Propagate: A survival litrpg

Day 108

"Oi! Get down already!" I hear from across the yard. I look over, amused, as Oldren attempts to dissuage seven kids from using Gnosis' propped up body as a playground. Three of them, one riding between the other two, slam into Oldren's side. He topples over and the kids, having now found a new toy to play with, jump on top of him.

I look away from the muffled yelling to check my pot of soup. I currently stand atop a moderately sized scaffold situated near a huge pot of today's lunch sat atop three large blocks of stone with a roaring fire underneath.

The broth within was an amateurish amalgamation whatever we could find. Any non-poisonous herbs would get thrown in, along with a ton of bones and meat of whatever was around. For this one, three rabbits, five medium size lizards and about half of a boar from last night's meal. Roughly chopped cubes of vegetables, and anything that seemed healthy, floated within the light brown mixture.

It's not like we're going in blind here. My cooking skill gives me a vague feeling of what would go well together, so it's not like the end product is ever terrible. I've been learning as well, and over the meals, I believe I've gotten much better!

I unlatched a wooden spatula from my belt and tasted the soup after blowing on it a bit. Desperately needs salt. But, better than the past few. Today marked the second day since we got the kids dropped on us. Roughly two hundred of them, to be exact.

I tapped the wooden spoon against the side of the pot and hopped down. Wish I could get a second opinion. Oldren was currently preoccupied, though, that's not who I'm talking about. I looked over at Max, snoring away high in a tree.

He learned his lesson the last time he slept on the ground. Poor Max, he was due for a nap yesterday, but was forced to keep going thanks to the kids. As soon as dusk hit and he got us dinner, he rocketed off into the highest tree he could see and fell asleep.

Good for him, I thought at the time. But now I realize can't bothe- interact with him at all. "Sigh.." A gust of cold air rushed past, painting the long green grass against the ground and blowing my hair into my eyes. I swiped the strands away and plucked a stray leaf stuck within the strands.

I stared at it. A crispy palmate already brown and red from its hibernating origin. The wind carried away small flakes until it bent over in my hands, snapping off at the base. I let it fly.

I watched as the kids ran around, playing several games three of us had taught them, including flag football. Dirt went flying as a young boy went chest first into the ground. For a moment he sat in place, rubbing his red skin and breathing. I was sure he would burst into tears, but the other boys ran over and helped him up, brushing the loose dirt from his simple clothes.

They quickly began playing again. The boy who fell took a pale red piece of ripped cloth and jammed it into his belt, which was composed of a scratchy string of badly woven hemp. They quickly reset their formations.

'I never actually played football so, this will be a little scuffed.' I remembered him saying. It surprised me, considering his build. Though he's talked about how unhealthy he was before we met on several occasions.

The twelve boys assembled, six on each team. One stood in the middle, hunched down with the ball between his legs. Another stood behind him, hands waiting for the ball. The other four flanked them evenly, waiting for the game to start.

'Two teams, offense and defense. Offense gets the ball first. The goal is for one person carrying the ball to make it over the other team's line. When a round starts, one person will say 'start' and everyone will start moving. The goal of the defense team is to take the flags of whoever has the ball. Defense will do everything in their power to stop the runner, while the rest of team offense will be on standby. If the ball touches the ground, offense team loses. However, it can be in anyone's hands. This game is about cooperation and team work. Defense needs to plan out their approach, and offense needs to pass the ball between them. You can only take the flag of whoever possesses the ball. There will be three tries in each round. Wherever offense is caught, the next beginning set up will start there. If the offense fails to reach past the defense line in three tries, they get no points. After three tries the teams will swap positions. The first team to win by five points wins.'

He then clarified that this is a game he played a long time ago, and that he didn't remember all of the rules. He encouraged them to make up their own rules either for fairness, or to make the game more fun. Finally, he warned them not to be too physical. 'I know I said 'do anything you can to stop them', but don't actually try to hurt someone, okay?'

Warning set, he put four sharp sticks into the ground to set the dimensions of the field, and showed the boys how to play. He coached a few rounds for everyone to get a feel for it, and once everyone was having fun, he had another kid sub out for being coach. Then, he crashed.

"Ah!" The ball flew towards me. I side stepped and let it fall to the ground softly. I picked it up and brought it back to them. The ball itself wasn't a football shape, more like a volleyball. It was made off animal skin wrapped around a dense ball of grass and foliage which was sewn together at the end.

