Willard could only watch.

What have I done?

Gradually, as his hearing returned, he made out the sobs and the wails. He heard the cries, the anger, the grief. He heard them all at once. The train thundered out of the station.

From the very outer rim of the crowd, Willard saw someone with a black leather jacket walk away.

He couldn’t focus on them for any longer, as, out of the sea of groaning, a shrill voice.

“Will!”

Someone pushed through the crowd. It wasn’t until they had reached the front rows when he got a full look. Her silky black hair was disheveled, dampened by the snow but still fluttering in the wind.

Willard didn’t recognize her. He stood atop the platform, not knowing what to do, his words still swirling in his head.

The girl reached the barriers and told the guards something. They hesitated, but upon seeing the woman in the suit nod, at the woman in the suit nod, allowed her to pass. The girl wriggled through the barries, rushed atop the stairs and flung herself onto him. It was such a flurry of motion that Willard had trouble registering it.

Her warmth seemed to engulf him. It was comforting, sending shivers through his body. She smelled like peaches.

Slowly, in a familiar fashion that Willard thought he had long forgotten, he extended his arms and wrapped them gently around her back. He noticed she was shivering, then realized just how lightly she was dressed. Wrapped in a single denim jacket, a light blue dress coming out from the bottom. Both her arms and legs were bare. The smooth, tan skin was in stark contrast with his roughened blue winter outfit.

The girl continued clinging onto Willard, sobbing uncontrollably. She tried to say something but stuttered so much it became incomprehensible. So she buried her head into Willard’s shoulder and kept crying, her shrill voice making her sound like an infant. It reminded him of his first decade in Sorissu where he had grown up with someone mother had found on their doorstep. It was during that blissful period of one’s childhood where they had no trouble expressing their affections for others. No trouble with hugs and no held-back “I-love-you”s. Willard’s childhood had passed when that someone vanished without a trace. A sister, not related by any blood, had taken something from him and left him hollow when they left.

The girl pulled back and Willard finally got a good look. Her face was covered in tears snot was running down her tiny red nose. Her heart-shaped lips, though pale, looked soft and tender, parting slightly between breaths. Her rosy cheeks almost bloomed under the platform’s lights.

What struck Willard the most were her eyes. The right one was warm and brown, glistening like a chestnut in water. However, the pupil inside was pitch black, mysterious, and oddly inviting, like a whirlpool slowly drawing him in. Her left eye was devoid of that glisten, its color so faint Willard could hardly see the pupil. Though, somehow, even without its light, the eye looked like a milky pearl nested in her face. A diamond-shaped pearl.

Could she be...?

“I...I thou—” she sobbed, choking on her own spit, “I thou......thought that you...”

Willard could feel her slender body quivering. He, too, was shaking. He hesitated, then pulled off his large winter jacket. The frigid winds hit him right on the back, and he grimaced, wincing at the icy chills. The Eastern Plains were particularly cold tonight. The girl stared at him in bewilderment. Willard watched her reactions carefully.

“Wah—?”

He brushed a few strands of loose hair from her face, not knowing where he got the courage. In fact, he didn’t even know where he got the strength to pull his jacket off.

He wrapped his jacket around her. It was quite big, covering her entire upper body and running all the way down to her knee. Its bulk made her legs look even more slim, and she stood there, shivering like a baby sparrow. Then, unconsciously, she stuck out her tongue and licked the nail on her left index finger. Willard concealed his scream.

“Let’s go home, Mia.” Willard placed his hand on her shoulder. He couldn’t hear the cries from the crowd anymore. All he wanted now was to get out of this cold, as the fatigue that was previously absent on the train flooded into him. Upon hearing her name, a flash of surprise flashed across the girl’s face, but she suppressed it and wrapped her right arm around his back. Together, with her supporting Willard one step at a time, they hobbled down the platform and down the stairs that led to the old transport elevators. Willard took one last look at the crowd.

It’s not your fault.

He saw one of them grovel in the snow, teeth clenched, squeezing both arms around themself as hard as they could.

It’s not a sin to live.

He saw a child wrapped so tight only his eyes and nose were in the open, standing awkwardly beside their mother, not knowing why she was on the ground.

