After a few minutes of just letting my friend hug me, the two of us separated again, and we finished eating. However, a few questions kept swirling around in my head. Ones that I had never considered before. Now that I felt a little bit less bad, I had time to really think about my own actions, and what I wanted in the future.

When was I okay with escalating a fight to the point of lethality?

When was I willing to cut my losses, and stop caring about someone?

Could I stop caring about someone?

How did I want to act in future worlds to remain true to myself, while also being able to adapt to the local culture?

When I expressed these thoughts to Sallia, she shrugged.

“I think you need to decide for yourself, Mir,” she said. “But personally, I think that you would be sad if you resorted to violence against people you didn’t think deserved it. So I guess for the first question, it’s a matter of who you feel deserves to be hurt. I think the big reason the deaths of those thugs seem to be bothering you is that you weren’t totally resolved that they deserved it.”

“What makes you think I care so much about who ‘deserves’ to be attacked?” I asked. I didn’t disagree with Sallia’s words, but I was curious.

Sallia smiled. “Because you try so very, very hard to be a good person,” she said.

I blinked, and looked at her in confusion.

“Do you remember our first world? The islands world, where I could barely do anything?” asked Sallia.

I nodded.

“I felt sad a lot of the time there. I felt like I was so full of potential, and I was so eager to make something out of myself - but I couldn’t do anything. My body’s innate potential was just too low,” said Sallia. “During those days, you and Felix were like my beacons of light. You made me feel hopeful, and even though nothing worked perfectly, in the end, I got by. And in our last world, we might have died horrifically… but we tried as best we could to shut down the portal and save the world. We may have failed catastrophically, but I’m happy with who I am as a person when we try to make the worlds we encounter better places. I’ve never made a decision that I’ve regretted since I met you and Felix.” Then, her eyes turned serious, and for a moment, it looked like she was trying to stare straight through me.

“I think that this world will be hard for you,” said Sallia. “Living in the slums means that we’re going to need to handle a lot of things we’ve never handled before. People being bad a lot more often, and bad things happening often. We’ve never had to deal with that on a deeply personal level before. And I think that it’ll be hard for you to watch if something bad is happening in front of you, even if it might get you caught up in trouble that you wouldn’t otherwise be involved in.” Sallia shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. But I do think that’s what makes you… well, you. And we’re also going to get into more situations like this one. Times were people attack us, but maybe don’t intend to kill us. Or maybe kids that are younger than us might try to rob us - I can definitely imagine that happening, and I can also imagine you freezing up in that situation.” Sallia sighed.

“Either way, I think you’ll charge into trouble, but have a hard time figuring out what decisions are right for you. I can’t give you a list of answers that you’ll like - but I can be here with you while you figure out what you want and what you don’t want, at least.”

“What makes you think I’m just going to charge into trouble?” I asked, cradling the still-warm bowl of soup. I tried not to think about the thugs that we had killed.

Sallia was right. The reason I was hesitating so much over having killed them was because I wasn’t sure that they deserved to die. They had intended to beat us, but it hadn’t sounded like they meant to kill us. That made me feel guilty for killing them, even if a grown man beating a four year old kid still definitely gave us some right to self-defense. I wasn’t sure if that extended to lethal countermeasures, but if I had broken their arms, or something, I wouldn’t have felt guilty at all.

“The reason I'm sure you’ll charge into trouble this life is your attitude towards your mother,” said Sallia, chuckling. “If my mother was addicted to drugs and barely functioning, I probably wouldn’t put much effort into trying to heal her. It may sound cruel and selfish, but… after four lives, I’m a lot less attached to things like biology than before. If someone gives birth to me, that’s nice, but I won’t wade through hell for them. If they give me love and respect, that’s one thing - I’ll be happy to return it. But so far, your mother has brought guilt and neglect to your doorstep. Not love.”

I paused, thinking about the time my mother had sobbed and apologized to me. Despite obviously feeling guilty about her actions, she had never shown that she truly valued me more than her drugs. I didn’t know if that was because she was lost in the haze of her drugs, or if it was because she had always valued the drugs over me… but I at least wanted to find out if she could change.

And based on Sallia’s words, that was already weird.

