#lsdevotionweek

The situation could have been considered ridiculous, even funny, if he hadn't been so horrified.

It's not that you can't talk to Mapicc, but talking to him is a minefield: he can hear, but he doesn't want to listen. He doesn't need any apologies. He doesn't need a compromise. He needs to put an axe between Zam's eyes, and again, and again, until the weak body gives up, peeling, crumbling, bubbling and crunching. And again. And again. And again.

He doesn't have a chance. Mapicc slowly and methodically chastises him for his weaknesses and mistakes, for his unworthiness and for his pity. He imputes him for betrayal, and Zam, really, has nothing to say, because Mapicc is right.

At this stage, the only realistic option was to give up, but what remained true about Zam was that he refused to give up. And he takes up the sword and collects a parody of a battle kit from his remains, and everything falls apart in an instant. Mapicc attacks once, twice, thrice, and very soon Zam is cornered, and Mapicc mauls him, hitting again and again, even when he stops moving, letting the splashing blood stain himself and everything around him, breaking bones and severing arteries and tearing muscles and splitting his belly open. There is not even sadism in this, there is no joy and pleasure – Mapicc is silent, keeping an unperturbed expression on his face, and just hits, and hits, and hits, and hits.

At some point, Zam starts screaming. At some point, he stops. At some point, when there seems to be nothing working left in his inhuman body, he finally dies. It's excruciating. It's a relief.

This time he wakes up instantly. His whole body is giving off phantom pains. There is inky darkness outside the window, simultaneously frightening and sheltering. He sits down on the bed, breathing heavily, and clutches his head.

To come up with. He needs to come up with something. Solution. The way out of this.

***

The castle is as beautiful as ever: only completed, solidly built, and cleaned. Brand new brewing setup, clean bed, fresh dandelions on the windowsill. The quiet idyll of a man who has run from problems, but he sees blood stains here and there – when you refuse to leave space, there are only so many places to die.

He fought Mapicc every new time. Prepared and not, sooner or later, but this is how it all was ending: Mapicc wins. Mapicc kills him. It starts all over again. No matter what he did, it was useless: nothing could equal their skill difference. He could have been prepared as much as he wanted – once he spent all his remaining time on grinding a full battle kit, and the other time – on mining the area around the castle, and in the end everything turned out to be useless anyway. Mapicc went ahead, took the blows as if they were worthless, threw venomous words and hit, and hit, and hit. This was not a battle that Zam could win. He tried, and tried, and tried – even after he realized that he was stuck in a time loop, he died over and over again, but he only had more splashes of phantom pain on his body. A couple of times he calls people for help, but they always die before him, and he stops.

It's an endless loop. He gets up, he prepares, he fights, he dies. Even if something changes, the outcome remains the same. Mapicc still looks at him terrifyingly, and his axe still easily crumbles the ridge. And then Zam wakes up choking on blood.

This is the first time he decides to run away.

And: don't get me wrong, he loves this place, truly loves and appreciates it. But even his pride is worthless if everything stays as it is. And he says to himself: I'll let him destroy the Sanctuary. That doesn't mean I'm giving up.

It's terrible, it's monstrous, it will break his heart, but if time continues to flow on, then he can – he can do at least something. Restore it. Turn it into a memorial. Anything.

He hides all his pets a hundred blocks away from the castle. He takes the horn from Walter's grave. He prepares – to the best of his ability. And when his time runs out, when Mapicc will soon find this place even with the turned-off beacon, he runs.

It's almost absurdly easy – almost the entire vast world is in front of him, and he gets lost in endless forests thousands of blocks from the Sanctuary, mourning his fate, but promising that he will do... Something. He stays away from known places, spending long hours alone and never ceasing to think about what he left behind.

And then Mapicc finds him.

Mapicc is a furious hellhound, blinded by the chase. This time he doesn't give him time – he rushes at him, barely preserving his humanity, and hits, hits, hits. Zam, of course, defends himself, but he is scared, he is terrified, he – how could this happen, he thinks in despair, realizing that he sacrificed the most important place for nothing. Mapicc is so out of his mind that he doesn't say a word. And then Zam wakes up.

He does a lot of things: he fights, he hides, he runs. In the end, he betrays all his principles, because they are worthless in a frozen world, but nothing ever justifies his hopes. Mapicc finds him even at the edge of the world, and the longer the chase, the worse he gets. Sometimes Zam remembers the second season. Was he like that then, he thinks, and starts to feel sick.

He hates it, but mostly he's scared. His ex-partner became his worst nightmare. He killed Zam so many times that he stopped counting long ago. He dragged his corpse all over the server and smeared the entire Sanctuary, a place of peace and tranquility, in blood. Zam had no hope, but he couldn't afford to give up. He never gives up, and maybe he couldn't.

The pain does not go away, and at one point, after a particularly crushing blow, which eventually hit right on his wrists, his hands begin to shake. He manages to suppress it – one cycle, another, third, fifth, tenth, but one day it becomes unstoppable.

– Look at you, – Mapicc says with disgust, – how far have you fallen.

He puts him down. Zam barely resists. For him, this is the closest thing possible to giving up.

He sleeps late, and every joint in his body responds with excruciating pain. He gets up, makes himself a cup of coffee, and drinks it. He writes goodbyes to those he values – even if they are erased the next day, something in this makes it better. he braids his hair and plays with Friend. When Mapicc bursts into the castle, bringing snow and wind from the outside, he does not even flinch.

– I miss you, – he says almost softly. He didn't give up. He didn't give up. He didn't give up. He didn't give up.

Talking doesn't solve anything, and he knows it from the very beginning. Mapicc answers him, but he is still bitter, and when he asks if Zam is ready to accept death for the betrayal, he agrees. This death, at least, comes quickly.