2. Ultimate boredom

For the next nine days, absolutely nothing happened.

No visitors. No monsters. No hapless adventurers stumbling blindly into my courtyard with wide-eyed wonder and drawn swords. Not even a single breeze strong enough to rustle the overgrown weeds in any interesting way.

God, the boredom was so profound and soul-crushing that I half-expected to die a second time purely from the sheer weight of existential void pressing down on me. So, to stave off complete madness, I tried to keep myself busy with meaningless tasks.

First, I tried playing drums using my windows: opening and closing them in rhythmic patterns. For a glorious few minutes, I convinced myself I was dropping a sick beat.

Then I got carried away. One window slammed too hard—crack!—and the hinge sheared clean off. The pane tumbled into the weeds below.

(Uh oh… that doesn’t look good.)

I stopped the percussion experiment immediately after that and switched to playing with my torches instead.

I turned them on. I turned them off. One by one, then in complex alternating patterns. Eventually, I gave up on patterns altogether and just flicked them randomly like a bored child with a light switch.

Look, I just needed something to keep myself sane, alright? I was losing my god damn mind inside this silent stone prison!

Eventually, I resorted to the ultimate desperation move: counting the grass in my overgrown courtyard.

679,538 blades.

Yes. I counted. Every. Single. One!

Fantasy Grass Order: Unlimited Blade of Grass Works!

I even started assigning them names and tiny personalities to make the task feel less insane. “Sir Lawncelot” quickly became my favorite. Next to him were “Sigreen,” “Cu Chulawn,” and “Grasstolfo.”

…

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Still, the endless counting and random torch-flickering helped kill at least some of the time. For the rest of those long, dragging hours, I… slept?

Well, sort of.

I wasn’t entirely sure what “sleeping” even meant for a building. I didn’t have eyelids to close, no heartbeat to slow down. But sometimes I would slip into this strange, blank, quiet state. I remained vaguely aware of everything happening around me, but actively not giving a shit about any of it.

It helped me pass the time without thinking too hard about how much my new life sucked.

Just imagine spending the next thousand years like this, without anything fun to do.

Isn’t that a fate worse than death?

(Aaaah!)

(NOT LIKE THISSS!!!)

***ANGRY CASTLE NOISES!***

*****

But then, on the tenth day, something finally changed.

Something interesting.