Author's Notes:

I have uploaded TWO chapters. Remember to press the next button when you get to the end if you want to read more.

Twilight quietly opened the door and snuck in her head before going inside altogether. “How is she?” she asked, referring to the devastated pink pony that was snuggled between Fluttershy and Applejack, sobbing.

“She’s better… I think,” Rarity answered uncertainly. She pursed her lips in disapproval. “I can’t believe these so called friends of his left him like that.”

Rainbow Dash had seen Twilight come inside the room. She took the box of tissues Twilight gave her, passed it to Fluttershy, and came back her way. “Yeesh, talk about rotten friends, huh?”

“Yes,” Rarity agreed. “I mean, I can understand why they would want to distance themselves for the good of them all, but the way they did it was-”

“Whoah, whoah, hold on a second,” Rainbow Dash said, sounding upset. “You sound like you agree with what they did!”

Rarity leaned a little so she could see behind Rainbow Dash before answering, making sure Pinkie Pie wasn’t paying any attention to them at all. Their friend was soaking the pillow of the bed she was laid on with more tears, mostly silent apart from a few errant sobs.

“I don’t, but can you blame them? Raegdan was- was committing atrocities for their sake, or what he believed was for their benefit. I don’t know, maybe he’s right, and what he did was truly needed as he claims, and I think Princess Celestia might not judge him at all exactly for this reason. We can’t really know, no matter how much he tries to explain. All we have is his own word, and how much can you trust when he obviously can’t tell the difference anymore between need or not as far as these matters are concerned?”

Rainbow crossed her hooves in front of her chest as she sat down. “He was looking out for them, and they left him to rot.”

“Or perhaps they left him so he would stop,” Twilight said thoughtfully. She had a theory of why they left if they still cared for him. Perhaps they didn’t, not after what they went through, and she was totally in the wrong. “The ponies involved in my kidnapping,” she reminded them, “he did to them what he used to do for his friends. He saw a threat to somepony he cared about, and he took it out, brutally. If they weren’t there anymore for him to protect then he wouldn’t have to be so… severe in his actions. Maybe that’s what they thought. That if they were not around, he wouldn’t resort to such vicious methods.”

Rainbow turned her head aside, still angry. “Yeah, I don’t buy that, and it doesn’t excuse them at all. They left him to get hurt even more so they could run. And that letter they left was horseapples,” she proclaimed. “How did they even know if he would go all the way there to find it?”

Rarity had been looking strangely thoughtful at Twilight. She stopped her curious staring to answer Rainbow Dash. “Raegdan assumes he caught up to them moments before they went through. What if he didn’t?”

“I don’t follow,” Rainbow said, confused.

“I mean, what if they were waiting for him?” Rarity specified. “To make sure he would find the letter? If they went through too soon Raegdan wouldn’t be able to find the rift, am I correct?”

Rainbow scratched her mane with her hoof, making Rarity wince at the treatment she was subjecting it to. “I guess… I wish he had picked the stupid thing up. I wonder what they wrote to him.”

“I wish he had too,” Twilight said. “It might have changed how the rest turned out.” She considered her suspicions for the remainder of Raegdan’s story, keeping in mind Pinkie Pie’s reaction. The rest of the girls had been affected too of course, how could they not? They just reined in their own reactions in the face of Pinkie’s meltdown. No matter how Raegdan played it off as something he no longer cared that much for… They were his friends. His family for so long, the only people he had left, and they cast him off. Just thinking about them made her own blood boil. She wished she could have a word or two with them, and that they at least were not immune to magic.

“Rarity, Rainbow,” she whispered. “Do you think that maybe you should stop at this point?”

“I’m sorry dear, but stop what?” Rarity asked, pretending not to understand.

“Listening to Raegdan’s story,” Twilight explained further.

“Are you crazy? Why would we do that?” Rainbow Dash whispered back.

“Because,” Twilight said, “I think it is only going to get harsher from here on. I don’t think he would have taken being abandoned well. Do you really want to hear the rest, especially if it is worse than what we have already heard?”

“But you will listen to the rest yourself?” Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow critically.

“I have to. Princess Celestia asked me to help Solid Charge, and- and I’ve been waiting for the truth for too long. I’m staying.”

“Then so do we,” Rainbow Dash said loud and with determination. She put a hoof over her mouth and peeked quickly behind her before continuing in a whisper. “We’re not like these guys. We can at least listen to what he has to say. What kind of ponies would we be if we can’t even stay for that? Buck those friends of his. I’m staying, I’m listening, and I won’t hold whatever he did over his head, just like the princesses didn’t either.”

“That goes for all of us Twilight,” Rarity assured her. “Just give us a few more minutes for Pinkie Pie to calm down, and we will all go back together.”

“I was almost certain you wouldn’t be back,” Solid Charge said to all of them as they took their previous seats around Raegdan’s bed.

“You owe me five bits,” Leaf Stream said, stretching her hoof towards Solid Charge.

“I never agreed to the wager.”

“You never said you didn’t,” Leaf Stream sang.

Solid Charge snorted in amusement. “Fine. I’ll give them to you on payday.”

“Whoo boy, that’s another whole can of worms,” Leaf Stream with a bitter smile.

Raegdan was ignoring them. “How are you holding up little pink?” he asked. He sounded even more tired than before. Twilight wondered once more how remembering all this was affecting him.

“I’m ok now,” Pinkie said, trying to smile.

“You know you shouldn’t be upset about this, right? It happened a long time ago. I’m fine.”

“Liar,” Pinkie Pie said, wiping her nose.

“Ah, crap. She’s figured me out,” Raegdan joked. It did manage to bring a hint of a real smile back to Pinkie’s face, especially when Raegdan reached out and messed with her mane, restoring some of it’s usual fluffiness and Pinkie’s good cheer.

“Would you care to continue now that everyone’s here?” Solid Charge prodded Raegdan, quite more gentle in his behavior than before.

Raegdan busied himself with the needle driving the IV drip into his vein, delaying to answer. “I’m not quite sure where to go from there,” he admitted.

