Chương 44: Chapter 41: A Mother's Ruin

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"Let's never do this again." Tre tried for a smile that didn't quite work with his face still covered in gore. He limped toward us, favoring his left leg. The health bar over his head was at 48%. A few surviving kids had emerged from behind cars. Four of them total. As well as the group of kids that were hiding with Liam. They all bolted for the road, not looking back. That left the four of us. Surrounded by smoke, glass, blood, too many bodies to count. Barely alive. I inventoried my injuries. My skeletal fingers.

My ruined leg.

"This monster smells like fucking roadkill," Tre groaned.

"Can we move somewhere else?" The Lake Mother's pulverized corpse did indeed stink to high Heaven. Every inhale coated my tongue with the taste of spoiled milk mixed with decayed fish guts. Liam and Isabel worked together to haul me to my feet and half-drag me toward the parking lot's exit. Tre was perched on my shoulder, careful to avoid any injuries. We moved on, too drained to speak, using every last bit of energy just to keep going.

The adrenaline and artificial stamina boost coursing through my body crashed hard. The numbness, graciously provided to me by shock, gave way to a singular pain that ripped through me. A dam broke inside, unleashing a flood of unimaginable agony. I fell back. My dead weight tipped Isabel and Liam off balance, and they had to let me go to stay on their feet. My ass hit the ground, sending a razor-sharp spasm up my spine. Tre hopped off my shoulder as I screamed and fell onto my back.

"Nora…" Isabel started, reaching for me.

"I'm okay. I just need a minute," I said, looking up at the dark clouds covering the moon. Isabel hesitated, then sank beside me, back against a car tire. Tre sat on my other side. Liam followed, dropping heavily to the asphalt a few feet away. All of us were too broken to do anything but sit there. We were a few feet from the crashed cars blocking the way out. We'd have to climb over them to leave. The mere thought of moving an inch made my entire body scream in defiance.

My throbbing skeletal hand demanded my attention with phantom pain from fingers that weren't there anymore. Three bones protruded from the healed-over stumps. Making a fist was easy, but there was barely any strength behind the movement. Just bone magically puppeteering itself. I followed the crimson streak that led from my body back across the asphalt. Fifteen feet of my own blood, ending at the pile of pulverized meat that used to be the Lake Mother's head. A faint blinking light under the car caught my eye.

Beneath the gore of the Mother's remains, something was glowing a sickly, phosphorescent green. A prompt appeared in my HUD, over my critical health warnings: ITEM DETECTED! Mother's Ruin"Cooool! Boss loot!" Tre squealed as he ran over to pick up the item. It was a large metal hook, slightly bigger than his body. By the time he dragged it back to me, he was panting. ZONE ONE COMPLETE! SURVIVOR'S MILESTONE REACHED! SKILL EVOLUTION! ADRENAL CASCADE II Effect: Duration increased to 3s, Stamina penalty reduced.

"Use it to keep the doll safe." ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! LADY SKYWALKER Unlocks: SKELETAL FINESSE"Acceptable loss." SKILL GAINED! SKELETAL FINESSE (Passive) Effect: Right hand is immune to pain/fatigue. +10% Accuracy with light weapons.

"Next time, I'll get the rest of your hand." COMPANION ABILITIES UPDATED! ISABEL HOYOS New Skill: VENGEFUL AURA Effect: Allies gain +10% Damage against Supernatural/Traitor classes. TRE CARTER New Skill: RESILIENT HOMUNCULUS Effect: +15% Fire Resistance; +10% Base Durability. The shift in my skeletal hand came gradually. The phantom throbbing went quiet, replaced by cold precision. I flexed the bone fingers; they rattled together with a new strength. I looked back at the trail of blood.

At the broken skateboard covered in gore. I did that. I also burned a cabin full of terrified kids, killed multiple monsters, and saw countless mutilated bodies, many of them belonging to innocent people. And was it worth it? I didn't know. What the fuck am I even fighting for? The question came anyway, uninvited. And the answer quickly followed, cold and certain: Nothing. I just don't care if I live or die. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Was that true?

Had I wanted to die the whole time? The thought never actively crossed my mind... I'd never even tried to end things, but I had also made very little effort to live after the funeral. Not fighting for anything. Not wanting anything… Until this fucking game started. Tonight, I fought and kept fighting to keep my friends alive. I don't really care what happens to me. Was that my advantage? My secret weapon? The thing that sets me apart from past players who lost? I couldn't tell anyone this. Not Liam or Isabel.

