Memories

Time travel is possible.

Difficult, extremely difficult, but still in the realms of the possible for the Awakened.

However, this is the prerogative of Ars Temporis, and I have a rather superficial understanding of the art — no more than any other bani Bonisagus, and certainly less than some in the House of Scientists.

But still, sometimes when I close my eyes, it seems to me that I am capable of the art…

It's like that when I close my eyes, I was standing there again. In hell.

People torn apart by Grimm, but I don't hear it. The soldiers are shooting — but I do not see the volley of lead and fire, of the flickering figures of defiance fighting to the last.

The earth is shaking, but I don't feel it.

But I hear, see, feel something different, every time I return here, like the first time I did.

Tick.

It's as if the hand of time is shifting over and over again, relentlessly counting down the seconds.

Tock.

But, seconds before what? The end? Before the Grimm wipes out the remnants of the population? Before a miracle saves us all?

Tick.

I would like it if a miracle did happen. Indeed, I would like to. Who am I other than a random rogue in this situation?

Tock.

An apprentice who became a robber, then a murderer, then a father, and finally a smuggler… Certainly no hero that saves the day.

Tick.

What should I do? What to say? Whom to save? How to save?

Tock.

WHAT?!

Tick.

SHOULD?!

Tock.

I DO?!

Tick.

No answer.

Tock.

In the middle of Nowhere. You can neither look into the sky bereft of answers nor into the face of soldiers retreating over and over again in front of the rolling wave of… Monsters. Discarding all the dogmatic teachings of Order, they are monsters. Just monsters.

Tick.

Salvation will not come. Neither from the West nor the East. Neither from Above nor Below.

Tock.

Standing and looking into the eyes of those that remained standing, I see despair, and an Animalistic rage and madness, the desire to stand to the last, not to give up. And yet, through the haze of rage and defiance, resignation. A hidden acceptance, hidden even from their own thoughts. Acceptance of the inevitable.

Tick.

We all die. Nothing can be done about it, we will die. There would be no salvation, no hero to change the tides

Tock.

We were all lazy, stupid, and greedy. We are all humans in the end. Our vices have not changed since the time of Babylon. Since the days when we lived in caves and hunted mammoths. Our hopes and dreams have stayed the same as well.

Tick.

In times of strife and need, someone or something will come and save us all. A kind magician will perform miracles to change everything, save everyone, and then leave, leaving us with wise advice that will change our lives. Since the times of King Gilgamesh slaying the Bull of Heaven, humanity had always yearned for Heroes to save them

Tock.

And like humanity always does, this time too, everyone cried out for a hero. Dying soldiers and desperate captains. Cornered civilians and the chasing hunters. Crying children and moaning old people. All hoped for a hero to save them.

Tick.

And I too as well.

Tock.

But that's not good enough.

It's always convenient to shift responsibility to others, isn't it? Someone else will pick up the trash, it's their job, right? After all, we are only mortals, so much in our world is beyond our control — diseases, natural disasters, the earth's orbit and the cycle of day and night. So many things are beyond our control, we are all just grains of sand in one endless abyss. So why try? What a farce.

Tick.

So what? So what if there are things that we cannot control? We are the Will, and the Will is we. Other Traditions have never understood Will as we do. And Will is our magic.

Tock.

Looking into the eyes clouded with despair, I saw myself in its reflection. Like in a mirror, I could see the fear in myself as well.

Tick.

A desperate and frightened little man waiting for a miracle, for salvation — not realizing that salvation will not come. There is no salvation in hoping for a miracle, no hope in waiting for a hero to come and save the day.

Tock.

And if there is no salvation coming…

Tick.

We will just have to save ourselves.

Tock.

So it is done.

***

8:05:34

How to save Mount Glenn?

Such a difficult question…

What is Mount Glenn?

That is the state, the nation.

How to save it?

We need to save the economy, government, army, and lastly the people.

Can you do it?

Looking from the height of the telecommunications tower at the devastation, I understood.

No. I can not.