Leaf Stream was looking out the open window, enjoying the night breeze that was coming through. “What did you do after your pals left you? You went to the next rift I suppose, and then?”

Raegdan flinched as he tried to move his left shoulder. He rubbed the pained area with his right hand before speaking up. “Then the next one, and the next one, and on, and on. Don’t ask me how many. It could be three or three hundred. I have no idea. I remember only a few clear enough, and that’s mostly pieces. The rest is a blur. I remember certain things, often just glimpses, but I can’t tell if they happened before or after each other, or at the same place or not. Or if they really happened at all.” His lips pursed with distaste through the hole in the bandages. “There’s no way in hell I really saw a tyrant king lizard.”

“A what now?” Leaf Stream asked.

“Nothing. Anyway, I was on my own after that. On one hand… I was moving faster, and I had no one holding me back. Fat load of good that did to me, huh? On the other hand I had no one to help me either when I screwed up. For instance, I spent a lot of time in prisons, asylums, laboratories-”

“Wait, hold up,” Leaf Stream said, chuckling. “Asylums?”

Raegdan lifted his chin at her. “I bet you find the idea hilarious.”

“A tad.”

“You wouldn’t if you had spent even a week in one of them. Anyway-”

“What was that bit about laboratories?” Twilight asked. “You worked in one or did you trade scientific knowledge for…”She slowed down until the words died on her lips. Everypony was watching her with a pitying look, including Raegdan. “What?”

“Geez Twilight.” Rainbow Dash shook her head, torn between amusement and pity.

“What do ya say we move on instead? Anything else that comes to mind to share big fella?” Applejack said in a hurry.

“Not much that’s not basically the same. Different worlds, different disasters, different dangers. Monsters, diseases, war, technology that had gone out of control, magic or something similar going haywire... Jolly stuff. I guess I can just tell you about when I got here, and we can-”

“Wait,” Twilight called. She didn’t want to let him get to the end of his story yet. If he did, he might start pulling his old tricks again, and she’d lose this chance. “I have one question before that.”

Raegdan quickly searched through the expressions of her friends, hoping to get a hint of what she was going to ask, but to no avail. The girls didn’t know she was going to ask about this. Truth was, she hadn’t been planning to either, not until now. When else would she be able to ask him if not now however?

“When we looked through your things in your old room we found the box where you used to keep your ring.” Raegdan’s eyes darted to the half of the sorry husk at his side at Twilight’s mention. “There was more than that in there though. You kept another box in there.”

She couldn’t see enough of his face to judge what he was thinking. The line of his mouth was almost invisible.

“There was a braid of hair in there with a-”

“I know what’s in there,” Raegdan answered sharply without looking back at her.

His tone made Twilight stall, but she pressed on. “Can you tell us about it?”

“I can. I’d prefer you didn’t ask me to however.”

“Who did it belong to?” Twilight pressed him.

“Twilight… would you mind if we skipped this part? Please?”

“Why? Does Princess Celestia not know about it?”

“She does,” Raegdan told her. “So does Luna of course. Oh, and Twilight Velvet knows too.”

It took Twilight a moment of stunned daze to place the name she knew since forever. “Mom? Mom knows? What did she do?”

“What do you think she did? She beat the crap out of me. Your mom went freaking crazy after I told her. Don’t ask me why I did, I’m just a moron like that sometimes. Two seconds after I’m done she’s trying to kick me to death and breaks my arm, the minute after she cries her eyes out. I try to calm her down, she almost kills me again, and then she hugs me hard enough to suffocate me and finish the job. I don’t know. She’s crazy. All in all, I think she doesn’t put a lot of blame on me for what followed. Most of it, but not entirely all of it.”

He turned his gaze back to Twilight. “She said I turned back, and that’s important. That I tried. That the rest wasn’t... We agreed to disagree.”

“Can you tell us?”

He turned to Solid Charge instead. “What do you say? Do you think I should tell you about the absolute worst experience of my life? Is that what it would take for you to take my side when you talk to Celestia?”

Solid Charge ran his thick hand down his short beard a couple of times. “I think whether you speak of it or not will be more telling than anything it could be about.”

Raegdan paused, and what they could see of his face went blank and drained of color. His eyes flickered between Twilight and Pinkie Pie. Twilight had a moment of understanding. He didn’t expect to actually have to tell this part. He probably expected them to grant him his request to skip it because of their reaction to what he had told them so far.

“We’re waiting,” Solid Charge said with a restrained smile. The former soldier had probably come to the same conclusion as Twilight, and he wasn’t willing to be too soft towards Raegdan.

The alien among them started fidgeting once more, busying himself with minor details on his person. Twilight and the rest didn’t push him. They let him think and decide for himself what he wanted to do.

Raegdan took a deep breath, and his hand reached for the remainder of his ring. His fingers rubbed it, caressed it almost, with care before letting it dangle from the string. He lifted it up, letting everypony get a good look at it.

“That was a gift from my mother. It wasn’t something special before I got it. We were passing a trinket shop when I was young, it attracted my attention, and she had some spare money so she decided to buy it for me. It was a spur of the moment present. It was cheap, but I held onto it. For some reason it was always worth more than anything else I ever received in my life. It’s the only thing from home I have left, and it survived the journey about as well as I have.”

He slowly looped the string around his finger as he talked, shortening its length, and brought it in front of his eyes. “It means-” He stopped abruptly, momentarily closing his eyes in a flinch of pain. “ It meant so much to me, not only because it’s all I have left. It’s- It was a promise, that one day I’d go back. It was my burden, but it was also the source of my strength.” His lips twisted in the bitter facsimile of a smile. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised it turned into my doom.”

He closed his fist around it, hiding it from view. Rainbow Dash, who had been leaning closer as Raegdan talked, shook herself as she pulled herself back looking apologetically around her.