You’ve done nothing wrong.

He saw several pairs of teary eyes look towards him. Some were just a quick glance as they went back to crying. Some looked on in sympathy. And some, particularly the younger ones——who by now would have realized that their father and brothers would not be returning——glared at him with such hatred in their eyes it sent shivers down his spine.

I didn’t do anything to deserve this.

Willard whipped his head back but felt their gaze burn into his neck.

“Don’t mind them.” Mia, who also glanced back and somehow realized Willard’s guilt, tightened her supporting arm.

The two of them shuffled into the elevator, their backs to the rest of them.

In the corner of his eye, he saw one of the crowd members closer to the fence hurl something at the woman in the suit. It bounced harmlessly off the barriers. She remained motionless, with a bored expression etched across her face. Something on the elevator’s ceiling pumped white gas into the small chamber, stabilizing its temperature. With a low groan, the elevator lowered itself out of the train station.

Mia helped Willard onto an elevator seat and sat opposite to him. His oversized leg supports were in the way, so he had to unbuckle them and let them hang loose by his waist. Drowsiness clouded his mind, and he would have fallen asleep if not for the hundreds of questions on his mind.

Mia was back.

There was so much he wanted to ask her. Why did she leave? Where did she go? What did she do? He wanted to spend days with her, just talking. Instead, he found his eyes fixed on her legs that were now out of the large jacket. They looked bth soft and statuesque with defined muscles on her calves and thighs. Her ankle curved in, making the bony bump on it look like a fine sculpture. Willard felt an uncomfortable warmth well up inside him. His heart thumped faster, and his breaths shorter.

Calm yourself.

Spending two months underground has really messed him in the head. Willard wanted to smack himself. But then again, he hadn’t sat by anyone since...forever. In fact, he hadn’t even sat by a girl his age in years. He felt the hotness on his cheeks slowly spread to his ears. A few moments ago, he had just told everyone their loved ones were dead. Now, he was being carried away by her looks.

As he averted his eyes, Willard realized something peculiar.

“You don’t have any leg supports.” Willard shuddered as he tried to imagine what it’d feel like to walk around with the extra gravity weighing her down.

A fleeting look of sorrow flashed across her good eye before she blinked and pulled it back to neutrality. It was so brief that even one looking intently at her face would have missed. But Willard noticed, and that raised even more questions. These were questions he forced himself to hold on to until later.

She grinned, revealing a set of pristinely white teeth.

”Oh, this? It’s nothin’. Don’t worry ‘bout it.” She tapped her right knee halfheartedly.

Willard recalled how effortlessly she had pushed through the crowds and supported him on her shoulder. Something has changed in her. She did not act like the shivering girl mother had found that one fateful morning.

“More importantly,” she leaned forward and cupped his hands with her own, “how are you?”

She leaned closer, and Willard could slightly smell the peachy fragrance drifting off her skin. It made his mind swirl. She somehow seemed to have realized this and pulled back, embarrassed. Her scent was still pulling him in like a beckoning finger.

Something was not right. Willard had walked through the commercial districts of Vaharach where they sold imported perfume that smelled many times stronger than hers. But the chemical aroma only tickled Willard’s nose. Hers, however, was squeezing all his senses, making him crazy. He sucked in a deep breath and held it there for several seconds. That seemed to calm him down a bit. He remembered her question.

“Yeah. I’m good.” He realized just how big of a lie that was, “it might’nt seem like it, b—”

Before he could finish, a series of bloodied coughs escaped his throat. It was the kind that was full of sticky strings of spit and pulled at the esophagus. It exhausted not only the air in his lungs but also the moisture in them. Mia jumped.

Still coughing, Willard pointed at his jacket’s side pocket. She saw, shot her hand into the overly large pockets by her side, fished around in it, and pulled out one of Krummlae’s breathers. Willard snatched it, stuffed it in his mouth, and injected the rejuvenating gas down his throat. He closed his eyes, feeling the coolness seep through his body. Mia watched in silence.

“It’s a respiratory condition.” Willard explained, his eyes still closed, “Got it from the mines.”

“Like, in those few days...?” Mia’s voice had a tinge of hurt and a world of worry in it.

