Before I could even think to stand, I was bowled over by the large projectile that was my mom. I couldn’t tell what she was saying, from the garbled and incoherent yelling she was spouting at me, and I didn’t particularly enjoy how she was practically slapping my arms and chest as she inspected them for any damage, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop.

I hadn’t wanted her to tag along, nor my dad. While I hadn’t actively expected that I would die, it had always been a possibility in the back of my mind, and I hadn’t thought my parents would be ready to see something like that.

I was right. I felt no satisfaction in that.

As my mom ran her hands over my arm and neck another time, I gently placed my hand over hers.

“I’m alright, mom,” I said. “It’s okay.”

My mom looked me dead in the eyes before losing strength in her body and collapsing into my lap. Though I felt her clinging desperately to the back of my shirt, I didn’t know whether she had passed out or not. I let her lay there either way.

Now that my mom had finally stopped jerking me around, I could finally take the time to look around me and gather my bearings. Physically I felt absolutely fine, which wasn’t surprising given the power behind Jamie’s healing magic, but I felt a bleary sluggishness that had nothing to do with my physical well being.

I had been dead after all. I wished I was more uncertain of that fact, but there was a certainty to the experience that I couldn’t possibly ignore. The memory would stick in the back of my mind for the rest of my life.

I felt somewhat grateful for the fact that my death left me thinking slower than usual. If I had to guess, the blood that was splattered over the ceiling, walls, and my clothes had probably belonged to me once. The gruesome scene might’ve been too much for me to handle if I was thinking properly. Even if I was used to the sight of blood from helping my dad out in the shop, it had never been my blood that I’d been covered in.

I looked away, not wanting to think about it anymore.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anywhere I could look without seeing something that I didn’t want to deal with at the moment.

Sera stood by the wall, trying her best not to look in my direction, a look of guilt on her face, probably because she hadn’t done anything to try to stop me from coming here.

My dad was kneeling down in front of Jamie, muttering a prayer under his breath and kissing the air above his feet.

Jamie didn’t seem to have noticed him, his eyes darting back and forth between me and the blood that stained his hands.

They were all obviously mentally distraught, but I really didn’t want to be the responsible one of the group. I just wanted to join them in their psychosis and curl up on the floor and either cry or go to sleep. Unfortunately, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye that I couldn’t quite ignore.

I let out a heavy sigh.

“Jamie?” I said.

Jamie gave a start at the sound of his name.

I didn’t quite have the motivation to lift my arm to point, so I just lazily motioned with my chin instead. Oren lay with his back against the wall, crumpled on the floor, wheezing and spluttering as his lungs struggled to work, but I couldn’t find it in me to find any sympathy for him. I’d never been a fan of him in the first place, and after hearing him torment Jamie to try and drive him to his death, my feelings of distaste for the man only grew exponentially.

But did he deserve to die?

I watched Jamie turn around and flinch once he noticed Oren, but he didn’t hesitate in raising his hands and closing his eyes. There was a bright flash of green light.

I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Jamie wasn’t a murderer. At least not an intentional one.

Oren blinked a few times before looking around himself and immediately bouncing to his feet, apparently not affected by the same daze that I was feeling, which made sense since he’d only been dying when Jamie healed him, not yet dead.

“Why are you not dead?” Oren asked.

Jamie seemed more surprised than offended. “What?”

Oren stared blankly at Jamie for a few seconds, as if he were confused by Jamie’s reaction. Eventually, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Jamie. I was momentarily confused. Please ignore my previous statement. But you must understand that you can never become an adventurer. Your previous crimes aside, assaulting a Mediator like myself would ensure that you would be banned from any government-sponsored establishment throughout Materia.”

“What?” Jamie asked again, apparently still too dazed to properly process what was going on.

Oren shook his head and laid a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Jamie, my brother. As your brother and best friend, I highly suggest you simply give up on your dream of becoming an adventurer.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“What?”

I groaned under my breath. I really didn’t want to deal with this. I looked at Sera with the hope that she would do something about it. Unfortunately, she was too busy staring blankly into space and avoiding my gaze to notice my silent request.

I groaned again, a little louder this time, and tried to push myself up. My mom’s grip tightened around my waist, but she was light enough that I managed to push myself up to my knees.

“Jamie,” I said, my voice still monotone from my recent death. “Don’t listen to him.”

Oren scowled. “I am your brother in all but blood, Jamie. I only want the best for you. Don’t listen to the civilian.”

“Oren,” I said, glaring at him. “Shut up.”

He glared down at me, the hatred in his eyes sharp enough that I bent over my mother’s body instinctively to protect her.

“Don’t try to order me around, civilian,” he said. “Your actions have been a gross violation of the trust given to you by our previous Leader. I will be reporting you on the charges of high treason once this mission is completed.”

I desperately wished that my mom wasn’t clinging onto me, because there was nothing I wanted to do more in this moment than stand up and punch Oren in the face. I was well aware that it would probably hurt me more than it did him, but I was currently too exhausted to think of any other comeback.

“Wait, what?” Jamie said, before I could think of something to say. “What? Oren, what are you talking about?”

Oren’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes widened as he stared at Jamie, as if just remembering that he was standing there.

“My brother,” he said. He paused for a few seconds before continuing. “The civilian. Lena. She is a bad person.”

