Brandon stomped on Sara’s skull: her brain exploded, Emma started screaming, and all of his problems were solved. That’s how things went down in his head and what he was convinced should’ve happened. But it didn’t. His foot hit a barrier that turned white hot and melted the sole of his boot, leaving melted rubber suspended in dead air.

For a moment, Brandon stared at her like a man gazing at a modern Sleeping Beauty, separated by the glass barrier of a cryogenic freezing pod. Then, the invisible barrier opened in a curve, causing the suspended molten rubber to slide off to the side of her. It was a surreal image.

“What….” Brandon opened his mouth. “The FUCK!” He kicked at her, but his foot slammed into the barrier. “God fucking damn it!”

He looked at Aelia. “What the hell is this? I know you know!”

“It’s a ward,” Aelia said.

“A ward? It can’t be a ward! I searched her!” Brandon yelled. Wards used magical crystals (like batteries) to activate arrays, triggering on conditions, much in the same way that a building will regain power from backup generators. Mages used them to create trap spells and persistent barriers over cities. Yet, even if Sara were skilled enough to create a ward, she didn’t have any crystals on her. Unless….

Brandon looked at her lower half and chuckled murderously. “Classic. Just fucking classic. Women complain about getting groped, then do everything they can to encourage it!”

“Brandon, p-please stop!” Emma said. “I-It’s not too late.”

“Yes it is!” Brandon yelled. “Wake the fuck up, Emma! This woman destroyed the world once. She’s not going to change. That’s not how human nature works!”

Emma froze, her lips quivering. It pained him to see her like that. Brandon didn’t love her the way he used to. In fact, he found her pretty annoying, but things change, people get less naive, and he hoped that they could have that watershed moment again. That was gone now. That ship had sailed. His happy life in the Escaran Kingdom was over. And that….

—Really pissed him off.

Brandon glared at Sara, the woman who had stolen everything from him not once but twice, fire and brimstone scorching in his breast. “Fine….” He fished into his pocket for Sara’s spatial ring. “If you have a ward, I’ll just have to break it.” If Daniel’s intel was true, he shouldn’t have been able to activate the ring and obtain Qualth, but he was going to try.

Emma watched him pull out the ring with wide eyes. “W-What’s that?”

“What’s this?” Brandon turned to her with a malicious grin. “This is the end of the fucking world—that’s what this is.” He laughed when he thought about it. “Actually, this—this is proof isn’t it? Listen up, ladies and gents! Your ‘friend’ made this ring to hide the God Slayer sword from you. Now, please lend me your eyes as your villain demonstrates what she was hiding!”

“Wait, Lord Torres!” Aelia yelled. “If that really is Qualth, then you shouldn’t use it so carelessly!“

Brandon’s cheek twitched. “You mean that you know what this thing is, and you haven’t said a fucking word? And now you’re going to lecture me not to use it? What the fuck is wrong with you!”

“You told me to be quie—“

“Shut the fuck up! I don’t want to hear it from a two-faced bitch like you!” Brandon understood the irony of his demand, but his words made sense within context. “These two deserve to know the truth,” he said.

Brandon flooded the ring with mana, and a spatial gate opened up. Wait, she seriously didn’t add a key? he thought. But Daniel said…. Daniel had warned him that Sara could make spatial rings and that she would likely use a key array to lock it. That’s why he needed to bring it back for Daniel to unlock.

His involuntary doubts about his pupil started creeping in again. What if he wants the sword? What if he was just using me to get to it…? Suddenly, it felt like whether it came to Sara, Aelia, or Daniel, everyone was taking him for the fool. And perhaps he was. Perhaps everyone saw him as the slovenly loser he was in high school, and Daniel seized upon that. Maybe he was just a pawn to everyone, and nothing had changed from the days that people bullied him and thought he’d go nowhere in life. His heart welled with heavy emotions as he thought about it. But….

Brandon clenched his fists when he realized it didn’t matter anymore. Whether Daniel betrayed him or not, whether he was truly a pawn or a hero, he was the villain in people’s eyes—and Sara really was a villain. She came to Haligara’s cave just like Daniel said she would and had a spatial ring to hide the sword. Well….

Brandon played with the ring on his finger as he stared at the spatial gate in front of him.

… He had the sword now. Everyone else could get fucked.

