The two of us started, my heart in my throat. “Damn it, Phoenix! How long have you been standing there?” I asked, mortified.
“Long enough to hear the juicy bits.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Well. I'm going to bed. I need a break. From all of this.”
The teenager nodded, letting us pass. Then she paused before hesitantly asking, “Hey, did you guys run into a girl named Anna in your Dungeon, by the way? She’s Carrie’s daughter and my… friend. Carrie won't say it, but she's been super worried about her.”
I wasn't sure how to reply. The older woman clearly hadn't shared Anna’s fate with Phoenix, despite their supposed friendship. Though her hesitation suggested something else, or something more. But it wasn't my business to divulge the news of her passing either. So how did I word this without tangling myself into a different lie completely?
Axel’s head tilted. “We did, but we lost her.”
Once again I was left impressed by Axel’s ability to manipulate his truth to steer the conversation elsewhere. And with such a quick turnaround.
Phoenix let out a short disappointed huff; the most emotion I'd heard from her all night. “Well, that sucks.” Her gaze wandered in the direction of the street of tents the permanent residents stayed in, a glint of concern in her big doe eyes.
“I don't think Carrie's been sleeping. At all.”
Axel and I exchanged a look.
I said, “Let's hope she gets some rest tonight then.”
The mousy brunette nodded. “I'll see you all in the morning for breakfast.” She leaned forward and whispered, conspiratorially, “Word of warning: Killian always burns the toast. He scrapes the black stuff off, but you can still taste the residue.”
After thanking her, and pawning off the whistle, Axel and I returned to the guest tents.
There was an awkward moment as I crawled in and he followed after me while we set up our sleeping situation. For some reason, an air of tension rested between us, something that had never been there before. Was it because everything was out in the open now?
“I can sleep outside the tent, if you want,” Axel finally offered, his voice low. The others already seemed to be fully asleep, soft snores and breathing stemming from their respective tents. He continued, “We're all already inside anyway.”
Frowning, I replied, “Why would I want you to do that?”
His eyes narrowed. “Look, I know it may come as a surprise to you, but I'm trying to be a gentleman.” At my blank expression, the blond elaborated, “I do not control sleeping-Axel. He may spoon you.”
“Come on, man, don't be weird about this.” I wriggled into my sleeping bag, now overly conscious of the warmth emanating from Axel beside me.
“As the Deities as my witnesses, I’ve given fair warning. I cannot be tried or blamed for–”
“Just shut up and go to sleep.”
With a chortle, he zipped his sleeping bag up around him. He lied down, putting our faces only centimetres apart. His breath tickled against my lips, and I could’ve counted each of his eyelashes. In that single moment, I found my gaze tracing the planes of his face, the highs of his cheeks, the point of his nose, the curve of his jawline, the dip of his cupid’s bow; all of it proportioned to sublime perfection. He really was frustratingly gorgeous.
Axel smiled as I scowled.
“Roll over.”
“I sleep on my left.”
Irritated, I clamped my eyes shut, simmering in the darkness of my clenched eyelids. I could only fall asleep on my right, though I did toss and turn a little in my dreams. With any luck I'd kick him in the night. It would serve him right, being so obstinate.
Despite how close we were, I was exhausted enough not to mind. As I began to doze off, Axel spoke, his voice a fraction above a whisper.
“Did you really think I’d sleep with Killian tonight?”
My eyes flashed open, meeting Axel’s. Yeah. He really did know me too well.
I paused before saying, “It seemed likely.”
“Jealous much?” He smirked.
Giving him a death glare, and embarrassingly realising that’s exactly how I’d felt and hadn’t known it until he'd confronted me with it, I rolled over, not caring that I was unlikely to fall asleep on my left.
Maybe I had been jealous of Killian: at the ease he made friends, at how simple his feelings for others were conveyed, at how much he’d made everyone smile. At the mere fact that he was uncaringly allosexual; a free pass at a normal untroubled life, being able to want and know what it was to be wanted back.