“No. It was a bit before that.”

The elevator drifted slowly down the shaft. The wind seemed to have died down completely, leaving the night completely tranquil——a rare sight in Sorissu. The only sounds that could be heard were the occasional groans of the elevator cables.

“Is...is it...dangerous?” Mia probed, her hands balled up on her knees.

Willard kept silent for several seconds, contemplating whether he should break the truth to her. As the silence stretched on, the mood in the elevator gradually became stale, as if a dark grail was being pulled over.

“No.” Willard stared into her dark eyes with the look of sincerity he only reserved for mother. And like his mother, he had hoped the silence would make her realize the lie.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

But then again, most miners in Sorissu would have this lung problem once they’ve spent enough time underground, and he knew Mia had seen someone cough like him.

“It’s a seasonal thing with us...Ferans.” Then he remembered, and a gloomy look came over his face. The touch of betrayal he felt a decade ago flashed through him. The tender remains of the feeling he’d felt when he wrapped his coat around her melted momentarily away.

“Not like you would know.”

He nearly spat the words out. It shocked him as they came out more spiteful than he intended. But he forced his face to remain in its neutral, almost nonchalant expression. He chucked the breather into the garbage bin on the corner. The metal clang against the plastic reverberated across the elevator and into the night.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her open her mouth to say something but then pursed them as sullenness flowed into her eyes. She cast her gaze down, her right hand rubbing the amulet on her neck.

Willard wanted her to say something. Anything. To tell him he was wrong. To apologize. To tell him she was abducted, kidnapped, sold......anything apart from leaving him by her own will.

Speak, dammit!

The silence screamed.

Like all healthy, socially functioning older brothers, his empathetic half broke through and started convincing himself to go against his emotions.

She probably had also gone through a lot.

Maybe she didn’t want to say.

Maybe, just not yet. Maybe not here.

You should put this aside for another time.

…

Spare her your guilt. It’s what any good brother would do.

… A hearty confession shouldn’t take place in a decrepit elevator, after all.

He was good at it. Good at persuading himself. Searching for faults in himself for the benefit of others.

“And that’s something you’re going to tell me all about tomorrow, Miriam Price.” The familiar name rolled off his tongue in a strange fashion. It felt strange saying it, like going through a box full of old toys one had forgotten were lost.

Her lips stretched into a wistful smile.

“Will.” She looked at Willard, and her bottom lips twitched slightly. It was as if she was struggling to hold back a landslide of words. Instead, only two came out.

“Thank you.”

Willard wondered why she’d said that. Was it because he spared her the guilt? That can’t be. The Mia he remembered wouldn’t mind something like that. There must be something more to it. He stared at her, his best friend all grown up, and chuckled.

There’s always something more to it.

“It’s fine.” He didn’t know whether that was a lie, “just…don’t tell ma.”

She stared back at him for a few more seconds and remained quiet. Willard felt distant. She used to annoy him with everything—how she’d rolled around in the snow, the blue bug she’d found under the bridge, the tall stranger she’d mistaken for Krummlae——now she was completely silent. He felt as though an invisible wall had been erected between them. But then again, it might have already been there even before she left.

The silence stretched on again, this time even more painful. Willard forced himself to look outside. As they descended, the lights from the cliff’s feet grew larger. A thinly walled enclosure with several apartment buildings fashioned out of old cargo containers and a few pitifully small stone houses. The moon was right above now, as the shadow cast on the giant shaft retreated backward into itself, revealing several mechanical beasts near the top of the shaft face.Compared to the shaft, they looked like a bunch of tiny spiders. There appeared to be less than he remembered. It seemed as though the Sibithian Stone deposits on this monolith were finally going to be depleted.

“What’re those?” Mia also noticed them.

“Mobile Harvest Stations,” Willard sighed, “cheap to make and easy to break, but perfect for small-scaled excavations. It’s made to refine raw Sibithian stone on spot. Our Bagiraek overlords seem to like them quite a lot.”

“Overlords?”

“Eh, it’s a saying. Like, how the entire continent’s technically their fief?”

“Not for long, though. Their hundred-year contract with the Mors-Special-Supply-Party is nearly over.”

