Unlimited Power 02 - The Ranger's Domain

 When Ryan opened his eyes again, he saw himself in that morning. He woke up and turned on the TV to watch the morning news of the region. When his cell phone began to ring, Ryan saw the news about a car accident. Before he could hear the names of the victims, he picked up the call and then heard from the hospital that his fathers had suffered a car accident. The hospital tried to be subtle with him in order to prepare his mind, but then he heard on the TV that his parents had died.

 His coffee cup fell on the floor and broke, and Ryan's mind went numb. He couldn't believe that it had happened… he was supposed to start his new job in two days, and now he lost both his parents. He was going to watch a soccer game with his father… things happened automatically after that. He went to confirm the bodies of his parents in the hospital, and then he found Mia and Daniel coming out from a motel. He felt upset like his life was a grand lie… but he was just too tired to care about it.

 What happened between that and the funeral? Ryan couldn't even remember or process properly. As if fate was trying to mess with him, it started to rain in the middle of the funeral. Ryan, alone with his mind, didn't even notice when the rain increased in strength. Suddenly, probably because due to the cold, Ryan felt the strength leaving his body, and the next thing he saw was him waking up on his couch. The TV was already on, and then he saw the same news of two days ago… about the death of his parents.

"What?" Ryan asked, confused.

 For the first time in two days, Ryan's mind began to work properly, but at the worst possible time. Now that his mind was somewhat back, Ryan noticed that he even changed his clothes at some point, and he wasn't wet anymore.

 Although that was weird, the same things happened all over again, and also, for some reason, an unknown force made him repeat the same steps. Was that a dream? Or Ryan had finally gone mad? Seeing Daniel and Mia and then his parents' funeral all over again made Ryan feel a bit different from before. He was exhausted, but he was also a bit angrier than he was supposed to feel.

"Something is off here…" Ryan said.

 Amidst the sadness and the anger, Ryan noticed that the whole situation fell out of place. Putting the whole situation of those two hellish days repeating themselves, Ryan felt a strange sensation of nostalgia. Ryan couldn't quite believe that he felt like that during those two days… but it wasn't because of that, but due to the fact that he had the chance to remember his old days. Still, more than the old day, Ryan felt that he should recall something else.

 When Ryan felt that he was about to recall what he had forgotten, things suddenly changed. The speed of those events increased. Instead of having a certain time between the news, the time Ryan found Daniel and Mia, and the funeral, there was no pause between them… They happened one after another as if Ryan was being teleported around. The same thing happened dozens of times before Ryan finally broke the first layer of the spell…

"It is a dream caused by magic…" Ryan said.

 Once that happened, Ryan's mind began to work differently than before. While he was still angry and sad by watching all of those things several times in a row, he felt strangely calmer. Like he had accepted those incidents and moved on with his new life… It took a while for Ryan to notice other things and his memories return, but once they did, that worked pretty well for him to sharpen his resolve to kick the ass of the one who cast that spell.

"Aren't you pretty shy?" Ryan asked. "You should show yourself, that is the least that you can do when you are planning to defeat someone by crushing them from inside."

 Usually, that kind of taunt works pretty well, but he didn't get an answer. Most likely, the enemy this time wasn't like the others, or perhaps they had better things to do than the answer to Ryan's words.

 The more Ryan felt less connected to those events, the weaker they became. Until that reality began to shatter itself again… This time, Ryan didn't fall unconscious. Instead of that, the reality turned into something else. Ryan suddenly saw himself, back in that mountain, where he saw the dragons appearing in the sky, and this time, all his memories were back… that possibly couldn't mean anything good.

"What now…" Ryan said.

 In the end, Ryan didn't notice anything weird in that memory. He thought that the dragons would all swarm toward him and bit him into pieces. However, that didn't happen. The dragons appeared and then headed toward Shreveport. While Ryan was wondering what would be the trick to destroy that illusion, he noticed a slime approaching him from behind.

"Oh, yeah… this happened," Ryan said.

 Once the slime entered his range, it fired an Earth Arrow toward Ryan's head. Naturally, Ryan's body was as heavy as he recalled, but he still dodged the attack by slightly moving his head to the side. He was in a body that he could die with a single shot of a slime, but he decided to do at least that much.

"Come to think of it… what will happen if I sustain critical damage in this illusion?" Ryan frowned. "Will I die in reality as well?"

 That was a problematic question… not like Ryan was planning to get killed in reality or in a dream. Still, he had to consider all his options. In the previous dreams, he woke up by realizing that the situation was weird, but most likely, that won't work anymore.