The smell of rotting flesh was replaced with that of charred tissue. The sick goblin in his embrace spasmed once, twice, his chest compressing and decompressing to finally expel the mechanical rasping of lungs no longer alive. And as Emil heard his heart beating its final, limping melody, he began counting the seconds. One, two, three, four… He held him tighter.

…Five. Now, he was truly beyond saving. Now, there was nothing left to do. Now, Emil was free.

Gently, he laid Linne back on the bed. His mouth was wide open, like he’d been caught mid-gasp, or as though he was snoring. Sometimes, when Emil’s dad was taking a midday nap on the weekends, Emil would come fetch him for fika, and he’d look like that. Mouth open, not moving. And Emil, even though he’d been so young, would wonder for a second or two whether or not his dad was dead. But then his dad would utter a deep, creaky snore, and everything would be alright.

Linne wasn’t snoring. His chest wasn’t moving. As Emil held his hand, he felt the feverish heat leave it.

That was it, then. He was dead. Emil had killed him.

…Why didn’t he feel horrible? Why did his chest feel so light, when a man’s death should lie on his conscience? Emil felt his blood run cold. What did that…?

A pair of hurried footsteps echoed down the hall and the door burst open, Kitty flying inside like a loosened panther with Benevil following closely behind. “Moleman? Moleman!” Kitty cried, crossing the floor in a mad scramble until he was right next to Emil. His eyes bounced erratically between Emil and his victim. “Oh. Oh.” His face twisted in pity. “Moleman, I am so sorry, are you…?”

“I’m fine,” Emil said, standing up straight. “It’s been a long time coming. He—he was… You saw him earlier today.” Unwilling to look at Kitty’s worried face, Emil turned to Benevil, flinching at the way the strange doctor’s face mirrored Kitty’s. Voice thick with tears he refused to shed, Moleman asked, “Benevil, since Linne has… had no known relatives, will you please crystallize his body? The church will no doubt give him the honor of a proper funeral mass despite his lack of financial compensation.”

Benevil appeared hesitant. “Of course, it’s no issue. I’m only wondering—”

“We’ll take it later, I have patients.” Spinning on his heel, Emil left the two of them and headed for the door. He exited the room, entered the hallway, and made it about five steps before Kitty got his wits together enough to scurry after him. Emil didn’t look at him. One foot in front of the other. The next room was down the hall. Close by. If he just kept his eye on the door, then he wouldn’t have to—

His legs buckled under him, the floor suddenly approaching at a dizzying rate, weightlessness taking hold of him only for his descent to be slowed to a stop by a pair of bony arms. Breath returned to his chest as Kitty raised him to his feet. “I’m okay, I’m alright,” he muttered, almost without thinking, desperate to return to his work. “I’m really not—”

Kitty threw his arms around him. It took a second for Emil to realize what he was doing, at which point he looked down at Kitty with a frown. “Kitty, what are you doing?”

Hesitatingly, Kitty met his gaze. “Because, you seemed like you… I just thought that…”

“I’m fine,” Emil said forcefully, wrangling his way out of Kitty’s uncertain grip. “This isn’t the time to—” At his words, Kitty recoiled as though burnt, his eyes shining with worry and fear. Something sharp and thick pierced Emil’s chest and he felt his knees go weak again. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ he thought to himself. A great thick knot of guilt knitted itself in his chest. It wasn’t enough to make Kitty worry, now he had to hurt him, too? Ignoring the look on his friend’s face, Emil slapped his own cheek. The stinging pain cleared his mind. Now, he could think straight. He forced himself to smile, even though it stung a little. “Thank you, Kitty. It means a lot. It’s just that right now, we’re busy with so much else. We really don’t—”

Deaf to his very logical explanations, Kitty crossed the distance between them in one step and hugged him again, even tighter than before. Emil chuckled nervously. “Kitty, really, this is—”

“Shut up,” Kitty growled, “and let me comfort you for once.”

Emil opened his mouth, a thousand thoughts running through his mind, only to close it again. He didn’t need comforting. What was there to comfort him for? A patient dying? He’d seen that a hundred times before. He may not have had the unhappy task of counting casualties, but he knew the numbers. He’d seen half of them himself. People dying in all manner of ways, from all states of life. That was his daily life now. He could handle it. He’d handled it so far. So, there was no need to…

As Emil looked down at him, Kitty pulled a little handkerchief from his inventory—that familiar blue one—and pressed it to Emil’s cheek. It came back wettened. Emil felt his brows knit together. Then, Kitty wiped the other cheek, saying nothing. The handkerchief quickly flashed back into his inventory, and Kitty resumed hugging him.