So…

Mount Glenn, as it was before, cannot be saved. The government was either dead at best — or dysfunctional at worst. The Grimm already tore the army to pieces, the command links were dead. The small groups of people running like headless chickens are what's left of the nation. The Economy? What kind of economy could be had in ruins?

Then the question is, Jonathan… What can we still save?

People. People who are still alive.

How can you save them, Jonathan?

By evacuating them.

Okay, Jonathan. How can we make the evacuation possible?

Making that many people… Hundreds of disparate groups, small and large, totaling to an unknown number of survivors. Hundreds of thousands — or millions? Where are they hidden? Where to transfer them?

Jonathan, how can you evacuate people?

Magic. I will teleport them to the Atlas.

Will this work, Jonathan?

Time, time, time… Time, always against me, always, against us all.

To find all the groups of people — four hours? Five? If each person needs to be found ? Eight hours at least.

To save them all? To create the miracle to save them? An hour for a hundred people. Not less than five thousand hours is the most moderate estimate to save what Jonathan could save right now. More than a month to save people that would be dead by then…

What an unfunny joke.

Any other options, Jonathan?

The Grimm must be destroyed. Every one of them.

How can you do that?

How… Indeed, that is the question, how…

Summon an Army? A huge army to help the soldiers.

Do you know of any army that is currently ready to go to Mount Glenn large enough to clean it up and not just die horribly?

No.

Then this option disappears.

What else? What will destroy all the Grimm?

Weapons of mass destruction.

What weapons of mass destruction do you know from this world, Jonathan?

None.

The information that I never needed became the most desirable at this moment.

Have they invented Nuclear weapons in this world yet? Where are the explosives depots located?

Dust. Blow up a gigantic amount of dust.

How much dust do I need for this?

Mathematics, figures, and numbers flashed as Jonathan instantly calculated what is necessary.

Twenty-five barrels of pure Tass.

In total, about a thousand containers. Where can you find Dust in such a quantity and purity?

Atlas. One of the stores I visited back then… It has at least a hundred containers that can be acquired, two and a half barrels of solid Tass at least. I need to raid ten such stores.

How long will that take?

Teleportation… Preparation of the necessary equipment. The theft itself. Accounting for any possible trouble with the police…

At least three days.

Long, long, too long…

What else, Jonathan? What else can we do?

Every possibility danced before my eyes, spells, and rituals I could do, sounds took on color before my eyes, the sight of an endless black horde gave off the taste of gritty sand on my teeth…

I was once here. In this place, exactly as I was.

Looking at a crumbling world, looking impotently at the horror in front of me, unable to do anything. I didn't want to die, my ears did not hear the people that I once called my parents screaming in pain as they died. I did not watch the flame lick my notebooks — the one with the wolf cub on the cover… I've always liked that one.

Back then, I just wanted to be away from danger, as far as possible… And then I Awoke. Would things happen just like it did back then? Is there no way to stem the tide of destruction?

I grit my teeth, no longer wanting to see the destruction, I lifted my gaze to the sky. And then, I froze.

My pupils widened as I gazed up at the sky.

The Moon.

What a strange thing, the Moon. It's funny how many poets of both the past and present have dedicated their poems to the beauty of the moon. What a stupid admiration for something so mundane…

And how ordinary could this world be, where the moon was broken into pieces.

What a strange and ridiculous stupidity. The moon, such a monolithic object for Humanity, broken to pieces, as if something had literally knocked a piece of the moon away by force. Not gnawed out, but simply smashed by an accidental blow. Like a careless child who dropped a cup, its fragments falling randomly…

It's funny, but a crazy world dictates crazy rules.

The broken satellite of the Earth, surrounded by debris, slowly being pulled by the gravity of the Moon — or slowly breaking away that they disappear into the depths of space, turning into comets for distant planets… Ah, that's it.

The Vredefort crater, one hundred and eighty-six miles in diameter.

The Hoba meteorite, sixty tons of pure destruction.

The Tunguska impact, a destruction equivalent to about forty megatons.