There was silence for a while as I worked my way through these thoughts, stewing in them.
Behind me, his breath hot on my neck, Axel asked, “So, you really don't feel anything from this?”
It was genuine curiosity, I could tell, and it brought me out of my previous downward spiral.
I’d never really discussed what my asexuality meant in terms of physical intimacy, despite Axel's openness regarding sex in general. It wasn't really a casual conversation one had with a friend. And given we weren’t even really friends for a long time, it was something I’d never talked to him about.
Not to mention Axel's breadth of experience shadowed mine, so maybe it was a little bit of an inferiority complex too, which made no sense as I wasn't even particularly interested in the sport. But feelings didn’t always make sense.
“Mostly I feel awkward,” I answered honestly.
“No desire to like… do anything?”
A spark of annoyance warded off the sleepiness that was beginning to take over, despite how I was laying. “Axel, for the last time, I'm not having–”
“I wasn't asking!” he hissed, and I could imagine his cheeks going pink.
It had amused me and taken me aback earlier how flustered he’d gotten when talking about sex with me. He was usually so cavalier about the topic, especially since he was fairly progressive in that regard. The things I'd heard him talking about with his party friends would've made Dionysus blush.
I felt him shift to his back. He must be staring up at the tent roof.
When he spoke, his voice faltered. “I just… I don't know. By now you should’ve given me a straight and unquestionable no, so I'm just trying to understand what I'm supposed to do.”
I didn't even try to fight the yawn that hit me. “It’s not that deep. Just act normal.”
My muscles began to loosen as the world started to fall away. I was so tired that I'd be out like a light in a few more seconds, my sleeping arrangements be damned. I was utterly and completely drained.
“So you say. But if you were acting normal, you'd have kicked me out already.”
The weight of the day was tugging me into unconsciousness.
“I said mostly awkward.”
The fabric of his pillow rustled and I could tell he had turned his head to face me again. I didn't have to guess what his expression would've been. “And what's the rest then?”
My breathing had slowed, and my senses began to dull. I thought about my response to his question as I fell into nothingness. What else did I feel? That was easy enough to answer. Under everything, it was how I always felt around Axel.
“Safe.”
Blackness claimed me. I was sure the muffled crying I heard was from my dreams, and it faded into the kaleidoscope of nonsense that followed.
A sound exploded into the quiet of the night.
Both Axel and I bolted up, deers in headlights, panicked, groggy.
During the night, I must've rolled onto my right again, as had Axel, based on the overlapping direction we had sprung awake. The residue of additional warmth lingering around the front of my body began to fade, the numbness of my arms from where they'd found themselves during my sleep tingling to life. Wait. Had I…
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“That was a gunshot,” Axel stated, his eyes red and voice hoarse.
There was the sound of commotion to our far right, and as we scrambled to get out of our sleeping bags, and my brain caught up to being conscious, I suddenly and irrevocably knew what had happened.
I fell back to the tent floor, weak limbed and ill, my body losing all control of itself at the realisation.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
Phoenix’s high-pitched scream cut through the open expanse of the warehouse that was Tentworld. Killian's came next, guttural and deep, and pained. He was repeating the same words again and again.
I'd been wrong.
I was always wrong.
We buried them together at dawn.
“You’re welcome to join us at another time, but right now…” Killian's words trailed off, his face bleak.
I nodded silently.
We didn't need to say anything else.
In a daze, Just Friends wandered away from Tentworld, leaving Killian to take a seat at the front lookout. One of the expected guests that had the misfortune to arrive during cleanup offered to take over, but the man shook his head. His hands gripped Carrie's shotgun tighter, his fingers whitening.
When Killian had spoken during the funeral, I'd finally understood their relationship. Carrie was… had been a high school teacher. She'd taught him, once. He said, fondly, that she was the only teacher he'd ever had that could kick his ass into gear. Phoenix had been too beside herself to speak, but that alone was more than words could ever say. The guests shared their stories too, but their faces and speeches were a blur to me.
