Restoring his hands was a process of days, despite his new spells. Compared to his orbs of light, both [Mending] and [Healing] were tremendously draining, especially [Weak Mending Light], which took complete focus and long periods of concentration to achieve results.

Through experimentation, Paul did learn that he could fix the structural problems with his bones and cartilage with [Mending], then use the relatively less tiring [Weak Healing Light] to finish repairing the damage, saving him quite a bit of time and pain.

While waiting for his intent to refill, Paul contemplated on his state of mind.

The entire time I’ve been down here, I’ve been preoccupied with survival, or going through one crisis to the next. When I’m busy working on my next set of buckskins, or exploring the next cave, or hunting for my next meal, I’m fine, but when I let myself just sit with my thoughts…

Fear. Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. Loss. The emotions whirled around Paul like physical things, invisible specters flitting around his head.

Seymour helped with that, but it’s clear that I’m not quite right with myself.

He looked down at his half-mangled hand, stark proof of his loss of control, then out at his cavern, and its collection of primitive industry.

I have enough salted meat stocked to last me months. More furs than I could ever wear. Enough skins to make myself wardrobes several times over. Backup weapons. A dozen waterskins. How much of this did I actually need, and how much of it was just to keep myself busy so I wasn’t alone with my thoughts?

He clenched his hand experimentally, and immediately regretted it, a sharp shock of pain radiating from his palm.

Seymour helped with it, helped me keep on track. I recognize that now.

Paul thought of all the times that he began to sink into hopelessness, only to have Seymore pester him for a tidbit of rat meat, or to rest his tiny lizard head against his cheek.

But if I’m going to get through this now, I need to deal with my emotions.

Paul knew that [Fear Management] had helped him conquer the terror that had rendered him helpless when he first appeared in the caverns. He tried to remember how that felt. The panic that felt all-encompasing. The mad, gibbering, breath-taking fear… and how he had accepted it, then acted anyway.

Paul sighed.

I’m going to have to get to know my emotions, won’t I? He glanced at his hands again. At the moment, breaking them again seemed like it would be less painful. Nonetheless, he clenched his jaw - carefully not his hand this time - and resolved to do the work.

Not right away of course, no need to jump into it.

Paul healed his hands - and let them heal, slowly going back to his chores as he was able. He rigged new trip-wire alarms again in the caverns, and cleaned and repaired his tools and weapons, though he did not reset his traps. A few untripped traps still remained in the last stretch of tunnels immediately outside of his home cavern, but the rest had been sprung by the horde of mantis trolls or ploughed through by the leader.

He knew it may be hubris, but maybe just not the willingness to confront the possibility that they could be back so soon, but Paul hoped that he had bloodied their nose enough that they wouldn’t be back for several weeks.

A voice in the back of his head told him that he was just avoiding the problem. Finally, after every chore he could think of had been done, Paul clambered up on a shelf fungus, and, for the first time since coming to the caverns, just was.

Details of his past life were still fragmented and jumbled, but Paul did remember practicing mindfulness meditation as part of therapy… though what the therapy was for, Paul couldn’t remember, the knowledge just one of the empty holes in his mind that he couldn’t access.

Putting aside his spotty memory, Paul took long, steady breaths, and concentrated on himself.

He contemplated his physical form first. He was certain that he was stronger than he had ever been in his previous life, lean, corded muscle giving his body hard edges where he only remembered softness before. He felt younger too, as if years had been stripped away along with the fat. His hands and feet were callused, a fact that surprised him the first time he was resurrected, as all scars he accumulated in each life were wiped clean each time he died.

Then, with a barely suppressed grimace, Paul examined how he was feeling. The specters of emotions that he kept at bay, that whirled around him, Paul invited them in. The first, at the very surface of his thoughts, was Anger. Paul examined it.

What am I angry at? Answers spilled into his mind.

The Trolls. The aliens that killed me. These godforsaken caves. Death-Rats.

The answers felt hollow. They tasted like a lie. Too easy. So Paul kept looking.

I hate myself.

The thought was so jarring that Paul nearly lost focus.

Breathe. Why would I hate myself?

Paul examined the emotion.

Because I’m weak. I hate that I’m so scared all the time. I hate that I couldn’t protect my squad, that I have to give myself a pep talk every five minutes, I hate that I was so weak that that Seymore had to save me, and that I couldn’t save him.

His breathing grew ragged, then he calmed himself once again.

Does hating my weaknesses mean that I have to hate myself? Do my weaknesses define me?

Paul sat for some time.

I choose to believe that they do not.

He dug deeper. He didn’t have to go far, his loss of Seymore was far too recent and far too raw, and it bubbled up to the surface without having to be pulled.

God I miss the little guy.

*New Skill Gained: [Meditation]*

His eyes blurred, and Paul let out a quavering exhalation, but the rhythm of his breathing remained steady. He examined his feelings of loneliness, of guilt, of loss. He examined them, then let them pass.

Deeper still he roamed, excavating the mental residue that had built up during his time in the caverns. The suppressed trauma of so many battles close-fought and lost. Each little victory he had eked out. His bond with Seymore. The shock of awakening naked in the dark after his first death.

Each memory, each mote of pain, and tension, and catharsis, Paul exhumed and laid to rest.

*[Meditation] has reached rank 2*

Emboldened, Paul reached deeper into his memories.

He had not tread here, had not truly examined his past since his first death. His mind seemed more shattered than whole at times, a fragile macrame pattern built around a myriad of empty holes, and he had reflexively pulled away from thinking about it too hard, as if the memories were an open wound that would only worsen if disturbed, or a flame that would only consume more if tended.

Now, while meditating, he could set those thoughts aside. Paul felt his new skill helping the process, blunting his knee-jerk reaction to leave these memories lie.

And so Paul looked inward, beginning with the shattered recollections of his last few moments on Trappist-IV. A face entered his memory, one of a small boy at a school desk, face etched in concentration while his pudgy hand awkwardly held a pencil.

Devin.

Paul stood at the head of the classroom, the dusty feeling of chalk in his hand.

Was I a teacher as well as being in the Guard?

Pulling on that thread brought an avalanche of other memories flashing through his mind. His [Meditation] skill strained to process them and calmly set them aside. It failed.

Paul saw Devin’s face, blackened and charred, his tiny mouth locked in a scream, his eyes burned from his head.

You did this, the boy said, and Paul, to his horror, knew that it was true.