There is no room for error. A meteorite too big and you will kill at best, or bury the entire population of Glenn at worst. Too small and the horde won't even notice it. Too fast, and it would explode in the air. Too slow, and the impact diameter will be equal to the diameter of the meteorite, making the endeavor pointless. Too high of an entry point and the trajectory would be unpredictable. Too low — and its speed would fall.

Is ten enough? Twenty? No, hundreds will be needed!

Small and large. Some will burn up in the atmosphere, others will bring incredible destruction.

Trajectory, calculations. So many things to do.

Time is against us, Jonathan, always against us.

I, too, would like to find a powerful wizard.

Strong, kind, smart, and wise in their ways. Someone to save us all.

But that wizard was not there. There would be no miraculous salvation. There were only us, all of us, stupid and petty people.

And if we would not be granted salvation…

Well, we'll just have to get it ourselves.

Jonathan picked up the microphone.

8:00:05

***

The magician, in essence, is omnipotent, one only has to believe in it.

Unbelief is the greatest force against it, equal only to the Will of man. But unbelief has a weakness, a paradoxical weakness in itself.

We don't believe that we don't believe.

A person cannot fly — this is absurd. But if we are talking about an airplane, then such a feat immediately becomes natural and logical, understandable even.

If you fall from a thousand feet, you will die… But if you have a parachute, it certainly is, some people even do it for fun!

Travelling three hundred miles an hour? Impossible, except for a racing car, then such a thing goes without saying.

Humans are funny in how many 'impossible' things they have invented — and how easily they fit the 'impossible' with the 'natural' in their picture of the world. Even when these things contradict each other at every corner.

People are so strong in their unbelief — that they are willing to disbelieve even in unbelief itself.

A belief that 'Man cannot survive in space!' existed naturally with 'A spacesuit in which you can be in space all day, exists', and no one sees the contradiction. People have convinced themselves that all their beliefs are simply 'temporary' things that can be dispelled at any moment.

And you know what's funny? Magicians, by rejecting the lies of the Consensus, have become entrenched in their faith in disbelief.

'Magic gives me the ability to fly, because it is impossible to fly without magic'. Isn't it funny? That magicians believe more in the impossibility of magic than sleepers who never knew about magic?

Go back in time and bring antibiotics to the people of the past, and they will consider them a miracle of the Lord. Of course, for an enlightened inhabitant of today's era, it would be wild and unnatural to consider antibiotics a miracle of God. But to a medieval peasant that does not understand the words 'rectification', 'genetic engineering', 'penicillin cultures' it might as well be magic, it's a miracle for them. For the modern inhabitant, this is just technology.

The only problem in that understanding, is that the Order knows that what separates a miracle from technology is only by the name, and nothing else.

Once antibiotics are in the Middle Ages, they will become a miracle. Then, perhaps, humanity will learn to produce them… But from this they will not cease to be a miracle — they will only change the name.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word 'occult seal'? Probably a pentagram, a five-pointed star, perhaps even with the head of Baphomet in the center.

But what is the 'occult seal' in its original sense? It is simply a pattern with symbolic designations.

Of course, there is no place for the pentagram in science, but… Take a look at a circuit diagram, give that to the aforementioned medieval peasant, and it's an 'occult seal' all the same.

It's funny, isn't it? The incomprehensible dashes and dots, circles and lines, so understandable for any self-respecting engineer or technician being the same to a pentagram?

But they're the same to an uneducated mind, a symbolic designation of a working product.

Who said that a circuit diagram is not an occult seal?

Their main idea is the same — a schematic representation of some process of sorts. One schematically depicts transistors and resistors. And the second describes the phases of Mercury and Venus and how they interact with a ritual. One creates the 'ritual' of lighting a light bulb — the second is the ritual of the appearance of light.

Different names, different symbols, different names — the same essence.

Occult hymns can be translated into a sequence of ones and zeros, calling it 'computer programming' might be far-fetched, but in essence are indeed the same.

The Order of Hermes, we, I, have watched this amusing phenomenon for far longer than anyone else in the world.

We laid out electrical circuits on the seal of Solomon. We turn computer codes into hymns. Not only that, but we drew the pantheon of the Gods of our time — where the wandering Mercury does not fly across the firmament — but moves in hundreds of pulses along fiber-optic cables.