Glancing one last time at Killian, the carefree man I'd dined with the night before now completely gone, I believed his words about Carrie setting him right. He looked like he’d aged years in the past few hours. I wasn’t sure a smile would find itself home on his face again.
As we walked, my stomach churning, I heard Gigi mutter under xir breath. “I do not understand.”
“She was sad,” Wren explained, voice as light as air itself.
“Suicide does not change that.”
“It stops it.”
“Man, I fully get it,” Jye said in a way that concerned me.
Gigi shook xir head. “Killing oneself does not stop the sadness. It is simply redistributed to others.”
“She made her choice. Not one I agree with, I gotta say, but I ain't her,” Tam commented, her eyes betraying only a glimmer of remorse.
I should've told Carrie.
If only I'd told her about the wish.
My feet stopped moving beneath me, too heavy to walk any further.
“Was I right to lie to her?” I questioned, though it really wasn’t what I wanted to ask.
Was it my fault?
Did I kill her?
The others came to a rest next to me.
Axel nodded. “She would've killed someone in our party if you hadn't.”
“But she died instead.”
“She chose to give up,” Tam said.
I shot her a glare. “We killed her daughter.”
Gigi’s silver eyes blinked slowly and xir hand reached out to gingerly pat my arm. In xir gaze I could see a pain I had never noticed before. It was hard when I barely knew Gigi, but it was obvious xe’d have to have gone through something similar if xe'd won xir wish.
The Linnikian shook xir head slowly. “It is the price that must be paid for the prize.”
“But we didn't pay it!” Anger fired off easily from me; it had been burning inside my gut for a long time. “Someone else did and everyone else will have to.”
Jye folded their buff arms. “Look at it this way, man. Do you really think other parties are going to use their wish to bring everyone back? I know when Nabu told us, it wasn’t my first thought.”
Wren spoke up. “I didn't think that first either.”
Brow furrowed, I glanced to the rest of the party.
Tam shook her head with a scoff. “Absolutely not.”
“It is not how I spent my wish,” Gigi said, eyes downcast.
When my gaze fell on Axel, he grinned, and my thoughts were slingshotted back to our conversation about what he wished for. I repressed the memory, squashing any emotional reaction, hoping the flush I felt along my neck wasn't visible.
“So, none of you thought to use it to save humanity?”
The party shrugged.
“I said you were messed up, sunshine,” Tam remarked. “Only someone with a complex has that idea come to them at the drop of a hat. You got scars, babes. Ugly, ugly scars.”
Ignoring her ability to accurately claw into my psyche, I asked, stunned, “What the hell did you all think first then?”
Jye snorted. “Dude, first of all, to justify this, fuck humanity. We’ve made a mess of the world. My first thought was like… a reset. Scrub religion and capitalism and everything that puts a divide between us all. Start it all again from the ground up, you know?”
“What about your siblings?” I hissed.
They shrugged, almost apologetically. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else at that moment.”
“Tam?” I wasn’t sure why I was checking with her. She was the most tightlipped in our party.
“I’ll give this one to you as a freebie, dandelion. I only got a handful of people I care about. That’s all that flashed through my mind. Not a lick of a thought was given to those outside that personal circle.”
I had no doubt Just Friends was excluded from her tight knit group.
Sheepishly, Wren said, “I think my first thought was that it would be really cool to live forever and know everything.” Her gaze flicked up to meet mine with a smile. “Sorry.”
Gigi frowned. “I have not heard tell of any worlds that chose full resurrection. Most parties who win are not so generous.” Xir expression told me that xe hadn’t been so kind either with xir wish.
I didn’t bother to ask Axel, knowing and being mortified by his past words.
So… it had just been me?
“I mean, after you said it, obviously it made sense,” Jye said. “It just wasn’t at the top of my wants list, you know? Like, people matter. You can’t just throw them away.” They paused, and I could tell they were thinking of two very specific people. “Well, not all of them, anyway.”