It was pretty misshapen and ugly, but the kids were having a blast, so we didn't mind it much. Me and Max had worked on several of the things yesterday, after dinner. We had multiple groups playing monkey in the middle with smaller balls, two large clusters of girls playing with rough wooden dolls chiseled by Max, and a mixed group trying to make houses and towers with sticks, rocks and mud.

Some of the kids were loners, a few just talked quietly amongst themselves, while many simply wandered around. They tried to orbit around me, but I deflected their attempts and either forced them into one of the other kid groups, or dropped them on Oldren, who now had quite a following.

Lily -> All

Lily 11:03 am

K lunch should be ready in another twenty minutes or so.

Oldren 11:03 am

👍

Suddenly my ears were assaulted by the mass rustling of a nearby tree. As expected of a typical forest, the surrounding view hosted many many trees, most reaching to hundreds of feet tall, casting welcome shade over some parts of our encampment. It was one of the shorter trees that the disturbance came from, though 'shorter' didn't do the fifty foot behemoth much justice.

Dozens of copper colored leaves fell in a bombastic flourish as a large shadow descended gracelessly from its upper branches. I heard a gravely "Oof" as the shadow thunked into a pile of leaves.

"That.. did not cushion as much as I'd hoped." Max rose from the pile and shook the remaining leaves from his body. I walked over and motioned for him to go down. He heavily fell to both of his knees without a complaint and waited. I huffed at his drama and plucked a leaf from his fluffy brown hair, horrendously tangled from months without care.

"You really need a hair cut." He chuckled as he stood up to his full, towering height. "I think we all do. Actually, wait, no. Just you and me. Has Gnosis woken up yet?" I shook my head. He frowned. "When is that lazy bum gonna get up?" He grumbled to himself.

He folded his arms behind his back. "What happened while I was out?"

"I was just making lunch. Actually, why are you up? It's only been a few hours!" I huffed. His eyes slid to the side, probably checking the time. His expression didn't change from its usual painful normality. "It's been ten hours. That's plenty. I really only need five, so I actually overslept."

I waved my spatula at him. "Just because it's what your body needs, doesn't mean it's what it wants!" He looked up with his eyes, probably doing the grammatical math before he gave up and shrugged. "How're the kids?"

I cast my right hand in a wide arc. "See for yourself." He frowned and made a shield with his hand. "Bad idea. Remember last time?"

I opened my mouth to say something but he continued. "And the time before that. And the time before that. And-"

"Okay I get it." I stopped him. "Sigh well, what's on the agenda today? More traveling?"

"Yes." He nodded. "But! I wanted to get some modifying done before we go. If.. you wanna.. Help me with that?"

"Uhh sure? Is something wrong?"

"Well I wanna make sure none of the kids wander over and see. It's not exactly a PG sight." I nodded and notified Oldren. The kids had already formed something of a barrier of space between Max and them. For some reason, they were super uneasy around him, despite my best efforts.

Even while Max was explaining some of the games they all collectively looked uneasy, some looking over at me pleadingly and others staring as if he were a starved beast waiting to strike. Only until after he subbed himself out with another kid did they finally begin to relax.

If it bothered him it didn't show on his face. Though to be fair, nothing really does. Oldren says it's a defense mechanism, but I'm still not really sure what that's supposed to mean…

We walked over through the tree line and a tad deeper. Max found a nice tree to lean on, his back facing the camp. There was a clear view on both sides of the rest of the grassy plane. I kept my eyes on all the running kids, ensuring none got too close.

Secretly, I was kinda looking forward to this. After all, Max has always kept the specifics of his Sub-System secret, especially when he actually uses it. This really felt like the founding of a new level or trust between us, and I was all for it.

"Hmm, before all that there's something I wanna test…" He said to himself. He looked up at me but I had already politely turned my head away. "I have a couple things on my shopping list, but before I try them out there's something I need to deal with, an 'organ' I received a long time ago that I should have reinforced way sooner…" He explained.

He stretched out his arm and after a second of nothing, light smoke began to sizzle across his skin. "Ugh." He groaned uncomfortably. The smoke began to draw an outline on his arm, the whole thing quickly bursting into blue flame right before its completion.