A dull thud from his heartbeat played in his ears like a club beat as he reached into the spatial rift—

—then his heart locked up, and his entire body spasmed with pain.

Bullet ants. That was the first and last thought that came to his mind. His arm pushed into a spongy mass that instantly came to life, and then it felt like his arm was stung by hundreds of hornets simultaneously.

“What the fuck!” Brandon yelled. When he pulled out his arm, Emma let out a blood-curdling scream. He turned to her. “Shut up! S-Shut….” Then he saw what she was screaming at.

“Bullet ants” didn’t go far enough. There were thousands of gnarly green crabs on his arms, each with jaws as wide as thread cutters. They were swarming over each other in waves, pushing through the crowd, trying to get to his skin as if it were a rockstar on a stage. Blood oozed from his arms in a macabre waterfall, but that wasn’t what horrified him. It was his leathers… oh, God, his leathers. His thick leather armor was shredding like confetti, being swept away in the crimson waterfall. If they could do that to a thick beast hide, then his skin… his bone….

Brandon’s mind blanked out—

—then he screamed.

The golden array under Raul suddenly disappeared, freeing his body. He crawled to his hands and knees, grimacing from a cracked rib that Brandon gave him.

“Get away!” Aelia yelled.

Raul tried to comply, but her hands were already on his shoulders, yanking him up. As she hauled him away, he saw green bugs swarming the pools of blood he left behind and others chasing after Aelia. “W-What the fuck are those things?”

“Hangs,” Aelia said. “I’m not sure where she got that ring, but whoever made it was a sick bastard.”

Raul was surprised by her words. He was just as certain that Brandon had planned to steal the God Slayer sword as he was that Sara had set things up to obtain it. The only difference was that he trusted Sara’s motives. That said, he did not trust her methods, and it genuinely surprised him to hear she didn’t make the ring. Or perhaps he didn’t believe she didn’t.

“Wait!” Raul said, snapping back into focus. “Where’s Emma?”

Aelia jumped off the platform and then curved around. When she did, he could see Emma screaming and rushing toward the mountain.

“Thank God,” Raul said. “What about—“

“He’s dead,” Aelia said, ignoring Brandon’s screams in the background. “We couldn’t save him if we tried.”

“No, I mean Sara,” Raul said.

“She’s fine.” Aelia stopped and let Raul down. When he turned, he saw Sara’s body encased in that heat barrier, frying all the green bugs that tried to jump on her. Yet the hangs kept trying, throwing their bodies onto the barrier like moths crashing into a light. It was disturbing. “That ward will keep her safe until they’re dead. I’m certain of it.”This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Aelia’s voice was poison-laced with suspicion. At that moment, Raul knew that Sara would claim that she found the ring in the mountain—and that his teacher wouldn’t buy it. Aelia had sharp eyes—and she saw too much.

Sara awoke to a sharp pain in her right hand and the sound of clacking hooves. She opened her eyes and found the leather-sewed tarp of a supplies wagon over her, sun sifting through the bleached hides. The pain returned when the wagon wheel hit a rut, and they bumped, making a woman yelp.

Sara turned and saw Emma’s eyes light up. “You’re awake!” she said.

“Uh…. Yeah?”

“Thank goodness!” Emma reached over to hug her but held back. Sara looked down and saw her hand was bandaged up. She wanted to ask about it, but Emma burst into tears.

“Oh, come on. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“You almost died!” Emma yelled. “Your pulse… your fucking pulse. It-It-It was….”

“Shhhh….” Sara hushed, putting her good hand over Emma’s. The redhead calmed down and they exchanged awkward banter for the next ten minutes to ease the hysteria. Once Emma was calm, she finally asked: “So… what happened? After you found me.”

Emma’s face twisted in pain. “I… don’t know where to begin.”

“Just wherever,” Sara said.

Emma nodded and began. As she recounted the story, Sara’s vision blurred in the way that it blurs if a person stares at a book too long without reading, objects blending and crossing as white floods their vision. The sounds disappeared, and her mind felt like it was in a state of limbo. It was as if Emma’s story were a thin sheet of ice, and one crack would shatter it, gushing emotions like water from the hole. That’s how she felt.

