Chapter 29

There, laying among the carcasses and flesh dolls, was a living being in the shape of a little girl, her eyes were wide and bloodshot, as she stared at me with horror. Her hair was barely recognizable as blonde through all the grime, dirt and blood, knife like ears poked through. Signifying that she was an elf.

In fact you could barely see her, beneath all the bloody guts and organs that she hid underneath, her forest green eyes had a look of complete fear, before even that shifted into resignation.

It just tore into my frozen heart.

I fell to my knees, making a disgusting musing sound, as I realized that I could barely hear her breathing. I reached towards her, yet she showed no reaction, still completely still, as if accepting the end.

I flinched back. Withholding my arm, and pulling back, distantly, I could hear the steps of the other three against the horrid dampness of the floor, voices that couldn't reach me, before they too went silent.

I always move forward.

I reached for her once more, and this time I achieved it. Putting both of my hands on her shoulders, I pulled her up in a sitting position, and looked into her eyes.

The overwhelming fear was still present, and beneath that was a profound emptiness found in those who had lost all hope, yet she still lived.

This sort of tenacity, how she must have clung to life, how she watched it all unfold, but still, she wanted to live. That must mean one simple thing - there was still a glimmer of hope.

It might have been buried deep within her, crushed under all unending despair, but it was present.

Maybe it wasn't obvious, maybe she herself didn't know why she still clung so desperately to this life that was as good as forfeit, maybe she would never recover from this experience, ingrained deep within her psyche for all of eternity.

However -

All it takes is a fragment of hope.

A distant desire, one that might seem like wishful thinking, but was the only reason she survived till now.

I pulled her into my chest, wrapping my arms around her, to protect her from the evil that surrounded us.

I hugged her, clutching her into my torso. Something that, I realized, I had never done. I never initiated one.

But this wasn't about me. 

Perhaps this was the first time I had thought of someone else first, but as I felt her tremble in my embrace, I spoke -

"You are alive."

It might have been a simple statement, a simple observation of reality, just an ordinary fact, the mere truth, however, for her, it must have been like I lifted the sky off her shoulders.

Because in the next moment, I felt her go limp. For a split second, panic filled my mind, but as I felt her gentle heartbeat against my own - I knew that she held on.

This somewhat confused me, how I felt that is. I wouldn't exactly classify myself as heartless, but throughout the years I spent with my compatriots, I was always the odd one out when it came to our morality.

When someone was in need of aid, the first thing that came to mind wasn't to provide that help. No, it was to simply ignore it.

And if that didn't work, I thought if it would take a lot of time to accomplish whatever task, and whether it would be worth spending that time.

Adventuring was an exception, since combating monsters was extremely helpful in raising my level, not to mention the monetary compensation. 

But the others were different, all three would go out of their way to help people that have nothing to do with them, with no reward in sight. Despite how some of them might deny this claim (Verica), if they could help, they would.

Numerous times during our adventures, we came across many who needed saving, from villages that were going through a famine or a monster infestation, travelers that were being harassed by beasts, to all sorts of problems that plagued the residents of this realm.

And despite how Verica hounded Wrai about saving money, she never once brought up a time where we donated some of it to save those who were dying of starvation.

Never complained when we helped people that had no way of rewarding us for our effort.

And when we came across a town that was overrun with ghouls, we took the time to search each and every building to find any survivors, all the while slaying these monsters by the hundred.

Despite how much more efficient it would be to burn it all down, we were careful instead, going from house to house, looking through every nook and cranny for anyone, just a single person, that would validate all that effort. 

At least in her eyes.

But, in the end, there was not a single person that had survived.

We risked our lives for nothing, we put ourselves in harm's way in the unlikely chance that someone had lived, someone that was just hiding out somewhere.

At the time I just didn't understand.

I would murder thousands of innocents in cold blood with my own hands, if that would mean I would live.

Because, in my head, without me, everyone else was doomed anyway.

But, as I gazed upon the unconscious face of this one innocent child who fought so bravely for her life.

 I think that, maybe, perhaps, that however minuscule, there was a possibility.

A chance that I could understand.