Internet, Mercury — names are interchangeable.

And therefore we, the Order of Hermes, are not defeated and will never be defeated. Because even if they destroy us, our libraries burned and our strongholds seized…

Invaders, new students — names are interchangeable.

This is probably why it was easiest for us to exist in the modern world. We, bani Bonisagus, not the bani Etheritica, not the bani Akashica, and not even the bani Virtualistica. Because we have never really lost ground — we just changed our approach.

And so there was nothing special about making dozens of meteorites fall to the ground.

Man has always strived for the stars. The space race was over when a man stepped onto the lunar surface, when he broke free from the cradle of Humanity.

For this, we did not need either God's help or the knowledge of alien races. Only Will.

And no one in this world knows Will better than bani Hermetica.

And therefore, all I needed now was to recreate the path of humanity to the stars.

Tsiolkovsky's calculations, NASA's experiments, and the Will of man.

After that, reverse them.

Not the path of humanity to the stars, but the path of the stars to humanity.

In other words, backward calculations of the launch of a man to the moon.

After all, humanity has always strived to rise to the stars…

And it's not just for nothing that meteors are called 'shooting stars', is it?

***

I guess I could call it beautiful, in a sense.

A meteorite deviates from the trajectory… Calculations, so many numbers, so many parts to move.

Acceleration of gravity - air resistance, friction generates energy, mass will change, resistance decreases, the meteorite splits into pieces - a new trajectory needs to be calculated.

And in the end, for all Jonathan's struggles, the stars are falling.

It seemed as if the earth itself was shaking - maybe it was screaming and crying, or maybe it was laughter. Is the Lord laughing at us? Laughing at how we desperately cling to any chance for salvation that we can grasp, relishing in the despair as salvation slipped from our hands?

Explosions after explosions…

The roar of explosions is mixed with the roar of Grimm.

It seems as if the rumble would continue endlessly. And yet, in this picture of an apocalypse, I am sleepy. I want to cry. I want to laugh.

Did I do everything right? So many numbers and stupid words, rituals and more rituals…

Symbols, images seem to be blurring before my eyes, was my hand supposed to be this hard to raise?

Something rolled up to my throat, it burned as it passed, am I vomiting? But the metallic taste in the mouth raises doubts. But the nausea, it was almost overwhelming.

I'm so sleepy.

Everything that could be done has already been done - I want to sleep…

And before I knew it, something warm rested against my hand and I slowly looked up. I can't see anything, why? Ah, my eyes are closed. Even opening an eye felt like a trial. But, slowly, very slowly, the darkness is banished. The sun has risen, the Dawn is coming.

Ah, I see, Cinder is here, her eyes are resting on me. She really should be asleep, and I really want her to go to bed.

Back to the small house, the small office, and a boring job…

Not to the corrupt officials, petty bureaucrats, and unhappy workers though.

A roar sounded out somewhere in the distance…

Where am I?

I looked around me to find something nearby that I could recognize, but I saw only the Old Man in front of my eyes.

Did I die?

Some crazy thought invaded my consciousness for a moment, wrapped in the tatters of my inner voice.

It would be silly. It's so stupid to live in order to... Die?

But we will all inevitably die. We were born for this. We give birth to children only so that there are those who will bury us.

I have kids? Cinder! Cinder is probably considered my child…

Is this some kind of dying delirium? The last convulsions of the mind?

I once heard that before death, it is possible to register the last activity of the human brain - a powerful release of neurotransmitters and an explosion in the activity of neurons. Dying delirium, visions of God… nothing more than stupidity. What a farce, I'm not dying…

The Old Man is approaching, he looks the same as he did in the past.

Am I?

***

Everything was so easy. So simple. It seemed as if everything would be okay. So easy. Jonathan just… just changes everything! He will save everyone!

Jonathan is strong. Jonathan is smart. Jonathan is good.

It was that simple, everybody just had to do what Jonathan said. Draw the symbols, write the numbers, draw the lines and everything would be fine. Nothing complicated.