“Yep. It’d just be ‘Mors overlords’, then.” He stared at the mobile stations. One of them stood and scrabbled around until it reached another crevice dozens of meters lower. Mia lowered her gaze again.

Willard sighed. He would have killed to get a spot on one of those stations. Sure, it was tough and dangerous work, with several casualties every few months, but it also paid handsomely. The payback for a one-year shift paired with the Minority Charity’s fund would be enough to pay for Adrian’s tuition. Maybe even enough for a 2-week vacation to Bagiraek.

Vacation.

That was something he knew he wasn’t going to have in the foreseeable future. Actually, not going to have at all. He looked at Mia. Her hair was loose, and it hung down as she hunched, facing the ground. He didn’t know if she was looking at the ground or peering at him through the gaps between strands.

It was some time after she left that father disappeared. The job of providing for the family fell to him, who, at that time had just reached 14. Up until now, he had not rested for more than two days in a row. Always on the train, going to places, begging for jobs like a starving dog does food and toiling all his life away once he’s finally got one.

Willard looked at his hands. They appeared leathery. The fingers were roughened with calluses, with bits of cuticle tightly wrapped around the nails like the airtight seals of the elevator. The joints were swollen, with tiny scars etched alongside the wrinkles. He squeezed his hand, grazing his fingers with his hardened palms, and winced as the stitches around the newly healed scar from the cave-in were stretched.

Willard smiled. It was all the work of father.

He had felt anger. He had felt betrayal. He had felt desperation, and he had felt dread. He had felt all these suffocating emotions for every day of his life after that man vanished, until one day—he forgot when it was—he felt nothing. Maybe something went wrong with his head. Maybe he was just tired. It was like he couldn’t remember why he had bothered to stay that way in the first place.

He did not remember the man’s face and had given up trying to do so a long time ago. He would have probably forgotten Mia’s face had she not shown up today. He would rest for a few days, then go about his usual, grueling life until he got finished off in another accident or his lung condition worsened. The only thing he’d feel then would be sadness. Her showing up today had broken something in him. The more he stared at her, the more sour his mood became.

Why did she come back?

Willard stared at her leg, skin as smooth as fine-grained wood, glistening under the moonlight as if someone had covered it in varnish. They seemed to suppress the ugly, dark graffiti on the elevator seats. Frustration welled up from inside him. Those weren’t the legs of someone used to labor. They weren’t the legs of the Mia he thought he knew.

Why did she bother coming back?

His scarred hand shaking, Willard reached into his pants pockets and brought out a cigarette pack. He pulled out one of the tiny, narrow cylinders from the box and squeezed one end. A fizzing sound that resembled a soda can came out, and soon, a tiny smoke trail floated up into the air. Willard placed the other end in his mouth. He hesitated, then took one long drag.

He allowed the smoke to fully circle through his lungs. As he exhaled, his previous anger and frustration seemed to have gone out along with the smoke plume, drifting up into the air until it disappeared. A mellow feeling rested inside him, warming him up.

Willard looked at Mia, who had indeed been staring at him. He didn’t know what to say, but he also didn’t feel like he wanted to say anything.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” she finally spoke.

“It’s fine. This stuff’s from 3.B.O, most trusted tobacco firm on the planet.” Willard took another puff, pulled another one out, and offered it to her. He had thought of just handing her his own cigarette, but the invisible wall between them stopped him from doing so.

“I heard they dealt with Bagiraek’s black market.” She hesitated, then accepted it, imitating Willard and placing the burning cylinder to her lips.

“They say every megacorp has a hand in the black market,” Willard shrugged, “in Bagiraek, Mors…hell, even Heaven Continent.”

She took in half a drag, then choked on the smoke, spitting the cigarette out. Before it could fall on the ground, though, she shot out her left palm and caught it. The black ash crumbled onto her hand.

A wave of worry flashed through Willard. He was about to stand up when he saw her pick it up and put it into her mouth again. This time, she took a longer drag and held in the coughs.

“Mia, I didn’t know—”

“Oh, no.” She smiled at him. “I’m just not used to Sorissian smoke, that’s all. This stuff packs quite the punch.”

