“Ethan? Ethan, can you hear me?”
He looked up, momentarily unsure of where he was.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Ethan turned. He was sitting in a chair. Around him, people were talking back and forth. It was warm, and the atmosphere was lively. Across the table sat Alex, his hair tied back, and he was watching Ethan with pity.
“What’s wrong with you? You’re not still sulking about Katara, are you?”
Ethan reeled, shaking his head. “Don’t say such silly things. That damn woman tried to kill me.”
Alex laughed, the sound carrying with the other patrons. “I did warn you about her. What did you say again? ‘She’s just teaching me how to use a sword.’” He laughed again, slapping the table. “Yeah right! More like she was teaching you where to stick it!”
Ethan groaned, picking up his mug and taking a deep drink. The ale slid down his throat, easing the edge of his embarrassment.
“Whatever. It doesn’t beat the time with you and Darcy,” Ethan shot back, a glint in his eyes.
Alex froze, then slowly turned back to him. “We agreed never to talk about that again.”
Ethan smirked. “I’ll agree to that if we add Katara to the list.”
Alex waved him off, grabbing his drink. “Fine. I’ll cheers to that.”
Ethan met him halfway. Their jugs smashed together, ale spilling over the sides as neither of them cared, downing the drink in one go.
“So, have you heard that Bjorn is going to attempt the seventh level?” Alex asked as he finished his drink.
Ethan looked up. “What do you mean? Bjorn’s dead—” he paused, lowering his empty mug until it hit the table.
Wait, Bjorn was dead wasn’t he? He rubbed his head. A headache coming on. Until he noticed their was no noise. Which was odd. The bar had just been so loud they had to shout. He looked around. The bar had gone deathly quiet. Everyone was looking at him. Including Alex. Their expressions blank.
The more he looked around the room, the more faces he recognized. People from humanity’s final army were staring at him. What the hell was going on? Where was he? Seb—an elder man with a long grey beard—stood up, his chair scraping unnaturally across the wooden floor.
“Why did you survive? What about me!” he stated, his voice full of hate.
Ethan opened his mouth to respond, unsure of what was happening, his head beginning to thump as something pushed against his thoughts. Visions of the future forced their way into his mind. Visions of Seb on his knees, screaming as hellspawn tore into him, his body failing as he tried to keep healing others even as he was dying.
A cold sweat broke out across Ethan’s forehead. He closed his mouth, then opened it again, but no words came.
Another chair scraped. Ethan turned to the other side of the room. Lena stood, her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes locked onto him.
“You could have done more,” she said, her voice trembling. “You could have made a difference.”
Ethan’s chest tightened. Another vision slammed into him, Lena calling out, trying to regroup the flank as everything collapsed around her, her voice lost beneath the screams and chaos.
“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t even try,” she cut in sharply.
Another chair scraped as a man stood near the bar, his armor broken, his face half torn, though Ethan still recognized him. He was one of the first to fall.
“You said we could win,” he said, his voice hollow. “You said I would be okay.”
Ethan’s head pounded harder, the pressure building as the memories came faster, clearer, sharper. He had said that. He had believed it. He had been wrong. He had been so wrong.
“I tried,” Ethan said. “I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
The words came from behind him this time.
Ethan turned, his breath catching as more of them stood up. Faces he knew. Names he couldn’t forget. Every single one of them had been there at the end.
“Why did you survive and not me?”
“You could have saved us.”
“You were meant to be a pillar.”
“You lost.”
The voices began to overlap, building, stacking on top of each other until they filled the room, pressing in from all sides as the warmth bled away completely, replaced by something cold and suffocating. Ethan’s grip tightened on the table, the wood creaking under the pressure as his vision blurred slightly.
“I did all I could,” he growled, though even to his own ears, it sounded weak. He hadn’t tried hard enough. He hadn’t taken the trials seriously until it was too late. Until he had lost everything he cared about.
“It wasn’t enough.”
Ethan froze. Slowly, he turned back toward the table.
Alex was standing. For a moment, he looked the same. The same man Ethan had laughed with moments ago. The same friend he had fought beside for years. But as he stood there, something shifted, the life draining from his expression, replaced by something far colder.
“You were right there,” Alex said quietly.
Ethan’s breath hitched. The memory hit him harder than the others. Alex pinned, blood pooling beneath him as he reached out. Ethan had been so close. He could have gotten there, if only he were slightly stronger.
“I was right there,” Alex repeated.
The room fell silent again, every eye locked onto Ethan.
“Why couldn’t you save me?” Alex asked.
Ethan couldn’t speak.
“Why,” Alex continued, “did you let me die?”
“I tried, I… I—”
Ethan rushed to the door. He pulled it open as more people started calling out once more. Ethan stepped out of the bar, his thoughts swirling.
His feet crunched over the snow, sinking into the soft powder, as a cold wind assaulted him. Even in his armor, he could feel it slipping through the seams. Ethan pulled his hood up, his cloak blowing uncontrollably behind him.
“How much further?” he shouted. Though it was unnecessary. Even if he whispered, the person would have heard.
