Chương 399: B6—Chapter 49: A Mirror Framed in Ash

Mahya went to the guild to handle whatever it was that needed her attention, while Al vanished into his lab to brew more health potions. He'd been muttering about running out since yesterday. Rue was still fast asleep on his oversized beanbag, snoring softly and twitching his paws now and then, like he was chasing something in a dream. I floated above the rooftop in slow circles, coffee cup in hand, and stared out at the city. It wasn't the same city.

All the majestic buildings—the ones with white marble facades polished like glass and domes that used to gleam in bright blues, greens, and golds—were now dulled by a thick layer of ash. The vibrant glow that once radiated from the spires was gone. From up here, I could see smoke rising in uneven columns from several spots across the skyline. Even the waterfalls, which once sparkled like strands of light sliding down palace walls, were running gray, streaked with soot. And beneath me, the slums.

Ramshackle roofs, dark alleys, and walls cobbled together from rotten wood and crap. Smoke drifted down there too, hugging the broken skyline like a second skin. The contrast was brutal. The proud capital, designed to awe with its grace and magic, now looked like it had been dragged down into the mud. With ash coating everything from domes to gutters, the entire city seemed to sag under the weight of what had just happened. Floating above it all, coffee gone cold in my hand, the only word that fit was bleak.

I looked down at the people moving through the slums below. They were still putting out the last of the fires, stamping out smoldering wood and dousing stubborn embers with water. Others picked through the remains of half-collapsed homes, pulling out whatever could still be salvaged. Broken furniture, cooking pots, bits of fabric. A few of them walked with limps or held their arms protectively against their sides. Nothing too serious from what I could tell.

We had already treated the worst of the injuries yesterday. Today, it was mostly burns from the fires, cuts and scrapes from splintered beams, and bruises from digging through rubble with bare hands. Or at least, that was how it looked from above. As I hovered there, I started laying out rough plans in my head. The first step was healing. I'd go down to finish what we started and treat anyone we missed or who got hurt during the night. Then came the harder part. Rebuilding.

They needed proper homes, something solid that wouldn't collapse if you leaned too hard on the wall. They also needed clean clothes, enough food to not worry about tomorrow, and maybe even a few comforts beyond just surviving. The construction spells I had could help speed things along. I made a list in my head of everything that needed to be done, and was even thinking about how to convince Mahya and Al to join the project, when I stopped. Why? Why am I doing this? This is not my city. Not my world.

I have no responsibility toward these people. Yes, I realized that the essence of my life, the thing that truly drives me, is helping others. It's what makes me feel useful. What gives me happiness, a sense of worth. But even so, there should be a limit. Healing the wounded? Of course. That's not even a question. The other healers won't come to the slums, and I won't let people die because of that. But rebuilding the entire slum? Us?

After running away from my world to avoid the responsibility, what am I doing, trying to take responsibility for someone else's? That thought stopped me cold. I hovered in place, frowning, and tried to figure out where it had come from and whether it was true. My subconscious sometimes lobbed thoughts at me when I least expected them. I rubbed my face, stalling, then let out a breath and admitted, reluctantly, that it wasn't wrong. There was some truth there. Something I hadn't wanted to face.

I had to look at it honestly. No excuses. No pretending that my reasons were anything other than what they really were. Just the bare, unvarnished truth. Yes, my childhood was shit. There's no softer way to put it, and I didn't want one. It was rough. Ugly and lonely. But I wasn't the only one. Other kids in foster care had been through hell, too. Some had worse stories than mine, even if they didn't look like it on the outside. Still, it always felt like mine was... different. Maybe it was. The size, the eyes.

I didn't blend in. I stood out in ways that made me a target from the moment I walked into a room. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn't just a passive victim in all of it. In the beginning, sure. I was too numb after my mother died to speak, let alone reach out to anyone. The grief had shut me down completely. The world blurred at the edges, and I just drifted through it, barely responding to anything. But eventually, that fog lifted. I started to function again.

I could have tried to connect. I could have reached out, made an effort. But I didn't. I never really tried. Kids are cruel, sure. And they didn't make it easy. The stares, the jokes, the way they'd shift away when I sat down near them. After a few rejections, I just... gave up. Cut myself off. I stopped trying to talk, stopped caring what they thought. I built a wall and made sure no one got past it. And once I did that, I convinced myself that I didn't need anyone. But maybe I did.

Maybe if I had just held on a little longer, if I had given someone a chance, I wouldn't have gone through it all so completely alone. I'll never know for sure. Maybe it still would've been just as bad. Maybe I still would've ended up in homes that didn't care, schools that ignored the bullying, social workers who thought I was a criminal in the making, and therapists who scribbled notes but never really listened. But maybe, just maybe, it would've been a little easier if I'd had a friend. Even one.

That thought hurt more than I expected. Because it meant some of that pain had been avoidable. Not all, but some. And I had played a part in choosing it. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Still, Earth hadn't only given me pain. It gave me good things too. Things that mattered. I got a scholarship. Made it through college. Made it into med school. I clawed my way forward, inch by inch. And then, of course, came Sophie. She changed everything.

Sophie wasn't just the love of my life. She was my best friend, my partner, the one person who looked at me and didn't flinch. With her, it never felt like I had to explain myself. Never had to pretend. Her being in my life made all the years before her feel survivable. Worth it, even. Like all the darkness had led to something that made sense. With her by my side, the world didn't feel like a place I had to escape from. Which made it even harder to face what came next.

Because when I ran from Earth, I told myself it was because I couldn't stay. Not after losing her. That it was grief, plain and simple. That I had nothing left there. But that wasn't the whole truth. The deeper truth, the one I didn't want to admit even to myself, was that I had used my past, all the pain and loneliness, as justification. As a shield. I convinced myself that I deserved to leave. That I didn't owe anyone anything. But I did. I may not have been able to save the whole world during the integration.

