“Yeah I’m aware, it’s just not the form of strength I'm focused on right now,” I say.

“Okay, if you say so,” Brandon concedes, “It’s good you’re trying to better yourself, just know that there are healthy ways and unhealthy ways to go about it,” Brandon says,

How is trying to self-improve unhealthy?

“Okay,” I say, not willing to argue.

We continued our drive back to the village without much talking. I would take glances at my sister just to see how she was doing during the ride; Somehow she had been able through that entire car ride. It had honestly seemed kind of impressive how she could sleep through all of that, but then again I guess it goes to show how much I’ve mentally exhausted Athena. I frown

We reach an area with a large amount of vegetation for the desert

“Alright. We’re here” Brandon says getting out of the car his previously life-threatening wounds now nonexistent.

Brandon Princess carries my sister out of the car and heads to the conspicuous tree that we had gotten out of. I get out of the car and follow behind thinking about my own inability to help my sister out of the car.

Brandon unravels the tree and goes down the spiral staircase. I followed behind and soon we were in the dark forest once again.

We walked through the forest; the monsters had returned, but instead of staring they had now started to speak “You’re horrible, huh? You brought your sister to the point of fainting” I hear one of the monsters say “I guess you were right, you really are a psychopath.” Another monster says

They were giggling in the shadows.

“You say you're going to change, but you're irredeemable. How do you expect yourself to improve?” one of them laughs “It might just be better for you to die now before you make yourself look any more pathetic” another one laughs

Their words were starting to muddle my hearing. their voices were ringing in my ears. I felt as if some sort of mist was starting to accumulate within my head. I couldn't tell if my vision was getting worse, or if it was just dark. Regardless, all I could do was walk straight behind Brandon listening to their berating comments.

“Who are you going to hurt next? Catie? Liam?” one of the monsters ponders “I bet it’ll be Catie! She was stupid enough to tell him where she was. It’ll be all fun and games until he ruins her life!” the monsters burst out laughing

“Y’know we’ve been berating him, but do you think he even cares? Do you guys think that he even has the capacity to care for people?” a monster asks, “Good question” one of the monsters laughs in response

“He never cared about anyone else, maybe he only cares about his sister because his parasitic instinct is telling him to keep his host alive!” they all burst out laughing again.

The noise started to make my head hurt.

“Hey kid if you truly care about your family, you’d just kill yourself now,” another monster says.

I really should shouldn’t I? I say in a daze.

“You might tell yourself that you're going to get stronger and become more helpful to your sister, but think about it. Did your sister ever truly need you?” one of the monsters says as if it was mocking me to my face.

I try to think back. Did Athena ever need me? I can’t think of a time when Athena had ever needed my help.

“You can’t think of anything, That's not a surprise, your sister is truly incredible. She’s stuck in an unfamiliar world and she takes on the burden of keeping you safe.” the monster says.

“You guys remember when this kid thought HE had to keep his sister safe” The bunch of monsters burst out laughing once again.

Shut up.

“You can silence us if you try to put yourself to sleep, it’ll make your pain go away and it’ll also make your sister’s pain go away”

Shut up. Shut up.

"You're just trying to run from the truth! you don't really believe you'll get as strong as Brandon, do you? You're just telling yourself you'll stop being a burden just so you don't have to kill yourself, but you yourself know it's impossible. You're not strong like Brandon, You'll never be as strong as Brandon. The only thing you can do to help your sister is to get out of her life." one of the demons said.

It got closer to the point that it got right in my face. However, there was a dark cloud in front of it hiding its appearance.

"SO DO IT YOU COWARD! KILL YOURSELF BEFORE YOU HURT HER, EVEN MORE THAN YOU ALREADY HAVE YOU SELFISH BASTARD!" it said.

The noise was splitting my head.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! I scream as I grasp my head.

the noise was echoing- reverberating within my skull.

My brain was splitting, I wanted it all to stop, I wanted to just enter the void and never come back, I wanted to forget about everything, I wanted to rip off my skin and start over, I wanted to gouge out my eyes in retribution, I wanted everything to end

“Gael, Gael Gael!” Brandon's voice comes into focus “Hey you alright?” he shakes my shoulder. I only just blankly looked at him.

