I am asleep. I hear nothing but the waves surrounding me as the frostbite attacks my skin relentlessly. The tides surround me, swishing me around, toying with me as if I was just another body taken by the waves. I am in great pain, but I do not mind. It is only at this very moment that I have realized my life has most surely come to an end.
Another wave threw my body into an arbitrary direction, this time making me hit a piece of wood, most probably wreckage from the ship. It hurts I thought, but I still refused to open my eyes and check the damage. I am tired, my body is irreparable, my only option now would be to accept this harsh world’s treatment and drown along with the countless others I’ve killed.
Even still, a small voice in my head beckoned, heck, even pleaded for me to open my eyes and live on. It was my mother’s voice. I heard her yell out for me to go downstairs and help her arrange the table before father comes back from work. When I heard those familiar words of hers, I wept. Tears trickled one after another, without any signs of stopping. I will never see them again.
After a while more of crying, my body took in some of the surrounding water, and I started choking in the sea. Can’t I die in peace?! I cried out as loud as I could, whilst still refusing to open my eyes. I wasn’t cut out for adventuring, but can’t I die in peace at least? Give me this much! I don’t want to witness my own death!
As I finally composed myself, I accidentally hit another floating body. Probably one of those bandits, I said to myself, those bastards ruined everything, serves them right.
But then, the body struggled for a bit. Strange, could they still be alive? I contemplated opening my eyes just to check, but I refrained. For my last sight to be that of the enemy, and such a pathetic one at that, I’d rather not.
The body flailed around a bit more. Even though we were in the waters of Sibirus, I still felt its warmth as it occasionally bumped into me. You’re not living through this, just give up I said to the poor soul. It suddenly heeded my words and stopped for a second, before swimming away from me.
I thought it strange for the enemy to listen to me, so I instead decided to open my eyelids out of curiosity, if only for a bit. The person swimming away from me was quite small, and they seemed to be looking for a big enough piece of wreckage to hold onto while they slowly drifted into the vast sea. Such commitment to survive… it’s almost inspiring.
My eyelids were starting to close once again. It appears my body was reaching its limit, but there was still one thing I didn’t understand. It’s always at times like these when Spark mysteriously activates, so why isn’t anything happening this time?
It may seem weird, but it appears my own body subconsciously wanted me to live on, so the fact that it’s doing nothing this time only proves that this is truly the end of Lune Grimheart. Well, then again, little is known about Iros, and a lot of new breakthroughs are being made, so there may be a logical reason for this. Thinking back, I did use Spark and Fireball a lot, so maybe I used it all up?
Eh, I don’t care anymore. I have no more reasons left to live. Cecily and Nelly popped up in my head, but I don’t really want to see them, I’m too ashamed. After them, Ed came to mind. We made tons of promises, from exploring the world, to understanding its mysteries.
Since we were in Sibirus, the nights were for whatever reason longer than the days, and by a large margin at that. I opened my eyes once again to take a proper look at the night sky (For the last image I see in my life to be the stars, I’ll accept that). Thousands of stars laid spread in front of me, as if each dot of light suggested something greater was beyond it. I recalled the time Ed and I looked at these very same stars back in Trivis Numerica. Back then we made a promise to figure out how and why the stars exist. I’m not sure if he took it seriously, but I never forgot that promise. If there’s anything I regretted in my life, it’d be not figuring out all the secrets behind them in time.
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Ed’s face faded out of my mind, and the guys from the gang popped up. Aaron, Max, even Carter. If they saw me in such a pitiable state, they’d probably have tons of things to say, but that didn’t happen. They simply stood there, looked me in the eyes, and smiled as if they simply waited for me to pick myself back up. Why? I yelled out, Why are you just staring at me?! Say something!
It was then that I finally realized the truth. I don’t want to die, damn it. I want to live! I have too much unfinished business! This epiphany made me quickly get my bearings, and I opened my eyes wide for the first time since falling into the water. I looked around for any land, but there was none. It was sea, and only that. No matter how much I wanted to live, the world simply can’t make the impossible possible. I’ve run out of miracles, and I am now all alone, adrift in the nigh endless sea.
