The boy had finally stopped crying when they saw Liam’s face hadn’t even been left with a scar, and it left the silence full of questions from both sides. Well, mainly from Liam. Apparently, the kid had assumed that since Liam hadn’t said anything about their power during the day after the awakening that it may have been something like that. The fact that Liam had seemed so happy after Liam thought Elliot had gotten an ego power also played into the idea…

Honestly, it felt like Elliot had really thought it through, but…

“You thought I was an ego from the start? I’d have told you by now, you know?” Liam muttered. The words left a bad taste in his mouth, feeling false and plastic as they left. He didn’t feel good lying to Elliot, especially after how accepting they’d been of his condition. Liam scratched the back of his head with his new claws, out for Elliot to see, finally. Their eyes, which had never left Liam’s hands, turned to him in shock. “You didn’t? Then how did you get them!? I thought once we got powers that was it!” Elliot shouted, he seemed ready to pull all Liam’s secrets out of him, no matter what.

Liam just shrugged, remembering waking up after dying from the Ego-death. It wasn’t something he’d ever actually tell the kid about, if he could help it. He had to fudge up the truth somehow… with a lie that was just close enough to the truth to give Liam a way to weasel out if the kid had ever learned the actual truth.

“No, I was at school when my clone did this… I… Damn, it’s-”

…getting harder to remember the moments before he woke up in his new body.

It occurred to him that he barely even remembered going to school that day, or how the Ego-death looked. A pit grew in his stomach as he realized he couldn’t even remember if the monster had originally been a girl or a boy, and suddenly his head started pounding.

“Augh… What the hell.” Everything started growing hazy as Liam grabbed the back of his head. The pain was strange, almost as if it had come drilling into him rather than it being just a normal headache. He tried not to react too badly for Elliot’s sake, but he felt about ready to fall over from the agony. He gritted his teeth for a couple of minutes before, suddenly…

It just stopped?

“Liam! Do you want to sit down! Stop!” He heard the kid behind him, and he realized he’d just kept walking while his head had been having a meltdown. Elliot had been holding on to his school uniform as they rushed behind him, looking unsure of what to do. He caught himself and stopped, having the kid’s face bump into his back with quite a bit of force. They rubbed their nose. “Ow! Liam… Why’d you stop all of a sudden?” They moaned. He could hear a bit of anger in their voice, which made sense since he’d been acting like a fool just now. At least they weren’t crying, which was… good…

His head…

Ugh, Liam’s memories of what had happened that day were back, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe it had been because he hadn’t tried remembering it until now, but his hands were shaking as he recalled the moment he died, the small moments before. It was slow, but not exactly painful. But it was so scary… He’d been terrified in his last moments, but his weakened, bloodless heart had been unable to give him the ability to feel it.

Complete helplessness, in the face of his own death.

Had his mind really blocked that memory out, or had it been something else? He realized he was spacing out again when he saw Elliot staring at him. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something.” He said, dismissively. Elliot looked at him in anger. “That’s not cool, Liam! You were just walking without saying anything! I thought you were mad at me or something!” Liam waved his hand dismissively, looking around.

He couldn’t even see houses anymore. There were people walking the streets now, and he could see one or two shops along the way. The two had long ago passed the housing blocks, which meant he’d been holed up in his own head for around a couple minutes, at least. That wasn’t just some kind of daydreaming, or dismissive thought…

Something was up.

Something scary.

He slapped his own cheeks, trying to bring himself out of that state. “Damn… Elliot, I don’t know what just happened but… I need you to hit me if I do it again, ok? Full blast.” Elliot looked shocked, but stayed quiet. They were probably too concerned to fight with him at the moment. “Okay, Liam… l-let’s go into a store. You might need water.” The kid took the lead, dragging him along as they ran towards the nearest convenience store. The kid set him to the side and told him he’d be back with some refreshments.

It gave Liam time to think about the state he was in.