And Jonathan will solve all the problems.

Everything was so simple and so clear…

***

"Who taught you such a ritual?" The old man's gaze was always… Special. It was not cruel or curious, it always just shows how... Knowledgeable he is. As if he already knew everything without your prompting and was just waiting for the opportunity to hear from you.

Not what you are to be blamed for - but what you are ready to blame yourself for.

"A friend from the Chorus," I sighed. The old man always knew exactly what you did wrong.

"Oh, Jeffrey?" The old man grinned, forcing me to bite my tongue, "Nice guy, of course… But these are not the abilities that should be taught… In fact, to anyone."

"It's a simple trick.", - I sighed, "I would have come to it myself one day…"

"Perhaps", - the old man nodded calmly, - "You would, of course, come to it one day… Yourself. And this is the main problem, Jonathan…"

***

At one point, Jonathan just stood up and smiled.

It was all over.

Cinder didn't know what exactly Jonathan had done - but she didn't need to know. Whatever Jonathan did, he definitely had chosen the best option… There is no doubt.

As she saw what Jonathan was looking at, Cinder saw flickering shadows falling to the ground. A huge shadow covered even the colossal figure of the dragon - before crashing into its back. The dragon let out a roar of pain and anger before falling to the ground, another shadow pierced its head, splattering the ruined city with hundreds, thousands of liters of black blood.

The darkness then cleared away. The flickering shadows in a fiery halo, like a star falling in the pictures that she once saw.

After the impacts and explosions, the horde of Grimm disappeared.

The shadows seemed to impact randomly, but unrelenting. Dozens, hundreds of Grimm disappeared. The roar of pain from the Grimm was so loud, it was only deafening, and perhaps the only reason why Cinder did not go deaf forever, was her aura.

But even her aura was not that strong - and the pain drowned out all of Cinder's thoughts for a moment.

But the horde disappeared, melted like darkness before the fire of a candle… So that's good, right?

***

"Why do you think the name of this particular ability is 'sacrificial blood'?" The old man tapped his fingers on the table in his usual way when he wants me to know how stupid something I just did is, forcing me to sigh.

"Because I burned part of my… Health." I hesitated from the impossibility of choosing a more appropriate term for the word, before continuing "To process it into quintessence, which I use to cast a spell. That is, I 'sacrifice blood'."

Contrary to my calm statement, the old man just sighed and looked down, "You don't sacrifice health, Jonathan. You sacrifice your Pattern. Life Pattern."

"Isn't it the same thing?" I placed my hand on the table and began tapping with my fingers, looking at the old man, nervously tracing some incomprehensible figure.

"Not really," The Old Man slowly got up from his seat, then folded his hands behind his back, forcing me to swallow. The old man rarely did this - and it always meant that the conversation was very serious. "The Pattern is us, but what are we? Is it a physical shell and that only?"

"No," This was one of the very first lessons taught in the Order. "We are the Pattern, Will and…"

"I see", - the old man interrupted me with a slight smile, making me shut up, - "You could be taught something in the Order…"

I smiled, thrusting out my chest. Nevertheless, the fourth year of study was not in vain...

"In that case, Jonathan", - the old man slowly took a step forward, looking into my eyes, - "What is a Life Pattern?"

***

Jonathan was just standing there, Cinder felt a strange feeling again, after which she found herself… Somewhere.

A little later, she found out that she was on top of the radio tower, looking at the whole city from its dangerous height… But Jonathan was there - and therefore she did not care what was happening around her.

Jonathan was there, which means nothing bad could happen. It was Jonathan. He can do everything.

The Grimm horde had disappeared, and people slowly began to appear from where they were hiding. Even before the last shadows fell, Cinder saw the slowly flowing river of people surveying their surroundings. Shouts of joy, the sound of which was absorbed by explosions and rumbles.

It was a painting worthy of the pen of thousands of writers and artists - and no one could capture the entire grandeur of this moment.

It was a moment of triumph, it was Jonathan's moment.

Cinder turned around with a smile and saw Jonathan lying still on the ground.