“I’ve come to realize, ever since I arrived here, that what I was doing during my... “travels” was wrong in many ways,” he confessed. “I still believe that what I did kept me alive. Even when I was being cruel when not needing to, it saved my life. All it would take to kill me was a moment of weakness at the wrong time. Especially mercy or kindness, to others or myself. That’s why I didn’t hold back from doing whatever I needed to get us, or just me, home as soon as possible. Not only because I wanted us to go back as soon as possible, but also because each day out there was another chance for us, or me, to die. I wanted to go home. That’s all I wanted. If it took leaving a road made of corpses behind me to get there… then I’d do it.”

His eyes met the eyes of everypony in the room one by one. “You can’t understand how someone would be willing to be so harsh, even for the sake of reaching of his home. Of course you can’t. Has any one of you ever felt real starvation? Hunger pangs so painful, the need to eat something so powerful, you’d gladly kill someone for the meat on his bones? Has any of you been so exhausted you honestly believe the effort for another step might kill you, yet still push on because to stop certainly would? Have you laid sick in a ditch, feverish and in agony, praying you won’t die there, cold and alone in a hole in the ground? No. You’ve got your homes. You’ve got your friends and families. You’ve never lost more than two meals in a row at most. You don’t know what it means to desperately want just one more breath, nor the depths you’d sink into for it. I wanted my home back. I wanted to stop knowing these things too.”

He turned towards Twilight, struggling for a few seconds before managing to ask his question. “How many people do you think I’ve killed Twilight?”

Twilight froze. What the- how do you answer something like that? She needed more data, and they didn’t even have a solid idea of how long he had been travelling, or the ratio of populated worlds to empty ones, or… Should she lowball or answer with brutal honesty? She tried to think rationally. She knew of eighteen ponies he had killed before today, add in the griffins today -this is the worst math ever- and…

“Dozens?” Twilight said, hiding behind what could be a technically right answer.

Raegdan shook his head softly, causing Twilight to gulp. She knew it couldn’t have been right. Nightmare Moon had killed thousands by her hooves alone, nevermind what her nightmares, and food shortages due to the uneven day and night cycle caused. Princess Celestia had told her enough to expect something similar. She had hoped she had been exaggerating, but-

“That hair belonged to a little girl that shouldn’t have died. She was mine, and I got her killed.”

Rarity interrupted him from saying anymore. “We don’t have to revisit these kind of personal memories. If you don’t mind I have some other questions of my own instead-”

“I want to hear this Rarity,” Twilight said. “Let him continue.”

Rarity brought her muzzle right on top of Twilight’s ear so she could whisper as low as possible. “He adopted a little girl and she died. What more could you possibly wish to know Twilight?”

Twilight whispered back to Rarity’s own white ear. “I wish to know what happened to a little girl that could have been a sister to me if she had lived.”

Rarity pulled back, looking sadly between Twilight and Raegdan. “Forgive me,” she backpedalled after a few moments of hesitation. “Perhaps I spoke too soon. Carry on.”

“No,” Raegdan said, shaking his linen covered head. He pointed towards the door with his right arm. “All of you, except Twilight and those three… out. Now.”

Applejack protested. “Hey big fella, no need for that. We told you we ain’t-”

“I’m not continuing with you five in the room. I don’t think Twilight will agree not to hear this part,” he stopped and looked hopefully at Twilight who shook her head negatively. “But I can spare the rest of you from this. Out. Now.”

“You do know they’re going to wait for me to tell them everything, right?” Twilight asked. She didn’t really see the point of this. She was going to tell the girls. She was more determined than ever to not let secrets get in between her and her friends.

“Your choice. Maybe you won’t be so determined when you have to tell this story to little pink yourself,” Raegdan answered, examining the remnant of his ring and avoiding looking at her once more.

“Not really. Pinkie Pie is a lot more durable than you think, and far more stubborn than you can imagine.” Twilight sat back on her short chair.

“I know,” Raegdan admitted. “She reminds me of her you know. So do you and Spike. Little flame reminds me of her a lot actually. Especially how he believes… Don’t tell him any of this, please. He’s too young, but even so I think it might be better if he never knew.”

“You’ll have to tell me the story before I can decide. Can you continue now?”

“Famous last words…” Raegdan said before doing as she asked. He took a deep breath first, and his eyes sunk into Twilight’s before letting the air escape. “I haven’t killed dozens. I’ve killed more. Way more. I don’t know how many. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t count them. Too many lost memories, too many things I don’t trust in my head. I think I know enough to make a good guess though. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Not thousands. I’m responsible for the death of millions, of my kind or others. Where are you going Twilight?”

The unicorn looked down at her legs. She was surprised to see she had gotten up from her seat and was retreating towards the door. She tried to remember when exactly she had moved, but all she could think of, all she could hear in her mind was the word “millions”, repeated over and over.

She forced herself to sit back down, choking back the bitter words she wanted to cry out. It shouldn’t be that many, it could never be that many, not unless… not unless…

He was trying to kill as many as possible…

“Go- go on,” Twilight managed to utter. She deliberately kept herself from giving even the slightest glance to everypony else in the room. She would lose the little control she kept herself under if she did, and run out. She was grateful the girls weren’t here after all. She didn’t want to see Pinkie Pie looking at Raegdan with betrayal in her face. She didn’t want to see Applejack doubting herself for looking after a- a- a… Fluttershy would be white as a sheet, she knew, as would Rarity. And Rainbow Dash, loyal Rainbow Dash, who only minutes ago declared to follow the princesses’ lead… how would she feel about her former attitude now?

She didn’t want to find out. She kept her eyes on the floor instead, like a coward.

“You don’t like what you heard, I get it. It’s natural I guess. Millions dead for the desire of one person. It sounds horrible,” the bodiless voice agreed. “It is. But it was my desire Twilight. It was my life. My life and those of my friends over that of strangers. It was an easy choice. I killed a few at the beginning. Then a few more. Then more. It became easier. Not only in how I learned to do it, but… When you have killed a hundred, what is one more? Then you have killed thousands, and these hundred people don’t matter that much. Then there’s a city, and thousands live in it, but how can you tell yourself to stop when you’ve killed far more? It would be… a waste. Just a bit more each day, justified by the multitude before. There were excuses at first of course. Need. Revenge. Not wanting to make all that death have been for nothing. Until I simply stopped bothering to do even that. You don’t need a reason to justify breathing. Either I killed them, or something else would some other day. They had their fair chance to stop me anyway. All it would take was to kill me first. It’s not my fault I was better at it. They were only pavestones on the road. Who counts how many of them you step on?”