It was strange, to say the least. He felt sad, and scared, but… he felt freer? It was like the him a few hours ago had been suppressed, and it honestly felt like that suppression had been around him the entirety of the day. He still felt the same, but something he couldn’t describe inside him was different. It had been almost unnoticeable until now, but now that it was gone he could almost taste the air, feel the warmth of his own hands…

He wanted to talk to his mom.

Elliot came back soon, with a coffee in one hand and a bottle in the other. “H-here! I think coffee is good for a concussion, and… and… The water.” They handed him the coffee first, and waited expectantly for Liam to drink. He awkwardly took a sip from the bitter substance before going to sit down on a small table besides a few drinks. Elliot followed along, sitting in front of him. Liam took another sip before setting it down, wishing he’d had a bit more sugar. “...Thanks, here’s the money for the coffee. Pass me the water bottle.” He muttered, pulling out a twenty from his pocket.

Elliot passed the water, but didn’t grab the money. “It was only five dollars for everything, though… And it was my fault you were hit in the face, so… uh…” Liam scoffed, placing the twenty in their hand. “Dude. Nothing to it. I don’t even feel it anymore. Besides, you basically just got payback, right?” He grinned at the boy’s look of self-consciousness. No one in this district knew how to take hurting someone, huh?

He’d expected these kinds of accidents to be common around people this innocent. “But… you started acting weird when, um… nevermind, just drink.” Elliot stopped talking, letting Liam finish his water in one go. He watched Elliot pull out his phone and begin typing, nervously. A few minutes later they looked back up. Liam had already been half done with the coffee at that point. “Do you, uh… feel sleepy?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

What?

What a weird question. “No? What are you talking about? It’s not even dark out.” He took another sip, cursing the fact that he took so long to drink it. The flavor was even more bitter now that it wasn’t as hot. Elliot sighed a breath of relief, before turning back to the phone to read something else. “Even if you do feel sleepy, try not to. You might have a concussion so you should try keeping yourself from moving your head too-”

Liam barked out a laugh, understanding what the hell was happening. He opened the lid of the coffee, chugging the rest of the cup before it got any worse. “You think I messed up my head? ‘S that what a ‘concussion’ is? I’m fine Elliot, let it go.” Right now he felt great, honestly. Speaking of which… “Ah, but if you wanna help you can lend me your phone for a bit.”

“Ah, but… you should… hmm…” Elliot still seemed like he wanted to say something, but handed it over anyway. “What do you wanna do?” Liam shrugged, looking at the screen on the phone to see where the numbers were… all he saw were a bunch of words. “The hell? Get me to the numbers, I wanna call my mom.” Elliot gave him a look like he spoke a different language, and said something that hurt Liam far more than anything he’d ever heard.

“Haha! You kinda sound like grandpa.”

________________________________________________________________

The car stopped the moment she tapped the brakes, so smoothly that she could hardly feel the drag. The radio was playing something somber, a woman singing about her lost lover, who she’d never get to do the little things with. It turned more and more grim until the end, where she finally exclaims how she can’t go on without him. Mika turned the radio down once it ended, leaving her in the quiet. In her thoughts.

She could relate to the woman’s grief, but could not agree with the way she carried herself. If the woman gave up on her life, then it’d no doubt make th

…Her days had all gone by like this, lost in her thoughts as she aimlessly went about her day. It was nice to be comfortable, to comfortable enough to be lost in thought had been almost completely unavailable in the badlands. She had been the kingbreaker there, someone who was considered the top of the ladder, who you had to go to first before even asking to breath… It had been stifling and unbearable, a job where she had to protect those who always seemed to want a knife in her back.

This, though? It was fine, great actually. She was free from the noose around her neck, and in tandem that meant her son was safe, but… Damnit. Sure, there was no struggle, no sense of fear or paranoia, but when those emotions had become commonplace in the badlands… it became almost lonely without them. Almost…

Boring.

