Janus and The Prince: A LitRPG Saga (The Nightmares of Alamir Book 2)

by Noam Oswin

  I wouldn’t play into their hands.

  Instead, I plopped down, on the red rug of my office, and crossed my legs. Closing my eyes, I cleared my mind, and forced my shoulders to relax. If they wanted to play psychological mind games with me, they certainly chose the wrong person.

  Minutes passed. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. It could have been days. I fought off, with all my intensity, any desire to panic. All desire to rage and rant. Think of it as a mini-vacation.

  Meditation was not something I ever did. The first few hours were the worst, as I found my mind overwhelmed with thought after thought of how I was going to escape. With concern after concern of why I was here. Pushing back the thoughts to enter a further state of Zen was needed, especially as I was sure that my attacker’s patience would run out before mine did.

  “Disappointing as always.”

  My lips thinned at a familiar voice.

  “And yet, as always, your brothers surpass you.”

  I took a deep breath. “First, you bring my secretary, and now, you bring him?”

  I couldn’t remember his name. I couldn’t forget his face. His voice. His gait, slow, steady, each step carrying more weight than I could ever hope to muster. I remembered imitating him once, trying, and failing, over and over again to have that same seamless grasp of grace and power. I never succeeded. In the end, I merely found another way to disappoint him.

  He was a tall man. With a mustache that was combed to elegance, hair slicked back, dyed and gelled, and eyes sharper than that of a raven. Even knowing that it was a mere memory of him didn’t stop my back from instinctively gesturing straighter. It didn’t stop my form from immediately getting tense.

  “What do you think you’re doing, foolish child?”

  “You’re just a memory of him. Get lost.”

  His cane, the family cane he always had with him, struck hard against the floor. “Yet, you flinch, as always, foolish child.”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “No, foolish child. It is your fault. It was always your fault. I never treated your brothers the same. It was you, always you, fueling my ire. My wrath. Pushing me, child, pushing me to render correction after correction. Because you couldn’t learn. You never learned. You left me no choice foolish child.”

  I took a breath. It’s just a memory. He’s not real.

  “You have managed, with no effort of your own, to find yourself in a position of power, have you not?”

  My breath stilled. I locked my gaze with his.

  “How do you know that?”

  “You will fail, as you always do. You will disappoint, as you always do. Because in the end, foolish child, you are not like me. Not like your brothers. You may have been given my name, but your heart is as weak as your mother’s.”

  Something sharp pierced through my chest. “You have no right –”

  The cane snapped down against the ground again. “She was as you were, foolish child. Blessed with beauty and fortunes to which she could not comprehend. Naïve and feeble-hearted. She never told you the true story of how she came to be mine, did she? Of how, the errant lovesick fool found her drink spiked, whisked away, and how I was the one to arrive. The one to save her chastity. How grateful she was for saving it, with her rose-tinted vision, that she gave it to me as a reward, along with her hand.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Fortunate for me, her family assets were bountiful and she was the only child. She signed it all, with lovesick smiles as she talked about the names we would give our children. You take after her, in that simplicity. In that total lack of ambition. All your mother ever wanted was to be a housewife and mother. She who, despite her naivete, had an intellect that could have done so much more, her ultimate dream was something so unremarkable. Yet, unremarkable as it was, she couldn’t even manage to see it to the end.”

  “If you say one more word –”

  “And like your mother,” he continued. “You allow others to decide your legacy for you. Like a leaf in a storm, blowing whatever direction the wind commands. You never had worthwhile desires. Become a game maker? Travel the world? Retire as a househusband? Foolishness! Utter foolishness! Even now, my hand itches to strike you once more and dislodge those nonsensical ideas from your head. Those ideas your mother cultivated. Those ideas you’ve pitifully transferred along with you, even to another life.”

  My teeth slowly ground against each other. My hands balled up into a fist, the nails digging deep into my flesh.

  “Do you wish to strike me, foolish child?”

  “You’re not real.”