Sara wasn’t bothered that Brandon was eaten by the hangs. The moment that a person raises a sword to another, they must prepare for the consequences that come with it. Brandon being brainwashed didn’t matter. Soldiers killed and died for less. That was just the nature of violence and warfare. And whether Daniel got the ring or the kingdom, someone had to strip-search her for it and take it by force. That person took violent action against her—

—and they’d suffer the consequences.

War was evil. War was life. That’s just how it goes.

What bothered her was that she almost got Emma killed. Was it Sara’s fault that she almost died? Not at all. Sara wasn’t an omniscient God, and she couldn’t live life making every decision to protect her. Sara couldn’t have reasonably known that Brandon would return to kill Emma or that he would be stupid enough to unveil Qualth in front of Aelia. People were sporadic, and life’s whims were cruel. Emma put herself in danger, and the winds of fate almost claimed her life. That’s all there was to it.

Still—

It wasn’t Sara’s fault that her Jason pressured her Emma and got her killed either, but it left her with crippling PTSD, moral injury, and depression regardless. That’s just how humans were. And if her plans indirectly got Emma killed, Sara probably wouldn’t ever recover. That’s just how life was.

“I’m sorry,” Sara said, reaching up to clasp Emma’s hand. When she did, a thousand pin-needles of pain shot through her brain.

“Don’t move!” Emma cried. “Your hand needs to heal! It just went through surgery.”

Sara looked at the bandaged hand in horror. It was fractured, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was now. “Is it….”

“It’s fine,” Emma said, wiping her eyes. “You’re pretty lucky. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but everything was still there.”

“Sounds about right…” Sara chuckled nervously. Then she took a deep breath, anxiety piercing her heart. “Emma… where’s Daniel?”

Emma froze, her movements becoming stiff and rigid.

Sara looked her in the eye. “Emma.”

“H-He’s….” Emma brushed wet strands of red hair out of her eyes and then began crying. “H-He’s in a coma.”

“Wait, what?” Sara said. That’s not what she was expecting.

“H-He….” Emma cupped her face, crying into her hands. “H-H-He saved Edico from a falling boulder and….”

Sara’s world spun. “Wait, start from the beginning.”

Emma sobbed, recounting how the search parties were split in two and how the mountain collapsed. Once she learned how Aelia took Brandon to watch over him and asked Daniel to join the other side, everything came into focus.

So that’s why…. Sara thought. Brandon wasn’t supposed to be there. He left with the heroes, and Daniel—the person in her party—was supposed to confront her. But when the search parties got split up, Daniel was drawn away, leading to the current tragedy. If Daniel had shown up… things would’ve gone differently. There would’ve been an actual battle, and even if he had bested her, there was no way that Daniel would’ve harmed Emma. That was a fact.

Suddenly, Sara’s mind drifted, and the smell of earth and soggy wood in the wagon disappeared, bringing back the memory that made Sara want to live and let live with Daniel.

Sara had been sitting in Lilli’s a few days after Emma’s funeral (drinking half presses to punish herself for even punishing herself) when the doorbells jingled. Sara ignored the sound, taking another drink. The seat beside her was empty—

—always was. No one bothered her, so she didn’t bother with them. But that night, a series of warnings broke out when a man sat next to Sara at the bar.

I don’t care who it is, Daniel said to a few adventurers, sitting next to Sara incidentally. Then he turned to Lilli. Pour two; I’m drinking for another.

Lilli turned to Sara for permission. She nodded.

Sure, hun. What do you want?

Something that works.

Twalla it is, Lilli said. I’ll be right—

Tres. Sara stopped her. Give him a tres. Once he’s tipsy, he can drink for real.

On your tab?

On my tab.

Daniel turned to her. His face kept shifting as if it were a ball of magnetic sand that someone was kneading in their fingers.

Blame. Pain. Sadness. Anger.

Empathy.

Trust me. Sara rocked back the rest of her half press and shivered. I blame myself, too.

Daniel turned away, grabbed the two glasses of Colored Tres, and then compared the liquid against the unfiltered syrup in Sara’s glass. I didn’t say I blamed you.

Well, you should, Sara said, grabbing a half press her friend Lilli handed her without an order. This week, puking was an expectation, and bread was on the house.

No, I shouldn’t. Daniel took a gulp of Tres from the right glass and shivered. This is Jason’s fault.

