At my speed, I quickly reached the edge of Nexus and reached the mountain range around the city. As I searched, it was easy to fly over the mountains and through the clouds, and I soon found the crater Orrin mentioned. The crater looked more like a hole straight down with sheer cliffs on either side, like an inverted devil’s tower. The cliffs around the hole had terraces built into them, with rows upon rows of stone seating all the way down to the bottom, where a stone stage was two kilometers below the surface. Around the edge of the crater were dozens of peach and orange trees. Under one of these trees, standing at the edge of the crater with a bottle in her hand, stood Cami.
I quickly dropped down on the other side of the trees and ran through them, retracting my wings so they wouldn’t hit any of the low branches, making them disappear entirely. I then ran through the small grove, only stopping once I saw Cami again. She still stood on the edge as she took a long draft from the bottle in her hand. I looked around the area where she stood and saw half a dozen empty one-liter bottles scattered around her. Once Cami finished drinking from the bottle in her hand, it slipped from her fingers, and she stared blankly ahead of her.
“Uh, Cami,” I said hesitantly.
Cami didn’t react and instead continued to stare off into space. As I was about to repeat her name, I stepped forward, and Cami finally answered, “Hey, Zeana. Please, don’t come any closer.” Her voice sounded low and sad, nothing like the high, energetic, happy tone she usually uses.
I stepped back and said, “O-okay. Ummm, mind telling me why you’re up here? Where you’ve been all night? And why you never came back to the room.”
Cami scoffed and shook her head, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” I said challengingly.
Bringing the bottle back up to her lips, only to find it was empty. Cami tossed the bottle off the cliff before her. It struck the ground far below with a loud crash a few seconds later. “Try you,” Cami scoffed again, “You don’t know the first thing about me, and you expect me to be able to explain what’s wrong with me.”
“Yes,” I said simply, “Cami, you’re my friend. Through good times and bad times. Even if I can’t relate to everything you may have to say, I hold no judgments toward anything you have to say, and I will listen to everything you have to say.”
With a long, deep breath, Cami turned around, facing me for the first time since this conversation. Her blue eyes looked bloodshot and puffy, her hair a mess with a few strands over her face. “Do you know what order we arrived on this world in?” Cami asked. I shook my head, and she continued, “Scarlet was the first one here twelve years ago. She’s twenty now. After her, Shiro and his sister arrived a year after Scarlet. A year after them, Jax and Xiao. Then finally, me a year after that.” Cami hung her head, struggling to hold back tears as she mumbled, “At least that’s what everyone thinks.”
I cocked my head a little as I asked, “What do you mean?”
Cami took another deep breath and said, “That’s not the order of people’s arrivals.” She paused momentarily before mumbling, “I was the first person to arrive here. I’ve lived on this planet alone for the past five-hundred sixteen years.”
My jaw dropped at the revelation as I tried to comprehend how long that must have been and how lonely she must have felt. “What—How—What?” I stammered as I struggled to process this new information.
Cami chuckled a little at my befuddlement and said, “See, I told you, you didn’t know the first thing about me.” Then she sighed before continuing her story, “I’ve lived here longer than most people ever have or ever will. I’ve seen empires rise and fall. Wars fought over stupid grievances … friends die slow deaths.
“The first hundred years wasn’t so bad, living by myself, making friends here and there. I had enough power to catch food and live off the land without any trouble. The second and third hundred years just got steadily worse as wars began spreading across the world, and monsters were hunted for food and to be enslaved as weapons of war. I was lucky enough to evade anyone who tried to come near me. The fourth hundred-year was the worst of them all. Trappers cornered me, knowing I was a monster, and I guess the stress got to me. I lost control and became what I was meant to be. A monster. I killed all of them and so many more,” Tears began to flow down Cami’s face as she struggled to keep her composure.
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“Cami,” I said softly, “It’s not your fault. You were scared and just trying to survive.”