Max shouted in pain and doubled over, careful to keep the fire from being smothered by the ground. He thrashed in place and churned his teeth as the fire continued to burn, sparkling in places. I watched helpless as the pain intensified, the flames now widening slightly and scorching deeper into his flesh.

After a minute of agony, the flames died out leaving a beautiful tattoo on his arm which was now red and raw from the heat. My eyes took it all in, the beautiful portrait of the silver snake with huge, thick scales, with a body that coiled within itself, staying contained on the surface of Max's arm, only its head extending to rest on his hand.

Once his skin returned to its normal white, the tattoo faded into nonexistence, not a trace left in sight. "Well that fucking sucked." He said, attempting to reign in his composure. "Time for round two!" Before I could say anything, the same spot on his arm began smoking again.

Max you idiot! The smoke was a dark blue color this time, and appeared in much larger amounts. The upgrade was faster, the same billowing blue fire erupting across his arm in a gout of flames. They flared up and then subtly seeped to the sides, before they hastily extinguished themselves, some burning smoke still left behind.

The tattoo had gained an unmistakable depth. While the art hadn't changed much, it looked more real. Some plates on the dragon looked better shaded, some segments of the snake were more appropriately sized, and it was a bit longer.

Max's groans of pain had been cut off halfway through, replaced by a complex, searching look in his eyes. He now sat on his knees, eyes twitching as though furiously looking for something amongst the brush.

"Lily." He said, voice distant. Grasping. "Can you go get the wind source?" I ran. All of our source stuff was contained within my backpack, the fire source (now being used under the giant pot), the water source having been broken into pieces and bestowed upon our water skins, and finally the primal wind source.

An object of fascination that we have yet to find a use for. Oldren has said that he can process it into a 'focus', but is reluctant due to his lack of decent materials. Thanks to this and Max's inability to learn magic, it's been left to rot for weeks, simply creating a fresh breeze and generating endless amounts of true wind mana.

I got it as quickly as I could, the strangely shaped light green crystal was incredibly awkward to grip. It looked like it was supposed to be transparent, with an almost clear outer rim that transformed to cloudy off-white deeper within.

I rushed back and deposited it by Max's right knee before taking a step back and to the side. He distractedly picked up the crystal and just.. Stared at it. For minutes on end. Soon, he grabbed a string of mana and began testing it. Beholding its appearance and behaviors.

He hummed as if he was on to something. With manic energy desperate for a conclusion, he began grabbing the strings and twisting them. He formed a large circle about four feet across. Next he made three foot circle within that, three one foot circles within that and a six inch circle in the dead center.

He began stringing the mana from the outermost circle to the second one, curving them. I watched equally mesmerized and perplexed. He made more and more lines, growing more and more confident with each stroke.

Eventually, the circle looked like a vortex of curved lines being sucked into the center. The spell began to charge. The primal wind source began to glow as its mana production was awakened. Huge amounts of wind aligned mana particles flowed into Max's wind construct, the circle itself now spinning with the blowing of the wind like a fan.

Max, still in that trance, the tattoo having yet to disappear, stretched out both of his hands. The circle disappeared as it activated, and visible strips of wind began to gather from afar. First three, then five to eight. More and more flung themselves into the center of a growing ball of compressed wind similar in appearance to a ball of yarn.

Max set his legs and held his right arm with his left as the sucking force of the spell began to rip leaves and sticks out of the surroundings. The trees began to bend as the hungry spell refused to stop its vicious momentum.

The whirling sphere in the center grew both in size and speed, rotating faster and faster and faster, making the vortex grow even stronger in an endless amplification. But all things must come to an end.

The strips of wind finally stopped coming. And while the trees still bent from force, the sphere slowed its spin for a moment.

And then it detonated.

Max realized if before I did. As soon as he was free of the strange trance, he cursed and dived backwards. The black hole of wind exploded violently, creating a large and visible shock wave that destroyed the ground and sent me flying multiple yards.

The collected leaves, rocks and sticks burst from the vacuum like shrapnel, cutting like barbs through the trees and my skin, leaving thin red cuts.

"Haha… HAHAHAHAH!!!!!! I DID IT! I'M A MAGE!! LILY LO- Oh shit!!" Upon noticing my position on the ground he rushed over, his face plagued with many emotions. He built momentum and collapsed to his knees, executing a baseball slide over to me.

