15 Companionship

"Are you going to answer or you don't want to?" Marcus was annoyed by the silence already. He wanted an answer from me and I will give him one.

"I… Want to change things. I'm not sure how I want to do it or if I'm fully sure of actually doing it. But I want to change a lot of things, how is it fair that because of weakness I'm sent to death? Or because your own mother abused you and you decided to get the things in your own hands? This is unfair, those big families can destroy someone just because of authority or power. Poor men are also being very despised by nobles. My… Maiden got killed because I was lowly evaluated and she was a peasant before." This kind of world doesn't make much sense. "And I don't want to have anyone. I want to do it alone, why? I don't want blood on my hands. If you were to follow me, I wouldn't lead. If you would die because of me? No. That can't happen if you would sacrifice yourself for me… This would make me actually quit my goal. Innocent blood can't be spilled, I would take all that hatred on me. If your lives would be threatened because I told you to do something? No." I can't allow anyone to help me with this. Even if I'm weak or even I would never have power. I won't allow anyone to die for me.

"Hayden. Tell me, if you would be able to do it all yourself. At the cost of your own life. Any people you would've befriended, what do you think they would feel? If they could help you. But you just said 'I can't let you do that I need to go alone'. Then those close to you would only remember those words and that they didn't help you even if they could. And you died. What do you think they would feel?" Estel explained while looking directly at me. His eyes soared with a different feeling than before. It wasn't boredom nor fear, It was clear anger.

"Why would you say something like this?" Nodded Marcus.

"To know. What he would do if his loved ones learned about his death. How painful would that be?" This again created a short silence in the room. It also got cold… Very cold.

"I… Don't know." I answered really unsure with a quiet voice. If someone would love me for who I am… Or someone wanted to help me even at the cost of death because they wanted me to achieve their goal. What would I tell them? No?

"Then don't make dumb assumptions!" He shouted angrily "Do you know how painful it is to lose someone you love?! Those that would follow you even till death may be madmen, but they are still people! They still have feelings. They have hearts! They wouldn't do something just because! Think you, idiot! Before you do anything!" Those words... It seems that he really cares about me, he doesn't want me to die in a dumb way or rather any way.

"Little girls the fighting day will arrive earlier! In 2 days this floor will have to fight again!" A guardian outside of the cell screamed.

"Well, fuck." I nodded

"Yup. Fuck. We are kind of screwed with you on the board like that." Said Marcus with a sour face.

"What can we do? We don't have any healing powers I think. Estel?" The dwarf questioned Estel while doing something with his beard.

"No, I also don't have any healing powers…" Estel replied while keeping his head down.

"Don't worry about me guys, I will just keep my head down close to you. But I have to thank you. You don't have to do this and you didn't even have to do anything. And you did more than I could ever hope for from my own family…" As I said this I felt my brother's hand closing on my neck…

"No problem man. We are the upper floors nicest group so you really are lucky to get us, we can't just let another cellmate die. We are still compassionate, you know?" Matthew came out with it. That gave me some hope that even in a hole like this where all people are 'trash' some of them still resonate with positive energy.

"Thank you, guys…" I said that to myself. Didn't need to hear more explanations as to why they are so nice. I hope this kind of moment could last forever, even If I knew them for a really short time. I felt that warmth… That friendship. And all that because I could relate to them, to their pain of being literally exiled from society...

These two days went really quickly and I, well, couldn't do much. The only thing I did was laying in the bed trying to ignore the pain so that at least I will be able to walk properly. Marcus, Estel, and Matthew were training hard these two days, I think they really want to protect me… It feels good to have someone so close.

As the two days passed, it was the night before the fight in the arena. I couldn't sleep again.

I heard a loud shackle of keys. Someone came to our cell and opened it, I stood up without any pain. "What the hell?" I thought, but it wasn't too long of a thought, I just started walking. Marcus, Estel, and Matthew were still sleeping. I tried to wake them up, but they didn't answer. I guess they were really tired… I left the cell to see who opened the door, there was nobody. Not even ghosts and wind. The stairs were also set up, everything was rather… Blue? Oh… It's nighttime dumbass.

