Chapter 76: Purpose

Silence continues to linger around me, even after crying out for anyone to respond to me here. The feeling of loneliness is starting to creep up on me as well.

Why would I care about being lonely now? I guess dying can have that affect on anyone.

I don’t think people want to die alone, but maybe I’m completely wrong and it isn’t a bad thing. Dying alone in this strange pit of hell, after everything I went through.

“You don’t really believe that,” A Woman’s voice speaks up.

I quickly begin to look around for the source of this voice, but before I can find it… A warm embrace is all I feel.

“You asked what your purpose is before, I think you know the answer to that,” She says while holding onto me.

The voice is so familiar, yet I can’t seem to figure out who it is that I’m hearing. I don’t understand anything anymore.

“So my sweet boy, head back to those who need you,” She speaks with a soft tone.

She finally moves away enough for me to see who it is… My mom is the one who arrived when I called out for anyone.

A smile still on her face, like nothing bad ever happened to her.

I can feel the tears starting to stream down my cheeks but I can’t find the words to say to her. It feels as if my ability to talk has been completely taken away from me.

Snap!

Everything disappears as I start to hear other voices.

“Liam! Come on!”

“Please wake up!”

They keep getting closer and closer until finally I jolt up, opening my eyes to the sight of Airi and Amelia.

Airi wipes some tears away before hugging me, but even now I notice it wasn’t just her crying. Amelia was pretty worried about me too which surprises me.

I didn’t think I got close enough for them to care that much about me, maybe not Amelia at least.

“I told you he’d be fine,” Zeno says as he lets out a small laugh.

Neither of them seem to give a response to him.

“Can we not going rushing ahead of everyone again, please?” Airi pleas.

“I won’t,” I answer softly.

“Thank you,” Airi says with relief in her voice.

After a few moments I stood up, some of the pain is still in my stomach from the damn spike that pierced me.

Before I can start to move, Amelia hugs me as well.

“Don’t go making dumb decisions next time,” She says with a serious tone.

“I got it, I got it,” I reply while hugging her back.

Mom told me I know my purpose, I think she is right. I need to continue working towards wiping out all the zierel. That is the purpose that I can’t let slip away from me.

I also have to keep amelia safe since aether told me to. There’s something special about her that I don’t know yet.

The obvious would be her powers that she gets from the light bearers but it could be more than that. Anything is possible with the way the world has changed.

“With everyone alive and well, we should stop here for a little bit,” Aether suggests.

“I don’t think I’m opposed to stopping for a bit,” I say, agreeing to his suggestion.

“Probably a good idea anyway,” Airi chimes in.

I do want to keep pushing forward but right now I’m definitely feeling a bit exhausted. I survived a fall that would kill any normal human being.

It kind of makes me feel like I’m slowly becoming a monster.

To a degree, I kind of am one already. The infection that courses throughout my body is able to heal me… And it can even give me weapons to use.

I’d say that makes me a monster if nothing else does.

“It really is surprising to see you alive with all this blood down here liam,” Zeno says casually.

“I guess my power kept me alive this time around,” I respond calmly.

“Is that all it was?” Airi asks with concern in her voice.

“I don’t know what else it would be,” I answer.

“You didn’t rely on the infection did you?” She questions with more of a serious look on her face.

“I didn’t,” I answer without any hesitation.

Obviously I can’t tell her I did since it would break the promise, wouldn’t it? Even though I already have broken it quite a few times now.

It makes me feel like complete shit knowing that I did. I’ll eventually have to tell her the truth about how much I’ve actually relied on celeste to heal or help me.

I don’t see it going too well when she does find out about everything.

“Good, you don’t want to be dependent on it,” Celeste says, the serious look gone from her face.

“Trusting zierel never works out for anyone anyway,” Zeno chimes in.

“Why?” I ask with some confusion in my voice.

“They—” He gets cut off before answering.

“No reason for this conversation to continue, we should rest,” Airi interrupts him, a cheerful tone suddenly noticeable in her voice.

We set-up another camp but it wasn’t as good as the original one. The beds for now are sleeping bags which is fine, but definitely a noticeable difference.

A small campfire is also lit up around the four of us which is nice.

It’s also been a couple hours since we finished setting up. Airi and Zeno have been talking a little bit away from the two of us.

I can’t help but think about why Airi cut Zeno off earlier though and now she’s distantly talking with him. She didn’t want us hearing about anything with the zierel which is kind of odd.

Wouldn’t another reason not to trust them be good?

Nothing makes any sense to me today, not a single thing. At least I’m alive, that’s something to be happy about I guess.

We still have quite a bit of ways to go down… Something I’m not looking forward to with the way it affects celeste. Then again, she is kind of calm right now.

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