“You didn’t care? Millions dead, and you didn’t care?” Twilight asked, overwhelmed.

“What for? Would that make them feel better? All warm inside? Ponies die every day. Do you care about every single one of them that dies?”

“That’s different! I’m not responsible for somepony’s death,” Twilight answered, becoming indignant.

“And I was? I didn’t choose this. What was I supposed to do? Abandon my home? Choose a world at random, and stay there, struggling each day to survive, alone and with no purpose? Or should I simply kill myself? Was that a better option? Was that the right, moral thing to do?”

“Why not?” Solid Charge retorted, getting in the way and giving Twilight a chance to absorb what she heard. “You stopped looking for your own world, and stayed here. You could have done that long before.”

Raegdan shook his head. “Never. It wasn’t possible back then. I wanted my home back, and nothing would change my mind. I had lost too much, and I don’t mean just my world, my family, and my friends.” He tapped at his head and then his heart. “I’m not completely unaware.”

“Not now perhaps,” Solid Charge said thoughtfully. He rubbed at his eyes with a huffed sound of annoyance. “Princess Celestia should have gotten someone trained for this, not a disgruntled grunt… Alright, see, I’m having trouble connecting even you with what you describe. First of all, you’ve never shown any inclination to leave from what I’ve seen and heard. Secondly, I can’t see you killing that many while you could avoid it. Mostly because even though I don’t think you’d feel particularly concerned about killing any number of ponies, or people, or whatever, I think that you’d know it was wrong to do so if it wasn’t to protect yourself or others.” Solid Charge nodded slightly towards Twilight. “The person you’re describing doesn’t. And yet you chose to stop here of all places. What happened?”

“The girl happened.”

“The one that died. She changed your mind?”

“She tried. She might have made it without me going off the deep end given some more time.”

“But you still-”

“Yes. Only barely, but I changed. It cost her life, it cost me what was left of my soul, and it cost others so much more, but I did change a sliver. She lived in a city full of people like me. They were trying to survive in a world that was trying to kill them, and they did, working all together. There were cities of them spread around and isolated from each other, citadels that kept them safe from the monsters outside. Until I got in.

She was six when I brought their city down. I destroyed their walls. I took away their defenses, and the monsters outside rushed in to devour them. I’m not sure how many lived there. Half a million at least I’d guess, but that number meant nothing. A water drop in a lake. I already knew the best way to completely destroy their city you see. I had done the same to two others before that one. I don’t know how many survived. In the long term, probably none. In the short term… It was her brother who saved her. He begged me to help the two of them while holding her in his arms. He was only a teenager himself. He said I owed him, and I did in some way. I didn’t want that, I didn’t want to owe anyone anything. So I told him to follow while their home burned around me. He carried his sister in his arms, and came along.

A few days later I beat him to near death and left him to die alone in the snow. His last words weren’t for me to spare him, but a plea to keep his sister alive.”

A chair screeched painfully in Twilight’s ears as its owner pushed it back and away from the greatest monster they had ever heard of.

The chair across Twilight creaked ominously. Her eyes darted up for an instant to see Solid Charge watch the thing on the bed skeptically. “Before you continue, I have a question,” the minotaur said. “These people… what was their crime? Why did you kill all of them?”

“I needed a diversion. There were monsters outside the walls. The fastest way to travel was to make sure the monsters wouldn’t bother with me, and they didn’t, not when they had a greater meal set out for them. I could have reached the rift through other means perhaps, but it would take me weeks or months to get ready, never mind how slow I’d be forced to travel.”

A low rumbling sounded from deep inside the minotaur’s throat. “Thousands dead to shave off time that didn’t matter. Huh. You know this was wrong. My question is; Did you know it was wrong then?” Seconds passed slowly with no answer. “I asked, did you-”

“I don’t know. If I did, I certainly didn’t care.”

“But you do know now.” The chair creaked once more, and the minotaur’s shadow on the floor shortened. Twilight speculated he had leaned towards Raegdan, but didn’t move her eyes upward to make sure. She kept her eyes on the floor, concentrating on her breathing. “So tell me, how did that change occur?”

“Simple. I became worse.”

I walk in a steady, constant pace. My legs know the right rhythm without any conscious control from me. It’s the perfect speed that allows me to watch around me without missing anything, walk for hours without tiring too much, and will make sure I cross as much distance as possible. I follow the singing in my head. This is the one, I can feel it. I’m almost home.

The child still hasn’t learned or doesn’t care. She drives me furious. She runs ahead, stops to smell flowers she has seen a thousand times before, or stays too far in the back if something catches her eye, too curious for her own good. She always has to hurry in a dead run to catch up. She will soon exhaust herself, and then I’ll have to carry her again. I’ll be forced to slow down. My teeth grind against each other as I fight against the urge to smack her. She hasn’t learned yet, despite being years with me.

I force my fist to unclench. She has rushed into a copse of trees, getting out my line of sight. I slow down. I don’t hear anything. I doubt there are animals of any danger nesting in there. I wait for a few minutes to make sure nothing attacks her, and I do a quick circle looking for anything dangerous. She’s safe. I carry on, leaving glaring tracks behind me.

She calls for me about half an hour later, looking ready to drop down from exhaustion as she runs towards me.

“Daddy!”

“I’m not your father,” I mumble through my unmoving lips. She refuses to learn almost everything of real importance I try to teach her, but nothing as much as this.

“You- you walk too fast,” she complains again, laughing. Always laughing, always smiling. She can barely breathe, and I see how she holds her side, but her giggles won’t stop. She’ll need to rest again. I shake my canteen next to her, reminding her to drink some water and cool down.