“We’ll be there soon,” Tifa answered, the sound travelling unnaturally, like she whispered right into his ear.
Ethan chanced a glance up when there was a lull in the wind. The snow stilled for a moment. Ahead, Tifa walked. She glided across the snow with an angelic grace. She looked back at him with a smile.
“Come on. Keep up!”
Ethan froze, unsure where to look. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.”
She laughed, disappearing with the wind. Ethan grinned. He tapped into his Aura, his energy responding like a dam opening. Strength flooded his limbs. The cold disappeared. His feet sunk further into the snow, but it no longer mattered. Ethan dashed forward, the trees blurring as he started moving faster and faster. He rounded a corner, coming into an opening. The trees parted, revealing Tifa. She sat on the cliff’s edge, her white gown blending with the snow.
“Are you not cold?” he asked.
She didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she looked out at the view. Her shoulders slumped.
“Are you not worried?”
Ethan paused, suddenly unable to take another step forward. “Worried about what?”
Tifa didn’t turn at first. She kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, the endless stretch of white below them, her shoulders rising and falling slowly as though the weight of the world was on her.
“Our people,” she said quietly. “They’re fighting.”
Ethan frowned. “That doesn’t matter,” he replied after a moment. “It’s always like that. It’ll pass.”
Tifa’s smile didn’t return. Instead, she shook her head slightly, her pale hair shifting with the movement as the wind picked up again.
“No, Ethan. It won’t. People are going to die, unless you do something about it.”
As she spoke, movement stirred behind him. Ethan’s senses flared, but too late.
Figures stepped from the tree line, one after the other, their forms emerging through the drifting snow until three stood at the edge of the clearing. The one in front gave a small nod.
“Good work, Ethan,” he said. “Truly. We weren’t sure we’d find her so easily.”
Ethan’s stomach dropped.
The wind howled. Then the world turned white. A blizzard rolled in without warning, swallowing everything in an instant. The trees vanished. The cliff disappeared. Even the ground beneath his feet blurred as the storm erased all sense of direction. Ethan moved forward blindly, until the storm cleared.
Tifa lay in the snow. Red spread beneath her, stark against the white, pooling and soaking into the powder as her body lay unnaturally still.
“No…” Ethan dropped to his knees beside her, the impact sending snow scattering as he scooped her into his arms, pulling her close. “No, no—you’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”
His hands shook as he brushed her hair back from her face, his fingers catching on strands that had frozen against her skin. He pushed it back, tucking it behind her pointed ear.
Tifa’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze unfocused as she struggled to look at him. Her lips parted, her voice little more than a whisper carried on the dying wind.
“Become who you were always meant to be.”
Her hand lifted weakly, trembling as it pressed against his chest, over his heart, before slipping away once more.
Ethan froze. Her words repeated over and over.
Footsteps crunched through the snow around him.
“Good job,” one of them said again, closer this time.
Ethan didn’t look up. He couldn’t move. Instead he whispered, “Who am I?”
Someone touched his shoulder. [Aura Domain] exploded outward.
But it wasn’t the same. Where once it had been gentle, healing, and all-encompassing, now it twisted violently, the energy warping as it surged from him in unstable waves. His vision sharpened unnaturally, every detail snapping into place with painful clarity as the aura bled into the environment, corrupting everything it touched.
“What’s going on—” one of them started as he pulled his hand away.
Ethan wasn’t listening. He whispered again, “Who am I?”
The snow began to melt, hissing as it gave way. Beneath it, the soil blackened, turning dark and slick as the poison seeped into it. The air grew thick, heavy, each breath burning as the aura intensified, spreading further and further with every passing second.
A voice echoed through his mind.
You’re not strong enough. You can’t save anyone.
Ethan’s aura exploded. The trees lining the cliffside began to wither, their branches shriveling as the life was torn from them, leaves blackening and crumbling to dust as they fell. The ground itself seemed to rot under the pressure, the world around him breaking down as his power spiraled out of control.
The three attackers staggered. Blood began to pour from their eyes and ears. They tried to move, to speak. But none of it mattered. One dropped to his knees first, choking as his body failed, followed by the second, then the third, all of them collapsing into the poisoned ground as the aura tore through them without mercy, stripping away everything they were until nothing remained.
Silence followed. Slowly, the aura receded, pulling back into Ethan as though nothing had happened, leaving behind a dead, blackened clearing where life had once been.
Ethan remained kneeling in the snow. Tifa lay in his arms, unmoving.
“What am I?”
Slowly, he looked down at her. But it was no longer Tifa. Instead, faces blurred and changed. One second Leah lay dead in his arms, only to be replaced by Alex, Nivia, even Bella. Each death struck something in him. Each face a reminder of what he had lost and what he was fighting for.
Until finally, the body in his arms settled on a face he wasn’t expecting. His own. Only he was older. A scar ran from brow to chin, smaller ones covered his cheek. His older self opened his eyes.
Ethan released the body and scrambled away, just as the other version of him sat up, tracking him.
“You look like you've seen a ghost.”