I gathered some firewood, sticks, and matches and loaded my inventory with all the ingredients I had to make Theo his chicken wings. I then walked out to the fire, because I was a little nervous about leaving Theo alone.

I sat by the fire, starting it up as I kept my eye on Theo. He was quietly working on drawing something in the ground with a glowing finger as I placed the raw chicken and eggs in the pot.

Once two plates of chicken wings were done, Theo stood up and brushed off his hands before walking over to me. He didn’t look at me as he sat down, watching the fire as the third plate of wings was cooking. The wolf was coming in about forty minutes, so eventually I would have to abandon the fire to get back to the house, but for now, I was worried about Theo. I handed him a plate of wings and he took them quietly, slowly eating them.

I saw the subtle change in him after he finished the wings. Where before he was a bit scattered, it looked like now he could focus a bit more.

“Aren’t there antidepressants here?” I asked the alien overlords in my mind as I kept cooking more food. “I’m pretty sure Theo is on antidepressants.”

There was silence. Nothing but the crickets. I handed Theo another plate and he ate that too. This felt like my responsibility, because this was my idea, but feeding him wasn’t going to cure him.

“How much comfort food have you had today?” I asked.

Theo still stared at the fire. “I’m… not sure. Today’s a foggy day.”

“I’m… sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Theo said. Even his words sounded a bit more certain. He rested his palm against his forehead, staring at the fire.

“Congratulations on reaching level twenty-five,” I said. Theo grunted, but it sounded like he was a bit more aware of his accomplishments. “Does the thing work?”

“It should,” Theo said, still mesmerized by the fire. “It’d be nice to practice it with…” Theo hesitated, then there was that gurgling noise again. He turned his back to me this time before hacking up the sludge.

“Theo-” I started to say.

My brother choked as the last of the sludge left his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Just… toss it in the grass.”

“Doesn’t work.” He tossed the sludge away from him. “See?” The sludge immediately crawled over toward him, snaking up his arms and entering his face again. I frowned, staring at it. I remembered the last time I’d seen this happen. “It only works if I throw it as far as I can and sprint the other direction. But it always catches up with me. Eventually.”

“Toss it to me next time, then,” I said.

“No.” I was surprised at Theo’s certainty.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because it’s disgusting,” he said.

I waited for him to say anything more. The food was finished, and I switched it out for some more. “Really? That’s it?”

“Yes. I… hate this. I don’t like anyone to see me like this. I can take care of it on my own,” Theo said.

“Can you?”

“Yes. It… goes away. Eventually.”

Or I die. It was the phrase Theo left out that I knew flickered across his mind.

“Right,” Theo said, standing up. “I forgot the other reason why I came over here. I have a bunch of stuff in my inventory that I forgot to give you. Where do you want it?”

“Um, in the storage room.” I stood up, brushing off my pants even though no dirt would have gotten on my clothes. “I’ll show you.”

We entered through the back door into the covered back porch again. I opened the door to the shed and pointed toward the section with the other outside wood. While Theo was unloading the wood and the fruit, I checked the clipboard. With all my work on the yard today, I was up to level twenty-six in farming. I quickly bought some farming gloves because it was weird spending all day in the sun pulling weeds and not have gloves.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Unlocked! Third greenhouse

New seeds unlocked!

I flipped through the pages and found the farming section. Wheat and rice. Sweet. I wondered when I’d be getting wheat.

Theo walked up the stairs, them leaking from his ears as he wiped it with his sleeve. “Good news?” he asked.

“Yeah, you could say that. I’ll finally grow some wheat.” I bought the seeds, -2.00 each.

“Good. Good. How much longer till the wolf comes?” Theo asked.

“Half an hour. Do you need something?” I asked.

“I’d like to see if I could take you onto my side using the teleportation ring,” Theo said.

“Of course. We’ve got time for that. Let me plant these seeds fast, and I’ll be over.” My outfit changed into the farmers outfit as I spoke. Theo tried to smile, but instead he started making that noise again. My farmer’s outfit instantly changed into my cleaning outfit and I started walking toward him. He backed away before running out the back door.