She takes my water in her small hands eagerly. “Thank you,” she says, and drinks. She almost gulps it all down in one go, but after a guilty look towards me she tilts it down and switches to small sips, spaced out evenly.

Look at that. She can be taught after all.

“I brought you something I found daddy,” she says. She opens her own backpack, and lets me see the berries she piled inside.

I frown, ready to get angry again. “Did you eat any of these?”

“Nope,” she says with a toothy smile. “I waited for you to say it’s ok. Is it ok dad?” She is so full of hope that she will get rewarded for following the most simple of directions. As if basic competency should be commended.

I give her none of this. I simply pat her on the head and mess her hair a bit to annoy her, but it doesn’t faze her. Her smile has gotten even wider if possible. What the hell is wrong with this kid? How can she feel happy out here? Just how fucked up has she become?

I take one of the berries and bring it in front of my nose. I’m not sure if they are edible or not. I can’t tell if I’ve seen them before, but I have figured ways to deal with a spotty memory. I inhale its scent, and keep it so close to my mouth I can almost taste it, and crush it among my fingers. I keep my eyes closed, letting my sense of smell flood me. I know with utmost certainty that the berry is safe to eat, and extremely sweet. When did I happen upon this berry before? I abandon the question as soon as it is formed. I won’t remember. I have more important things in my mind.

“It’s fine to eat. You did well. Can you keep walking?”

“Can we stop and rest?” she begs. “I’m hungry. Can we eat and have some of the berries?”

I search around. There are no people here from what I’ve seen, but I won’t risk it. It’s bad habit anyway. I feel like I’ve been operating solely through habits and routine since forever. There is a tree with enough thick and dense branches to disperse small traces of smoke and the ground dips down enough to hide the campfire from view. This will do. I take her in my arms and carry her there.

Another half hour later the girl is asleep with her head on my leg, too tired and her stomach too full to keep awake. I wanted us to cover more ground before stopping. I haven’t been satisfied with my progress ever since this stupid weight has climbed on my shoulders.

I could leave right now. I could leave, and I’d be home in mere days instead of babysitting this useless creature.

The girl shivers and scoots closer to me, trying to warm herself through my body heat. I throw more wood into the fire to quiet her down, and cover her with both our blankets.

The weather’s getting cold. I need to find something large and furry to kill. It looks like I’ll not be going home for a few weeks yet. She’ll need something to protect her from the weather, lest she gets sick again. I only stop to pick up one more berry before I head into the nearby forest to hunt for food and new clothing for her. Perhaps I should try to make a pair of moccasins too. Her feet must be getting cold in that rugged pair.

The berry is delicious. I wonder why she wastes so much time looking for them though. She barely touches them. I swear, sometimes I doubt whether she’s even capable of intelligent thought.

I jump down first, landing as softly as I can. I land on my feet and let my body fold till my hands reach the ground, absorbing some of the impact. My shotgun is back in my grip in seconds, and I wait, legs ready to launch me aside, for anything that might have heard me. I wait for two whole minutes, standing still while I search the ruins of the city around me for movement. It’s clear for now.

I let the gun hang from its strap and turn around. My tongue strikes against the roof of my mouth twice, making a barely perceptible sound. The girl recognizes the signal, and comes out from her hiding spot to walk to the edge of the fallen building. She jumps and I catch her. I don’t put her on the ground straight away.

“Are you ok little one?” I breathe.

“Yeah. Can we hurry up dad? This place scares me,” she answers back the same way. She doesn’t whisper, just like I taught her. Whispers carry too far. I nod and put her down gently.

I pause for a second before I turn around and get back on our way. Strange. She’s a liability. A weight. An anchor that should be dropped the instant she starts to delay me too much. Sometimes though… sometimes… I rub my chest with one hand. It feels warm. It has been doing that for a long time. I hope I haven’t picked up an infection. It’s the absolutely last thing I need.

She’s right though. We need to hurry. Coming here was a risk, but our find gave us a great opportunity. The sun is on its way to set, leaving long dark shadows of the tall collapsed buildings around us. I can see why she’s afraid, though she has no idea how bad it could really have been.

“Look around the rubble, search for any metal signs with words painted on them. We need to find out which street this was,” I tell her. She nods and carefully makes her way across the broken street while I keep guard. It’s too quiet. The wind died down an hour ago. I wish it will pick up again. It made it hard to hear anyone sneaking up to us, but it helped mask our presence, and frankly I’d rather go for a little more help at this area.

The little one runs up to me holding a battered blue rectangle. “Is this it?” she asks full of excitement.

I memorize the painted characters that I assume are the street’s name and I smile at her. I check the faded city map we found. We’re here so… I take my backpack off and take out the second find that brought us here. A phone book. I leaf through the pages until I find what I wanted. I don’t know the written language, but it’s easy enough to find and match the characters, and the advertisements help me find exactly what I want. There was a gun shop right on the street next to this one. A small one, but it might have ammo left.

“Almost there little one. Just around the corner.” I nod for her to follow behind me.

We climb over the remains of vehicles and fallen building walls. This was a small city -or so it would be on my own world. I hope it’s this way here too. It might not have been looted completely.

Noise. Voices. Shouts and threats. Pleading. Crying.

Someone around the corner is going to die. A child starts crying. I hear guns slide bullets into chambers. Both sides have weapons then. I look at my own weapon. I have eight shells left. I grin listening to this gift that has fallen in my lap. All I have to do is wait, kill the victors, and I’ll have not just ammo, but a spare gun or two. A little extra never hurt.

The girl pulls at my hand. I lean down so she can speak in my ear.

“They have little kids dad,” she says. I frown in confusion. So what? Even I have one of these.

“So?”

“Help them!” she says, urging me towards the escalating confrontation.

“Why?” I ask, genuinely flabbergasted.

“Because you can. Please.”

I shake my head at her. More stupid ideas. I wonder where she gets them from.

“Aragorn would have helped them,” she challenges.

