Transmigration in Mordor

He was kneeling before the Waterfall of Night, his gaze empty, fixed on the luminous reflection of the screen in the silent water. The number '1' for the Tears of Regret was an insult, a digital scar that mocked the horror he had to endure to obtain it. A cold, absolute truth had crystallized in the rubble of his mind.

'Hope is the fuel. My suffering is the currency. The game is eternal.'

Slowly, with the stiffness of a corpse, he turned away from the Waterfall. The passage leading out of the cave no longer held any appeal. It was a door to another torture chamber, another loop in this infernal spiral. He walked to the darkest recess of the cavern, sat down with his back against the cold, damp wall, and brought his knees to his chest. Then he pulled the Shroud over his head, sealing himself in an even deeper darkness, a tomb of fabric for an already dead mind.

The outside world disappeared. There was only the carousel of his traumas. Swift, distorted flashes paraded behind his closed eyelids: his mother's eyes, not filled with anger, but with a disappointment so deep it was a wound; the spider's fang, sinking into his neck with surgical precision and icy coldness; the cosmic hum that tore reality apart, revealing his absolute insignificance. Everything looped, a litany of suffering that undermined the last foundations of his will.

Time, a concept that had become so abstract, passed. The luminous pulses of the Waterfall might have marked cycles, days, weeks. He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He remained in the same position, a rock of apathy in an ocean of despair.

A dull, painful gurgle twisted his insides. Hunger. A sharp pain, a brutal reminder that this body was a prison of flesh with its own pathetic demands. 'To hell with it,' he thought, his inner voice weary and toneless. He ignored the sensation, pushing it away like an intrusive thought. Later, his throat became dry, his tongue turning into a piece of leather stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thirst. A primal torture. He did not move.

'What's the point? Drink water from the Waterfall to have the strength to walk to my next death? To give another beast the satisfaction of devouring me? No. It's over. I'm not playing anymore.'

His mind was too far gone, lost in the inescapable labyrinth of his punishment. He gradually became deaf to his body's alarms. Physical pain merged into the crushing weight of his despair, becoming mere background noise in the cacophony of his mental agony.

Time continued to flow, indifferent. Zac was changing. The transformation was slow, insidious. He had become visibly thinner, his cheeks hollowing until his pale skin was stretched taut over the bones of his face. His once-full hands were now nothing more than bony claws. The Shroud, that cursed burden, now seemed too large for him, draping a body that was fading away, a figure returning to dust.

Each breath was a visible effort, a faint mist forming before his lips in the constant cold of the cavern. The cold seeped into his bones, a faithful companion that never left him. He shivered, no longer from fear, but from sheer physical weakness. He had become a caricature of himself, a living skeleton awaiting the end, a macabre still life in the gloom of the cave.

A fleeting thought, a memory from another life, crossed his hazy mind. 'I remember warmth. The sun on my skin. Just once... I'd give anything to feel that again.' But he immediately crushed the thought. 'No. Stop. Those are a player's thoughts. Desires. Hopes. There is no reward.'

Finally, the moment came. Lying on his side, barely conscious, his vision had become a blurry tunnel, the flashes of his traumas now just slow, spaced-out shadows. His last conscious sensation was the icy cold invading his heart, a wave of ice rising from his feet, his hands, to extinguish the last tiny ember of life. His mind, already adrift, no longer fought. He sank into an oblivion that felt like a deliverance. The image slowly turned black. The sound of his faint breathing stopped. Total silence.

Then, a sharp, deep breath, brutal and unwanted.

Zac woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. He was in perfect health. The hunger, the thirst, the cold were gone. His body was warm, strong. He felt rested, as if after a long, deep night's sleep. 'Was it... a nightmare? Was all of it... just another nightmare?' He looked at his hands. They were full, his skin had regained its color. An absurd, foolish, mad hope was born in him, a life reflex he couldn't control.

Then he saw the Waterfall. His heart clenched, as if caught in a vise of ice.

He dragged himself to it, a new fear, a fear of the truth, twisting his gut. He looked at the screen in the water. The number was there. Unchanged. Mocking.

[Tears of Regret: 1]

Nothing. His slow, miserable death. His decay. His passive suffering and total surrender. None of it had counted. The realization hit him with the violence of a punch to the face, knocking the wind out of him.

'It's not death the system rewards. It's the struggle. The attempt. The... active failure. To get a "Tear"... I have to play their game. I have to fight. I have to suffer while trying.'

He fell to his knees before the Waterfall, a hoarse, joyless laugh escaping his throat. A laugh that broke, turning into sobs of despair. He understood then the extent of his prison's cruelty. He couldn't even choose to die in peace. He couldn't give up. His only option was to actively, consciously participate in his own torture, over and over again.

His despair was no longer passive. It had become a cold rage, a forced resignation. He stood up, his face bathed in silent tears, and his gaze turned toward the exit of the cave. He had no choice. He had to play.