In any other circumstance, I might have laughed at Oren’s crumbling facade, but I wasn’t in the mood for any amount of levity.

I could’ve just let Oren die. I didn’t have to point him out to Jamie, at least until I’d managed to calm him down somewhat. If Oren wasn’t alive, then convincing him that he wasn’t at fault for accidentally killing me would probably be going a lot smoother.

I recognized that was a dangerous thought to have. Even if death was technically transient with Jamie around to bring anyone back, after experiencing the cold emptiness of death, I couldn’t say that I’d lost any respect for it, and I didn’t want to give Jamie the burden of having to manipulate it so needlessly.

“See?” Oren said. “She says nothing. She cannot deny how terrible she is.”

“What are you talking about, Oren?” Jamie asked, backing away from him and almost tripping over my dad, who was still kneeling at his feet. “Lena’s cool.”

“She is not!” Oren said, his voice cracking as he shouted. With his fists clenched at his sides, he took a few deep breaths as he struggled to control his voice. From the way that he glared at me, I was surprised he hadn’t taken matters into his own hands and-

I blinked as Jamie suddenly appeared in front of me. I was too stunned by the speed of the action to process what had just happened, but with the tip of a knife pointing directly in between my eyes, grasped between Jamie’s fingers, it didn’t take me too long to figure it out.

I suddenly felt less guilty about the fact that I’d considered letting Oren die.

“What?” Jamie said, staring down at the knife in between his fingers like he had no idea where it came from. He glanced up at Oren, whose hand was still outstretched. “Why did you do that?”

Oren frowned and folded his arms together.

“I’ve already told you, my brother,” he said. “The civilian is evil. She plans to kill you.”

“Oren. Just shut up.”

I turned to the side to see Sera pointing a knife towards Oren, an angry scowl on her face.

Oren scowled back at her. “You have no authority over me. We are currently of the same rank, and I am your senior. I order you to stand down, Grunt.”

Sera seemed to be torn between whether she wanted to scream at or stab Oren, but before she could decide, a polite knock on wood interrupted her.

I turned around, and froze when I saw an inky silhouette peering inside.

Oh yeah.

With no eyes, I didn’t know whether it even needed to look in a specific direction to perceive things, but it was very clearly peering directly at Jamie, staring at him with where its eyes should have been.

The Demon’s outline vibrated slightly as it casually waved its hand.

“Oh,” Jamie said. “Hello?”

The Demon vibrated again and stepped into the room.

Instinctively, I tried to cover up my mom’s body to protect her from the threat, but before I could, I felt an arm deftly snaking itself underneath my arm and lifting me up to my feet in one quick motion.

“Run,” Sera said, right into my ear, before she lifted her free arm and pointed her palm at one of the walls.

There was a sudden increase in the volume of the rain as the wall crumbled away, as if it were made of thin puzzle pieces the entire time. Sera pushed me roughly and I stumbled forward to regain my footing, but I didn’t run like she wanted. Once I managed to find my footing on top of the wood chips that littered the floor, I turned around.

Sera gave me a frustrated glare before falling to her knees, and then to the floor. Jamie glanced at her and then at me, as if I had an answer for why she did what she did.

“That’s a Demon, Jamie,” I said, pointing at the Demon standing still in the room. I winced as the wind and rain assaulted my eyes and walked back under the shelter of what was left of the room.

Jamie stared blankly at me before turning to the Demon. The Demon tilted its head at me, as if confused by my claim.

“He looks like a normal person,” Jamie said.

“Well, he’s not,” I said, sighing. “You could probably do that thing you did before. Detect Demons? That would be an easy way to check, right?”

Jamie stared blankly at me and sighed. “What the hell is going on?” he muttered under his breath, before raising his arms. “Detect Demons.”

The effect of Jamie’s magic wasn’t nearly as dramatic or as visually striking as the first time he’d done it. The Demon in front of him simply pulsed a dull red.

The Demon froze and seemed to look down at its hands, as if it couldn’t believe what was happening to it.

“Well, there you have it,” I said. “You can kill this one pretty easily, right?”

The Demon’s head jolted up at my words, and it immediately jumped back as far away as it could. Reaching for its side, it drew an inky knife from where its belt would have been, and pointed it forwards. Its silhouette shook, but I wasn’t sure whether it was vibrating like before, or if it was shaking in fear.

Jamie frowned as he glanced between the Demon and me.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but closed it and shook his head.

“It’s not hurting anyone,” Jamie said.

The Demon lowered its knife slightly at his words. I frowned, knowing how much damage a Demon could do if it went unchecked.

“Not yet,” I said.

Jamie glanced at me for a second before giving the Demon a blank stare.

The Demon shook its head frantically and vibrated in place. The knife fell out of its hands and the tip stuck to the wood floor.

Jamie sighed and hung his head. “If you hurt anyone, I will hunt you down. Understood?”

The Demon nodded and sprinted down the hall, as if afraid that Jamie would change his mind.

As it left, my eyes shifted down to the Aether knife stuck in the floor, as it slowly started to dissipate away as it was cut off from its source. Jamie seemed to notice my gaze and looked down, just in time to see the last particles of the knife disappear.

He frowned and sighed.

“I would like to know what’s going on,” he said, his voice half demanding, half pleading. “Please.”