His eyes looked up, and his chest did not move.

Jonathan was not breathing.

***

"That is the 'pattern' is… " I shifted uncertainly in my chair. "It is, our life?"

"And what does that mean, Jonathan?" The Old Man then made his way back to his chair, sitting down in front of me. He then looked into my eyes, after which, noticing my uncertainty, he cheered me up with a smile, as if saying that he was not going to do anything even if I'm wrong.

"It's… something like, a set of rules by which our life exists?" I looked at the old man, at which he only slowly nodded.

"Exactly so, Jonathan" The Old Man allowed a grin to appear on his face at my answer, before it disappeared soon after. "It is indeed a set of rules in which we live. And so Jonathan, what happens if you start, for example, destroying such rules?"

"Without the rules… Nothing will work." I looked down, then blinked as I noticed that I was unconsciously rubbing my left knee. "But how then…" I started asking before the Old man cut me off.

"From the point of view of not 'evidence-based medicine' Jonathan." The old man demonstrated the quotation marks with his fingers, showing his disrespect for this term. "In regard to the Hermetic theory, our rules... Unusual, yes, but that's how it goes. So to demonstrate, let's say we start with a rule that you could easily imagine. So, for example, what if the 'rule' for the 'skin on my left knee' is discarded. Very small, and in the general picture of your health barely existent, but it is a 'rule' all the same. So what would happen if it is gone?"

I rubbed my knee, looking away, not knowing the answer to the question, allowing the old man to continue.

"There are a huge number of rules that govern how one 'lives', ranging from small to large", The Old Man smiled. "And 'sacrificial blood' makes the offering of these rules as a sacrifice. And as you would expect…"

"The more the sacrifice, the more quintessence it brings, yes, I know." I looked away at the, in hindsight, very stupid thing I did, before getting a little bolder. "But I'm not going to sacrifice anything too significant!"

"Jonathan." The Old Man shook his head. "But who told you that you would have a choice?"

***

Dead.

This was the conclusion that Cinder had banished from her mind.

Jonathan couldn't be dead! No way! He couldn't be!

Cinder rushed to Jonathan's prone form, shaking him with trembling hands. But Jonathan did not budge, his unblinking gaze continued to look up, eyes that no longer saw anything in front of him.

Cinder looked into those eyes, hoping that Jonathan would blink, look at her and smile, or to reach out and pat her hair, at least say that everything was fine…

But Jonathan was silent.

***

"Sacrificial blood is one of the simplest acts of Ars Vis that is available to almost any magician." The Old Man sighed, as I could feel my stomach dropping to my feet. "And that is the problem. If, on the other hand, you had come to this ability naturally, I have no doubt that you would understand what's at stake and use it accordingly… It would be something unique, a unique ability available to you, Jonathan." The old man sighed, as I finally could understand the consequence of my rash actions.

"Maybe you would come up with a way to destroy your blood, allowing a spell to gain legitimacy and potency… Or maybe even a part of your flesh? Or, um, a slough off of your epithelium - although technically it's a dead part of your body - it's still a part of your body that you can sacrifice, right?" Then the Old Man stopped talking excitedly of what could have been, dropping his head into his hands.

"But you learned it in the tradition of the Chorus," The Old Man sighed once again. " The Chorus does not see the world as we see it, Jonathan. Rules and formulas, connections and relationships in everything, that's the way we see things… No, their vision of the world and their selves is wildly different. For them, sacrificing their 'Pattern' does not mean anything like what it does for you, because for them there is no 'Pattern of life' as such. All of them are one, and therefore they cannot sacrifice something as singular as the 'Pattern of the Life of One Person'. A pint of blood collected by the whole? Perhaps. But not the Pattern of life of one person."

"We," The Old Man leaned back in his chair, looking at me. - "We see ourselves as one in the Will, and in the thousands of its forms. We are one in Will, but we are not one Will. For us, there is a 'Pattern of Life' that we can indeed sacrifice."