“Hey answer me. Are you okay?” Brandon wiggles my head, “What's going on with you?” Brandon ponders, before his eyes go wide, “Wait is this-” Brandon activates something I don’t know what but I had felt a field expand engrossing me and the foreseeable forest in it.

“Shit I forgot about these!” Brandon curses. Brandon puts Athena on his shoulder and grabs me putting me on his other shoulder. “Hold on buddy, I’m going to need you to stay with me; when we get back home I’ll need you to take a honey bath immediately,” he says “I don’t know if you can understand what I’m saying, but what you have on you is something called a Depression Ant. It’s a parasitic tick that feeds off of stress and anxiety. You’ve probably got them when you ran into the forbidden forest by yourself” Brandon speaks to my unresponsive body.

Is it a tick? Oh yeah, I remember this in the story; Ruthel went into the forest after destroying his home village. He was overcome with grief and guilt over what he’d done and the ticks had helped feed into that. He was only able to overcome the ticks with the help of a native in the forest, Herma.

“Ok, so we’re ticks, so what? What does that change?” The demons continue talking “You’re the one who came to those conclusions, we’re only agreeing with you,” a demon says, “Hey guys don’t be hard on him, he’s gotta blame someone,” another demon speaks up, “Yeah he can’t take accountability for anything he’s done” the demon says.

“Gael we’re at the village, just stay with me for a bit longer,” Brandon says as he jumps on top of his concrete house. He keeps his momentum, immediately jumping to the roof of another house and so forth.

“I get you don’t like us and all, but you know we can understand each other,” a demon says “After all, we’re all parasites,” they all say simultaneously.

I’M NOT A PARASITE!

“Oh really? Do you truly mean that?” they all ask simultaneously.

I opened my mouth, but I was unable to utter anything, I was unable to answer that question.

“You're not being very convincing,” they all say simultaneously, the sound reverberating in my head and splitting it.

SHUT UP I scream, pulling my hair in the pain.

My body starts to shake.

“Gael? GAEL!?” Brandon freaks out “HOLD ON WE’RE ALMOST THERE”

“Let's be honest here; you and us. We all know that you're the reason that your sister fainted,” they say the words echoing “Or are you going to still deny that too?”

I couldn’t say anything.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Whenever you read a book where the main character is forced to struggle for some side character that no one cares about; what you would you say again? Oh yeah”

“Can’t he just die?” the words felt as if they penetrated my brain

“Well, Gael can’t you just-"

“die?”

they say making my head feel as if it was hit by a metal bat from behind

“Die, Die, Die, Die, Die, DIE, DIE, DIE” they begin chanting.

The pain had been indescribably painful my head was pounding, it was being melted in acid, it was turning to mush, it was being set aflame.

I could no longer fight back. I was in so much pain, but I just laid there in the black void full of verbally degrading monsters.

My mouth starts to foam.

“MERDE!” Brandon curses “HOLD ON IT’S CLOSE!” Brandon yells

My eyes started to fade, I was too tired and in too much pain to care anymore, I just wanted to die faster, I didn’t want to feel this much pain anymore, I didn’t want to cause Athena any more pain. Before I got to finish my thoughts the black void I had just been in turned into gold, sticky, water; the demon’s chants promptly turned into screeches as they began to whither and wilt. The relief I had felt from them dying was immediate, the pain in my head had lessened considerably but I still had a bit of a headache. But my head was a lot more clear. However, I still felt incredibly sluggish.

My body floated to the surface of the honey pond; my face was still in the honey, and being in the honey made me feel comfortable and tranquil. frankly, if I could breathe in honey I would sleep here, but I couldn't do that, so I rolled over on my back and faced the sky with my honey-covered face.

“Hey, you okay!” Brandon shouts, I raise a thumbs up in response; honey trickling down my hand.

