After we finally had a few moments to take a break away from the fog creature, we sat down to assess what was wrong with our bodies.

I winced, as I saw the strip of flesh between my knee and my calves now had a somewhat stony appearance. It was as if my bones were made of ice now, and the pain was bad enough that it made me want to slam my head into the ground over and over again until I blacked out. It wasn’t quite as bad as when I broke both three limbs, but it was close. I gasped, and then turned towards Felix and Sallia.

If my legs hurt this bad, how bad was Felix’s eye?

Had Sallia gotten hurt?

What about Anise?

I felt incredibly scared that they might die from whatever the fog creature had done to us.

Anise looked like she was only a step away from writhing in pain, and she was gently patting at her nose and mouth as her eyes teared up. Anise was still a child, and it looked like the pain was too much for her to bear. The fact that she hadn’t started bawling was already a testament to her willpower.

Felix wasn’t doing much better. He was simply clutching at his injured eye and taking shallow, desperate breaths as he tried not to collapse in pain.

A few moments later, Felix’s father collapsed to the floor, coughing as his lungs rebelled against him. I quickly realized that was the most serious injury, and started reaching towards my alteration essence. Perhaps a healing spell could fix this.

I tried to take a step closer to Felix’s father, but I stumbled and tripped, before flopping onto the ground.

My legs weren’t handling weight quite as well as they should. The pain wasn’t getting worse, but it certainly wasn’t getting better either. I gasped, and, through sheer force of will, managed to stand up and start slowly walking my way towards Felix’s father. His face was turning more and more pale as he tried to breathe and his lungs didn’t let him. Every single step I took felt like it took years, but finally, I reached him and slammed a healing ability directly into his body.

For a brief moment, Felix’s father seemed to feel a sense of relief. His shallow breathing started to correct itself, and the pain in his face started to recede. I relaxed a little bit. It seemed like my healing ability was still able to fix the injuries we had suffered. Now that Felix’s father wasn’t dying, I tossed a little alteration essence towards my legs to make it easier to walk, and then started making my way towards Anise. Felix could tolerate pain better than her, and since her nose and mouth were both gray, I was worried that she might have breathing issues.

However, before I finished making my way towards Anise, I heard Felix’s father start coughing again from behind me. A few moments later, the pain in my legs returned.

The bad feeling in the pit of my stomach grew worse.

“It… hurts… Lungs…” he said, gasping as I returned to his side and jammed another healing spell into his body. I didn’t know what else to do.

His facial expression improved again. But only for a few breaths. As I sat anxiously by his side, I could already see that he was in pain again a few seconds after I started healing him.

My healing spell wasn’t enough to fix the problem.

I swapped to my soul sight, and tried to find the ‘life force’ of the gray mist so that I could

“Mirrrra. Hurrrt.” said Anise, slurring her words as if she was drunk. She started slowly walking to me, tears trickling down her cheeks as she tried not to claw at her mouth.

Felix wasn’t making his way towards me, but I could see that he was still wincing in pain and clutching his injured eye.

Felix finally seemed to regain his focus, and turned towards Sallia. “One of my eyes hurts a lot. And I can’t see out of it. Sallia, is my eye ruined? Can your rune ability fix it?”

Sallia leaned closer to Felix, looking at his eye as she got her own healing ability from her runes ready. She tried healing Felix, and for a little bit, it worked. But soon, the pained expression in Felix’s face returned. Sallia grimaced.

“There’s… something inside of Felix’s eye. I can just barely see it, but I can’t tell what it is. It’s almost like his flesh has blended with the fog creature. Or something. I can heal the damage it’s causing, but unless the fog is removed, it’ll keep ruining my healing attempts. So we need to deal with that if we want these healing abilities to do anything,” she said.

I resisted the urge to gasp in pain as I put too much pressure on my legs, and then managed to nod. At least I understood why my healing wasn’t working anymore. I was successfully healing the damage, but afterwards, whatever was left inside of our bodies was immediately recreating the damage.

In that case, I just needed to kill the fog. I swapped to my soul sight, and looked for the life force of the mist inside Felix’s father’s lungs. If there was a living thing inside of his lungs, I just needed to extinguish it and then heal him.

However, when I looked at Felix’s father… I saw something strange. Instead of a glowing candle of life, like I had been expecting to see, there was a strange patch of… nothingness in his chest. His soul, his life force… it looked as if there was nothing at all where his lungs should be.

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I had no idea what to make of that, and I felt myself start to panic as I realized I had no idea what to do. Whatever this creature was doing to attack Felix’s father, I didn’t know how to fix it, and he was dying.

I gazed at Felix’s father, and felt a greater surge of fear.

If something was continuously destroying his lungs, would he die? I had nowhere near enough alteration essence to heal him every thirty seconds: the amount of essence that would require was mind-boggling to the current me. And even with my new Skill, I couldn’t regenerate essence fast enough to keep healing him forever. If I didn’t know how to solve the root of the problem, he would die sooner or later.

Sallia was also looking at Felix’s father with undisguised horror, and Ella was also starting to look worried again. I finally remembered that Ella’s arm was also gray, but she was handling her injury a lot better than Anise, Felix, and Felix’s father.

