No time, no time, no time.

“We don’t have time!” I screamed.

Ah! Why are we always running away from everything!

Something grabs my leg and I get pulled to the floor. I trip with myself while trying to turn back to see the vampire holding me down.

“Let go!” I demanded. “Don’t you see--” I kick him in the face -- “we’re going to die?!”

“When I’m done with y--” the vampire gets interrupted by a foot launching it towards the right wall. The impact breaks the wooden wall and the vampire is now halfway stuck into it, but it remains conscious, strong, and probably very angry we might have screwed up his makeup.

“Get up!” Tedet holds me by the arm and took no time to wait for me to react before he pulls me up to my feet, and then drags me towards a door.

“It’s about to blow, we need to take cover somewhere!” I screamed.

“There’s nowhere to go! We need to keep running!”

The clock’s ticking. The stone is humming. And for every step, we take we’re closer to death. We’re going to die. I can’t believe this is happening.

Out of all things. Out of everything that could have happened to us. From torvielas and vampires, from dangerous gangs, from any other supernatural-related monsters we could have encountered -- and actually, from any mugging, any roadside accident, and even a possible mechanical accident -- this is what is doing us in. My incompetence.

Sweet Mary, how much do I hate myself right now. This is not only stupid but incredibly embarrassing, and yet there’s nothing we can do about this thing that is about to turn this place into a recreation of an asteroid impact.

Oh, no, the shame! I can feel it!

I don’t want to die. But I especially don’t want to die like this. Heavens have mercy. If there is a god, please, give me at least some luck to survive the blast.

What’s worse is that I could’ve chucked the thing somewhere far away and then hide below inside the dungeon. That would have given us an actual fighting chance. But with the vampire on top of me, I just couldn’t think straight. When do I ever do that -- ah, why?!

Stop crying? See if you can do better than myself in the same situation, then you can call me a crybaby!

We could’ve probably been safe down there. Maybe try to block off the entrance. There were no objects around to block it quickly but maybe I could have tried using my prototype earth spell to cover us fro--

Sweet Mary and Lord Almighty, I can’t believe I’ve got a good idea.

“Wish me luck, Ted,” I said.

“Luck?! Just run!” he answered.

Come on, come on, come on. I only need to make it work once…

Earth. Rocks. Minerals. Calcites, phosphates, oxides. Come on…

Sand. Loam. Gravel. Clay. The components of soil. Come on. Think, think, think.

What a rock is. Where it comes from. How it is formed. I start making the idea of mountains and rocks forming. I think about how ancient people used to build buildings like pyramids and even the use of concrete. I make my mind take hold of the idea.

I think about a huge rock poking the ground. I think about a wall built with stone. I think about pouring concrete on a mold. I think about a barrier that stops attacks. I think about a shield. A shield is what I want. A shield is what we need.

A shield of earth. A shield of rock. A shield of hardened earthly material, those that need explosives to break apart.

I hold into it and provide it with a name, one that I’ve thought about long ago and kept thinking about it. I swallow my energy and start waving my magical mind arm. It’s ready.

I turn around and point at the floor beneath us. “Scutum!” I shout and my magic flows into the ground like it had been shot from a gun.

I grab Teddet by the arm and stop him from running, then start pulling towards the floor I pointed at. When I turn around I found myself behind what I had created.

“Fuck,” I said. “That’s not it!”

“Did you stop me for that?”

The ground had only bulged up.

“Scutum!” I scream again and the ground rumbles and humps up a little more.

“We need to go,” said Tedet alarmed. “We’re wasting time.”

I become angry. Angry at the fact that Tedet didn’t trust me. Angry at myself for putting us into this situation, for putting Tedet’s life and risk. What am I gonna tell his girlfriend? That is if I still live. And I was also angry at the fact I was going to die pathetically.

But most of all, I was angry that I had finally started a relationship with Martin and I was about to waste it all to something stupid.

Fuck this situation. Fuck that pebble. Fuck the vampires and fuck Uderach!

I point at the way Tedet was running towards, very close to the doorway. “Scutum!” I scream again and my magic flows stronger, fueled by my anger, boosted by my emotions running amok.

The floor broke apart, upwards, and a wall of smooth, hard stone ejected from there. Like a cartoon character, Tedet almost trips and crashes into it.

My anger disappears with the advent of hope. I can see a future. I can see the light.

Before I notice I’m pulling Tedet behind the wall I created. It all feels like slow motion and as if I was watching someone else doing everything but with their point of view.