“Go get him then.” Me. She gets them from me. Fantastic. What the hell was I thinking? I ignore her and return my attention to the situation beyond my sight. It isn’t going well for me. I have heard these begging tones before. The group with the kids probably offers to surrender their possessions in exchange for their lives. Damn it, I was hoping they could do most of the work for me. If I had more shells for the shotgun I might have tried to swoop in and kill all of them. Now we will have to hide and wait for this to blow over.

Something falls apart next to me in a loud cacophony. I turn and see the girl grinning up to me, a piece of the asphalt she was standing on now in pieces and far below the edge of where we stand. I drown the growl that rises up my throat. This stupid piece of-

Voices scream at us, and a warning shot is fired in the air. Footsteps start speeding towards our direction.

Fucking great. I roughly shove the girl towards a hiding place, and I jump over a broken wall. If I was alone I could lose them. Not an option now. I hope the other guys will be able to get a hold of their own weapons and know what’s good for them. I’ll need some covering fire when things really heat up. Let’s see if I can get the jump on one of them first. I keep a hand over my knife, getting ready. I’ll need every single shell.

The little leech falls down, bleeding from her mouth and nose. If she thinks I’m done she is far more of a moron she proved herself to be. I pull her up by the hair, only to give her another slap so hard she can’t help but fall down again.

I’m not done. Not even close. I kick her like a ball.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I shout. She just had to- I’m barely holding myself from choking the life out of her. “You promised you’d never do that again!”

“They had a baby with them,” she manages among her cries.

“So what? They had a baby, they were going to be eaten by monsters, they are defenseless… do you think this is a game? Do you think I’m in the mood to hear more of your fucking stupid excuses when you force me to endanger our lives? And for what? A baby? Now we’re defenseless. We have no ammo left. It’s all gone so you could pretend that we’re some kind of heroes!”

“But you saved them,” she cries, snot and blood all over her face. “You did it daddy. You saved them all.”

“Yeah. Look where that left us. They got out free and safe with all the loot, and what do we end up with? Even less than we started with.” I kick her in the stomach one more time. “So fucking stupid!”

She keeps talking even through her pain and tears. “We can go find the shop and get more bullets…”

I stand over her. She shields herself with her little arms as much as she can, but I don’t hit her this time. “You think this makes up for your stupidity? We don’t know if there will be any. What was the point of this? Can you explain this at least? What the hell were you fucking thinking?”

“They had a baby,” she screams frustrated at me.

“I don’t fucking care!” I roar back.

“Heroes in your stories care. I want my dad to be a hero!”

“This is not a story, and I’m not a hero!”

“Then what are you?”

I pause. “I’m definitely not your father, and you will stop calling me that.”

“If you’re not a monster then don’t act like one.” She clamps her mouth closed with her hands as soon as she utters these words. I don’t move. If I do, I might just hit her too hard this time, and I don’t have medical supplies to waste by breaking these pathetic limbs of hers.

“I’m sorry,” she begs, crying even harder now.

“I should have killed you right after I killed your brother,” I answer in a hiss.

She doesn’t like being reminded of that. Her hand catches a small piece of broken stone and throws it at me. Too close and too fast to avoid it. It hits me dead center in the chest. It doesn’t hurt that much.

But something breaks underneath my clothes.

I fish out the thread I had looped around my ring so I could keep it around my neck. There’s nothing hanging from it. I pull up my clothes and with a metal pinging sound two small pieces fall down.

I’m moving fast, as fast as I used to. I covered more distance in a few hours than I used to cover in a single day ever since I got saddled with that leech. No more however. No more. I’m free, and home is just days away.

Thank heavens for morons. I can’t believe they actually agreed to take her in. She had no idea how lucky she was of course. If they hadn’t agreed I might have just dragged her away from them and killed her. Maybe I should have. Piece of shit broke my ring. What am I going to tell my mom when I see her? What if she thinks I didn’t care enough to safeguard the only memento I had of her while I was gone?

Damn, did that little girl scream though. She held onto my hand like an vice, practically hanging herself from it. She was going to try and follow me if I hadn’t broken her ankle. That ought to keep her away from me long enough so I can get home without her. She still screamed as I left, as if I was stupid enough to go back and get her.

Still, something she said sounded familiar. What was it? Eh, she didn’t say much. She was just begging. I repeat the words in my mind, mockingly. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me alon-

Oh.

My legs lock and refuse to budge.

It doesn’t change things. She broke my ring. It was all-

“Don’t leave me alone! You’re all I have daddy! Please, don’t leave me alone!”

-I have.

I am all she has?

She- that can’t be right, she can’t have really- I remember when I first took her in, how scared she was of me, how she kept away from me. She hated me. She was terrified of me!

Until she wasn’t. She kept sleeping practically on top of me later on, didn’t she? Even when it wasn’t cold. Whenever I was injured… she cried. She cried while she was fine and unharmed, she cried because… because I was injured. She asked me for stories. Whenever we stopped to rest, she sat on my legs-

She called me dad.

I wanted to go back to my family.

She called me dad.

I wanted my family back. People who loved me.

I hit her. I hit her and she always-

I abandoned her.

Just like they did.

She kept trying to make me out some kind of hero. I wasn’t and despite her attempts I would never be. But she still believed in me for some reason. She hadn’t stopped. They had, but she didn’t.

She still… loves me.

She has no home. She isn’t just lost, her home is gone. I… destroyed it. I killed her family, and she… she loves me despite the misery I caused her.

I’m all she has.

She was the only one I had. The only one I had left, and I abandoned her. What did I do that for? A ring? A trinket? I left behind the only person I cared about for- for a-

...What the hell did I do?

I run back.

There’s a chair outside the room. I drag it in and I sit with my chest facing the back of the chair. I like it better this way. I like to have something to support my arms. I’ve left my backpack and my gun outside. I didn’t feel like carrying it. It’s safe in here for now anyway.

There’s a sheet on the floor.

I look outside the window. It’s closed, but like everything else here, it’s broken. I can see outside through the holes in the rotten wood. More ruins. Nothing but ruins. Everything is broken. Everything. The night sky is clear, and the shapes in the horizon as far as I can see have no signs of the swarms, but everything is still broken. There’s nothing left whole. Everything has broken.