I slowly started walking up the stairs and while doing it I was looking around to see if any of the guards or other cells were open. Nothing was. Everything was closed as before, weird… "Why would someone open the gates… Only for me?" I was already upstairs. There were no guards, no one. "What is going on?" A whisper came out of my mouth, I then slowly started approaching the big gate above. The road to freedom. I saw a shadow passing right before my eyes with a smile on it. I quickly looked in the way that shadow was going, it just disappeared. I touched the gate. It slowly started opening itself on its own. I saw a child in front of the gate. I walked outside in a pose of a rabbit with my hands close to my chest.

Looking around was a Good Idea, but it was close to impossible because I had to keep my eyes on that child with weirdly long hair covering its face. I really slowly started closing the gap between me and that child.

"Hello? Emm, who are you? What's your name?" I very hesitantly shouted in the child's direction.

"..." I only heard the wind blowing through the valley. The village in front… No lights, everything dark and almost unseeable with the fog around it.

"I won't harm you, I promise!" I said a little louder since she was pretty far away.

"..." The child collapsed. I ran to it to see what was happening, the child now in my hands and as I slowly started revealing its face from the long hair I heard laughter.

"W-Who is there!?" I looked behind myself, there was no soul. The wind blew the hair from the child's face and I saw… That man's face again. A face with no skin, only tissue, it's tendons and muscles. The child smiled and I was able to see it… It wasn't a normal childlike smile it was a devil residing in this child's body… As I took my sight away from that demon to puke when I looked back, it wasn't there anymore. The sleeves from my clothing were useful in wiping my face. To check if this is not a dream. It wasn't… I stood up with closed eyes, scared.

And when I opened them again I saw an army of those creatures. Defected limbs, faces with no skin, children, and the elderly all were looking at me. I blinked and in the very same moment, I heard feet hitting the ground and bones almost crushing. I with tears in my eyes and terror on my face started running, faster and faster. The laughter of those men in my head, thousands of them resonating in my mind. My poor destroyed mind...

Then when I looked back in front of me I saw my brother with a small grin on his face that slowly started growing so much that his skin also fell off his skull. He also started running at me. I could only fall on my knees, and that's what I did. I just fell on my knees and looked as both maniacs got closer to me. They both caught me at the same time, their powers both slowly started approaching their destination.

"..." I woke up? It was a nightmare… I'm so sweaty, what happened… Why is life so harsh to me? "Ouch!" my head is literally burning right now… This laugh is still in my head.

Why do I have those hallucinations?

"Good lord you woke up… I thought something happened to you, I was about to try and wake you up. You had something like a seizure. What is going on?" Said Marcus, he was the one to wake up the earliest from what others told me. Now he proved it

"I don't know actually… I had a dream. A really realistic one at that. I was about to leave this place, someone opened the cell for us, but none of you woke up. I just left the room, the stairs were also up for an unknown reason. When I arrived on the upper ring there were no guards, no mages. Nothing, it was just really blue around because it was nighttime… Then I saw a child and… and I just..."

"You don't need to say more Hayden. I see that you are struggling with that, you need to relax before we go. We have around an hour before we head down, try to cool yourself down." I was interrupted mid sentence, but that helped me. I was shivering with every next word… It was really good timing for Estel to wake up. If he didn't, who knows what could've happened, what would I say...

"So it's the day… I don't feel good guys, but I will try not to slow you down." I murmured under my nose. They still heard it though.

"That's why we've been training more for these two days, we will try to help you." Said Marcus enthusiastically, this felt really wholesome from someone almost unknown to me… I still don't get why they actually want to help me.

"Don't worry little guy we will do our best." Cheered Matthew while stretching his legs. Little guy? Dwarves… I will never understand them.

"Don't prepare too much right now, leave some energy for the fight guys." Added Estel with a small snort.

And so one hour passed. It was the time to go down to that dark abyss once again…