2: A Healer's Legacy

The walk back was a complete blur, Auren’s body walking on autopilot. He passed out of the Second Ring, into the eastern suburbs, until he reached the Hospice Center. Only when he ran into Osmond in one of the hallways did he snap back to awareness.

"It's going to be fine, Auren,” Osmond said, the man clearly having understood what had happened. “Chasing ranks isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know? You're such a good worker, and as long as you maintain this record, you'll probably be the next manager after me. That should be a decent enough salary, you could even get into the Rings eventually. You can build a family, a life for yourself."

Auren tried, but he couldn't muster a smile, only a tired nod.

Seeing his words slip over Auren like water, Osmond tried a different approach. "And anyway, this is just one year. Who knows, maybe next year will be the year you become an E-ranker, maybe even a D-ranker. Maybe you'll surprise us all, become a miracle story, become the next Titan Azean." Osmond smiled wider, as though he could cheer Auren up by sheer determination. “Titan Auren, just think of it!”

Lord Titan Auren. It did sound good.

It also sounded like an absurd fantasy. One that today, Auren couldn’t bring himself to trust in.

"Thanks, Osmond. I appreciate you saying so."

Osmond didn't seem to know what else to say, so he simply patted him on the shoulder. "I mean it. You’re a valuable worker, and I’ll be glad to have you around a bit longer before you outshine us all. You've been a really integral worker, you know, keeping things going all these years."

Auren wasn't that much of an integral worker. They both knew that this was just a thin attempt to soothe him. “I need to take my mom out before it gets too dark.” He turned and walked towards room 152.

Osmond let him go with only another pitying look.

Auren unlocked Room 152 and unfolded the wheelchair leaning against the wall. “Come on, Ma, time to go get some fresh air.”

She was more active this evening, waving one arm off the side of the bed as though trying to grab at something out of reach.

Auren helped her to her feet, supported her while she took the three unsteady steps to the wheelchair. “No, no, sit down here,” he said, when she continued reaching and tried to walk past to the door. “We’ll go outside, but you need to be comfy. Okay?”

She made an impatient sound, not quite a shout but definitely not any word, and struggled against him as he guided her back.

“Sit down, Ma, please? I promise, we’ll go out.”

But apparently she was in one of her stubborn phases. In the end, he could only support her on one side while dragging the wheelchair behind them, turning the one minute walk to the front door into a half-hour ordeal, but as soon as she saw the dull sunset grey of the evening sky she relaxed against him.

“I’ve got you.” He caught her suddenly limp form and sat her down in the chair, and this time she didn’t try to escape.

She pointed up and away toward the east, mumbling in gibberish sentences Auren couldn’t understand.

“Want to go that way today?” He didn’t usually head out further into the fringe, closer to the edge of the Broken Lands where monsters and outlaws roamed, but he wasn’t in the mood for another fight with her at the moment. He ensured she was situated and buckled in, then started pushing the chair the way she’d indicated.

“It hasn’t been a great day, to tell you the truth,” Auren told her, steering carefully around a stray crystal formation and toward the less broken sidewalk on the right. “I keep telling myself it’s not that big a deal, and I keep…” He sighed. “I guess it gets to me more than I want to believe. A class isn’t that much to ask for, is it? Just a chance to get in the door. That’s all I need. I can put in the work. You know I can. Just gotta keep trying, I guess.”

Ylria leaned forward against the buckles, both hands reaching out as she babbled happily.

For the first time since the disastrous awakening ceremony, Auren found himself smiling. He took a deep breath, pushing away his own worries, and leaned forward to kiss the top of her head. “I’m glad one of us is having a good day.”

She bounced in her seat, more excited than he’d seen her in years, leaning forward so insistently.

“You want us to go faster? You sure? It’s pretty rocky out here.” He started slow, speeding up just a little, but she only yelled more excitedly the faster he went.

Why not? Auren threw caution to the wind and pushed her faster. It was a bouncy, jostly ride across broken and upturned pavement, even with his best efforts to stay on relatively flat areas.

Before long he was all but running, laughing along with her.

Tears he’d been holding onto all day slipped down his face, cooling into streaks by the wind, and he ignored them.

When the crystal formations started to be more frequent than not, he finally slowed down, breathing hard but still laughing. “Thanks, Ma, that’s…” He leaned his forehead against her shoulder. “You always did know what I needed more than I did.” The few times she was lucid enough to remember he existed, at least.