Not even Tre. None of them could know that inside me was a cavernous space. They could never know I'd kept them alive while being fundamentally indifferent to my own survival. They needed me to be strong. To have a reason to keep going. I didn't. Isabel stood a few feet away, blood on her hoodie, unfocused. Liam sat with his back against a car, head in his hands. Tre limped toward me, favoring his good leg, face still streaked with soot and gore. He looked so small. So breakable.

Tre settled down beside me, arms curling around my left bicep, head resting against my shoulder, trembling. The angry burns on his vinyl skin looked worse up close.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this, Nora," he whispered, the words barely audible. His words punched through the numbness left in the wake of my personal realization. Tre never said things like that. He kept going, he made jokes, and stayed optimistic. I don't know if I can keep doing this… Now he might give up. I could lose him here and be alone forever. Or worse, he could let himself get killed, or volunteer to be an NPC, and maybe I'd have to kill him.

Tre was not supposed to be the one who— Someone was crying. I searched my friends' faces for the source of the sound. Isabel was blank-faced, drained. Liam was staring at the ground. Tre pressed against my arm, silent. That's when it dawned on me that my chest was heaving. My face felt wet. And that the harsh, ugly, animal sounds were coming from me. The sobs came in waves, each one tearing through me like I was being turned inside out. I couldn't stop.

My good hand found Tre's small body and gripped him like he might vanish if I let go.

"Don't—" The word came out strangled.

"You can't quit—" I tried again.

"You kept… You were the only one who kept showing up." The admission ripped out of me.

"After Mom… when I disappeared, when I—" Another sob cut me off.

"You just kept fucking showing up." The sobs kept coming.

"I wasn't there for you. I'm not a good friend… I'm selfish, and I vanished while you were dealing with going viral and everything happening at the museum." Tre sat up, listening, face unreadable.

"But I'm here now. I'm actually here. So don't—" I couldn't finish. Tre's weight shifted. He moved close and lay on my chest, arms wide. He wasn't large enough anymore to wrap his arms completely around me, but even mini-Tre gave the best hugs.

"I know, Nora." I pressed my face into his soot-covered curls.

"We do this together. Or we don't do it," Tre said. We held each other tight for a few extra moments. COMPANION BOND MAXIMIZED Tre's Loyalty: 100% [UNSHAKABLE]"He'd burn for you. In fact, he just did." I stared at the words until they blurred. There it was. That missing ten percent. Finally. I love you too, buddy. And the second I thought it, I wanted to take it back. Finally. As if he were the one who left me on read. Tre was the one who was always there, the one who never gave up on me. He never gave up on us.

Blame fell on my shoulders for that missing ten percent I'd just won back. Allowing grief to consume me hurt him, and it made total sense. He had every right to be upset. Maltheris had exploited the space between Tre and me. Slapping a number on it gamified my own guilt. While he may have been mad at me, our friendship was never in any real danger of ending. I didn't need some system to tell me we were "Unshakable." There were decades of evidence to attest to that. Tre and I were best friends for life.

Quantifying friendship, as a concept alone, filled me with enough rage to want to flip a car. I wished I could Hulk out and rampage through the Grindhouse, tearing it down zone by stupid zone. I held Tre tighter and thought as hard as I could, aimed at wherever Maltheris kept himself. Fuck you. I'll die before you take him from me. Maltheris was dead wrong anyway. There is no ceiling for what Tre and I have; our bond can't be maximized because it knows no bounds.

"What happens now?" Liam asked.

"Now we do this…" I slid one of the pre-rolls out of my jacket pocket and between my lips.

"Anyone got a light?" I asked through tight lips to keep the joint in my mouth. Liam reached out. His hand was shaking, blood dried under his fingernails, but he produced a cheap Bic lighter. He flicked it to life, cupping the flame against the wind.

"We just killed two monsters and survived a massacre." I leaned in, lighting the joint.

"We've earned this." STATUS APPLIED: MILD EUPHORIA Effect: -20% Fear, -10% Perception Ignoring the pop-up message, I held the joint out to Isabel, who gleefully plucked it from my hand.

"Hell yeah." Tre took a tiny puff when it came around, coughing immediately.

"Oh yeah… that's the good stuff." I turned to Liam.

"You want this?" Liam nodded, accepting the joint. He took a long drag and held it in for a moment, then exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. We passed the joint around for a moment without talking.

"Okay, let's see what we got." Tre strained to lift the hook off the ground and examine it. The weapon was a wicked thing, nearly as long as Tre was tall. It was made of a dark metal I hadn't seen before; it felt like steel but looked closer to volcanic glass. Black and glossy, with a faint green sheen that rippled across its surface like oil on water. The hook itself was elegantly curved, ending in a barbed point. Etched along the shaft were symbols I didn't recognize.