Cami shook her head, “No, that wasn’t the worst of it. When you lose control and let the monster within you take over, you’re nothing more than a passenger within your body. I had to watch as I killed and ate people. Most of them were soldiers and cultivators assigned to kill me. I don’t even remember their faces. Just their screams, constantly yelling in my head. The hundred years went by in a blur as I killed my way across the world. I only killed people who came near me, though most of them were never innocent.”
“See, Cami,” I interrupted, “I can understand that. You shouldn’t feel guilt or anything for those people. Let’s go back to Nexus. Everyone’s worried about you.”
With another scoff, Cami shook her head and turned around, “You could never understand. Last night, I went drinking with Shiro, Jax, and Xiao. We talked, enjoyed a good time, and celebrated Shiro and Scarlet getting together. When Shiro told me, you talked with his sister, and she told you their entire story.” Cami sniffed again, taking another deep breath, “I said most of the people I killed were never innocent. Most of them. I killed one innocent person who got too close. She had long blond and black hair with red eyes.”
Cami stopped talking as I processed what she said, and everything became clear. “You—you killed—” I stammered before Cami cut me off with a nod.
“I killed Shiro’s sister,” Cami confirmed, her voice weak and on the brink of tears. “I’ve known I killed her ever since I first met Shiro, and I’ve done everything in my power to make it up to him. But there’s nothing I can do to fix what I took. Once I realized I killed an innocent person, I stopped being a monster and became the person you know today. And now everyone knows what I did, so there’s no point in going on. There’s no way to change the past and no future that lets me stay as I am,” Cami said as she dragged her foot and took a half-step forward with her left foot, the toe of her shoe over the edge.
“NO! CAMI! WAIT!” I yelled, but she didn’t turn around as she raised her foot over the cliff’s edge.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?!” a familiar yell rang out through the grove directly behind me, making me jump, and Cami stumble back a step away from the edge as we both turned to see Shiro walking toward us a few meters away.
“Shiro. I—I … how much—” Cami stuttered.
“I heard enough to know you killed my sister!” Shiro shouted, his voice not quite a yell.
Cami looked away from him in shame, saying, “I’m—I’m so sorry, Shiro. I—” Cami’s composure began to break as she spoke, tears running down her cheeks as she sobbed uncontrollably.
Shiro ignored her and walked past me without so much as a glance my way. Cami shook her head and took a step back and another as she forgot the cliff’s edge and stepped off the edge. A scream left her lips as she fell back, and in a blink, Shiro shot forward and grabbed her arm as they flailed out wildly. With a slight heave of strength, he pulled Cami back onto the cliff and into a hug.
Cami seemed to freeze at his actions and, after a moment, began pounding on his chest as she protested weakly, “Let me go. I need to—”
“You need to shut up and listen, Cami,” Shiro said, sternly but not in a mean way. Cami did as she was told and listened. “You think killing yourself will help me? Do you think revenge is something my sister would want? I saw my sister die that day. I saw you run off into the woods. I’ve known you killed my sister since the moment you transformed into a monster for the first time in front of me.”
“You knew? You knew and didn’t say anything?” Cami asked, astonished, with fear creeping into her voice.
“I knew,” Shiro confirmed with a whisper, “At first, I was so angry I wanted to scream and kill you myself. But then, I would be no better than the monster that killed my sister. So, I waited and saw the person under the mask you wear. That person is not a monster. She’s one of my best friends, and I wouldn’t know what to do without her.”
“Awww,” I cooed, unable to contain it.
“SHUT UP, ZEANA! YOU’RE RUINING THE MOMENT!!” Shiro yelled at me. I regret nothing.
Cami shook her head and asked, “But why—”
“Because it’s what my sister would have done,” Shiro interrupted Cami again before continuing, “If you really want to make it up to me, stay alive and live a good life. A better life.”
Cami looked up at Shiro with tears in her eyes as she began to sob uncontrollably and buried her head in his chest. Shiro hugged her close and breathed a sigh of relief. I walked over and joined them in the hug as Shiro wrapped his arms around me as well. As we stood there consoling Cami, she slowly began to calm down and get control of her breathing.
After a few moments, when she finally finished crying, I whispered into her ear one last question, “So, about the twelve-hundred Lucre you stole from me?”