There’s a sheet on the floor. One part of it is drenched in blood.

At the edge of the window I spot a tiny hole. Fresh. A pellet must have ended there. I think I can see something shining dully in there. She must have tried to head for the window. Go through it, and find a place to hide. Just like I told her to do so many times before.

Blonde hair mixed with blood, and fragments of brain and bone crawl from beneath the sheet.

I was one hour too late. Just one hour. I was too far. I had gone too far in too short a time. If I had been closer I might have realized they were being attacked. I wasn’t, and I didn’t. Now there’s nothing but a sheet on the floor.

Why did I even come back? What was the point? What did I expect? To take her back as if nothing happened after I betrayed her? That she would forgive me and-

She would have forgiven me. I know she would have. She always did.

I put my hand in one of my pockets and take out the ring pieces. Back to this again. All that remains in the end is this. This, and the voice in my head. It calls on me to stop delaying. If something else goes through I might lose my chance to go home forever.

I shut it out.

Perhaps I should have listened to her. Perhaps there really is no way back home. An eye for an eye. The world hurt you. Hurt it back. It was the only true justice that existed. There’s only one way to make it fair, just like she said.

There’s a sheet on the floor. It covers something very small. Too small. Was she really this small? I lean down without getting up from the chair and lift it up enough to get a look. There’s nothing to see. There’s nothing left. No pain I guess. Except for the one I caused her.

I let the sheet fall back on the floor.

Am I supposed to do something now? She’s dead. I’m supposed to mourn, am I not? I’m supposed to cry. To grieve. I should say something. A goodbye perhaps, but there’s nothing. I feel nothing. I know that I should, but there’s nothing to feel. I can feel the cold air, and I can smell the blood, but that’s it. I feel more annoyed that I don’t feel something, rather for her being dead. Though… why should I? What’s the point? There’s nothing left. It’s all gone. Shattered in pieces. Broken.

In the end of it all she had just been a nuisance. A constant delay, no more important than a round piece of metal. She was company, but that’s it. Our time together came and passed. She didn’t mean as much as I thought before. Old sentimentalities. They still have a small hold on me it seems. A weakness I’ve yet to rip out entirely.

She was a threat. A problem. I remember all the times she got in my way, the thousand ways she delayed me, the constant criticism of my ways of making sure she fucking survived! I might have shot her myself before very long if this continued.

I tap my fingers against the back of the chair. There should be something anyhow. Tell her corpse that I loved her? It is false, and I don’t want to say this. I don’t know why, but it would be wrong to tell this obvious lie. Something. There is something I have to do. I just need to figure it out.

There’s a sheet on the floor. It is my only audience as I do the only thing I can think of. She loved this one. Perhaps this will be enough to remove any feelings of owing anything to this cancer. I think someone said death is like sleep. It’s not, but I’m out of ideas.

“Once upon a time, there was a hole in the ground where a hobbit lived. It wasn’t a dirty hole, or a narrow hole, or a dark hole. It was a hobbit hole, and that meant it was clean, and full of light and comfort...”

It’s taking me hours to finish. I stop too often to take a deep breath. This place chokes me. The story ends at last. There’s something else to do, isn’t there? One more thing, and then I can be on my way at last. Right, of course. I saw someone holding a shovel outside. He’ll give it to me.

The old man falls dead. There’s something bubbling in my chest, something hard, something cruel, something full of rage. Something that wants to make this broken world hurt. Make everything hurt. Make it fair.

“You were supposed to keep her alive!” it roars again.

Save the bullets if you can. The three pieces of meat at the back looking at you have weapons. Shoot them before the shock fades and they fire back. This one wants to try to wrestle the rifle from you. Hit him with it, knock him back, then trip him. Kick hard right there, dig your heel in. Back broken. Let him watch. Laugh in his face. Leave him for last. Make him watch you burn everything he has known.

Men run to you and away from you. They die. Their hands shake. Yours don’t. Kill them. Kill them all. No one left. No. A lie. In the houses. These are not proper doors. They break easily. Broken remnants of a broken world. Women come every time. They hold clubs, knives, their hands, calls for mercy. No bullets. Save them for other targets. Use knife. Use hands. Smash heads against walls. Break necks. Strangle them. Women dead. Crying. Smaller meat pieces. Easy to find. Easier to kill.

Go outside. Search. Kick the last one until it stops crying, until it dies. Nothing left. No. No, you are not done yet. They were supposed to keep her alive. There are others. East. Away from singing. The others came from there. The ones that shot her.

Find them. Kill them. Kill them all. They killed her. Find them, bring them pain. Kill them slow. Make them scream, make them beg. You have time. You have all the time in the world. Give it to them. Give them as much as you can. Show them everything you’ve learned. Torture is too small a word for what will happen to them. They shot her. They killed her.

They were supposed to keep her alive.

Make it fair.

Keep one alive. Only long enough to ask questions. Killed so many, hard to find more now. Doesn’t know. Useless. Make him scream first. Make him scream hard. Another scream. Not his. Trapdoor beneath rug. Uncover. Meat begs no. Kick it, break jaw. Laugh at it. Make it fear. Make it know cruelty. Make it know how worlds work.

Women and smaller meat. They look up. They take small ones to chest, cover with own bodies. Wood. This is all made of wood. Don’t waste bullets. Not many left to kill here. Must go elsewhere. Follow singing now. Kick broken meat into room below. Push weight on it. A lot of weight. Fire always easy to start. Screams echo until you are too far to hear.

Go elsewhere. Don’t stop. Never stop.

Read texts. They don’t know how to read this anymore. You do. Takes long time to understand, time spent not killing. Worth it later on. Never used it. They wrote down code. Just in case. Idiots. Now you use it. Months spent to find and get in. Time where they got ready for you. Not ready enough. Timer programmed, keys turned. Push it outside. Carry it if you have to.