I may not have had the power to stop what happened on a global scale. But I could have helped. I could have made a difference, at least in one place. One city. My city. And that mattered. Because on Earth, I did have responsibilities. Whether I wanted them or not. That was my world. My people. And I left them. The weight of that truth settled into my chest like a stone. Cold and heavy. And the worst part? It wasn't some grand betrayal. It wasn't an epic failure. It was quiet. Personal. I had simply walked away.

Turned my back. Not out of malice. Just... out of exhaustion. Out of the deeply rooted belief that I had earned the right to be done. But now, floating over a broken city that wasn't mine, planning how to rebuild slums that weren't mine, I had to ask myself what I was doing. Who was I trying to save? And whether I had finally come full circle, trying to fix someone else's world because I couldn't bear to look back at the one I had left behind. The first time I left Earth, I needed it. I didn't regret that.

I was drowning then, barely keeping my head above water. That year of preparation, selling everything I owned, buying, flying all over the Americas chasing Gates, kept me moving. It kept me focused. It kept me from falling too deep into the depression Sophie's death had left behind. That momentum was my lifeline. I didn't sit still long enough to break. And then came Shimoor. That beautiful and relaxed world gave me exactly what I didn't know I needed. A year to breathe. A year to think.

A year to find something resembling peace. I started to heal there, and somewhere in that process, I found pieces of myself that I hadn't realized were missing. My center. But the second time I returned to Earth… the truth is, I didn't really have a good excuse to leave again. I tried to pretend it was the same kind of escape. That I was chasing the same kind of healing. But it wasn't. The two years I spent in London with Lis weren't just a reprieve from grief.

They were a kind of rehabilitation for a part of me I'd long given up on. My childhood had been full of silence and walls, not by choice but by necessity. But those long nights of conversation, the stupid games on the PlayStation, the way we could sit in the same room and just exist without pressure … it softened something inside me. That wounded kid, the one who had braced for rejection at every turn, finally got to breathe. And for the first time, he felt safe. Lis was my first real friend.

Not someone I tolerated, not someone who tolerated me, but someone who genuinely saw me. And when Mahya joined us, things shifted again. Lighter. Louder. She was less fiery and more sparkly then, mischievous and relentless in her own way. She pulled us into games, arguments, and laughter. She helped fill the space where friendships had been missing all my life. With her, I wasn't just healing—I was learning how to live. Lyura… she was different. Always off to the side. I never really connected with her.

She spoke mostly to Mahya and barely glanced my way. Always plugged into a screen, watching something, or lost in her own world. I didn't resent her for it, but I didn't miss her either. I did my best to support her emotionally, but it was more out of a desire to help than any real care for a friend. She wasn't a friend. At most, she was an acquaintance, someone who traveled with us for a while. When she left, I wasn't surprised that she never contacted me again through the Archive.

I still checked occasionally, just in case. More out of habit than hope. Mostly, I was checking for Lis anyway, and she was just a footnote on the page. Then Al came into the picture, and that was another curveball. I didn't understand him at first. Hell, I didn't even like him. He was stiff and full of that upper-crust nonsense that made me want to roll my eyes into next week. He confused me, rubbed me the wrong way, and I wasn't sure if he even liked people or just tolerated them out of necessity.

But slowly, over time, he changed. Or maybe I changed. Maybe we both did. Once he stopped acting like the world owed him something and let his guard down a bit, he became someone I could count on. A real friend. Not just an ally, not just someone along for the ride, but someone I'd actually miss if he were gone. On a level almost like Lis, which surprised me more than I wanted to admit.

Looking back at all of it, the connections, the support, the good days, and the laughter, I had to admit something I had been avoiding. The second time I left Earth, I had no excuse. I wasn't broken anymore. I had people in my life who cared. I had a support system. And of course, I had Rue. For the first time in my life, I wasn't alone. So why did I leave? Yes, I wanted to see the cosmos. I wanted to chase down magic and monsters and mysteries. I wanted to stand on alien cliffs and look out at unfamiliar stars.

I wanted adventure, wonder, and the freedom to define my own path. But that wasn't the whole truth. I was also running. Running from responsibility. From the weight of the near future. From a world that was changing and crumbling, twisting into something unrecognizable under the strain of integration. The latest news. The cracks forming in the familiar. I didn't want to watch Earth fall apart, piece by piece. I didn't want to be there to see what we lost, or worse, what we might become. So I left. Again.

And now, admitting that to myself, really letting the truth settle in without flinching, was more painful and more embarrassing than I expected. Because it meant I hadn't just walked away from a place. I had walked away from people. From responsibility. From my own courage. I had told myself I was choosing peace and adventure. That I was following my heart, seeking new beginnings. But the truth was less noble.

I had used those ideas as a shield, wrapped myself in them to avoid facing what I didn't want to admit—that part of me had been afraid. I had run not just from the chaos and collapse, but from the weight of having to do something about it. From the pain of watching a familiar world fall apart, knowing I couldn't fix it all, and maybe not even a piece of it. I labeled it self-preservation to make it sound acceptable, but the deeper truth was harder. It was cowardice.

I had chosen to turn away and convinced myself it was a wise decision. And now, sitting with that knowledge, letting it sting, letting it settle deep in my chest where it couldn't be ignored, I had to ask myself what kind of man I really was. Because only in that honesty could I begin to decide who I wanted to be from this point on. I sighed and rubbed my face again. Now I had to face the real question. Do I want to return to Earth and help there, instead of chasing rehabilitation projects on distant worlds?