  “You wish to. You have always wished to. As I rendered punishments upon you, I always saw the desire in your eyes. I pushed you, further and further, but you never pushed back. Unlike your brothers, you never had the guts. Even in accomplishing the barest minimum task of being man, you managed to disappoint me.”

  “Shut up.”

  The cane struck a third time. “If I am not real as you say, then strike me. Strike me, oh foolish child. I am not like your mother. I shall not weep and ingest a bottle of pills over a meager one or two strikes.”

  The roar tore from my lips as I lunged him. Lunged it. My right fist slammed forward, slamming against his cheek. I roared again from the pain of the impact. Pain shot through my arm, overwhelming, unmentionable pain. His raven-like eyes locked in on me, his face, unmoving from the point at which I’d struck it. Amusement colored his eyes a thousand times over.

  “There, my foolish child. That look in your eyes – that rage, that wrath – it is a shame you died before I could ever see that you were truly my child after all.”

  I flinched. “You’re wrong – I’m – I’m nothing like you.”

  “No, you are my son. You merely need to embrace the lessons I have instilled in you. Merely need unlock the side of you that you have suppressed for all these years. My blood still runs in your veins. The blood of a conqueror. Of a leader. Of a man whose ambitions will shake the world. A man who will take what he wants, however, he wants.”

  “Of a man who doesn’t care about others. A man who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.”

  He bellowed a large laugh. “And since when has the lion been concerned with the famine of the sheep?”

  “I’ll never be like you.”

  The cane struck a fourth time, louder than all the previous. “Fool. It is because of that stubbornness that you are in this situation. To have sacrificed your life for a woman of no importance to you, did you do it because you believed you had to save her? That somehow, saving different women would make up for the one time you failed to save your mother?”

  Ignore him, Janus. He’s trying to bait you. Anger you.

  “Why are you here? This isn’t a memory. I have no memories like this.”

  “Disappointing as always. You’ve not yet figured it out, have you? Who would know me well enough to be able to recreate me? Who would be capable of knowing every secret you possess, every aspect of yourself, both the ones you accept and the ones you refuse?”

  My anger receded. My brow, furrowed, furiously. I stared down at my hands, and noticed, for the first time, that despite the memory, the form I was in wasn’t my human form, it wasn’t my form from my past life.

  “It seems you finally understand.”

  I got up, rushing towards the bathroom in my office. Slamming the doors open, I faced the sink, and the faucet, and focused on the mirror in front of it. My reflection appeared before me, the reflection of the Vampire form I’d chosen. Blonde eyes, handsome visage, all of which did not matter as I realized that the eyes of my reflection were glowing. My reflection’s eyes were glowing, and it was… waving.

  “Hello.”

  Hands stretched out from the mirror, grasping my neck. Bit by bit, my reflection stepped out. He held me, in the air, choking me with long, slender hands.

  “You… you’re… me?”

  “Ding-ding-ding – we have a winn
er. Took you fucking long enough to get it.”

  “I – I don’t understand, this can’t be happening. You can’t be me – I’m me.”

  The sound of a familiar cane striking the floor hit my ears. Father stood at the doorway of the bathroom. “This is what happens, foolish child when you suppress your worst instincts. When you keep everything, I gave you under lock and key. This is the –”

  “Hey, old man,” My doppelganger snarled. “Shut up. And get lost. You’ve done your part.”

  “Come now, you are my true son –”

  “Get. Lost.”

  With two words, my father’s form vanished. Melting away into black smoke that departed from a sudden breeze. My reflection clicked his tongue, shaking his head.

  “Gods I hate that fucker. Now, where were we?” Glowing red eyes locked on my form. “Ah, yes. Dealing with you.”

  He tossed me against the toilet seat, slamming his foot into my chest with a vicious, terrifying fanged smirk.

  “Who… are you?”

  “I’m you, idiot. Who else would I be?”

  “That’s not possible – I’m me.”

