Dennis was sitting on a stool inside the termite mound inn’s bar. He was staring at the warm cup of milk he was given. He still remembers what happened last night, the smell, the taste, and the sounds that changed him. He looked at the cup and saw the same dripping substance he tasted last night, the same sweet face that looked at him covered in it. His breathing was shallow and his hands were shaking.

“Eughaa!!” He pushed the cup aside in a panic, knocking the milk and spilling it all over the counter.

He buried his hands in his head and stumbled out of the stool, tripping himself in the process. He quickly got himself up and ran to his room, sobs being heard as he moved.

Judith was sitting in the stool as she saw the chaos that just happened.

“Is he okay?” Kathzka asked, concern plastered on her face.

Judith saw Dennis soaking wet outside as he came in from outside. She was wasted but had enough thought to order her friend some milk and a warm blanket. She was cracking jokes and talking about the stories she and Kathzka shared, but Dennis was silent the entire time. He was just sitting there staring at the cup of milk, wide eyed and stiff. Then he just panicked for some reason.

Judith cursed herself. Damn it I shouldn’t have left this guy alone. She looked at the stairs where her friend just ran towards and got up. She shook herself awake.

“Kathz, sorry I think I need to see him for a while. Mind putting it all on my tab for a while?”

Kathzka was wiping the spilled milk from the counter. “Sure. Just make sure to come down for breakfast, I’ll whip up something that might lighten up the mood, ‘kay.” She smiled.

Judith smiled at the woman, before reaching the stairs. She sighed. She should have been there.

Judith went to Dennis’ room and knocked on the door. It was covered in a forcefield that could kill anyone who came near it. Not her though, but she could feel that he was in distress.

“Hey Den, wanna talk about it?”

“.….”

She sat just outside and leaned on the door.

“You can always tell me you know. I’ll always be here. You can talk to me Den.”

“.…”

She breathed deeply as her eyes unfocused and her shoulders loosened. She tries and remembers the many painful things that got them this far. Then she exhaled.

“Den tell me what’s wrong? What got you so tense to the point that it has you paralyzed? I’ve seen you go through so much, and I’ve never seen you break this way before.”

She waited for him. As long as it takes.

Finally he relented.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way you know…..It’s just that..I feel so dirty Judith. I feel like I did something I should regret, but it was one of the moments that I felt so free. So free that I did something that I might regret later on. I feel like I betrayed my heart for something so momentary.”

He took a shaky breath.

“I…I had sex last night. With someone I barely know. Someone I never spent time with. It’s just…I felt so free and I thought I would lose it if I didn’t take the chance you know.”

Tears fell from his eyes. Judith remained silent.

“I told him I loved him. I told him so many things that felt like it made sense last night, but it feels so different now.”

“I don’t even know if I still regret it, but my chest hurts when I think about it. It was supposed to be Wyatt. It was supposed to be him.”

He was shivering, shaking to his very core. He who felt pain and misery beyond measure was wounded by something that would seem so benign and simple to others.

“I feel dirty Judith. I don’t know what to do.”

He cried. He cried as if the years he spent jaded and emotionless never mattered. That it never blunted down the sting of such a feeling. A pain that is wholly unique to this experience. For the first time, he felt the sting of growing up. The sting of experience and the fear that comes with it. He is changing and he’ll never come back from it.

Now the curse of the malevolent goddess of life made a bit more sense. The wound that he made, the sacrifice bore a weight that he might never move on from. He remembered the words, the words that now seemed bitter and filled with pain. The voice that promised too much.

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I curse you with life

Now he’s forced to live through it. Now he understands.

He is back from the dead and made to feel the dread of growth.

Judith sat there, beyond the door, a piece of material so thin yet so vast in the space that it drives between them at the same time. She cannot solve this problem for him. She knows that, and yet it feels like she needs to at least ease his burden.

She bites her lip till it bleeds. Her fingers turning white and pale, a far cry from the bronze complexion she possesses. And she breathes. In and out, as it always goes.

Dennis grips his robe and cries.

Judith bleeds the tension from her mind into a nearby candy wrapper and it tears. She calms down enough. She needs a clear mind if she is to help her friend.

“Well...congrats in popping your cherry.”

Dennis instinctively conjured an ice wraith to punch Judith in the gut. It made a thud as she bent over from the pain. He unsummoned it with a thought after hearing her vomit the rum she drank.