"So…" - I swallowed, realizing what exactly the old man was saying to me. What if I accidentally destroy the 'I have my left hand' rule? Will my hand stop working forever? Even growing out a new hand will not save me in that case, if the very rule, the very possibility of my left hand's existence disappears. "I will not use this ability anymore."

"Jonathan." The Old Man sighed and looked at me with warm eyes. "That is the main problem, isn't it? You will."

***

Somewhere outside the walls of the tower, where a young girl was crying for the death of one man, a multitude of soldiers were desperately grabbing the opportunity granted to them. The horde of darkness was disappearing before their eyes, and desperate daredevils rushed forwards again and again, recapturing the territories that seemed forever lost until recently.

Some screamed with joy, some cried with relief, and some looked at the hundreds and thousands of craters, evidence of an endless stream of fire from the sky.

Who is he?

It seemed as if only one thought was on everyone's mind.

Who is our savior, who saved us? Where is he? Tell us who he is! Tell us how to get to him?! Let us go to him!

Jonathan continued to look up at the sky with empty eyes.

***

"We are able to sacrifice much more than what the bani Choristika could ever do." The Old Man sighed, "And we do get much more for it, they can donate a pint of blood, we can donate the very rule, the very concept of 'blood in our body'. What do you think will give the greater results?"

"Sacrificing the Concept itself, of course." I sighed, shifting in my chair, to which the Old Man just nodded at my answer.

"Exactly so, Jonathan." The Old Man looked downwards at my shaking knee. "And at some point… Maybe in a duel, in a doomed battle, or on an important mission, you will remember this fact. Remember that you can do much more than any of them to complete a great action. You can donate not just your 'body', you can donate the concept of your 'life' itself. And you will receive more power than any of them, for as long as you need to accomplish your task. But after that…" The Old Man paused meaningfully.

"I'm going to die," I looked down, voicing out my fear.

***

Cinder tried to do the best she could, she tried everything she had seen and heard in trying to revive someone.

Chest compressions. Despite Cinder's small stature and weak hands, her aura gave her strength, allowing her to push Jonathan's chest again and again, but it was useless. She tried resuscitation, inhaling, exhaling into his mouth, holding his nose.

Everything was useless.

Cinder grabbed Jonathan, lifting him with her small hands. All she knew was that she needed a doctor.

An almost comical picture then ensued, a small girl trying to drag maybe not the most muscular, not the most athletic, but definitely quite mature man. But there was no one around who could laugh at it.

Cinder threw her whole self into the task, trying to drag Jonathan, to find someone that can help. But she did it, one step, then ten, then a hundred…

Soldiers appeared quickly in the radio tower, wanting to seize the station and convey about the miraculous disposal of Grimm. These soldiers stumbled upon Cinder, who was trying to drag the unmoving savior…

Medics rushed forward after only a second of pause.

But time...

Time is always working against us.

***

I looked at the Old Man.

He looked… Good. For someone that had lived his long, long years of life, very good even. But…

"No," I suddenly smiled, looking into the eyes of the Old Man. "I will not die."

"I saw many and have known many who had said the same thing." The Old Man smiled sadly, for a second he ceased to seem just an elder and suddenly cast the shadow of a man that had seen many things in his life… Too much, judging by how worn the expression on his face.

"None of them now walks either on the Earth - or on any part of the Umbra…"

"Well…" I suddenly grinned. "The impossible only remains 'impossible' until the one person that succeeds, right?"

The old man blinked with some confusion, before looking downwards with sadness. "I am an old man, you know… Ancient even. I've met many who spoke the same words you did."

"So what? They're not me and I don't know them." I probably thought too well of myself. Well, I am young, so it's to be expected that I'm foolish. "I know only myself, and I believe in myself."

At my words the Old Man only smiled sadly, and then looked into my eyes, at the burning determination behind them. "Faith, huh… Indeed, the only thing in which magicians are excellent in. If you want to walk this path, then I have only one thing to ask of you… Keep this faith in yourself. And when you face the most impossible challenge you've ever seen - keep that faith and, please, Jonathan… "

***

"DON'T DIE!" Echoing, came a voice to me.

And I Awake.