Emil blinked. Something warm rolled down his cheek, wetting it again. He blinked again, and the world was suddenly clear. Another blink, and his knees crumpled beneath him once more—but he didn’t fall. Kitty held him up. He held him tightly—so tightly that even if Emil passed out fully, he still wouldn’t fall. And still, Emil felt the need to grip Kitty in turn, clinging on to him, his only arm slung over the smaller man’s back, like a sinner clinging to the robes of their priest. He expected Kitty to fall. He almost wanted him to fall, because then they would both be on the floor. But he didn’t. Kitty stood strong, supporting Emil even as he broke down into incomprehensible blubbering.

Emil couldn’t tell how much time he spent cradled in Kitty’s arms. Seconds, minutes, hours… Time blended together into a slurry of tears, snot and words that weren’t words. When he came out of it, his chest felt heavier than before, and yet, paradoxically, also lighter than it had been in months. He was no longer hiccuping with every breath, the front of his shirt had been thoroughly soaked, and all that remained on his face was a slight smile. He left Kitty’s arms, and Kitty let him.

“Thank you,” Emil said.

Kitty beamed back at him, a proud grin lighting his face. “There—now we’re even.”

Emil chuckled. “So, from now on, you won’t need me to comfort you?”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Kitty’s expression fell in an instant. “I—I didn’t say that!”

“I know, I know,” Emil said, his smile widening. He patted Kitty on the shoulder. “I’ve got your back, and you’ve got mine. That’s what it means to be friends.”

Kitty sighed in relief before giving a small chuckle. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.” His smile turned averse. “So, since we’re friends… It wouldn’t be too much to ask for you to listen to a piece of advice from me, right? Only to listen to it. You don’t even need to follow it, just…”

Emil chuckled warmly at the frantic gestures his friend was making. “What are you trying to say, Kitty?”

His arms fell slightly, stilling mid-air. “Well, uh, erm… Maybe… Maybe it would be good to go home? Not in the abandoning-your-patients way, more in the sleeping-is-the-cornerstone-of-your-health kind of way. Almost all of the patients we met today will be fine. Save maybe one, they’ll all survive the night, and even if they chortle too hard and break a rib, Benevil can take care of them. It’s not that you’re not needed, it’s just that…” His near-manic speech came to a sudden stop and he looked at Emil like he was trying to beg forgiveness for something he hadn’t even done yet. “I really think you should get some sleep. This… this just isn’t good for you. Sorry.”

Emil’s smile grew broader, and he found himself once again thanking himself, deep in his heart, for not letting his friend be executed. “Yeah. You’re right.” His words made Kitty’s tense posture relax almost instantly, his shoulders falling almost a full decimeter. “I’ve been pushing myself too hard. I must be turning deaf or something, considering the way I’ve been ignoring—” A word struck him. More specifically, a small combination of words his friend had uttered off-handedly. Brows furrowing, Emil turned to his friend again. “...What do you mean ‘almost all’?”

Shrugging dismissively, Kitty admitted, “Well, yeah, there’s still that kid from the house today, I’m betting he’s got two or three hours at most, but it’s not like there’s anything you can do to save him, anyhow.” His eyes narrowed pensively. “...Why are you looking at me like that?”

The truth was that Emil wasn’t looking at Kitty like that, he was looking at everything like that. Because, all of a sudden, he wasn’t in the hospital—he was in a dark room filled with dusty corpseflies and the stench of old fridges and fermented herring, six tiny eyes staring at him, begging him to be their savior when he couldn’t even save the ones he loved, and then the weight in his limbs, falling down, his clothes lined with lead, perplexingly immobile, selfishly turning away from them, from everything, from everyone, and…

And Kitty. Holding him. “Moleman? Are you alright?”

A rattling breath tore through Emil’s chest and throat, painful, almost gasping. “Where is he? Where is he? The child—the boy?”

‘Right over there,’ his heart whispered, pointing to a bed.

Emil stood over him. He was so small. All goblins were small, but the children were the worst. Like toddlers. Tiny. Once, Emil had seen a goblin be birthed. It was the size of a puppy. He hadn’t dared to hold it. If someone had asked him to hold the small, bloated little child wheezing beneath him, he would have had the same response—unless it was for the purpose of letting it die in someone’s arms.

‘We could save him,’ a shadow at his side said, speaking as kindly as a mother. ‘He doesn’t need to die.’

‘But at what cost?’ another shadow piped in. ‘A life for a life? No wonder the God of Cruelty gave him that skill. It’s inhuman. Even if someone else agreed to give their heart and their life to let him live, there’s no telling that this is what the kid wants. Maybe he wants nothing better than to sleep in peacefully.’