Mika was feeling guilty.

She had been so demanding of Liam when they had been in district 3, telling him to say goodbye to all those he knew and cared about. He had been… resilient, to say the least. She’d had to look for him before going, and it had been especially hard since the whole community had tried their best to keep the boy hidden. In the end she hadn’t even been able to find him, but he had come to her anyways. His eyes had been the same as her husband’s, so long ago.

Pain, sadness, and love.

She had been elated despite his eyes, too lost in her fear of being alone to care for the boy. It was strange how loneliness could change people so much… Remembering back to how she had laughed so relievedly while he grieved his loss made her want to crush the steering wheel in her grasp. Those days before the move had been a moment of complete despair for both of them, but in a way it had brought them closer. It had to…

She had never loved Liam more than when they had come here.

The boy hardly ever came to her back in the old district, and he had not even referred to her as mom, as he did now. It had always been by her title. Not even her first name, as her supporters preffered to call her. It had come from respect, apparently since he had been powerless before. Nevertheless, it had still irked her, especially when she saw other families in the badlands refer to each other as such…

Maybe, now that she thought about it, she had always loved him.

But then it came so clearly to light when they had come to this district. She would see everywhere, the little ways parents and children would interact. Love, anger, petty frustration… It was all something she had missed out on with her child, in pursuit of greater power.

Every little thing he did made him endear himself to her more. The way he scowled when small things didn’t go his way, how sometimes on the weekends he’d bring a barbecue style meal to the house, which he believed to be her favorite. It had eventually become so, purely due to him. He always wanted to impress her, to console her, and sometimes she felt like the child in the situation.

But he had always kept a distance in the beginning, putting up walls that made them seem like worker and boss, rather than mother and son. It had been walls she could never find out how to close until one day, they had all come crashing down at once.

When he first did it, it had been entirely by accident. The two had been eating a take-out meal, a full month into the transfer into Utopia. It was still vivid in her head, the boy had asked for some of the salt for his meat and she had passed it to him.

“Thanks, mom.”

Albeit, small, it had been so sudden that she had completely froze up, crushing the salt shaker in her hands. In hindsight, she could have acted a bit more mature. She had stood up suddenly, to go to her room to hide her tears, but had been stopped by Liam, who said he’d never do it again.

He had a look of fear in his eyes, and a sheen of sweat that came from nerves. He had thought he had done something unexcusable, down on the floor with both knees in an attempt to grovel, and it came to her all of a sudden. By all accounts of her actions, and the way she behaved towards him, could this reaction truly be his fault?

She had come to this district for the two of them to start over, to become a family again...

But had she ever once truly acted like his mother since they arrived?

It made her realize that she never once tried truly reaching out to him. She had never acted thankful, or happy, or… or anything. The responses she had given to his kindness were always vague and insignificant, a show of thanks behind a mask of caution. That was how people were raised to be like, soldiering on in the face of adversity. It might have been the first time she had hugged him since he had been just a toddler.

He had screamed but when the boy realized he hadn’t died, he had asked what was happening. The two had started crying when she had explained, the first time either had seen the other that way. They were still distant in ways she didn’t like, but the two found solace with the familiarity, the only two strangers living in a new world, all from a single hug. It had been a heartwarming moment, and despite the few icy weeks afterwards the two had, at some point, grown unable to live without the other.

At least, she hoped the boy loved her that much as well.

Her phone started ringing, catching her off guard as she went into her driveway. The thoughts went to the back of her head as she picked it up, not even bothering to get her things as she left the car. It was a stranger’s number, but she’d become used to having customers calling her mobile, despite how many times she’d been adamant about calling only during work hours. She rarely bothered remembering their names, either. Her sparring business did great either way, thanks to her reputation.

Placing the phone to her ear, she rubbed the exhaustion from her eyes, knowing she’d have to prepare to pick up Liam from schoo-

“...Hey, mom?”