21: miracle

On her knees, Sasha contemplated the corpse of her friend, lying like a rag doll in the center of the red coral. His bare torso revealed a strange triangular mark on his left pectoral and a horrendous open wound from which some organs protruded on his right pectoral.

His blood stained the coral even redder. Not knowing what else to do, she approached her friend's body and looked more closely. After the initial shock, she noticed something odd about the whole situation.

"Why, why haven't your memories disappeared yet?"

Indeed, despite being seemingly dead, his dagger, armor, and shield were still here, existing despite his deathly appearance.

'Maybe, maybe he's still-' no, that wasn't possible; no one should be able to survive having their chest pierced and losing their organs. It was just a silly idea that came to her. But she wanted to cling to that absurd idea that her only friend after years of solitude surviving in the slums might still be alive.

She knelt beside her friend and checked his pulse.

'No, no, no, why don't you have a pulse? Your memories haven't disappeared yet, so why, why does it seem like you're really dead? Ah, is it because I got here too late? Because I didn't set out to find this place yesterday, is that why you were attacked by so many scavengers, and had to fight alone, die alone, and be forgotten in this cursed place?'

'Yes, if only I had set out to find this coral yesterday, we could have fought together, we could have killed all these monsters together, you could have survived.'

'I wouldn't have lost another friend because of the cursed spell, I wouldn't have to suffer the death of someone close again, a friend who gave a precious gift.'

While thinking about so many things in absolute silence, night fell.

Sasha was still a few steps away from her friend's corpse, she had already accepted the fact that Jonathan was dead, but deep down in her mind, she harbored the hope of being wrong; his memories were still manifested, and that might mean he wasn't really dead, despite wanting to accept his death.

When an idea, no matter how absurd, takes hold in people's minds, it becomes like a virus, eating away at all their thoughts until only it remains.

***

After the quiet and deadly silent night, Sasha was mentally exhausted. She had lost all her loved ones before being infected, and now, the only friend she had made at the academy was dead behind her, she had lost something warm once again because of the cursed spell.

When the water completely receded, Sasha was already thinking about heading east to find a way back to the awakened world. She wouldn't die here, and the loss of her friend only intensified her goal of becoming stronger.

As Sasha was about to start moving away from the center, she heard the sound of flesh moving. She turned her gaze to her friend's corpse and saw something surprising that made the virus in her head explode with overwhelming force, driving out all other thoughts.

What she saw in her friend's body was flesh and bone, organs and tissue regenerating, he was healing at an astonishing rate for a barely sleeping human.

Sasha quickly approached her friend's corpse and watched as the organs regenerated inside and the bones connected to be covered by muscle and more fibers, then, his skin re-covered his previously pierced pectoral. Now there was only a large scar stretching from his right pectoral to the middle of his stomach, a mark showing how horrific the wound had been.

Sasha placed her hand on his neck to check his pulse again.

Her green eyes shone intensely as she felt the pulse in the boy lying on the ground. This would change all her plans, with Jonathan, she could have many more chances to return to her world, but most importantly, she hadn't lost another friend. Or rather, she had lost him and now had another chance; she had recovered him from the clutches of death and wouldn't let anything take her loved ones away again, not ever.

Although his body was now fully healed, Jonathan still hadn't awakened. This worried Sasha, who placed his head on her lap and patiently waited for him to wake up.

Still with a shield on her left arm and a dagger in her right hand, with her entire torso bare showing her defined muscles and her face stained with blood along with her black hair that seemed to absorb the light, she waited for him to wake up.

He remained unconscious all day until nightfall. Sasha grew increasingly worried about his delayed awakening, so she tensed when night fell, and she heard a scavenger climbing from the other end of the coral.

She placed Jonathan's head on the ground and stood up, summoned her shield, and took the dagger from her friend's hand to use it for a moment.

The scavenger lunged at the two sleepers on the coral and attacked with both pincers simultaneously.

However, Sasha had already deployed her real field and was now greatly enhanced. She easily blocked the beast's awakened attack with her shield and cut off one of its arms with the dagger. Sasha was surprised by how powerful her friend's dagger was and used it to lunge forward.

The scavenger let out a brutal growl at the loss of its arm and tried to crush the annoying sleeper with its massive body, but Sasha blocked it once more with her shield and jumped onto its shell. She then made a horizontal cut with the dagger and split the scavenger's head and body in two.

Thus, the coral gained another body of a decapitated scavenger.

Sasha returned to Jonathan to make sure he was still asleep and well. Then, she put his head back on her lap and focused on her other senses to know if another monster would climb onto the coral.

The night passed quickly and peacefully until dawn, when the waves receded, and the sun rose above the horizon. A warm light hit Sasha and Jonathan's bodies.

However, something unexpected happened when Sasha looked down and noticed her friend was about to wake up, seeing his eyes moving beneath his eyelids.

Jonathan woke up and immediately jumped from wherever he was and summoned his armor again, making the shield and dagger in Sasha's hand return to him.

Sasha observed these actions and raised her hands slightly and spoke,

"Hey, Jony, you're okay now. The scavengers that attacked you, you killed them all. It's daytime and there's no danger, you can calm down."

"W-what happened here, what are you doing here, I, a moment ago I, I died."

"Alright, you need to calm down, come here, you're fine now, whatever happened to you is over, you're alive now and I'm here to help you, you'll be okay, don't worry."

Jonathan seemed in shock, so Sasha slowly but quickly approached him and hugged him.

"Everything will be alright, it's over now. The scavengers are dead and you're alive, nothing will harm you, you're safe now."

Surprised by his friend's sudden embrace, Jonathan wrapped his arms around her and buried his head in Sasha's shoulder.

He hugged her so tightly that Sasha's blessed body sent a slight warning in protest, but Sasha would break a bone if that was enough to help her friend, so she paid no attention and accepted the strong hug.

***

After a few minutes of hugging Sasha, Jonathan calmed down and was finally able to speak. They both sat in the center of the coral near the awakened monster's corpse.

Sasha began to talk about her days before finding him to give her friend time to organize his thoughts and speak comfortably.

"So, when the storm came, a scavenger appeared and I had to fight it. When I killed it, I was lucky enough to get a shield, it's of awakened rank and can block the scavengers' blows well. After the sun came out, I decided to venture to this place. That's when I found you and noticed your memories hadn't disappeared, so I decided to stay and wait for something to happen, maybe it was a foolish hope since no one would expect you to survive such wounds, but luckily I was foolish and waited long enough for you to come back."

With that said, she looked into Jonathan's eyes, those beautiful ruby-red eyes were bright and intense, looking at her, staring into her emerald green eyes.

They looked at each other for a while until Jonathan spoke.

"Thank you, you helped me calm down a lot, Sasha. I really appreciate it. And I guess it's my turn to tell my story. Well, I woke up in the air when I fell into the black water..."