John walked back despondently to camp. He looked at the mosquitoes buzzing around the place and stood in front of them. He wondered how many of these mosquitoes were real and how many were artificial. Karamen was going to die and it was all his fault. If only he had been more alert. He should have phased out of the way at the first sign of danger.

“Please, please, please,” he said to the mosquitoes, “send us the antivenom to cure Karamen. I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”

The group immediately heard the sounds of beeping from their arm devices. John took a glance and ground his teeth in anger.

John had read enough. He noticed the rest of the group was reading as well. Karamen was looking at John with a strange look in his eye. Was he actually considering it?

“Do not worry,” Karamen said to him softly. “My morals are not that far gone. My virtuous upbringing is to blame.”

“We’ll find a way,” promised John.

“I’m sure we will,” Karamen took John’s outstretched arm as support to stand up. “My head’s already feeling a little funny. Let’s go while I can still move.”

The team moved through the forest once again. Karamen was merrily singing. Nobody tried stopping him, even though it could attract more monsters towards them. Let a dying man have his last wish. They came upon another giant horned serpent. This time John used dark rainfall from the get go, and Ara easily finished it off. It was all his fault, thought John. He couldn’t stop telling himself that. It was like it was playing on repeat in his mind.

Karamen took the lead in killing the monsters the rest of the way, as though he wanted to prove something.

“You should take it easy,” said John.

“Why? Let death open its tempestuous gates, but Karamen will not sway.”

The next morning John got up to hunt as usual.

“I’ll come with you,” said Karamen.

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“It’s better if you rest.”

“I would rather live my meager moments to the fullest. Let this be our last hunt together.”

John pleaded to the mosquitoes as he done many times in the last twenty four hours. “If there’s even one decent person out there, please send us the antidote.”

It made no difference how much he begged. The chat room remained unresponsive.

They found a deer and killed it before it had a chance to run. As John was butchering it, he felt a movement behind him and quickly dodged. He wouldn’t be taken by surprise ever again.

“So,” Karamen laughed, his glaive pointed at John. “You were ready the whole time. Trust is so hard to build, but easily broken.”

“What are you doing?” John couldn’t even comprehend what was happening.

“I saved your life. You owe me one,” Karamen snarled. “It is time to pay up. A life for a life.”

Karamen phased beside John, but John jumped out of the way, parrying Karamen’s blow.

“We’re friends. Don’t ruin what we have. The people in the chat room will send us the antidote.”

“The people in the chatroom are monsters. Just like all your race,” Karamen shouted. He phased once more, this time appearing behind John. John felt the glaive cut his back as he tumbled forward and rolled on the ground. Karamen was on him before he could get up. John rolled around on the ground, dodging Karamen’s thrusts.

Karamen grew tired from the fight and rested for a few moments, which allowed John to get to his feet.

“If the poison had not affected me so, you would already be dead,” Karamen wheezed.

“The poison is affecting your mind more than your body,” screamed John. “Snap out of it.”

“Snap out of it,” Karamen muttered. “Snap out of it. I will kill you no matter what.”

With renewed vigor, Karamen came at John. John dodged and parried, careful not to hurt Karamen. Just as he thought Karamen was losing his will to fight, Karamen charged at John. Phasing in and out of reality, coming at him with incredible speed. John stretched out his arms and plunged his glaive into Karamen’s stomach, phase dodging Karamen’s blow. He had wanted to parry Karamen’s glaive and knock him off balance, but Karamen had moved it in the last second.

“I didn’t mean to,” John’s face turned pale as he looked at Karamen’s state. Karamen was on the ground, bleeding from his stomach. Blood trickled down his mouth as well. His eyes held a glassy look, and his breathing was ragged.

“It’s all right,” said Karamen. “I wanted to go out in battle anyway,” his laughter sent him into a bout of coughs.

John put pressure on Karamen’s wound, tearing off pieces of his clothing to bandage it.

“Don’t bother,” said Karamen. “I’m too far gone.”

A metal capsule fell from the sky by John’s feet.

“Look,” John laughed, “it’s the antidote. You can be saved.”

“It’s far too late for that,” he said, as John injected the antivenom slowly into the vein on his arm.

“Don’t say that,” said John.

“Wild Child, it has been a pleasure to know you. I am glad we met on that planet all those years ago. I am proud to have been your teacher, if only for a little while. You make a good arbiter.”

“Shut up and stay still.”

“The stage is now yours.” Karamen fell silent. John shivered and tried to nudge Karamen awake. He checked for a pulse but could find nothing. After many frantic minutes of trying CPR and anything else he could think of, John gave up. The others were calling out his name and searching for him. John called to them and asked them to help bury Karamen. They placed a small gravestone where they buried him, and John carved Karamen’s name on it with his aura blade. John was too distraught to deliver a eulogy, or even talk. He butchered the deer they had caught with added ferocity and fed Sher Khan. The tiger seemed to sense its master’s sorrow and licked his fingers. John smiled as he patted the tiger’s head, but his smile was empty.

“Eh,” Big Crow perched on a tree above John, “we can all guess what happened. I know what it’s like to be betrayed by someone you trust.”

“No you don’t,” John didn’t mean to lash out, and took some deep breaths forcibly calming himself down.

“I’ve been betrayed too. The one who informed on me to the authorities of Oor was my wife. I was to be executed for sedition but the Empress decided to be merciful and sell me to the Conglomerate for their damn game.”

“Why did you marry such a woman?”

“We were in love,” said Big Crow. “At least I was. I don’t know when she started scheming against me. Anyway, the point is, we all have our sad histories. This isn’t the time to fall prey to our emotions. You can complain about the unfairness of it all once we get out of this place. For now, survival is the only thing we need concern ourselves with.”

“I understand,” said John.

The group continued on their journey for weeks. John took the lead in killing monsters, his rage unabated. Some barrier within him dissolved, enabling John to draw on more aura. Then one day, they came to a special place.