A flash of light illuminates us from above just as we are turning around. The heatwave burns our backs for an instant, and right as we find ourselves in safety behind the wall, the thunderous sound of the explosion cracks my eardrums, leaving me completely deaf. After a few moments, all I could hear is a muffled sound of air crushing into the building. The walls around us crumble and get dragged away.

Tedet and I fall into fetal positions, covering our heads and bodies with our limbs. I can feel myself shaking in fear. Tedet’s entire body has turned green with fear.

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The mansion, now turned into flying rubble, rushes past us and collides unto the rock wall, practically turning into dust, and then rain along with little pebbles that are falling from the wall.

I can now hear myself whimper. Or at least I imagine hearing myself whimpering because I was sure I had been making noises. The wind and the noise from all the rubble make one hell of a roar that doesn’t allow us to hear at all, except the humming and ringing in my ears. The constant loud sounds and the first explosion must have hurt our ears enough to make them bleed -- at least mine must be since I feel the hurting.

The wind calms down but I barely notice until I feel a hand shake my back. I look up to see Tedet looking at me and shaking. I wasn’t sure if he was talking, raderas don’t move their mouths because their vocalizing organ allows them to speak without any other help from their mouth or even their lungs.

I then see his mouth open and move weirdly, like his face was that of a spider, its maws undulating before swallowing its prey whole. That would’ve given me chills had I not run out of any other emotion besides fear.

Tedet grabs me by the collar of my coat and lifts me. I think I grunt because it feels uncomfortable. I try standing up but the world starts to swirl. My eyes tell me I’m not moving but my brain thinks I’m not standing how I should, my sense of orientation is messed up. My brain starts moving the image of the world, twisting it from the focal point in my sight.

I feel nauseous. I try staying on foot but my feet move all over the place. The twisting couple with my waving posture pushes me over the edge. Tedet grabs me and holds me before I fall. I heave once before feeling my stomach churn and contract. The acidic taste of stomach acid fills my mouth and the smell of digested breakfast makes me heave again.

I get pulled to walk and I realize Tedet is holding on to me as we walk, helping me up with his pseudo-shoulders. I don’t know how he’s not affected by the explosion. I try speaking a ‘thank you’ before realizing that we can’t both hear. To my surprise, Tedet pats my chest. It’s getting increasingly harder to walk.

After few seconds I can finally open my eyes and I don’t feel like throwing up. My hurting ears finally hear the muffled world and the sound of scraping footsteps on the rocky floor.

“Ted,” I begin. I don’t know where to go from there. I just need to hear his voice. “You there?”

“Hold on, Ed,” he speaks. “You’re hurt.”

“My ears hurt.”

“Your leg must hurt too.”

“My leg?” I turn down and I see why I’ve been having trouble. My pants ripped open and the opening is painted bright red. I tried walking correctly but my foot is unresponsive. I take a step and I see the foot buckle under my weight, my ankle flexing freely in every direction. It was dislocated.

In a matter of milliseconds, my ankle begins to throb in deep acute pain.

“Agh!” I whine. I lose my balance.

Tedet hisses, and then speaks weird clickity-clackity sounds before saying something in English: “Don’t move too much.”

“My ankle…” I said between my teeth. “It hurts so much…” I suck air through my teeth as I try to hold my pain and wails. “What happened?”

“A rock fell on it,” he answered. “I thought you could still walk. You didn’t seem to have trouble until now.”

“It just started hurting.”

“Late reaction?”

Adrenaline, I think. It must have numbed it. “Adrenaline, maybe.”

Beyond us, I could see the rubble scattered from the explosion. All the pieces of wood and furniture that used to be part of the mansion. Occasionally, the ground sparkled from glass that had been grounded to a rough powder. It looks like the aftermath of a natural disaster.

A few steps later and I get tired of looking forward or down. I get the urge to look behind us -- some kind of instinct telling me to look for predators. I turn my head but I couldn’t glance all the way back without twisting my body, and that requires strength on places that are hurting a lot at the moment.

I didn’t need to glance all the way around to notice. If the front looked bad, the back must have looked even worse. Thanks to the smoke that covered the sky, the place that was looking kind of dark, and the only light that was illuminating us came from the huge lit pyre made from the mansion itself.

I managed to look back anyway. The view was both beautiful and sorrowful. I could see some part of the ground had lifted and piled up at, what I thought was, the edge of a crater.

“Sweet Mary…” I lamented.

“You did a number on them,” answered Ted.

