Levi moved the shaft of the arrow in front of Susan.

“I see,” she said. “That might be an issue.”

“What should I do now?” Levi asked.

This whole situation was beyond his expectations. Maybe he should have expected it, but for whatever reason he had been thinking the arrows would be like modern archery arrows, where the tip was an extension of the shaft. But these were arrows had actual arrowheads on them, and now one of them was stuck in Susan’s arm. Levi looked at the shaft in his hand and thought he might be sick. The arrowhead was still in Susan’s arm. That seemed to be about par for the course for this shitty dungeon.

“We have three options,” Susan said after a moment of thought. “Either we try and pull the head out, push it through, or leave it in there. If it were a bullet I would just try and leave it in, since we don’t a forceps or pliers to get it out, but an arrowhead is probably bigger than a bullet.”

“Right. Let me take a closer look and see if I can, uh, figure out what to do or something.”

Levi leaned over to inspect the wound. Perhaps he should have done it earlier, but with such low light there was little to see. Not that he knew what to look for anyway. Suddenly realizing something rather obvious, Levi paused his examination.

“Just a sec, let me wash my hands in the river. I’m going to try and feel around the entry point since I can’t see anything, so I should probably wash my hands off first.”

“That’s a good idea,” Susan replied. “I should have thought of that too.”

Moving back over with his now clean hands, Levi set to work. Susan was wearing a light outdoor jacket, so he first ripped a bigger hole in it and her sleeve underneath. He didn’t want to try moving her around to take it off. With the fabric out of the way, Levi then felt around the entry wound.

The wound was rather small, all told. He pictured it as a hole of some sort, but it was more like a slit, with blood slowly seeping out. And getting on his hands. And he didn’t have any soap to clean his hands. And now he had to reach in into a human body and pull something out of it. God, what had he gotten himself into?

Focus, he thought to himself. He could do this. He had to do this.

Levi, ever so slowly, reached a finger into the wound and gently felt around. He tried not to think about what it felt like. At the same time, he used his other hand to try find out exactly where the arrowhead was by feeling along the outside of Susan’s arm.

“I think I’ve found it,” Levi said, swallowing the bile rising up in his throat. “It feels like it’s in too far to pull it out, but I might be able to push it through. Do you want me to do that, or leave it?”

“Push it through,” Susan ordered, her voice tense.

Her tone reminded Levi that while she was taking all this rather calmly, she had to be in intense pain. Not only did he have his fingers inside her arm and was moving them around, but she also had four other arrows in her too. He needed to hurry up.

Once he had a good grip on the back of the arrowhead, Levi pinched the outside of Susan’s arm to make an exit path and pushed. The first time his fingers slipped off, his grip unstable on the blood coated arrowhead. The second time he pushed it forward a little, but failed in redirecting it correctly, and instead of pushing it up and out just pushed it forward. His plan of redirecting it not working, Levi took a deep breath, and just shoved the arrowhead all the way through Susan’s arm. He was rewarded with a small clink as it fell in front of her onto the cavern floor.

“Yep, that’s out now,” Susan said, letting out a gasp of air.

Levi carefully reached over her to feel around for the arrowhead. Picking it up, he examined it more closely, holding it before his eyes in the low light.

“It looks kind of like a triangle,” he said. “I don’t think I could have ever pulled this out. It has little pointy bits on the back two corners. Maybe if I could get a hold of it, but it was hard enough to push it through. The back part would catch on stuff if I had tried to pull it out.”

“Then it’s a good thing you didn’t. Now rip off the rest of my sleeve and try and bind the wound. I think it’s bleeding a lot more now.”

Feeling guilty as he heard the increased pain in Susan’s voice, Levi quickly followed her instructions, using the sharp arrowhead to easily sever her sleeve and then fashioning it into a rough bandage.

“There, done. How does it feel, did I make it too tight?”

“It’s fine,” Susan said. “I can barely feel it over the arrows in my side.”

Her mentioning her side caused Levi to grimace. He had been trying to ignore it before, but if he had trouble getting the arrow in her arm out, how was he going to get the ones in her side out? The arrow in her arm had gone through her bicep. She had a surprising amount of muscle there, but there was only so much he had to push the arrow head through. He didn’t think you could push an arrowhead through someone’s torso.

“That’s right, you still have the arrow in your leg! Let me take that one out. It should be easy after the one in your arm. I could probably even qualify for a skill at removing arrows at this point.”

Susan wasn’t fooled by Levi’s obviously forced upbeat voice.

“No, I think we need to talk.”

