Something popped in my right ankle as I hit the ground. While I had managed to avoid the spikes, the rubble had slid under my feet as I landed, causing me to roll my right ankle. Fresh pain flared through my body, along with the usual notifications.

  The increase in pain tolerance helped, but it didn’t do much. And it did nothing for just how unstable the ankle already was. I suspected the joint damage resistance only came into effect before the injury and not after, so the increased level there was just for show at the moment. Climbing back out of here with this ankle wasn’t going to be easy.

  Carefully picking my way across the rubble-strewed floor, doing my best not to slip and fall into any of the spikes, I slowly crossed the room. My hyper-vigilance on the spikes all around me was likely the only one that caused me to notice an odd difference in one of them near the far wall. It was just slightly askew, and while the rock leaning on it was almost certainly the cause, why had only this spike been knocked sideways? Every other one I could see remained firmly in place despite the collapse.

  The two ability notifications led me to believe I was onto something here. I adjusted my path toward the different spike, hoping it wasn’t just another death trap. Leaning over and doing my best not to further agitate my bad ankle, I hefted the stone off the spike. This caused the spike to snap back to its standard stalagmite-like position.

  I briefly debated how good of an idea it was to touch it, but considering my ankle was likely already badly sprained at the very least, there was a good chance this life was spiraling toward the end anyway. Reaching out, I tried to move the spike back to where it had been from the stone and found it moved surprisingly easily. I pushed it further down, and as it neared the ground, a clicking sound came from behind me. I released the spike in fear of another death, but instead, it stayed where I had placed it, and nothing else happened.

  I turned my head to look for the source of the clicking sound and found the wall now partially open. Apparently, the spike had controlled a latch for a hidden door. Light shone out from the newly formed crack. I pivoted my body and accidentally bent my ankle, causing more waves of pain to shoot through my leg.

  Doing my best yet again to ignore it, I stepped toward the wall and gave a light push on the piece that had opened. It swung easily inward, revealing a small bright room, not quite as small as the room I had started in, but still rather small. There were another two torches in this room, a small bed with a desk and a chair next to it. An image of a dorm room popped into my head. I stepped inside, pushing any fears of danger away as they were useless to me at the moment. Compared to anything I had found so far, this was a slice of heaven.

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  I pushed the wall shut behind me, not thinking about whether I’d be able to open it again or not until after the fact. I wanted to blame the pain for clouding my judgment, but the reality was that I was running in pure fight-or-flight mode. Any sort of planning was incredibly taxing on my brain at the moment, and this was the first place so far that presented the possibility of real rest without a painful death. I had no idea how true that would actually be, but my hope for escape still ran strong in me.

  With much less care than I should have, I laid down on the bed, letting my head sink into the comfort of the pillow. The peace of a simple bed was enough to let the walls down that had been blocking my brain from the horror I was experiencing. I wanted to scream and yell at the insanity of it all, but there was no one to hear me. Instead, I forced myself to sit up and remove my shoes. I needed to examine my ankle.

  All three of those notifications flashed into my mind as I did my best to contort my body in a way that I could easily examine the injured ankle that also didn’t make me have to fight through the pain to do so. It was severely discolored and badly swollen. While I couldn’t find any obvious breaks as I examined it, I didn’t really know what I was looking for either. Based on how difficult it was to bend, I suspected I did do some real damage to the joint, though, which matched up with the earlier notification.

  As I laid back down, I turned my thoughts to the knowledge abilities I had unlocked. How did they work, exactly? At least with the others, I could plausibly see it as possible that my body was just getting stronger and better at things as I worked the corresponding part of it. But with knowledge, shouldn’t I need to learn to understand how something works? Or was I going to just somehow gain the relevant information through some sort of osmosis just by trying?

  The second option opened up a lot of potential for me, and I hoped it was true. If all I had to do to learn medical skills was continue to practice on myself, that seemed like an inevitability, assuming these lives continued. Where would that knowledge come from, though? It was possible I was looking at that wrong as well. Maybe it wasn’t osmosis. Considering my complete lack of tangible memories before I arrived here, it could just be that I was unlocking access to knowledge I already had and just didn’t know.

  I had no idea what the answer was, and my thoughts were finally starting to slow down anyway. The reason was the bed. The problem with this bed is that it was making my body ache for sleep. Then again, was it really a problem? Would getting some actual rest be the worst thing? I took a deep breath. The air seemed fresh enough to me.

  I was going to work under the assumption that meant I had guessed correctly. Working the blanket out from under me and doing my best to keep my ankle in a position that wouldn’t make things any worse, I draped it across my body. A large yawned escaped my lips, and I let myself fall asleep.

  My eyes opened gently this time, no bolting awake for once. How many times had I even done that so far? I hadn’t thought to keep track of it, but maybe I should start. Just in case it turned out there was a limit. I thought it over and was reasonably sure I was on my sixth life here that I could remember.

  I started to sit up and remembered my injured ankle just as new pain shot through me. It was just as swollen as before I had fallen asleep, possibly even worse. The discoloration had grown as well. I was getting more concerned with how bad it looked. If only that concern came with any way to do anything about it.

  Once I found where I had tossed my shoes in my exhaustion, I started to put them back on. I had to work to get the one back onto my swollen foot. At least the support it provided made moving around somewhat easier, though not any less painful. Since nothing in this room had tried to kill me while I slept, I decided that made it safe enough to spend some more time here, at the very least however long it took to search the entire place.

  The writing desk had a couple of pencils on it, one of which was broken in half, and a few sheets of paper. As much as I wanted to chronicle what was happening to me, the problem that it would reset on each of my deaths made it unfeasible for now. That didn’t mean the paper and pencils would always be useless, though. Paper burns and pencils could be a weapon, if not a very strong one.

  Besides the torches on the walls, which I did want to take with me if possible, the only other place to search was under the bed. I had wanted to do that first, but the pain of getting on the ground wasn’t something that had sounded pleasant in my head. It had to be done, though, and I was greeted with another notification as I forced myself down.

  Again, I felt the pain lessen just slightly, and anything was better than nothing, but I wished it was more. Instead of dwelling on that thought, I instead turned my head and looked under the bed and was pleasantly surprised at the sight of a backpack. I reached my hand under and pulled it out. From the weight of it, it certainly wasn’t empty.