A raspy voice added its own opinion, saying, ‘We’ve seen how they die. Gasping and flailing. Linne was put down humanely. Do the same for him. One little spell and he won’t have to worry about anything anymore.’

‘Or have Kitty do it,’ a final voice suggested helpfully. ‘Killing isn’t anything to him, not even children. We know that. He might even like it. Remember the list? We helped write it. There were a lot of kids on there. What he did with them…’ A pathetic chuckle rang like pealing bells through the room. ‘If we want to spare that apostle a day of his life, you could always ask Kitty to—’

“NO!” Emil shouted, the shadows banished with a cold gust of wind, and the room seemingly made emptied save for his breathing, and…

A meter or so away, hunched back slightly, stood Kitty, looking at him as though he’d struck him across the face. Had there not been a distinct lack of stinging pain in Emil’s hand, he might have assumed he’d done just that. Instead, he came to realize that he’d likely done something almost worse. “That is, I mean…”

Kitty chuckled nervously, trying to regain his upright posture. “No, no, I get it, I wasn’t… I’m sorry. It was just an idea. I understand. It’s just that… I’m sorry. I won’t mention it again. I don’t even know where we’d get a donor from, it was really… Sorry. I spoke hastily.”

Watching Kitty’s nervous, uptight expression, Emil could only find one thought in his head—’Kitty has said something?’ But they’d been in the hallway just now. They should still be there. But when his trembling hand fumbled to find support, all he found was the frame of a bed much too large for its inhabitant. It was with great effort that Emil kept himself from collapsing.

When did they get to this room? Why were they there? He hated it. He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to help—he really did—but what could he do? Killing, saving… He didn’t want to make such decisions. That shouldn’t be in his hands. Healing people was so much simpler. If they died later, he could always soothe his weak little heart by telling himself that he did everything he could. But that wasn’t the case anymore. Now, if he wanted to keep his conscience intact, he would have to look every single terminal patient in the eye and know deep down that he could save them—if only he hadn’t been such a coward.

“A donor?” a tiny voice piped up, speaking rough Aetongue with a striking imperial accent. Reeling, Emil turned towards it, finding the only other bed in the cramped little room occupied by a small girl; the sister of the boy. She couldn’t have been older than twelve, but malnutrition had clearly robbed her of the suitable height and form necessary for a child her age. Her complexion and pallor reminded Emil of his friend, though he knew he could never tell either of them. Where she sat, bandages drawn across her bumpy arms and legs, she appeared so much younger than she really was. “What do you mean, a donor?”

Kitty whirled towards her, his eyes widening with horror. “N—no! Sorry, we were discussing a different patient, this isn’t—”

“Yes,” Emil said, the familiar Aetongue word, so similar to Spanish, easily leaving his lips. “We were discussing finding a donor for your brother.”

“A donor of what?” she asked cleverly. Then, she drew herself up, the wavering boldness of a child trying so hard not to cry finding its way into her voice as she stated, “If I have it, I’ll give it, so long as it’ll save Pinn!”

Now, Kitty’s eyes were bouncing between them as though he was trying to catch a particularly bewildering tennis game. Finally, his gaze fell on Emil, carrying confusion and uncertainty equal to what Emil was feeling. Trying to ignore the way his friend was looking at him, Emil strode across the floor to pat her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but what we need, you can’t give us.”

Her heart broke as plain as day. “I have no money,” she said, her voice a whisper to not scream. “I—I have…” She let the covers fall off her upper body. “I have my body. This is all I have. So, please…”

He drew up the covers again, covering her properly. “Because it’s all you have, I can’t let you give it away.” He could see in her eyes that she thought he was very cruel to do so—and a part of him agreed. But another part spoke louder, even going through his mouth, saying, “In a few weeks, you’ll be all better. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. That’s why I can’t let you make this sacrifice.”

Not waiting to hear her cries of anguish, Emil turned to his friend. “Kitty, how many patients in the hospital have less than a week to live, assuming I don’t heal them?”

Still in a daze from what was happening around him, Kitty could only barely answer. “I’d say six.”

“Six, right.” Emil wasn’t trembling. He wasn’t choked up with thoughts and his chest felt as light as it had after letting Linne go. He smiled, and was loath to find it genuine. “Will you please visit them and ask if they would be willing to act as donor? And if they agree… Please bring them here.”

For a moment or two, Kitty simply stood there, watching him owlishly. Then their years of friendship finally caught up with him, and he smiled, secure in the knowledge that his friend knew best, and said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll be right back!” Then, he scrambled out of the door, leaving Emil alone with the sister.

The room suddenly felt very quiet, and very cold.