Mira tried to remember where she was, but her head throbbed in intense pain when she did.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose to try and get rid of her massive headache, Mira stopped walking down the stairs.
"Something's very wrong here," She muttered and sat down on the ground, "And I'm not moving until I figure it out!"
Her head throbbed in pain again, but she tried to ignore it. Her instincts warned her that if she kept descending the stairs at this rate, something terrible would happen. Even if she wasn't in the right state of mind, she still trusted her instincts enough to rely on them in times of need.
However, something inside her told her otherwise, 'No, you already know what's wrong. It's these stairs!'
"These stairs?" Mira's eyes lit up in realization, "Right! It's these stairs! How could I forget?"
Mira tried to remember the name of the stairs and what was going on, but-
"Urgh!"
Her head began pounding so badly that she nearly passed out! It felt like someone was smashing her brain with a hammer.
"W-Why is my head hurting so bad?!"
She tried to ignore it like she normally would, but for some reason, she couldn't! It was as if she was forced to feel the full brunt of it.
'If you want to figure out what's going on, you must descend the stairs.' The voice in her mind said.
"Bullshit-Urgh!" She tried to rebuke that voice, but as soon as she did, it felt like something grabbed ahold of her brain and began twisting it.
'Stop worrying about useless things and go down the staircase!' The voice commanded, but despite the pain she was going through, Mira refused to listen.
"No! I told myself I wasn't going to move until I figured things out, and I will stick to my word!"
It felt like someone was slicing up her brain as she said that, but she forbade herself from moving! Even if she were to die here on these steps, she wouldn't move until she understood what was happening to her!
Closing her eyes, Mira tried to remember how she got to where she was, and although the mind-numbing pain became worse, she pushed through, unwilling to move forward!
Suddenly, an image of a small blob appeared in her mind, and her eyes lit up before a pain so bad hit her that her eyes rolled up into her head, almost causing her to pass out! At that point, she wasn't even conscious enough to let out a groan, but she did manage to find a clue.
'My soul!'
Hanging onto the thread between conscious and unconscious, Mira used the last of her strength to bring her mind's eye into her soul, and what she saw shocked her!
"Wh-What…the… fuck?!"
*SCREEEEECH!*
An ear-piercing sound crashed into Mira, discombobulating her, but she was too focused on the massive…. monster(?) in her soul to care.
In front of her was a massive black and red tentacle monster, which took up almost half of her soul! It had 100 tendrils digging into the outsides, each one pulsating at different intervals as it sent something in her mind and body.
*SCREEEEECH!*
The giant tentacle monster thrashed about angrily, its serrated tentacles digging in and out of her soul, causing Mira to fall to her knees.
"Ugh!" She grunted in immense pain
'YoU… sHoUlD… nOt… Be HeRe!' An androgynous, distorted voice entered her mind.
Mira struggled to get back up due to the pain, but when she did, her crimson eyes flashed with anger.
"No!" A murderous aura slowly surrounded Mira, "YOU are the one who shouldn't be here!"
Mira raised her hand and slashed at one of the tendrils digging into her brain, sending an ice blade at it!
The ice blade cut through it like butter, and now the tentacle monster was the one to screech in agony. This sent waves of throbbing discomfort through her mind, but Mira ignored it and dashed to where half a tentacle was still lodged in her soul.
"This must be what's fucking with my brain!"
Mira yanked out the tentacle, and instantly, it felt like her mind had cleared up! It wriggled around in her hand, trying to escape, but Mira used her immense strength to crush it. However, this only caused it to reabsorb itself back into the main body.
Memories that she couldn't remember flowed through her mind. Unfortunately, she didn't regain much since it was only 1 tentacle out of 100.
Turning to the 99 other tentacles lodged in her mind, Mira made her decision, "Looks like I'll need to remove the rest of you before I'm back to normal again!"
Waving her hand, she created dozens of ice blades and sent them toward the tentacles, cutting them in half. The monster thrashed around more, but Mira paid it no mind and kept sending ice blades at the tentacles, ignoring the pain it caused her until she destroyed every last one of them.
Due to this being her own soul, it only took Mira a few seconds to finish that and another few seconds to uproot all the tentacles, leaving behind 100 holes in her soul.
All the memories that were locked away by those tentacles were now under her control again, but Mira didn't feel the slightest bit happy.
Her expression was frosty as she stared at the giant tentacle blob monster in her soul.
'What do I do now?'
She obviously couldn't leave this thing alone in her soul, or else it might devour her from the inside out. However, she also couldn't stay here forever, as she needed to descend these stairs.
*SCREEEEECH!*
In the midst of thinking, the monster formed another 100 tentacles and attempted to connect them to her soul once again!
"Oh no, you don't!"
Mira created 100 ice blades and launched them at the monster, cutting the tentacles into pieces. However, they were instantly reabsorbed into the main body, and the monster attempted to do the same thing again!
Mira created another 100 ice blades, destroying them, but the same situation repeated itself the next second.
'Fuck! This thing is such a pain in the ass!'
Annoyed with the tentacle monster, she launched a series of attacks at its main body, causing it to explode into a thousand pieces, but just like before, it instantly reformed itself and kept trying to send tentacles into her mind.
"Ugh! Just die, you nasty fucker!" Mira yelled and then hopped onto the monster, pounding it with her fists.
However, no matter what she did, it didn't matter. If anything, not only was she wasting her time and energy, but as time went on, it seemed to be learning and adapting to her attacks.
"Dammit! I can't keep doing this! I need to figure out a solution so I can leave this godforsaken staircase!"
Though, to be honest, Mira already did have a solution in mind. It's just that it was a terrible idea, and the risk of her mind getting corrupted again was extremely high.
Pounding on the monster once again, Mira couldn't come up with anything better and decided just to say, "Fuck it!"
She raised her golden tail and smashed the monster with it, obliterating it into a million pieces while also sending waves through her soul, shaking it.
Then, without hesitation, Mira's consciousness returned to her mind, and she took another step down the staircase.
"Ugh!"
She felt something pierce her soul once again as soon as she did.
Mira's consciousness left her body and returned to her soul, where she saw 101 tentacles trying to dig into her soul. More memories were being stolen and locked away from her, and she knew she couldn't waste any more time, or else she might turn into a vegetable.
Creating 101 ice blades, she launched them at the tentacles, destroying them, then picked up the pieces of the monster that were still lodged in her soul.
When she recalled the stolen memories, she noticed that some of them were jumbled up with other memories that weren't related.
Mira left them as is for a moment and hopped onto the slightly larger monster, pounding it into microscopic pieces again.
Once she did that, she took a second to rearrange the memory strands into their proper places in her Mind Palace.
She had to repeat the process of rearranging memories and beating a tentacle monster a few times until she was finished, but she eventually returned to normal.
'I'm so glad I created a Mind Palace. Good job past me for coming up with such a great idea.' Mira patted herself on the back with one hand while giving the tentacle monster another beatdown with the other.
After completely destroying it again, Mira left her soul and took another step down the staircase, only for the same thing to repeat itself!
However, this time 102 tentacles were digging their way into her soul!
'Ugh! Do I really have to keep doing this?? I don't think my soul is big enough for that monster to keep creating holes like that!'