Give it to them. Weave lies, make it valuable. Make them take it, make them want it. Convince them the monster won’t come for them as long as they hold on to it. Digits count down where they don’t see. Don’t care to see. They got softer. Think you stopped. Wait until out of sight. Run. Run fast and don’t stop.

Days later. Hope far enough to make sure before going through. See flash coming from behind. Wait a second, then turn. Mushroom rises on the horizon. Not the first. Not the last. All dead. Two cities, last cities, last ones. Gone now. The first is gone in the flash. The other is close enough. They’ll die painfully, screaming.

This world is fair.

Go through. Go elsewhere. Don’t stop. You can’t stop. You won’t stop.

Another city. This one they built for you. They fear the monster that kills them. There are other monsters here too, but fear this more. This one hunts them down. This one they can’t stop. They had technology. You learned it. You used it. You killed them with it. You lead one side against another. They trusted the alien in their war. You promised them death of their enemies. You delivered. Not the way they wanted. All sides dead. Only this city left. Always one city left, always one last holdout, one last hope. Snuff it out like the rest.

They let you in. You look like them enough. Same shape. Hide under cloak, they don’t see. They always expect their end to be terror incarnate in form. Laughable. They click and squeak in fear. You are in. Many of them, but weak. Heart down in belly. Easy target. Soft skull. Die like babies. Now only you, now you work with hands. Fun part begins.

Heavy gates. Work with machines. First target. Wait until night, kill guards, break machines. Do same at every gate. Lock them in here with you. Could take months to kill all. Don’t care. They drink and eat. Lock them in. Destroy food. Poison water. Take their hope. Give fear. Sow panic. Ruin everything. Break it.

Watch them kill each other. Help them. Clear heads try to settle them, to stop them from doing your work. They die in the night. Corpses found at morning in pieces. Fear wins. They’re terrorized. They think each other is you. Once again they kill each other. Good. Wasted little time here in the end. Can go elsewhere now. No more farms left. No more villages. No more cities. Killed them all. Not enough. Never enough.

Won’t stop until it’s fair.

Place waste of time. Meat knew you were coming. Killed themselves. Feared you’d ask them if there are more. They’re afraid of questions. Were right. No one up. No one down. Still check rooms. One might still be alive, hiding. Can’t let it. Wouldn’t be fair. Check this room.

There’s a sheet on the floor.

Why is there a sheet on the floor? You didn’t… it’s small. It’s very small. Knew you were coming, killed themselves, covered one of them with sheet? Why? Doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t matter. No one alive here. Go next. Kill them all.

Blonde hair crawls from beneath the sheet.

No.

Stop. Don’t approach. Don’t kneel down. Don’t lift sheet. Dead. Shot on head. While trying to climb window. She couldn’t run fast enough. You broke her ankle. Left her alone. She died. You were all she had, she was all you had, and you killed her.

This isn’t her.

This is her. It’s always her. You killed her.

No, you didn’t. This isn’t her. This is another. You didn’t kill the other one. The little one. They did. They all did! They were supposed to keep her alive! They owed him. They killed him in the snow, left him there to die, and stole from his sister her world and family. They were supposed to-

You were.

I was.

I was supposed to keep her alive.

This isn’t her. This isn’t her. She’s dead. She cried for me, and I let her die. I abandoned her. She loved me. I let her die. I was supposed to keep her alive. I let her die. She was so little. She sat on my legs. I kept my arm around her waist to keep her steady and warm. She called me dad. I let her die.

Did I feel anything? Was she important to me? Did I love her back?

I…

I think I did. In some part I did. No. This is stupid. I couldn’t love her. I hated her, I despised her. I couldn’t love anyone. If you love them, then they die or... leave you… What did I do? I let her die thinking I never loved her because I was scared? What the hell did I-

There’s a sheet on the floor.

She’s small. So small. Small as her. She’s a little girl. A child. I didn’t kill this one, but I might as well have. I killed others. I killed so many others.

I killed children.

I was killing families.

Mothers.

Children.

Just like my little one.

I killed my little one.

I killed this one.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, nononononononononononono, NO!

Screaming. I can’t breathe, I can’t stop screaming, I keep screaming, there’s a sheet on the floor and I can’t stop screaming.

I killed her.

I killed all of them.

What the hell did I do?

I’m outside. I ran outside, still screaming, I don’t know when, but I did. I look around. Nothing but corpses. Everyone’s dead. How many did I kill? How long was I doing this? Children. I was killing children. I was killing families. Little girls playing in the sun. Little boys running after each other. I killed them. I killed them and I laughed. I enjoyed every second of it!

I was killing children before, wasn’t I? I always was. She was forcing me to stop and I… Children. They were innocent. What was I doing? Someone killed his young child rather than risk me getting near her. That child was killed by someone she loved, and the cause was me. I killed children. I let children die. I always let the children die. They were dying, and I didn’t care. No wonder they left me. No wonder she was trying to change me. She loved me. She loved me and she called me dad. She thought of me as her dad!

No child wants her dad to be a monster.

But I was.

I was a monster.

I’m a monster. I’ve always been a monster.

There’s something on my face. Something wrong with my eyes, something… It’s- it’s tears? I’m crying? I didn’t believe I could. I don’t know how long it has been, how many years have passed, but I’m crying at last. For her. I mourn for her. My chest feels like it’s being shredded. I thought I knew pain. I thought I knew agony. I knew nothing! I lost her. I lost her. She’s gone, and even if I search through infinity I’ll never find her again. She’s gone forever. There’s no rift to take me to her.

I want her back. I want her to sit on my legs and tell her a story. I want her to hug my neck, and hang on me while I put her next to the fire to sleep. I want her to ride on my shoulders like she did when she was too tired. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to ask me her endless questions. I want my little one back.

She’s never coming back. I’m never getting her back. I threw her away, and in her last moments she called for me. I wasn’t there. I abandoned her. She died believing I hated her. She died, and I turned her into a reason for more children to die.

I still have a gun. There’s one round in the chamber.

This time I’ll be a hero. For her.

Heroes kill monsters.

The metal of the gun tastes like absolution.

I loved you little one.

I’m sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaDvH-0i6IY