Before Willard could respond, the elevator cables let out a huge groan and screeched to a stop.

Willard had just enough time to strap his leg supports back on before the doors of the elevator slid open. A chilling breeze blew into the elevator, frosting Willard’s unwrapped face and sending painful chills across his cheek. Instinctively, he glanced back at Mia, who, despite being wrapped in his jacket, had a lot less on her than him. She had stuck her head into the lapel, leaving only her legs out in the open. She looked even more like a baby bird now.

She’s exactly like the time mother found her.

A bittersweet feeling of nostalgia wrenched Willard’s guts. He was so very tired now and felt so very heavy. He didn’t know if the cold was causing it, or his defective leg supports, or his wounds or her. He didn’t know what to make of her.

Was it her strangeness? Was it her looks? He couldn’t help but see her as the messy, loud girl who’d always gotten into trouble. The girl beside him looked nothing like her. He felt a little sad.

Live in the present so the past will not haunt you.

It was something he’d discovered whilst living through years of regret and frustration. Unique hate for his life, for her, for his father, and, though he did not want to admit it, for his brother. He had built walls around them, stopping them from interfering with his life. But he never seemed to have achieved it. From time to time, the walls would crack, and he’d spend nights alone, staring pointlessly into the dark clouds above in a attempt to fix them. Right now, the cracks are getting longer.

That’s fine. Right now, he should just be happy she’s here. Reminiscing would be something for another time. But he couldn’t help but think about the past.

The two of them walked out of the elevator onto the barren cliff-feet platform and shuffled towards the small, square ticket booth at the end. The cold seemed to pierce Willard’s second jacket and seep right into his skin.

The gap gradually became larger between them as they walked on, as Mia was walking faster and far ahead. He knew it would be warmer to walk together for the collective heat, but he just couldn’t will himself to catch up to her. She felt like a stranger. Every time he cast an occasional glance at her, he would remember the little girl huddled close to the fireplace, her huge, curious eyes like bright diamonds. He would turn away, feeling the bitter sourness spread across his tongue. He felt like a child.

She left me.

After a few grueling minutes of shuffling through the cold, they finally reached the ticket booth. The inside was very cramped, with a single bench and a crude one-way transmitter etched into a series of small lockers. The paint had peeled off on it, revealing the galvanized surface of the control panel. Willard vaguely remembered that a Triumglate member had promised to fix the shack the last time he was here. That was two months ago. Mia stepped in front of it and entered a series of numbers onto the flickering screen.

“...There’s only an E.T.V now,” she squinted at the tiny letters on the projector, although her voice didn’t sound surprised.

“We don’t use that very often.” Willard went over to one of the public lockers, entered his own series code into it, and swung its door open. From it, he pulled out a shabby-looking contraption that looked like an oversized foldable camera stand with two pairs of wheels on it. The iron tubes that appeared to be its legs were dented, and it smelt of gasoline.

“We’ll just have to make do with Old Pierson’s Moose.”

“What’s that?” Mia bounced over, her voice tinged with curiousity. She tripped, bumped into Willard, and nearly toppled him as he struggled under the machine’s weight.

A spark of annoyance rushed into Willard but vanished instantly as it brought back bits of Willard’s memory of him being frustrated at her just as fast. She was always clumsy. Clumsy and curious about everything and everyone.

So some parts didn’t change after all.

Mia got up from the ground, biting her upper lip, her face glowing bright red. She would put that face on every time he had to apologize to get her out of trouble, every time she messed up trying to tweak mother’s wheelchair, and every time he beat her during their mock duels. Unnecessary memories. A suffocating sense of nostalgia formed in his throat, choking him.

Then something strange happened. He felt a tug at his chin. Then another. For the first time in years, Willard found himself smiling. A genuine smile from his heart through the thousands of hardships and the icy coldness of Sorissu. He didn’t know why he smiled. He was certain he was still mad at her. It was as if a knot had melted away from his heart.

“Will?”

Oops.

It seemed like the rest of his strength had melted away with the knot.

“Will!”

The freshly healed scar ached. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was Mia’s diamond-shaped face above him, her left eye glowing like a pearl as the darkness filled his vision.