Sara snorted. We all went, Daniel.

Just stop it already. He took a drink from the left. Everyone knows what happened. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.

Sara chuckled. I’ll drink to that. She did. He followed. After the goosebumps stilled, Sara examined Daniel’s face. He was clean-cut. A respectable adult you might see running a company in ten years, assuming he didn’t have a midlife crisis. Confidence. Respect. Dedication. Nothing special. There were a lot of people that looked like that, but at least he got there. So what’s your story? Did you love her?

If you could call it that. Daniel lifted the left glass, but his eyes turned conflicted as if his baggage would desecrate Emma’s drink. He took a gulp from the right. I’d like to think my “love” was like Raul’s is for you. Unconditional. Bonded. Familial. But it really wasn’t. I didn’t even know her. I was just like one of those girls that writes a boy’s name in their notebook and then scribbles hearts around it like a schizophrenic.

Sara snorted and took another drink, swallowing fast to ensure she didn’t choke or spit it out. That’s a hell of a description.

It’s just… true. We weren’t friends. The only time she talked to me was to praise me for my improvement. It was like… I was a puppy. Who’s a good boy? You are! Daniel giggled, closing his eyes slowly. He took a drink from the left glass. It wasn’t the same, and I knew that. But…. I couldn’t help but wag my tail. She was so good-hearted. She was so beautiful. That smile….

Sara took another drink. Yeah. It was something else.

After a long, silent pause, she turned to him. When she saw him swaying, she laughed. You really don’t drink, do you?

No…. Daniel laughed and looked up at the ceiling. I’ve been too busy trying to turn myself into a “somebody.”

So you’d have a shot with her?

Me? He chuckled and fell on his elbow, running his fingers through his hair. You kidding me? I had a crush on Jennifer Lawrence, too, he giggled. I’m not that delusional.

Sara chuckled and took another drink. Then what?

I just wanted… you know… to stop being her puppy. Have her say hi without patting my head and saying, “You’ve grown so much!” A simple “Hey!” like she does for Raul. You know?

Damn, Sara said. That’s the saddest goal I’ve ever heard.

Ye~p. Daniel took the last drink from the right. Then he lifted the left with blurry eyes. To people with noble goals.

Sara swallowed hard, tears welling in her eyes. Then she lifted her glass and gave him a cheers. That was six years before the reset. They never spoke again.

“Are you okay?” Emma’s words snapped her back to the present, and she had a deep desire to hug her. But she couldn’t. Sara loved this Emma, but she didn’t replace her Emma. So she replied with a simple, “Yeah.”

In truth, Sara wasn’t okay. She wished that the hangs would’ve eaten Daniel or that the boulder would’ve claimed his life. He was her enemy, and so long as he lived, he would keep causing trouble for her. Yet Daniel wasn’t a bad person. Not in the same way that Jason and Mary were bad people. Somehow, he found a way to save Emma’s life and sacrificed God knows how much to make it happen. He likely saved Sara’s life; at the very least, he didn’t kill her before the spell activated. Now, he had sacrificed himself to save Edico, someone that Sara deeply cared about. That wasn’t the MO of a bad person. So why?

Suddenly, Sara thought of all the times that Daniel asked her to start a party. What if she had? Would he have been satisfied? To live a life where he could’ve befriended Emma and played the hero a bit? Was that all it would’ve taken?

Sara didn’t know and never would. She turned Daniel down because she refused to play hero with the person who stole her life from her—no matter how well-intentioned it was. She didn’t know she could’ve done things differently, even at the present.

Simply not knowing was another regret, a reminder that time heals all—but people collect more wounds along the way.

“Will you… hold me?” Emma whimpered.

Sara’s eyebrows knitted, and her eyes glided over to Emma, confused by the request. But when she saw the deep trauma etched on Emma’s face, she suddenly understood what her friend was going through. It was the worst of feelings—the one where a person knows that their entire world has shifted and nothing could ever be truly good again. Sara knew that feeling all too well, and there was no fix for it. But at least she could be there and show Emma she understood.

“Come over here.” Sara shifted her position and then laid Emma’s head onto her lap, combing her good fingers through Emma’s red hair. “Life goes on,” Sara whispered. “Life goes on….” Whatever happens with Daniel, my life will go on.