The ten-year-old nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! As soon as you said we’d be able to bring everyone back, I realised that was the right thing to do with the wish.”
Tam rolled her eyes. “Bigfoot has a point. I wouldn't bring everyone back, but I ain't got much of a say in this. Though I guess I can’t have a happy life without a society to operate in.”
It was baffling to me how no one else had considered it.
“Why was it your first thought?” Axel asked, head tilted in idle curiosity.
“It just seemed like the only thing we should use the wish for,” I replied.
“Like the right thing to do?” he offered.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Tucking a hand in the bow of my arm, Axel said, “And that’s why you didn’t tell Carrie what we did, right? Also why you didn’t say anything about the wish. You thought it was the right thing to do.”
My jaw clenched, thinking about the dark sleeping bags we’d buried hours before. “Yeah.”
“There you have it. Your moral compass might be on a high horse, Lee, but out of the six of us, you’re the only one whose first thought was to save the entire human race.” Axel’s smile was surprisingly warm and soft. “You’re a better man than you think you are.”
“It just feels like Carrie’s death could’ve been avoided,” I said, weakly, almost defeated by the tenderness in his gaze.
Tam let out a long sigh. She sounded disappointed. “Babes, if we’re really doing this, if your goal is to win this whole thing… No deaths can be avoided. It’s all downhill from here.”
I shook my head, putting my foot down. “No, we can’t think like that.”
“I hate to agree with her, but Nine Lives here is not wrong, dude,” Jye said. “You’re gonna die of guilt if you blame yourself for every death we see.”
“We’d be no better than the Deities if we treat every death like a stepping stone.”
This sobered the redhead and the cutthroat, and their expressions sombered.
Wren frowned. “So you’re going to keep count of them too then.” She was referring to my previous words about not letting her worry about the lives she saved or didn’t, about my tallying them instead. She looked concerned.
And perhaps it was too much to take the weight of every human life on my shoulders.
But someone had to.
Taking a breath, I started walking again, tugging Axel along to his surprise, since his arm had remained entwined with mine. “You’re right. All of you. And, on that note, your morality metres are absolutely out of fucking whack. Thankfully I’m here to steer you all in the right direction.”
The others jogged to catch up, and I got an earful from Jye, Tam, and Axel, but their exclamations only amused me. Us having this conversation did nothing to quell my guilt about Carrie’s suicide, or about Anna’s and Test Name’s deaths, or even the sinking understanding of the many, many, many more deaths to come we’d have a hand in some way or another, but it solidified something of a foundation beneath me.
None of them had questioned our ability to win, to receive the wish.
I don’t know why they believed in me or why I believed in us either.
But it felt good knowing that these people were by my side.
It was a thin line we were going to have to walk now, between making sure the Deities didn’t get bored and end the tutorial prematurely, and ensuring everyone didn’t level up ahead of us. And yet right now it all seemed possible.
We walked along the middle of the road, occasionally stopping to glance into abandoned vehicles, or stepping into the long-since looted stores that lined the streets. That wasn’t to say there was no activity. It seemed as though some nature was beginning to return to the city, with kangaroos bounding along sidewalks and birds flocking over the now quiet canopies of trees planted into road verges. We came across several people but there was something of a sceptical air about most of them and with nods, we were simply metaphorical ships passing in the night. It appeared conversation would not be welcome.
I didn’t blame them, considering what Carrie had said about the group demanding payment at the CBD Dungeon. In fact, I'd been expecting outright hostility from most.
Despite that, in a park we passed, a family was out having a picnic, and we gave them a wide berth. Who they were, how they’d gotten here, why they’d decided to go for lunch in the park, none of this I knew. But staring at them, and their smiling faces, I made up my mind.
I had two promises to fulfil.
One I’d sworn to Axel when he’d been dying in my lap.
That we’d see the end of this together.
The other, one I'd made to myself, was a little easier, but somehow the idea hurt.
It was time to take Wren home.