My mind was a lot clearer than it was since I had the depression ticks on me. So what now? I can easily say that I asked Brandon for that favor because I wasn’t in the right emotional state, but that would mean I wouldn’t change anything.

If I had to be Honest. the ticks weren’t even completely wrong either; I did hurt Athena. I don’t want to disregard that, I don’t want to deny that. Either way, Athena and I have to get stronger to survive in this world, and I don’t plan to be overly reliant on Athena for my survival. I don't know if I can get as strong as Brandon, but I don't want to give up before I even try.

I glanced at Brandon who was still holding Athena who was still sleeping. I take a deep breath and I change my posture from a laying position to an upright position I try to feel the ground in the honey pond only to realize how deep it is. I could barely reach the bottom of the pond with my toes, so I walked over to Brandon on my tippy toes drenched in honey.

“You alright?” Brandon says being careful not to get any honey on him.

“Yeah I’m good,” I respond shaking some honey off my hands.

“Look at that you had a bunch on you,” Brandon points to the pool of honey.

I glance over to the honey pool to see numerous bugs rising to the surface of the pool where I had been thrown. I grimace; Those were all in my hair?

“QUON A BELL!” several human-bee amalgamations approach us buzzing loudly; the one in the front holding something akin to a rugged cane. “QUO O TA!? QUON A BELL O TA DAIO!” the one at the front buzzes “Horra zuma, oat ke tao ciki kaska un ke,” Brandon says trying to calm down the bee that looks straight out of the Bee movie.

“At quen doddna ta akka for ie shoken!” The Beeman pulls out a bucket waves it in front of Brandon; he seemed to calm down after Brandon supposedly vouched for me, or rather he seemed to be keeping his frustration in check in consideration of Brandon.

“Ina horra zuma, oat shi ya un qumello” Brandon says.

The bee doesn’t say anything for a moment, before shaking its head and buzzing, “kine” it says “lemme gogu,” it waves to its other bee companions as it walks back from where it came with it's head down.

“Wawa, zuma,” Brandon stops the bee

“hatay” Brandon says pulling out a seed, which causes all the bees to buzz profusely.

They all start crowding each other trying to get a better look at the seed, “CATA! CATA!” the bee waves around its cane seemingly yelling at the other bees to calm down.

“Shie ie Garbellello bato shura,“ one of the bees says shaking, “Brandon shie ie koo huto” the bee with the cane says, “shis koke zura, ime ute shi ta unatou” Brandon says planting the seed into the ground for it to quickly sprout into a tree. On the tree held hanging a purple melon-like fruit with yellow spikes.

Is that a sweet fruit from the novel? When the protagonist ate the fruit he described the fruit as disgustingly sweet and immediately spit it out. I don’t get why Brandon would give these to the bees.

Despite my confusion about why anyone would want to eat a fruit like that, the bees seemed to be overjoyed. They were jumping around in jubilation as they saw the fruit come into formation on the trees, before immediately going onto the tree to grab some. Within moments the sprouting tree full of fruit had become a regular tree without fruit.

“Huha shura,” the bee with the cane says bowing.

“wawa zura,” Brandon tries to stop the man.

“huha shura,” another bee says also bowing, “huha shura,” another says before all the bees were bowing with a purple and yellow fruit in their hands. After all of them began to bow the bee with the cane speaks up, “SEHE KE HURRA!” the bee shouts.

“HAY” all the bees simultaneously shout before they stand bowing in position bringing their wings in the air and then clapping them rapidly making them all buzz extremely loudly.

After they were done with their ear-piercing buzzing bit the man with the cane came up to Brandon one last time to say, “hurra shura, kwe gogu chowo” he bowed one last time and headed back from where they came.

“What was that about?” I ask “They were thanking us,” Brandon says “for a sweet fruit? Don’t those like taste terrible?” I ask “To us yes, but to them, it is an absolute luxury it’s also really important to their species” Brandon explains “Why is it so important to them?” I ask “Their tribe is basically on the verge of extinction; you remember the dozen or so bees that just came over?”