  “Oh, we want to talk about impossible things now Mr. I-Fucked-A-Tentacle-Monster?”

  My lips pressed tightly against each other. “You’re not me. You can’t be me.”

  My doppelganger sighed. “Listen, whether you like it or not, I’m you. The part of you that you don’t like to admit exists. The hornier, angrier, bloodthirsty part of you. The you that has all your fears, worries, and anxieties. Your grief, frustrations, sorrows and regrets.”

  “W-what?”

  “Back home on our world, basically I’d be nothing more than a mound of repressed memories and emotions that you should have ironed over with a shrink. Except, we’re in crazy-land Alamir, and because of that, rather than just being your psychological hang-ups and unresolved PTSD –”

  “I don’t have any unresolved PTSD.”

  “Riiiight.” He said. “Anyway, as I was saying, rather than being your psychological hang-ups – I instead gained what you call… sentience. Or is it consciousness? Or sapience? Fuck me if I know what this is called.”

  “So, you’re… a split personality?”

  He smacked me over the head. “No, idiot. I’m you. A part of you. We’re two halves of the same individual, not a separate identity entrenched within a single mind.”

  I rubbed my head. “You don’t have to hit me.” I took in another deep breath, trying to wrap my head around it all. “If you’re me – and I’m me… how does that work?”

  “I’m guessing it’s because of the name Zlosta gave us. It allowed this to happen.”

  My brow furrowed. “Our name?”

  “Janus, dumbass. We’re Janus. Think. Duality. Janus in Roman Myth had two heads. Except, for us, rather than having two heads, we instead got our mind partitioned into two halves. The naïve, ambitionless, I-just-wanna-live half that’s you, and then there’s me, the half that’s going to keep us alive.”

  “Really,” I said dryly. “You’re going to keep us alive? And where have you been?”

  “In the background, genius.” My doppelganger snarled. “I was there when we pushed aside our body dysmorphia from being turned into a worm. I was there when we kept bay our terror from being swallowed alive by a snake. When we buried our guilt from killing the Kadulja. I was there to prevent us from shaking in our boots every time we thought about Hoplite and his ability to make black holes. We’ve seen a lot of shit that should have driven us insane, but we haven’t lost it yet, and it’s not because of our shitty Insanity Resistance skill, it’s because we took every single threat to our sanity and tossed them into a box and locked it away. And I’ve always been the motherfucker holding the damned box.”

  I didn’t have any words to say. There wasn’t much I could say. The silence stretched, as I stared at him, me – my other half. Us? We? I didn’t know that were the correct terms to use.

  “What do I… call you?”

  “We’re Janus. Together. You and I.” He said, before sighing. “Though it’ll get confusing if you refer to me as that when you mean to refer to yourself. Calling me Dark Janus or something would just be stupid. I’ll go by Sunny.”

  “Sunny?”

  “We’re keeping in line with the theme of twos. Sun and Moon. I’m the one who wants to fuck shit up and get shit done in the light, and you’re the one who wants to live in the shadows in peaceful obscurity. Together, we find balance. Yin and Yang. Light and Dark. Peanut butter and jelly. Tits and ass.”

  “...really?”

  “Can you sit there and tell me that they don’t make a great combo.”

  I sighed, running my hand down my face. “I can’t believe my other half is such a…” I pressed my lips together. “What was that about, with father being here?”

  “That’s not on me. This is our mind, Janus. While we’ve been able to toss almost everything in a box, now and again, that bastard manages to find a way to slip out through the keyhole. I managed to make him scram this time… but… well, he’s always going to be there, casting his shadow over us.”

  And there’s nothing that can change that… is there?

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  I blinked. You can… read my thoughts?

  ‘They’re our thoughts, Janus. Our.’

  “This is going to take some getting used to.”

  Sunny removed his leg from my chest, shrugging casually. “Think of it as having a cool roommate. The exact opposite of the one we had in Sophomore year.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “I hated that douche. Spilling soda on our laptop, two-timing his girlfriend in the shower, turning the roll of toilet paper the wrong way –”

  “Didn’t he still go on to become CEO of his mother’s tech company?”