I had already sat up, but he put a hand on my back and urged me to lean on him. He physically fumbled around, unsure of what to do. I sighed good naturedly and directed him. I sat in his lap and leaned against his chest, support more stable than any old tree or rock.

"Max, are you the kinda guy who makes a girl cry on the playground, and then runs away?" He froze. "I've totally done that before." He admitted. I checked his emotional state by opening my clan concord and clicking on his profile image in the bottom left corner.

< Emotional State: Fear | Guilt | Elation (subdued) >

He twitched his hands, as though he was gonna move his arms, but he chose not too, much to my disappointment. Instead, he rested his chin on top of my head and relaxed. "I'm sorry." He apologized. It was the most genuine I'd ever heard him. Not hiding his emotions behind a mask, nor making some joke or reference. Just pure, raw regret.

I leaned against him. "It's okay." I smiled gently, the cuts on my arms still stinging. I was only currently wearing regular clothes, as my armor was in Oldren's shop. Max's emotions shifted as he wrapped his left arm around me.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He placed his hand over one of the bigger cuts and held still.

Hp- 2893/3000 | St- 2780/4000 | Condition - Bleeding | Heart Beat

< Heart Beat- Positive condition. Promotes regeneration of a specific spot and channels the necessary nutrients from the healing host. Note: The effects are more diminished than normal due to the host's abysmal affinity for healing. >

Is Max the 'healing host'?

< Yes >

< Emotional State: Annoyance | Guilt | Elation (subdued) | Discomfort (Minor) >

I smiled coyly. "You feeling uncomfortable, Max?" His hands were sweaty, and entire body stiff as though one wrong move would send him to hell for eternity. "...You know I'm not a fan of such.. Proximity." He said stiffly.

I chuckled sadly. Oh how I wish that wasn't the truth. "Yeah I kno-"

< Class Skill: [Iris] Activated >

< Lie Detected >

…WHAT.

I forgot I got that skill! What does it do again?

< Class Skill: [Iris] (lv33)- Pierce the veil. See the truth. You will no longer be fooled by illusions, whether they be of the physical or mental plane. Allows you to see through lies, perceive the degree of truth, and look into a person's mind. May activate automatically when necessary. >

I automatically flipped to my clan concord, went to privacy settings, and set that particular skill to 'invisible'. Who in their right mind thought a skill like that was a good idea to make? And to give it to a 13 year old girl? You're just asking for trouble at this point.

Anyways, I'm gonna abuse the heck out of this!

"Hmmm… So Max, what's your type?"

"Why on Earth would I tell you that?"

Wai- crap! I didn't activate the skill! Ugh!

"Why not? We're friends aren't we?" Okay, skill should be on.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to be classified as. A ghostly, quiet voice said. It was weak and echoed around in my head like ripples on an expansive lake. Must be because of its low level. I can barely hear him…

He shifted. I tried to direct the skill towards him again. Faint echoes resounded, muted and scattered. Multiple trains of thought unfinished floated around, scattering the wind like castles made of sand.

As I listened in, interference began to resound. It became deafeningly loud, and even began to obscure my mental image. I shut the skill off, and peace returned to my mind. I looked up at Max, his face agitated.

"Something wrong?" I asked innocently. "There's- it's- maybe? I don't know, something just… feels wrong somehow." His voice transitioned from confusion to grave malice. "Like a worm trying to burrow into my skin."

Yeah so I cut off [Iris] immediately. I am not messing with that. Max's senses are our main method of survival. If this skill has some sort of effect I don't know about… best to keep it off, curiosity be damned.

Hmm, actually, maybe I should only use it in short bursts? I thought, immediately undercutting my previous thought.

"Can I go now?" Max said, trying to stand up. I hastily channeled some mana and physically pushed him back down. He let out a surprised oof as his attempt failed. Though he had lifted me off the ground for a split second.

It's not that I'm physically stronger than Max, not by a long shot. It was simply the sheer surprise at my resistance that allowed me to push him down.

"Are you for real? Are you gonna make me waste a teleport on this?" He asked, surprisingly not a hint of anger in his voice, just incredulity.

"W-wait! You still haven't fully healed me yet!" I said truthfully.

Oh, that's actually a good reason. Where though? He thought.

