief escaped Finn’s lips.

He had won… But what now?

Where was he? How did he get here? Why did this happen? What was next?

He could already feel life slipping from his body rapidly. Now that there was no longer any threat, his body had relaxed and the full brunt of every injury came in full force.

He was certain to also die.

But he didn’t feel panicked at all.

Some part of him held on to the belief that this was surely some kind of dream. A sick but very, very realistic dream where he was stuck in pitch a blackness, fighting under a spotlight against someone that looked exactly like him.

He half-believed he would wake up in the library, but half-wished for the embrace of perfect nothingness that death would grant.

Should’ve just gone to the doctor’s…

That was the last thing that crossed his mind before it faded into oblivion…

…An oblivion that was cut short by someone whispering his name sharply.

“Finn! Finn! Wake up you lazy ahh sonofva—!!”

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