I nod “Well, those were like half of their species. Their tribe in general has issues with fertility. However, the sweet fruit can help them overcome that effectively. Very effectively” Brandon sighs “if it's so important to them. and you can produce them whenever you want why don’t you just produce more?” I ask confused as to how this was a problem in the first place

“Gael, I don’t think they mention this in the book so I don’t blame you for not knowing, but their tribe once they get a fruit like this their population will explode, and I mean really explode; Like we can expect to see thousands of them in the coming months.” I recoil back “what the hell?” I ask baffled which Brandon chuckles “I had that same reaction when I made a garden of trees for them before and their population reached well past the millions”

“So their entire population is reliant on this one fruit?” I ask “Basically.” Brandon confirms “When the sweet fruit gets into bloom it becomes their mating season and so their population just fluctuates based on the time of season and how much fruits are available”

“That doesn’t sound great to have your entire population decided by the creation of one fruit,” I say “Yeah, especially when so many other creatures are obsessed with the same fruit” Brandon agrees “There are other species that like this fruit?” I ask surprised

“Yeah, it provides a lot of energy. It is basically pure sugar after all” he says “Wow” I say “Anyways’ we should get Athena to bed, or should we take her to a doctor?” I ask “She’s fine she just needs some sleep, so I think a bed would be more optimal in this case,” Brandon says “ok” I agree

Brandon goes back to gently princess carrying Athena and we head back towards his house, “do you know where Andre might be around now” I ask as we walk “he’s probably talking with his friends right now” Brandon says. He has friends? I internally gasped “Where would he be talking to his friends?” I ask, “probably above ground” Brandon nonchalantly says before he pauses

“umm, it might not be a good idea to talk to him while he’s talking to his friends.” Brandon says “Why?” I ask “Just cause” he responds making me suspicious “Is there something wrong with his friends?” I ask “Well~ not exactly,” he says “It might be better to wait until you umm, well actually just umm-” Brandon keeps stumbling on his words.

“Hmmm,” he ponders how to articulate himself.

“Okay, I won’t ask,” I say surprising Brandon “Are you sure that's fine with you?” Brandon asks “Well yeah, it’s pretty obvious something is going on there, so I won’t get nosey if you don’t want me to”

“Thanks,” Brandon says “No problem” I respond “You know kids your age tend not to be that considerate,” Brandon says

I mean my entire life people have been considerate enough to not interfere with my life, so I wouldn’t exactly call kids my age not considerate, but at the same time if I’m being considerate enough to not interfere with his life I hope he’s considerate enough to not interfere with mine.

“Well you know, people your age tend to not be able to dodge book-sized insects moving at Mach speeds and control entire forests.” I retort “Fair enough” Brandon chuckles..

“Your moves back then were pretty impressive though where did you learn how to fight?” I ask.

“Well, I sorta just learned as I fought to survive.” Brandon says before he pauses again, “Wait. You saw how I fought?” he asks surprised.

“I mean yeah, was I not supposed to? There was a literal tornado it’s not like you were being particularly inconspicuous.” I raise a brow “You could keep up with movements going at Mach speeds?” he asks.

I had realized what he meant now it didn’t seem out of place when I was looking, it just felt as if I was watching a superhero movie in 5D animation. But now that I think about it, that fight would’ve lasted around a few seconds instead of the few minutes I felt I witnessed.

How did I keep up? Was it adrenaline? Or is it something that has to do with my ability? I bite my finger thinking of what could have led me to understand what I was looking at during that fight.

“Well it’s fine we could just figure it out another time,” Brandon says, bringing me out of my cognitive rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. I mean he’s not wrong, I can’t confirm any of my conspiracy theories right now. I nod in agreement with Brandon.

We continue to walk back to the hut that I have been sleeping in. We entered past the fabric door, and Brandon gently plopped Athena onto the bed and under the covers.

“Hey,” I speak.

“mhm?” Brandon grunts.

“Thanks for your help,” I say.

“No worries” Brandon replies nonchalantly.

I wait a moment before I speak, “Why were you so willing to help us?" I finally ask.