He swung his head left and right, inspecting my body for more cuts, but he didn't find any. "Where? [Heart Burst] should have a pretty decent radius." I lifted up my skirt. "Right-"

"MmMnnope. {[Hyper-"

"Wait wait wait wait wait!!! I was joking! It's just a joke!" I floundered. He eyed me, still mentally deciding if he should activate the skill or not.

"-ow-" He tried to say something but suddenly toppled and held his hand to his head. His face became troubled, and his eyelids began to shut. "Huh. Suddenly I feel so… Tired." He dismissed me languidly. "Ugh. Do whatever you want. I'm taking a power nap."

"Aw.. Is it something I did?" I asked, disappointed. I was finally making some progress..

"Probably." He said. But when he noticed my expression, he sighed and continued. "...not. I'm sure the upgrades to the Sky Catalyst are to blame." He laid himself flat on the ground with his arms splayed.

"Wake me up after lunch." And with that, he was out. Again.

I sniffed and inspected the short red gash on my upper thigh. "I wasn't lying though…"

"Just heal yourself." Max said. "I thought you were sleeping?" I checked his status. No yeah it does say he's sleeping… ???

Currently I was sitting on the ground between Max's legs. I huffed and turned around. I quietly moved up and over him, and then slammed my whole weight on top of him!

Nothing.

Not exactly unpleased with my current position, I curled my arms under my chin and stared at his face. I stewed in Max's radiating warmth like a cat sunbathing on a smooth stone and began drifting off myself, before the sound of footsteps jostled me awake. Oh, the kids are coming. Please don't be in a situation, I really don't wanna move~!

Soon the collection of feet stopped. I vaguely saw some pairs of legs in my peripherals, but I didn't move to look at them directly. I gave them a moment to gawk before addressing them. "Can I help you?"

I was a bit grumpy.

The girl in front stammered. "U-u-um s-s-s-sorry!!!" I waved them off. "S-sorry for interrupting you, we'll go!!!"

"Hold on, what's the problem?" All of them looked nervous. The group consisted of two girls and two boys. The girl in the front was the tallest, and skinniest, though all of them had gaunt figures. Her long black hair flitted in the wind, some strands falling out from the light whisk.

The other three flanked her, though they were much further back, and held looks full of fear. The tall girl looked just as scared but, despite her trembling hands, tried to put on a brave face. "U-um. T-the soup is ready." She stammered, her confidence waning with every word.

"Is Oldren there?" She nodded quickly, as if she would suffer if she didn't answer fast enough. "Then ask him for the bowls and dish it out yourselves." I said curtly. "B-b-but-"

"Sigh, fine fine." As I got up, I suddenly found myself pinned between Max and a hard place. In one fluid motion, his spread out arms had swooped in and swallowed me in his grip. He turned on his side.

All three of the kids froze, the girl in the middle shivering violently. "Max, can you close your eyes?

"Sorry~" He said dreamily.

I wiggled in his grip for a few seconds, pretending to try and get out of his grasp. I gave up very quickly. "Welp, looks like I can't help you guys now." I said, my voice muffled from being turned away from them.

"What's the problem? Don't you guys trust Oldren yet? You seemed to be fine with him last I checked." Well, that's not entirely true. That one group certainly seemed to like him, but I had no clue about the rest.

From the way they grouped up and kept away from all of us, perhaps they're not as comfortable with our presence as I hoped. If that's the case, then why do they trust me more than Oldren? Well, the answer is pretty obvious. I'm the one who look most similar to them.

I say looks and not age, because Max is actually pretty close in age to some of them. A few of the kids are actually fifteen, so I see no reason that they can't get along. And yet.. All of them avoid Max like the plague.

I wonder how they feel, being taken care of by a girl younger than them? Are they vexed, or are they too scared to care? Just what the heck did all of these guys go through?

The kids behind her stayed silent, waiting for her to speak. Out of respect or fear I couldn't confidently denote. She spoke. "It's… hard to trust kindness."

"We used to live in darkness. Cages. This place is the opposite. The vastness, the light, the taste of the air and the sounds… It's all so different from what we've known. I remember what it was like before the bars, but some of our younger numbers don't. That place is all they knew. We adapt to our surroundings. Do what we're told, accept what is given to us. But we don't want to risk this new existence, by doing something of our own accord."