“Fuck…” I mumbled as I shivered in the cold icy waters, “Fuck I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die man, I-I want to live FUCK I JUST WANT TO LIVE, PLEASE! BUT I DON’T WANT HARDSHIPS, IF YOU’RE JUST GONNA GIVE ME HARDSHIPS, THEN JUST LET ME DROWN. SHIT, IF I GIVE UP NOW I-I’LL DIE! WILL I DIE? WHAT’S SO BAD ABOUT DYING? OH FUCK! I W-WANNA DIE, BUT I DON’T? AM I CRAZY? FUUUUUCK!”
My screams and cries seemed to have rattled the other survivor, who previously swam to a nearby scrap of wood so as to stay afloat. I still couldn’t make out who they were exactly, since it was so dark out, but I noticed they started slowly paddling towards me.
“Did you get it all out of your system?” She asked me.
Huh? This voice…!
“Marina?” I answered her question with another question, “Y-You’re alive?”
“Trust me, Lune, I know all too well how it feels like to want to be alone and collect your thoughts. But shooing me away was kind of rude, y’know?”
“M-My God, y-you could’ve drowned because of me.” I started beating myself up, “I-If you didn’t find a scrap piece of wood to hold onto, you’d have drowned…!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t.” She said with a chuckle, “Don’t think about the what ifs, they didn’t happen.”
“God, I’m horrible. Kill me now!” I started tugging away at my wet hair as I ignored her advice.
“Woah, woah!” She got surprised, “Calm down! Everything’s fine-”
“EVERYTHING’S NOT FINE!” I interrupted her as I screamed in her face, “EVERYONE’S DEAD! WE’RE THE ONLY ONES LEFT, AND WE WON’T BE LIVING FOR LONG EITHER! THIS IS IT, CHECKMATE! HAHA, CHECKMA-!”
“…” Marina jumped from her scrap piece of wood and swam towards me, giving me a strong hug.
“W-What?” I asked, befuddled at her actions.
“It’s cold. We’ll warm up quicker this way.” She explained as she tightened her squeeze.
“Then you should’ve brought me up on the piece of wreckage with you instead, dummy.” I quietly returned the hug, “…But you’re right. It is warm.”
“You’re… precious to me.” She mumbled quietly, “Even more precious than you may think. When the going gets tough, I want to be by your side and set you straight.”
“Marina… Thank you.” I cried in her embrace, “Thank you…! So much!”
“You gonna throw in the towel early?” Marina asked with a calm and collected voice, “Gonna act like you went crazy from this journey?”
“…I have no right to.” I answered back.
“That’s right.” She said, “It wouldn’t be fair to them, would it?”
Suddenly, I looked up at the sky once again. I saw three people laughing at us from up above. Sullivan Streits, the young short guy who served as our party’s heart. He encouraged us to always stay optimistic. Genevra Lionheart, the woman who was our elder by a couple years, who saw through us whenever we tried to keep things from the party, she played the straight man when everyone was clowning around. And finally… Linus Tenford, the man who saved my life, no matter the cost. I wept once again, but this time it wasn’t for me. I wept for the three party members that we lost, the people who I’ve explored a long forgotten Dungeon with, the friends I’ve made along the way.
“Will we make it to the mainland?” I asked Marina.
“Who knows?” She joked, “But if we do, we’ll make it together. For them, and for us. We’ll tell their tale, they will live on inside us, even if they’re not here right now.”
“…” I stayed quiet, before looking at her eyes that shined an beautiful brown color, “We better start paddling then, we’ve got a long way to go before we reach any semblance of land.”
“Yeah…” She slowly let go of me so we could both climb onto the wooden wreckage.
The waves calmed down, and as we slowly hopped up on the lone piece of wreckage together, the morning Sun finally arrived as dawn broke upon us. Drifting across these lonely waves, for the first time since leaving Bilgam, I felt I wasn’t alone anymore.