  Sunny nodded, growling. “The fact that an asshole like him got a happier ending than we did is proof that that the system is broken.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “Speaking of broken systems, there’s the Nightscripts and Antediluvian Hieroglyphs. Then there’s also Oblivion’s little gift – the Daily Task System.”

  “What about it?”

  “We’ve been underutilizing them. The Antediluvian Hieroglyphs are Alamir’s command consoles. Cheat codes. If we have the right codes and know how to use them, we could become invincible. We need to experiment further, and drill Erzili for information rather than pleasure.”

  “Agreed.”

  “The Daily Task System is meant to make us strong enough to take down Apophis. At the rate we’ve been going, that’ll take too long. So, let’s assign our roles now.”

  Sunny stretched out his hand, and I took it, standing from the toilet. “Roles?”

  “Leave the dirty work to me. The grinding. The power-leveling. The loophole exploiting. The fighting. I’ll make us stronger. That leaves you to focus on the more important stuff. Information gathering. Socializing and networking. Use trickery, flattery, or deception and learn, learn, learn. We’re fighting a war and we don’t have any information who our enemy is or what they can do or what they want. We’re fucked if we can’t figure it out.”

  That sounded actually… “Fair enough.”

  “Also, we shouldn’t trust Erzili.”

  I crossed my arms. “Any particular reasons?”

  “The she-tentacle monster is playing us like a fiddle. A nightmare that old having a dream that naïve is bullshit. It’s more likely that she’s simply telling us whatever we want to hear than it is that she’s telling us the truth.”

  I sighed, scratching the back of my head. “Fine, fine. Get more information, and beware of Erzili. Got it.” I stared around at the bathroom. “So how exactly do we wake up?”

  “We go to sleep.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “We’re not the ones who picked the rules. We sleep to enter our mind, and we sleep to leave it.” Sunny shrugged. “Or I could just knock you out. That’s faster. Yeah
, let’s go with that. Brace yourself.”

  “W-wai –”

  The fist flew at my skull faster than I could blink, and the world turned white.

  Chapter 14: Sovereignty

  My head spun as I woke up, clutching my skull.

  Damn you, Sunny.

  There was no response. My eyes blinked, twice, and my heart stilled. It… it was all a dream?

  ‘As if you have the imagination to dream up all that.’ Sunny’s voice came, making me exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding. It wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t going crazy. I did have a second voice in my head.

  I glanced around the room and realized that Erzili was gone. The Slithercreep was no longer at my bedside, nor was there any sign to indicate where Erzili had gone to.

  ‘She.’

  My nose rumpled. What?

  ‘Erzili doesn’t have a gender, but chooses female forms more than half the time and has a female voice she can’t change. Her Epithet Skill is a word meaning womanhood. Call a spade a spade.’

  “Thanks...?”

  ‘We’re in this together. Anyway, Fort Zyvar is ours. Try using it to eavesdrop – see what’s going on around. Let the walls have ears.’

  Following Sunny’s instructions, I tinkered with the Domain. Fort Zyvar was ours to control, and the first thing we did was to make it so the walls literally had ears. Picking up every conversation within earshot was necessary because at the end of the day, I needed to make sure that there were no dissenting voices.

  It was through this method, that I overheard a conversion of Erzili, talking with her lieutenants.

  “It has been decided darlings. We will be moving on Krvavi Lagoon.”

  “Leader Erzili,” the voice was Onna’s.

  “Erzili is no longer the leader of Fort Zyvar, Onna. The title of Leader belongs to Lord Janus now.”

  “I do not accept that. Forgive me, but I cannot accept it.” She said. “To reduce yourself to becoming the servant of that… I don’t even know what he is. What is he supposed to be?”

  “He is a Demiurge,” came Slim’s rasping voice. “That is all that matters.”