…So they haven't been warming up to us at all. They've been doing what they were told to. No wonder they all picked up the games so quickly, it's what they were told to do. The concept of 'options' doesn't exist to them. To them, they weren't saved, they just.. Changed hands.

"Why me then?" The girl shivered, and looked down. With a meek voice, she said "I don't know."

< True >

"Then what about the group playing with Oldren?"

"They're doing what they can to survive." Just currying favor? No, there's no way! That can't be all it is..

"..Are you sure? It looks very genuine to me."

The girl looked down again. "What else could it be?" She said quietly.

I need to internalize something. This girl isn't their voice, but a victim as well. What she's telling me right now isn't necessarily true. Whether those boys really are just acting out of a learned sense of survival or have genuinely come to care about Oldren, she wouldn't know.

Just like them, she's learned ways to think and act to survive. It's not necessarily that they are distrustful, but a fact that she is.

This is all so confusing. And.. it's not like there's anything I can actually do about. 'Some things take time, and only time, to heal'.

"Even if they're just pretending, the fact that they are able to even act that way is, I think, a sign of trust. Either trust in their judgment and talk to Oldren, or ask them to do it for you."

She chewed on her lips. "Now go! Shoo!" I waved them away. The leader girl scrambled off, the rest of the boys following her. One stayed behind and bowed to me, before running off.

Being a social butterfly in this world is clearly harder than I expected. No wonder Max leaves it to me at every opportunity. This is exhausting!

As I thought about the conversation, I took a deep dive into everything I had learned about the kids. I tried to piece together what exactly they had been through, and how I could have talked to them better, plus how I should improve in the future.

An hour passed in the blink of an eye whilst I was deep in my reflection. In that time, Max awoke. Once he did, realizing how he had wrapped himself around me he quickly dislodged himself and scooted back a good few feet.

He wrapped his arm around himself dramatically and shouted 'I feel sullied'. When I explained that he's the one that initiated, he looked at me with an extremely neutral look and said: 'That doesn't sound like something I would do.'

I guess he took my incredulous silence as an admission of guilt, as he dismissed himself moments later.

When I walked back to camp, I discovered that lunch had eventually been dolled out, though by which method I was unsure. Everything continued as normal. Oldren, when he had free time, practiced his schizophrenia impression in front of the kids via making and refining blueprints.

Max always tries his best to not slip into procrastination and practices his skills on the regular. It's gotten tougher lately though, since his every action terrorizes the kids somehow. Practicing combat moves? Fear. Some relaxing chiseling? Terror. Meditating? Complete despair.

He's been a good sport about it, but it's starting to show on his face. Thus, he's committed to avoiding all of us completely, and hiding somewhere nearby and obscured to practice. I think the isolation is starting to get to him.

He may be allergic to letting his emotions show on his face, but there are other signs. The way he chews his lip every time a kid has a reaction, the way he's begun flinching every time he sees a kid in his peripherals. The way he hunches while he eats, cuts conversations short, refuses to stop and joke with Oldren.

It's like watching a ball of yarn unwind. The kids are afraid of him, and he's afraid of me. Or at least, what I'm trying to give him. It's like some super messed up triangle of despair.

The breaking point was that night.

Five days had now passed since the kids had been sprung on us. All of us were tired. Annoyed. I was mentally and physically exhausted. Oldren was at his wits end, doing everything in his power to not snap at the annoying tweens. Max was nearing his breaking point.

I'd never seen him so mentally broken. Which to be fair, is a very high bar. He wasn't completely unraveling, but he was on the cusp of a breakdown. I remember when he told me that he'd been alone for weeks before he met me. I figured something like this wouldn't put him down after enduring something like that, but no.

Clearly, facing constant rejection was much more callousing than facing social oblivion. He had to sleep by himself. Not such a bad fate, some would think, but no. Before, he had at least the knowledge that we were nearby if tragedy struck.

Now, he was hated. Secluded. Tormented. And I was no better. I treated him as the same immovable figure I had always known him as. He's different from us, I'd thought. Forger of an unbreakable will that can power through any situation. A champion over all sorts of great and terrible beasts. One who knows no fear, a purveyor of bravery.

But I was very wrong.

Max is the most human of all of us.

It's what makes him strong.

And it's what makes him. . .

"Max..?"