Sallia chuckled. “See? You’re still thinking about trying to help her. I know that expression. You make it when you’re about to do something dumb that might get you into trouble.” she sighed, and stroked my head again. “I won’t stop you. But remember - some people can’t be saved. Not everyone can act in their own best interest. Even if you give someone every single chance to get to a better place… they don’t always take that chance. Anyway, what I’m saying is that I want you to remember that sometimes, you can cut your losses and say that it’s someone else’s mess. We’ve had four families now - and in the future, we’re going to have even more. Not all of them are going to be good people, and not all of them are going to be in a good place, either. So you don’t have to be responsible for everyone’s problems just because they’re related to you.” She gave one last, quick hug.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“And I also want you to remember that I’m here for you. No matter what. You’re the big sister I never had in my first life. No matter what happens, I will always be there for you.” And then, Sallia chuckled. “So I’ll help you with whatever you want to do, okay? For now, we’ll see if we can find a way to get your mother cleaned up, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll go from there.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problem at all,” said Sallia. Then, she laughed, patted me on the shoulder, and helped me stand up.

“Do you feel better?” she asked.

I paused, and thought about Sallia’s question for a moment.

Did I feel better?

A bit. There was a feeling of normalcy now, that hadn’t been present before. Seeing Sallia, and just getting a nice dinner at a random restaurant and talking made me feel more normal again.

And when my food situation was chaotic, I lived in the middle of gangland, and my mother was addicted to drugs, I valued whatever shreds of normalcy I could get my hands on.

I smiled.

“I still have a lot of things I need to think about, but I feel better,” I said. “I’m glad that you pulled me out of my thoughts for a bit.”

“You’d do the same for me if I needed it,” said Sallia, her voice oozing confidence. “Besides, I just wanted to go on a lunch date with you and hang out for a while.”

After that, the two of us stopped talking in islander, reverting back to this country’s language.

After a few hours, we finished our bowl of soup and bread, thanked Old Mo for letting us sit at our table way past the time he probably should have let us hang around, and left. Old Mo gave us cheery grins as we made our way out of the shop, and I decided to memorize the way to Old Mo’s bakery. Maybe in the future I would come back to this shop more often.

Sallia and I parted ways and started making our way home after that.

As I walked back home, I continued to occasionally use my ability to check my surroundings for people following me. Some gang members had already showed up, after all, and I wouldn’t be totally surprised if more came. I wanted to be aware of any potential threats before I got shot in the back of the head. Luckily, nobody followed me, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

When I returned home, I found my mother laying in her usual corner, a glazed expression in her eyes as she shivered in throes of her drugs.

I hesitated for a moment, before I walked up to her.

“Mom?” I asked.

She didn’t respond.

“Mom? Can we talk?” I wasn’t entirely sure how to broach the conversation topic with her, but I couldn’t just keep doing nothing, either. Since I couldn’t really make progress against my mother’s addiction without her consciously making an effort to improve, I needed to talk with her.

Unfortunately, my mother was unable to talk right now.

I tried a few more times, even going as far as tapping her on the forehead and splashing a bit of water on her face. But she didn’t respond at all.

I felt a glimmer of a dark, empty emotion well up in my stomach when I saw my mother laying helpless and unresponsive in the corner of the room again, and I realized that I had felt it before.

I went to bed a few minutes later, still thinking about my own emotions and what I wanted in this life.

As I lay in bed and thought, thoughts started to flash through my mind.

Faces of people I had lost appeared in my thoughts, one by one.

Silas and Astra, the parents of my first life.

Olav and the members of the flying boat I had been on in the islands.

Laura, my bratty sister from the second world.

Ruman and Lauren, my two older brothers.

Ella, the woman who had taught me shaping and adopted me when my first set of parents disappeared into the tunnels.

Face after face of people I had cared about and lost flashed through my mind, and I realize why I had been so ready to resort to lethal violence during our encounter with the thugs.

I was hurt. Every single time I lost someone I cared about, it hurt. And That made me want to train harder, so that I wouldn't lose anyone again. But I just kept losing people every single life. And I was also terrified that in a few lives, the four of us wouldn’t succeed in gaining the right to buy more lives. The monsters we had seen so far in the Market were already powerful and dangerous. Even if we hadn’t seen the creature that guarded wherever we could buy more lives, I was sure it was going to be terrifying. So I was always desperately training and trying to reach an imaginary goal I felt I needed to reach, because I was always afraid of losing Sallia, Felix, or Anise.

So I was trapped in a cycle of constantly training, constantly hurting, and constantly being afraid of the next loss. That was definitely affecting my mind. I hadn’t noticed it yet, but the constant loss and fear of more loss was like a disease, lurking underneath my emotions and ready to pounce at any time. I was also becoming very used to violence being both common, and the best solution to any problem I encountered. Monsters weren’t exactly known for reasoning with people, after all, and the invaders from my first life also would have probably invaded the island even if I tried to talk them out of it.

I was as taut as a bowstring about to snap, and I hadn't even realized it yet.

I had been rushing this life, trying so hard to prevent another loss, but I hadn't een realized that I was rushing until now.

I sighed as I continued to lay in bed, trapped in my own thoughts.

It took a long time for me to finally fall asleep.