The abruptness caught me by surprise, and I would have laughed if the situation was any different. My brother was stupidly stubborn at times. “Theo!” I called out to him.

By the time I had opened the door and ran toward him, he already had the sludge hacked out and in his palms. He threw it with all his might away from us, and it landed near the first greenhouse. It immediately started moving for Theo. I didn’t hesitate and ran after it.

“Quinn, don’t!” he shouted.

I dropped to my knees next to the sludge and pushed it with my hands, keeping it from moving any closer to Theo. The piece of them pushed, then all at once turned into liquid. I stared at it, my heart lightening. It settled onto the ground immovable.

“I knew it. I knew I had to touch it to stop it,” I said.

Theo walked forward, frowning. “It… worked?”

“It did. Like last time,” I said.

Theo’s face screwed up in confusion. “Last time?”

“When you vomited on me,” I said.

The confusion instantly left his face and he dropped his gaze again. “We… can’t. This can’t be how I get it out of my system.”

“How much do you have now?” I asked.

Theo pursed his lips, almost like he refused to tell me, then his shoulders sagged. “I’m at sixty-two percent. Since coming here, it’s dropped twenty-three percent.”

“Good,” I said, relieved.

“I’m just… nervous about going to sleep. Every night I gain about ten to fifteen percent. It will sometimes work itself out as I go through the day, but sometimes it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, I gain over twenty percent in the night. Sometimes thirty.” His chest was starting to heave as he placed a hand in his hair. “And last night I gained over fifty percent, and I don’t know-”

“Hey,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Theo, we’re going to be okay.”

He let out a breath, covering his face to hide his liquid black tears. “I can’t be at one hundred percent corruption again, Quinn. I can’t do it. I spent days lying in bed, incapable of moving. I only got out of it by spending hours crawling out of my base and letting the animals tear me apart. I never allowed myself to get past fifty since then. I don’t want to experience one hundred percent again.”

“You’ve already lost a lot. You said so yourself,” I said. He was panicking again. I could see it in the way he kept one hand in his hair and the other clenched and wrapped around himself.

Theo closed his eyes and took a deep breath before letting it out. “It said their power was reduced by ten percent yesterday. Yet… it seems more powerful than before and I’m just… scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared. Teach me how to use the teleportation ring, and then I’ll be able to check up on you. You won’t be alone again. I promise,” I said.

Theo nodded. He dropped his hand and almost headed toward the ring when he stopped. “Wait, no. You needed to plant some seeds?”

I waved a hand. “It’s not important.”

“It’s important to you, though,” Theo said.

“Well, I mean…”

“We still have time, right?”

I frowned, thinking. “It might take some time. I might have to rebuild the soil beds, and that always takes some time.”

“Oh,” Theo said, his face dropping. “Um… we can do the teleportation-”

“Now,” I said, walking forward toward the ring.

“Quinn,” Theo started to say.

“Please, Theo. I want a way to reach you. I want to make sure I can use it, too. It’ll take too long for the seeds.”

“I don’t… want to be a burden,” Theo said.

“And you’re not.”

“But your seeds,” Theo said.

I smiled, looking around at the ground to find the teleportation ring. “I have time. If not tonight, I can do it tomorrow. Honestly, Theo, I’ve finished my to-do list. I can do whatever I want for the rest of the time we’re here.”

Theo sighed, then moved forward. He pointed at a section of ground near the greenhouse. “You really can’t see it?” he asked.

“No. I can’t,” I said, moving toward where he pointed.

He sighed, moving over toward the ground, then pointed. “It’s here.” He watched me again. “This does not make me feel better. I was hoping you could transport yourself if needed.”

“Maybe you need a few more levels or something,” I said.

Theo sighed, then held out his hand to me. I took it, and he led me to the transportation ring. “It’d be really nice if we just had everything right now,” Theo grumbled.

I chuckled. “Yeah, it would.”

“I don’t know what it’s going to do, but it is glowing right now. Can you see it?” he asked. I shook my head. As a response, Theo wrapped his arms around me tightly. “Close your eyes, just in case. It’s always far more unnerving to see the scenes change than for it to just happen.”

I nodded, hugging him tightly and closing my eyes tight. It was time to see what was on the other side of the river.