I had awoken in the dead of night, the full moon high above our heads and ever so slightly descending. Spurred by some primal intuition, I rose from my blanket fort and walked towards Max's part of the woods.

I walked and I walked. The forest got darker, gloomier the further I went.

I began to hear sniffling.

Crying.

Sobbing.

I was haunted by the wails and screams, but, carried by rising dread, I carried forward.

It was a simple thing. I found him under a tree, shrouded in deep shadow. His back was facing me, huddled with his legs to his chest and his hands cradling his head. His body shook as he let out a short, sorrowful wail.

He coughed and hacked. Stifling more cries before giving into the pain and spitting out his terror. He crushed his head in his hands, tore at his hair. He screamed in anguish, lamented with barks of wheezing, putting so much pressure on his skull that it threatened to cave in.

His soul flickered and buckled from long passed trauma. A ghost of knives embedded in the heart shimmered like teeth. It shuttered, as if the space around it was a storm. It twisted, stretched and compressed, small changes that snapped back to normal, but continued.

I had stopped, stood in place. Not in deliberation, not in thought. No thoughts made their way into my head. All I did was stand there and watch. I willed myself to move. Thoughts like what if he would rather be alone or he would hate for me to see him like this.

All was snuffed out by the purest of desires. I rushed over to him. I kneeled down and carefully put my hand on his arm. With blinding speed he lashed out, sending me barrelling into a far away tree.

I thudded heavily into the wood, large pieces of bark imbedding themselves into my skin like spikes. I got back up, grit my teeth, indured the pain, and walked back. I fought back tears as I raked the bits of bark out of my flesh. They left long, ugly red tears that trailed crimson blood, but I was uncaring.

The cries of terror had become even more terrible. Fear and regret and sadness. Hatred and despair and loathing. An intense storm of emotion I was wholly unprepared to deal with.

Go away.

A fragile voice screeched from the aether.

Please. You're the last…

As if the slightest touch would blow it away.

Don't look at me.

I looked at him.

How many more times…

I sat next to him. I stayed quiet. There was nothing I could say, so I didn't bother. I just stayed next to him. His mind was a buzz with a traffic jam of thoughts. Worries and chastisations. Thoughts about undoing, thoughts about weakness. How he would be perceived, how his efforts were worthless.

How much it hurt. How pathetic it was to be hurt by such things. How I thought about him. How Oldren thought about him. How the kids thought about him. How the random strangers we'd met along the way thought about him. Unfamiliar figures flashed through his head, thought and calculations unpacking his entire life, breaking it down into nothing but mistakes and grievances.

The buzz cut off. He slammed his head into the tree behind him and stared at the stars. His breathing continued as quick staccotic rhythms. He clutched his chest as he struggled to find air to fill his lungs.

The moonlight illuminated the river delta of tears streaming down his face. I looked up at the night sky too. Soon, I felt him staring at me. Hundreds of different emotions and thoughts swirling in his mind, and his heart.

His breathing continued to be shallow. I pretended to not notice and glared at the moon, as if Max's current state was its fault. He went back to staring at the sky for a second, before sagging and glaring down at the floor.

He wrestled with his own body, desperately trying to suck air into his lungs. No matter what, the storm of chaos refused to calm. His thoughts began to form into variations of: what if I'm stuck like this, when will it go away? What did I do to deserve this? Why? Why? W-

He held up one shaky hand. It froze midair. But after rerunning a conclusion in his mind, he went for it. He lunged for my hand. His sweaty, ice cold palms gripped onto my own. He pulled my arm over and clutched it between both of his hands, resting his forehead against it.

Like a prayer.

His breathing began to steady. His heart began to slow. His pupils began to contract. The shake in his hands subsided. He tilted his head backwards again and let our hand-sandwich fall between his lap.

I dared not speak. A war waged within his mind, regret, wretchedness, contempt. But there was also thankfulness. Indulgence, and avarice. Stuck in an infinite loop, I took initiative. I leaned against him, my head resting against his shoulder.

He flinched. But within his mind, the indulgence won out. The other side still screamed in hate. Filled him with rivers of guilt. Telling him he deserves nothing. Telling him that he deserves all of this. That these decisions will twist him beyond repair.

But these voices were as much him as the others. I didn't ask what was wrong. I didn't offer any help, vocally, at least. All I did was stay with him. In the moment.

And for Max, that was more than enough.