“This might turn the balance of torviela and vampires on its head,” I said, letting my thought come out. “How many do you think died in there?”

“Fifty?”

“Wow…”

Fifty vampires was a lot. For me, it was a huge killstreak. And for the torviela, this also means that vampires not only have lowered in numbers but had a single strike team of two mortals level their base of operations into ash while disintegrating fifty of them in one go, then went on to live to tell the tale.

That won’t sit well with vampires and that will surely put them in a pinch. Most of the balance between supernatural creatures, and leeches, comes from a balance of threats and not numbers. An enemy will not attack so long as their opponent can threaten to take them out too. That’s very similar to how countries deal with nuclear wars and the possibility of mutual extinction. Animals and some supernatural creatures work similarly. If the threat is too big, it is best to keep your distance.

However, we had just shown torvielas that vampires may be a lot weaker than they thought. If two mortals can take out a hundred vampires so easily, it means that they must be pretty weak, and it might be worth taking them down despite a few casualties.

Vampires were at a war with each other just now. And now they might have to fight one against torvielas.

As for us, we have to leave quickly and go very far away. We need to prepare ourselves for the very real counter-offensive from vampires. What’s worse… they might still have my nephew which means they will try bargaining my life for his.

Can I do it? Can I sacrifice myself for my nephew?

Your blood doesn’t run thick in his veins, I was reminded.

For a second I felt scared. Not for my life, but for my principles.

I don’t want to die, but I can’t allow myself to leave my nephew to die either.

Before, I thought I could have a fighting chance against vampires if it was disorganized and they didn’t know much about him and me. But now, the jig must be up. They must know something is going on by now and that I’m looking for the kid. They won’t let him go easily and they will try baiting me.

Worse, they could come to my house and threaten to kill him in front of me, unless I give away my life for him.

I don’t know if I can take a hit like that. Dying for my nephew -- my sister’s son. The kid I used to play a little when he was only eight.

Jaser.

Can I do it for him?

I looked at Ted. I saw his face and felt his arm around him. I felt at ease when the thought of sacrifice came to me. I could easily do it for him.

Martin’s face came to me in a flash. I wouldn’t think twice for him either, I thought.

Hayier? It might take me a few seconds to decide, but in the end, I could do it.

Jaser on the other hand -- It’s been years. I barely know who he is now and, as far as I know, he was doing some shady stuff in BQ before he was kidnapped. Maybe it was the shady stuff the reason he was kidnapped.

What am I doing? Am I really making up excuses to not put my life for the life of my sister’s son? That great kid who used to call me Edmon out of tradition since he was four?

I don’t know what to think. I can choose what to do. I give my life a lot of importance, and I should. But he’s a kid. He’s still a kid -- he’s got all his life ahead of him.

As for me? As a wizard, I’ll be living for many, many decades. Even centuries if I’m unlucky -- I don’t think living that long is a good thing.

“What do I do?” I asked Tedet. “They’ll use him to get to me.”

He stops after a few moments of silence. “I can’t believe you’re thinking that,” he answered and shifted his weight. “You’d go so far as to exchange your life for his.”

“That’s the right thing to do,” I said, almost a whisper. “If I don’t then--”

“You would be smart.”

I got a little angry, despite knowing the cultural differences. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“I--” he began and stopped to look away. To look behind us. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Martin’s face flashed before my eyes. Tedet’s girlfriend appeared before me, too.

“Ted…” I started.

“Shut up,” he pulled me with him, my arm resting over his pseudo-shoulders. “Just walk, Ed.”

Who would have guessed I’d see this side of him. A side so soft and so exposed.

My precious friend cares about me too much to let me go, and so must think Martin. I want to save my nephew but I could be as selfish as to fulfill my righteous sacrifice for the sake of one single person? I did not put Jaser in this predicament, it was his own mistake. I had no responsibility to save him, and yet I do have a responsibility to my friend and lover to stay alive.

I didn’t find a new resolve. I just felt like I had found my excuse. A real one. One I could use to stop myself from feeling bad if the time comes. Or at best, less crappy.

However, giving up on sacrifice does not mean giving up on Jaser. There has to be a way to save him.

“There has to be another way to save him…” I said, without realizing.

Tedet looked at me while we walked. “That’s more like it,” he said, and I smiled at him. “I still don’t like you putting us in danger for him.”

I couldn’t help but grunt at that.

“Dammed alchemist,” I insulted him.

“Dammed Edwhite Avarez.”