A MOTHER'S RUIN Weapon Type: Reach/Piercing Damage: Very High Reach: +4 Durability: Unbreakable SPECIAL ABILITIES: Rending Hook: Successful strikes inflict Deep Wounds (cannot be healed by normal means, -3% HP per turn for 30s) Lake's Claim: Once per combat, pin a struck enemy in place for 5 seconds Drowned Memory: Weapon gains +10% damage for each enemy killed with it during combat (Max: +100%, resets after combat ends)"Something to remember all the mothers in your life."

I stared at the name for a moment longer than I meant to. Meredith Ganz and Catherine Blackwood, that's what Plaxx said their real names were. Whatever Maltheris had done to them, whatever he'd twisted them into out here, they'd started as two women who lost their daughters and couldn't survive the grief.

"Those abilities are insane," Isabel said, reading over my shoulder. Then she saw the flavor text quote. Her expression shifted.

"Oh. Nora—""It's fine," I snapped. Tre stared at me, dragging the weapon to my side.

"You don't have to—""I said it's fine." But it wasn't. The name, the flavor text, hell, even the fucking Lake Mothers themselves were intentionally designed to make me hurt. And leaving it on the ground is exactly what he wanted me to do. He's trying to use my anger and sadness to weaken me. Fuck that. If he wanted to turn my mother into a weapon, I'd use it to carve my way through every Zone until I could hold the tip to his fucking throat.

My skeletal fingers closed around the rusted shaft, and the hook settled into my grip like it had been waiting for me. I stashed the hook for later use.

"Help me up." Liam and Isabel got under my arms and slowly lifted me to my feet. Scanning the parking lot, I tried to feel a sense of pride that never materialized. We finished the objectives, but at what cost? Too many lives to count, senselessly ended for a demon's entertainment. My good hand involuntarily became a fist. The constant throbbing was replaced with a white-hot flame of fresh anger. I wanted to kill Maltheris, if that was even possible.

"You okay?" Tre sat up and looked at me with concern.

"Fuck no," I said with the driest of laughs.

"Me neither."" Take the wins, Nora," Dr. Boivin's advice echoed in my mind. She'd said this more than once in response to my agonizing over how sporadically I exercised." Don't beat yourself up for what you haven't done. Just acknowledge the times you do exercise."

"Thanks for saving us, Liam." He laughed, an ugly, broken sound.

"Did you… Did you SEE what just happened?" He gestured at the parking lot, the burning camp.

"I ran over a fucking monster with my car. Everyone's dead! Ev—" His voice broke.

"E-Evan, the football guys, that girl on the dock—" He stopped, rubbing the heel of his hand right against his eyebrow.

"And…" The sentence trailed off. He pushed his palm into his eye socket for another second, then let his hands fall to his sides.

"We all saw that health bars pop up over the monster's ladies, right? What the fuck is happening?" Tre limped over, hands up.

"We're in a nightmare game run by demons." Liam glanced between us, the horror building in him with no outlet.

"Holy shit. Y... you're a… he's a talking doll!" He took an involuntary step away from Tre.

"Have you been a doll this whole time?" Liam turned to Isabel, desperate for answers.

"I've been talking to a fucking toy all day and never noticed it?! What did they do to my head?!"

"Welcome to the Grindhouse." Tre's voice was flat, exhausted.

"Wait… what?!"

"It's a game, Liam," Isabel explained, craning her head forward.

"And we're all trapped together."

"A game," Liam repeated the word like it was in a foreign language. His features shifted as his brain refused to make the pieces fit. Finally, his expression just… shut down. The panic smoothed over into an empty stare.

"Okay," he said.

"What happens—" He froze mid-sentence. Smoke hung suspended in the air; the fire behind us had paused mid-flicker. The spinning tires of the overturned cars were stopped. Isabel, Tre, Liam, and I couldn't move anything but our eyes and mouths. Then the sting of sulfur, brimstone, and burnt sugar assaulted our sense of smell.

"Fuck," I whispered.

"What's happening now?" Fresh panic surfaced in Liam's voice.

"It's fine." Tre rolled his eyes.

"Just this asshole again." Plaxx emerged through the thick vapor. He sported that shit-eating grin I'd grown to despise.

"What do you want?" I barked, anger flaring. The red imp threw his hands up defensively.

"Hey now, that's no way to greet your illustrious host."