“Uugh..I deserve that.”

Judith lurched, keeping the damage this time.

“Hahaha Dumbass, that’s such a horrible start Judith.” Dennis was smiling at the stupid attempt at comforting him.

Judith smiled from the other side of the door. “Hey at least you’re not moping anymore.”

Dennis gripped his robe and let out a tired, heavy sigh. “Thanks, I mean it. Just you being here is honestly comforting.” Dennis opened the door and let his friend in. He sat on his bed and invited his friend to do the same. They sat there and spoke honestly to each other.

“I used to imagine Wyatt was my first, that I’d feel his skin against mine. All the people before him were just one-sided infatuations, doomed and sinking before it even sailed. And look at me, I took on so much of their traits, ideals, and wishes that it changed me to what I am today. Wyatt was the only one who understood me deeper than most.

Aside from you, no one else knows I’m gay. And I wouldn’t want to show that to him.”

He slumped his whole back to the bed and stared at the ceiling. “And in one night I just ruined that and made it all seem insignificant.”

Dennis buried his hands in his face.

“His name was Ogier, and he was just like us, old, powerful, weathered, and damaged runaways. He told me secrets he bottled up in the midst of our passion. We were surrounded in the woven flowers that hid us from the world and we knew the allure of honesty and secrecy was too much not to pass up. So we both took it, because both of us were scared we might never experience the same thing ever again.”

Dennis chuckled and elbowed Judith. “Well at least I knew what a gay bar was like.”

Judith smirked and ruffled his hair. “Are you kidding, you fucking stank of semen when you came here.”

“Fucking bitch haha”

Dennis put his knees closer to him. “I’m scared of seeing him Judith, seeing Ogier. Seeing the man who seemed like he knew me more than anyone. I just feel so weird right now. It’s like thousands of years of repressed emotions are flowing back in. It happened ever since the ritual. Something changed in me, but I feel like I never want to go back to the same life as before, regardless if it’s painful or not.

“I’m scared of how Wyatt would see me if this ever comes out. Would it change our friendship, would he hate me, would he slowly distance himself away from me? Would I?”

She smiled and hugged her friend.

“I had someone I loved before I met you guys you know. She was a martial sister from the same sect that I was from. I still remember her smile, her laughter, the way she’d dream of freedom from her monotonous life.”

I loved her, but she was gone too soon. A war broke out and millions died, millions more were displaced and destitute. I was one of those people, and I felt like I had nothing to live for, so I turned to the sweet emptiness that came at the bottom of a bottle. I wanted to disappear before I met you guys.”

She separates herself and stares at the same ceiling.

“But no one ever truly moves on from loss, both of us know that, but even you deserve to be happy. Maybe it’s time you tried letting yourself be happy. It took me so much time to allow myself to do that. I want you to allow yourself to do the same, to feel, to grow, to have a new start even if it’s a thousand years too late.”

Dennis felt it, a shame that could never dissipate. He was hyperventilating now. He was in panic. He was ashamed, so ashamed of what he is. He needed to sacrifice more. He needed to feel worthy of being alive. Worthy of all the unearned respect he has stolen from others far more deserving. Years and years of emotion fell down upon him, clouding his thoughts, clouding his heart.

“How could I be happy! I don’t deserve it. When I see myself, all I see is a wretched, selfish, childish imbecile. I could see it now, the curse of the Goddess only made it clearer for me. The pain I so richly deserve.

I wish I was never born, I wish someone better could have taken my name instead. I am a failure of a man. Even when the people I taught look up to me, I am reminded of the difference between who I am and what they think I am.”

Dennis was down on the floor crying, shaking, scared that even the friend he has spent years with might see him for what he truly is, a fraud.

“I am a monster, a coward, an ugly thing that just refuses to change. Why was I ever born. Why have I gotten so much ill-gotten fortunes. I don’t deserve to be happy, happiness is just a dream that would be better given to others. I am wretched, I am ugly, and I am a failure.”

Years of grief, shame, sorrow, and self-hate fell on Dennis. The years he spent undead staved of all of these emotions, and now that he’s alive again it all came crashing down. The promise of pain.

Judith was crying powerless to comfort her friend. She want’s to help, but she does not know how. So she bent down and hugged him, in an attempt to bleed the pain away and replace it with comfort.

She wishes she could do more. To distract him if only to make him forget, to give him a chance at forgetting.