Chapter 42 - A lie

Liam didn't know if he ever felt the sense of inertia as he did right now.

The world passed by him as he felt a painful tinge deep inside of him. The quiet gates thundered as if memories hammered their way through just to almost succeed.

He... Couldn't understand what the hell happened. Just a few days after the incident.

The news came out of nowhere and struck him hard. Blythe along with two awakened elders and a myriad of unawakened elders got wiped out or captured by the enemy.

And her corpse was nowhere to be found. Out of nowhere, the frontlines felt surreal to him.

The feeling of reality. When something cruel happens at all times, but matter only when someone close is affected.

Before, he saw the frontlines as the great valiant thing. He didn't feel the dead spirits of those young men and women and instead felt the valor under which they died whilst fighting.

Blythe differed from them. She mattered to him and the others and became someone he spent quite a lot of time with.

Her antics, jokes and free spirit caged by the inevitable death way too soon.

It stripped her out of her future. Millions like her ended the same, yet Liam cared for just her.

At times, he grew anxious. Did he become a full-blown hypocrite, his thoughts and actions for the greater of humanity and the goal for his freedom.

When he Blythe used to hang around, he would be able to answer within a heartbeat.

No, he wasn't a hypocrite. Just he couldn't afford to spend so much energy to care about every single soul.

Was that kind of thought correct? He started to doubt.

Liam remembered the night when Blythe came out of nowhere and told him her story.

The classic tragic tale of a young girl. She had a dream, a big one at that.

One that many couldn't accomplish and the one which carried a legacy spanning generations.

She didn't wish for fame or power. Her goal, which she saw as depraved and selfish, Liam saw as a natural one.

To create a family. A place where no one had to starve and fight for food.

Where they couldn't take away your families, friends and where heat and shelter are always abundant.

Of course, she could create or join a family when she became an unawakened elder at such a young age.

Would that be her family or the one that can last? During her travels, she saw it all.

Families under decline that battled against each other instead of standing together with a tight bond.

To weather the great storm. Instead, they bickered, fought and killed each other.

Her journey took her around many great places and with it came her thoughts about the frontlines.

A place where people can attain glory. To hold their value like others.

She too wished to become a hero, like many she met and saw from afar.

It shattered when she saw the other side of the coin. Not the heroes, the forgotten ones.

Called by many names. Valiant martyrs, real heroes, the ones that support the entire human civilization.

She saw it differently. Failures, cannon fodder, forgotten and forsaken.

Many times she stayed near a family that had their family members on the frontlines and almost every time news came.

Sometimes accompanied by a fragmented corpse and other times, not even rags remained.

Families wept. They cried and eventually it all led to one outcome.

Fragmentation. It broke off, some recouped and never sent their children to the frontlines.

Others split. Some saw it as an honour to die on the battlefield to protect the human race and others just wanted their young to live in peace and enjoy their life.

Were they wrong? Was it a sing to want the best for their offspring?

Blythe didn't think so. Nevertheless, Blythe refused to scoff at the former.

Ever since then, she began to look more into families with their members on the frontlines.

Sometimes, even those who had elder in the awakened realm. It ended all the same.

Families would one day lose their supporting pillar and the hero who held up the sky for them.

Either another younger generation took the banner until the entire lineage became extinct.

Or they would grow to hate it. To disdain war and to see the world in black and white.

Invaders no longer held the position of the number one enemy. That became the system.

It nurtured and forced the young and foolish to enlist in the war just to bleed needless blood.

She too wept many times for the souls she grew to like before they departed on their inevitable journey.

No one had returned. Not a single soul she had made friends with managed to survive and turn into an awakened elder.

Fairy tales became lies in her eyes. Still, she just could never grow to hate the system that fed this kind of vicious cycle.

Because she saw the reality behind it. If no one wanted to enlist, shed the blood for others.

Then there would be no others. It would be a total extinction without a further path.

Game over.

Now, Blythe stood at the crossroad where many paths whispered to her.

Young, she didn't know what to choose. Follow the glorious path just to die without an offspring?

To start a family before going to the frontlines just to leave poor helpless souls behind if she ever died?

Or should she create a family and nurture the young to die for her?

None of the options she liked. It always ended with almost guaranteed death.

She hated it, despised it, and hated her lack of control.

She didn't fight the hate she held deep inside her heart for many years.

Past the time she met Akand and Talia. Even when she resonated with those two and their unwillingness to take that irrevocable step, which their families prepared for them.

She grew to like them and slowly stopped thinking about the path which led her to her current success.

That began to change when she met Liam. A real oddity.

Although he acted almost like a human, there always remained something unsettling deep inside of his voice.

The feeling of being talked to inside her head didn't help at all. At one point, she grew used to it.

Or so she thought. That's when Liam began to have significant amounts of breakthroughs.

And did the unthinkable. The realm she stayed in for so long and never touched had progressed further.

It stirred something deep inside of her. Brought back her moments of cowardice and hypocrisy.

Those days where she vowed to create a family where others didn't have to starve like she used to.

To ensure they could eat, laugh and lead happy lives.

Was it reality that shattered her dreams? That question haunted her for many nights before she came to one conclusion.

She lived in a beautiful dream. Ignored the situation on the frontlines like many like her did.

Painted the world in much more vivid colours, over-saturated the world around her.

That's why she seemed so bubbly. How she used to act before she grew to such a place she didn't even remember.

Blythe knew one thing. When she used to grow up in those harsh conditions, where one poor harvest meant certain death.

She didn't waste the energy to hop around, to smile needlessly. On the contrary.

The young Blythe used every single bit of her energy to help out with her family.

One that lived off a small farmland in a desolate place. Far away from the usual civilization.

A place almost cut off from the world. There, she used to live and there she felt so much pain.

How many times she wished to escape to those fairy lands full of food and a safe environment.

During that time, she feared nothing. Not death, which she talked with every day.

For sure, she didn't fear the consequences of such trivial actions as fighting for her life in order to ensure a brighter tomorrow.

That's how she clawed up her way. No divine medicine or a brilliant teacher.

All alone, she got to an esteemed position and when she got there; she became numb, forgot her birthplace and the struggles she lived through.

Because she never struggled anymore.

So, she buried the brilliant child that brought her from the depths of hell and stabbed her in the back.

And Liam became the trigger. He made her remember those times, that hidden ambition she had when very young.

That became the story of Blythe. Her reality she never shared with anyone and the largest stain in her life.

A story not unique or special. Frankly, the story was quite mundane.

One rehearsed uncountable amount of times, but it belonged to her and she couldn't deny it.

Liam, however, didn't understand one thing.

"Why do you consider such a dream filthy?" He asked her as she finished saying her tale.

"Because I tainted it in the most disgusting colour imaginable. Turned something so simple into a labyrinth of excuses." She said with a brilliant smile.

"No more, thanks to you. I won't hide, watch me rise and take care of my soon to be descendants of a great hero." Said Blythe with a brilliant smile.

The one that shone even in the darkest corners, one that Liam had never witnessed before.

And now that memory became the last thing he would ever remember about her...