Felix gazed at his father for a few seconds, with concern in his eyes. Felix’s father looked at Sallia and I desperately.

“Is there-” Felix’s father started violently coughing again, and I saw a little blood come out. I poured another healing spell into his lungs, helping him breathe again. “-anything you can do?” He asked, finally finishing his sentence.

I tried to think about any solutions I had. I could try to fix his body with general shaping, but healing with general shaping was a lost art. While I could try, it would probably fail.

I turned towards Ella, but she shook her head. It seemed she didn’t have any ideas either.

I didn’t know how to extract the fog from his lungs, but without working lungs, Felix’s father would die. And Sallia’s rune ability didn’t seem able to remove the fog either.

Felix’s father seemed to lose himself in his thoughts for a few moments, broken up by increasingly severe coughing. I fired another healing spell at him, and for a moment, he looked relieved.

“I can try to heal you, but I probably won’t succeed. And failing will kill you,” said Ella, after a few moments. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your body, or how to fix it. But… maybe I can try something. I know that healing should be possible using general shaping, but it’s a lost art. I’ll probably fail. Miria, how long can you keep him alive?”

“Half an hour, maybe?” I said. I could probably heal Felix’s father around 12 or 13 more times, and each healing seemed to keep Felix’s father alive for another minute or two. I would also regenerate a little bit of alteration essence during that time, especially if I used my new Skill {Emptiness} to speed up my regeneration as much as possible. After that, Felix’s father would probably die as blood filled his lungs.

“Say any final words you have. Then Miria and I will try to keep you alive and get your lungs working again.”

Felix’s father froze for a moment, before he steeled his gaze. His eyes became resolute.

He hugged his wife, and planted a deep kiss on her lips. She looked at him, and kissed him back.

Felix’s father smiled gently at her.

“I’ve never regretted marrying you, Amelia. Not for a moment, and not for a single thing would I change it. It was one of the best decisions of my li-.” He winced as he coughed, and then planted one final kiss on her lips. I hurled another healing ability at him, trying to ignore the pain in my own legs.

Then, he turned towards Felix, and gave Felix a hug and a kiss on the forehead. “I love you too, Felix. You’re my son, and I-” he started coughing again. Talking seemed to aggravate his wound even more. Or perhaps my healing spell wasn’t removing the fluid in his lungs properly. I got even more worried, and tried to reach my hand out to cover his mouth. Him talking seemed to be a bad idea. However, Felix’s father shook his head, and pushed my hand away.

“-I’m proud of you. You have so many things ahead of you. If I die now, make me proud. Okay?” Another fit of coughing interrupted whatever else he wanted to say, but he still managed to ruffle Felix’s hair.

Felix’s eyes started to tear up, and he nodded.

Then, Felix’s father stepped towards Ella. “Do what you can. Please look after my family if I don’t make it.”

Ella nodded mutely, and turned towards me.

“I’m going to try using general shaping to lean into an alternate timeline where his lungs never got infected by the strange fog. It’s the best guess I have for how healing would work using general shaping. If he starts coughing or something seems wrong, immediately heal his lungs.”

I nodded.

Then, the two of us got to work. Ella did her very best to try to make up a realistic healing method for healing Collin, and I threw healing at him and prayed that he would survive.

Several minutes passed, as we desperately tried to keep Felix’s father alive. I kept healing him and healing him, spending every single second I could absorbing the air around us in order to make up for the alteration essence I was spending. However, it was nowhere near enough to replace how much essence I was spending. I was losing alteration essence faster than an engine that had been sliced in half with a chainsaw.

Meanwhile, Ella placed her hands on Collin’s chest and tried to heal him. I could see that she was trying to reconstruct his lungs using general shaping, but something felt wrong about what she was doing. I knew in my heart that Ella’s healing wouldn’t work, but I had no idea how to fix it.

About seven minutes in, Ella’s eyes widened, and Collin started coughing more and more severely. His eyes widened in pain, and he started gasping like a fish out of water.

I threw a healing spell at him, but nothing happened this time. His coughing didn’t stop. Whatever Ella had done had made it worse, instead of better. My healing ability didn’t even recognize Collin’s collapsing lungs as a ‘problem’ anymore, and so my healing spell was just ignoring it completely.

I threw another healing spell at him, hoping I was just misunderstanding what was happening. Once again, my healing spell simply flowed through his body and did nothing whatsoever.

Before I could try again, Ella shook her head.

“I messed up.” She laughed, hollowly. “I guess that’s to be expected. I’m out of essence, too. I’m…” she shook her head.

Felix’s father started to cough more and more violently, as Ella nearly drooped to the ground. Still, she managed to support her body and turn back towards Felix’s father. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Felix’s father was coughing more and more violently, but he still managed to convey a nod towards Ella and I. I could see a great deal of pain in his eyes, but there was also a final, lingering note of acceptance.

He reached out his hand towards his wife and held her hand, one final time. She started crying, but held his hand firmly and tightly. As if even if the world ended, she would keep her grip on his hand.

As if nothing else mattered to her.

For one final moment, the two looked at each other. Rather than pain, their eyes were filled with love.

A few moments later, he stopped breathing as he closed his eyes forever.

Even in his final moments, he never let go of his wife’s hand.