Levi froze. We need to talk. In his opinion those were the scariest words someone could say. Yes, just those words didn’t guarantee it was something bad, but it always was. Always.

Susan could sense Levi’s mood and decided to jump right in.

“Look, we both know that the arrows are bad news. It was obvious as soon as you tried to take one out. Also, I didn’t want to mention this before, but I think one of the ones in my side has pierced a lung. I can breathe right now, but I’m not sure what would happen you tried to pull it out, or if you even could. And I think the one in my calf is lodged in the bone. If I went to the hospital I would be rushed to the critical care unit for an operation. I think the only reason I’m doing as well as I am is because of this System thing.”

Levi shot his head up.

“That’s it, the System! It must have a way to heal you! It has clearly made us stronger, and it sounds like more durable too, so there must be a way to heal you. Maybe all you need to do is level up? There’s tons of games where leveling up restores you to full health.”

Susan gently shook her head.

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“That’s a good thought, but I already leveled up, remember? There was nothing about it that made me feel more rested.”

“Then there has to be something else. Maybe I can make a healing skill. There must be magic, I’m sure of it. I just need to do that and then I can have you patched up in no time and”

“Levi! Calm down, you’re shouting.”

Levi slowly closed his mouth. Was this it? Was this how it all ends?

“That’s not the only thing,” Susan continued. “Look around us. Not only do we not have any medical supplies, but there isn’t even any food. It looks like it would be dangerous to get out of here even assuming perfect health, and I’m far from that. I can barely feel my right arm and I can’t move my left foot. Even if I could recover from this, I couldn’t do it here. But you can still make it out.”

Susan stopped after that, waiting for Levi’s response. But what could he say? This whole situation was fucked up. Everyone dreams of getting superpowers, of going adventuring in another world, but if this was what it was like, Levi wanted out. His life back on Earth wasn’t particularly satisfying, sure, but it was devoid of the pain he felt now. He felt disconnected from his heart as it pounded in his chest, feeling more like a gaping void, pulling him downwards into despair.

“Why?” Levi said, that one word somehow encapsulating all the pain he felt. “Why did you do it? You said you could have avoided the arrows, so why?”

It took Susan a moment to realize he was asking why she saved him and not herself. She carefully thought about the answer, before opening her mouth, pausing, and thinking some more. She felt Levi’s tears falling on her face. He needed a satisfying answer.

“Why does anyone do anything self-sacrificing? Truthfully, when I did it, I didn’t know what the outcome would be. We could both have escaped scot free, or both been shot full of arrows. It just turned out that I took the brunt of the trap while you didn’t. But none of that matters. Even if I knew the result I would have done the same thing.”

“But why! You don’t even know me! We’re basically strangers. Why would you save me?” Levi’s voice went from shouting at the beginning, to almost a whisper at the end.

Susan gently reached out and grabbed Levi’s hand.

“Yes, we just met,” Susan said, “but we’re not strangers. Once you save someone’s life you’ll always be connected to that person, no matter what. But it’s also more than that.”

Susan paused for a second, thinking about how to begin the next part.

“I was an only child. My mom had me when she was seventeen. I always wanted a little brother, but she wised up after the first pregnancy. I think that desire for a sibling came from my best friend. Whenever I would go over to her house we would dress up her little brother in all kinds of outfits. Looking back, we were likely pushing him around, but he always went along with it with the cutest smile on his face. He was adorable. The way your face lights up when you start going on long tangents about your favorite topics reminds me of how his face would look when he was happy. It almost feels like you’re the little brother I never had.”

By the time Susan stopped speaking Levi was crying in earnest, his body wracked by long, heaving sobs. He knew exactly what she meant. The only one of his relatives he had ever met was his dad’s sister when she came to visit during his tenth birthday. She lived on some island in the tropics somewhere teaching scuba diving. Levi could easily insert Susan into those memories, imagining her filling the role of the kickass big sister or wacky aunt that takes you out on motorcycle rides.

Susan gave Levi’s hand a squeeze. It was a poor substitute for a hug, but it wasn’t easy to move around with arrows in you.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” She continued. “I’ve always been ready to die for my comrades. I was in the Marines, remember? I might not have left on the best of terms, but the people I served with would lay down their lives for me, and I would do the same for them. I never wanted to go out lying in a hospital bed somewhere, complaining my shoulder hurts too much to knit. That’s not who I am. I’m a fighter, and fighters go out fighting for the things they care about, and I’m proud to put you on that list.”

They sat like that for a while, Levi crying while holding Susan’s hand in a death grip. It took a long time for him to gather himself enough to speak.

“But still, wouldn’t it have been better to save yourself? How am I going to get out of here? I’ve been relying on you for everything. Who knows what I would have done if I hadn’t found you.”

“Don’t worry, I know you can do it. You’ll be fine. You know about so many things that I don’t, things like traps, and how to interpret the System. I know you can make it out of here and keep on fighting. You...”

Susan was overcome with a weak coughing fit, stopping her from continuing. It was only now that Levi realized Susan was barely holding onto his hand with a weak grip and she was lying in a growing pool of blood.

Susan summoned her inner strength to continue.

“Levi, I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything! What do you need me to do?”

“Are you sure you’ll do anything? Do you promise?”

“Yes, of course! I promise I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

Susan paused here, debating whether to continue or not. She knew this would be a hard thing to ask. In the end, she decided to give voice to her thoughts.

“Kill me.”

Levi stared down at her, horrified.

“I’m going to die anyway,” she continued. “I would rather it be quick than bleed out or die from dehydration. Can you do this for me?”

Levi had expected Susan to give him her final last words or something. Not this. He had promised to do whatever she asked, but how could he kill her? It was hard to even think about it. He unconsciously squeezed her hand even harder.

Levi closed his eyes and focused on breathing. Calm. He had to be calm. Susan wasn’t actually asking him to kill her, she was asking him to end her suffering. That’s right, he was doing her a favor.

“I don’t think I can do it,” he whispered, his voice breaking near the end. It was just too much.

“I won’t force you,” Susan said. “Not that I could anyway. But if you want to survive, you need to learn to make hard decisions. Sometime being alive isn’t about doing the things you want to do, but about doing the things you need to do. When you make it out of here, and I know you will, you need to have the inner strength to do what needs to be done, even if you would rather do anything else.”

Susan gave his hand a squeeze with her remaining strength.

“Now chin up. I didn’t save you so you could mope around. Maybe this is too much to ask, but there will come a time where you need to make a choice similar to this. A choice where you faltering will cause those you love to suffer. There is always more than one choice in those situations, but often only one of those is a choice that will allow you to sleep at night. Surviving is easy. Surviving without demons, not so much.”

Levi thought about what Susan said, but he felt like he couldn’t really grasp it. How could she be so strong? Looking down at her, lying there, riddled with arrows, and it felt like she was still stronger than he would ever be. But he trusted her. Probably more than he had trusted anyone other than his dad.

“Is that really what you want? For me to…” It was hard for him to say it. To kill her.

“Yes. If you can do it, I think this is the best way. There’s also something else too, but I’m not sure about that part. If I’m right, I’ll be able to help you one last time.”

“Okay. How should I do it?” Levi tried to make his voice sound as confident as possible. Susan wanted him to do this. He couldn’t just let her lie there and continue to suffer. He had to do this.

“Grab the arrow in my side, the one farther up, yes that one, and push. It shouldn’t take much more for it to go through my heart.”

Levi found the arrow and grabbed it with his left hand, his right still holding Susan’s.

“Okay, I’m ready.” He wasn’t, but he knew he never would be. How could anyone be ready for something like this? But he was going to do this. For Susan.

“Thank you, Levi. You are one of the bravest young men I have ever met, and I’m honored to have known you. You will be able to escape this dungeon and go on to do great things, I’m sure of it.”

With tears dripping down his face, Levi tightly grasped the arrow and pushed. As the arrow slid in, he felt the tension flow out of Susan’s body. Her breathing slowly petered out, disappearing like the elusive summer breeze. The last thing to go was her grip, which she maintained to the end, but even that slowly faded, until Levi was left clasping her limp hand.

[Unlocked Title: Inheritor! The title Inheritor gives you access to the highest ranked skill of your benefactor, Susan Doyle.]

[Unlocked Skill: Improved Awareness! This skill allows for an increase in awareness, with an improved ability to perceive danger. This skill is associated with: Insight.]

Levi clasped Susan’s hand even harder. Even in death she was taking care of him. Maybe she wouldn’t ever leave this dungeon, but he now had her name in his status, her sacrifice immortalized in the System as long as he lived. Kneeling next to her corpse, Levi vowed he would escape this dungeon and continue to survive. He would become a living tombstone, carrying her spirit with him forever.

It was time to get out of here. Standing up, Levi respectfully arranged Susan’s body, arms crossed and legs straight. He gave her hand one last squeeze before firming his resolve, taking a deep breath, and diving into the river.