Ylria patted his cheek, then grabbed his hand and pointed further ahead. “Dayel.”

Auren froze. “What did you say?” It sounded like…? He came around the front and knelt before her, heart suddenly racing even more than when he’d been hiding from classers. He held her hand, looking up at her earnestly, all but holding his breath for the answer. “Can you say that again for me?”

“Dayel.” She reached out again, the hand he held straining forward, other hand clutching her necklace. The necklace made from the bonding stone at her wedding.

Dayel was her husband’s name. Auren’s father. That necklace was the only thing left of his memory, the sole remnant of their life together before he disappeared and her soul shattered.

His breath caught. “Mom, do you remember something about him? Do you know where he went?”

There were tears in her eyes, eyes staring past him into the twilight distance. “Dayel,” she whispered again, and this time he couldn’t mistake the longing for anything else.

“He’s not coming back,” Auren told her gently. “I don’t know what happened, but he’s not coming back.” Tears of sympathy started to lurk at the corners of his own eyes, even though he’d already cried once today. “It’s just the two of us now, yeah?”

She shook her head, tears spilling down her face as she let her hand go limp in his. She called out, anguished sounds that were not quite words, but he didn’t need a translator to understand the raw need in her voice. 

Where are you?

“Ssshh, ssssh, it’s okay, I’m here, you’re not alone.”

Her desperate longing for something that was never going to return echoed out against the ruined buildings.

Auren did wonder what had happened to his father. He couldn’t even find him on the citizens’ database for Zalrieth—but, then, he couldn’t find his mother either, so maybe they’d never officially registered their presence in the chaos around the Break.

His curiosity was far less visceral than his mother’s loss. He didn’t even remember the man, after all. But this woman, even in her broken state, was the person who had brought him this far. The person who had helped him continue through life with nothing but her sheer existence. And so he felt her pain along with her, holding her as her plea faded away, murmuring comfort as he tried to bring her out of whatever painful memory she’d become stuck in.

Then without warning she turned to him, fully focused, eyes sharp and clear. “Never let them find you.” She tugged at her necklace, struggled to get it off and only managed to get it hooked on her ear, then looked up at him. “Take this. Don’t let them find you.” She tugged at it again.

“What?” Auren asked, stunned. Was his mom… talking? To him? Not at him, but to him?

She shook her head. “It’s time you—” Her hand sagged to her lap, her arm no longer strong enough to hold it up, and she could only open her fingers around the necklace to proffer it to him.

She looked up at him, pleading, vocalizations growing fainter. “T—” She grunted in frustration, tears pooling again in her eyes. “Ta—” and then she fell back, head lolling against the support, eyes drifting closed, breath rasping.

“Mom? Mom! Stay with me! We’ll—we’ll get back to the hospice center right now—”

And then she stilled, her eyes turning blank. Her breathing slowed, then stopped. Auren stared at her numbly before putting a trembling hand near her nose. She wasn't breathing. "No, no, no!" he muttered, lifting her hand to check her pulse. There was none.

Auren simply grasped her necklace, staring at his mother blankly. Just like that, she was gone. He didn't know how to feel. Tears began dripping down his face as he knelt on the shattered pavement, cradling her body.

Just like that, the one true tether he'd had to this world was gone.

Auren didn't know what to say or do, except grieve numbly. He couldn't even bring himself to cry fully, even though the sadness and grief coursing through his veins were heavier and darker than anything he'd ever felt.

Only when a distant howl echoed through the dark did he recover some semblance of composure. It had become fully night by now.

He stood up, looking at his mom. He should give her the grandest funeral he could afford. He had a few silver coins saved up; he could probably bury her in the Suburbs' graveyard if he paid for it. At least in death, she would be buried in a decent place.

The amulet was still in his hands. His first instinct was to tie it back around her neck—she looked wrong without it, it’d been a part of her image for so long—but he remembered her last words: Take it.

So Auren tied it around his own neck and looked at his mom. The amulet seemed strangely heavy, or maybe that was just his emotions weighing down on him, like stones on his shoulder.

He needed to give her a proper burial, a funeral deserving of her, someone he had loved so dearly.

The thought of her passing away made him feel many complex emotions. On one hand, she would be free from this nightmarish existence. On the other, he would never be able to see her again, would he? He had a picture of her, yes, but that was all.

He stared at her silently, doing his best to memorize her face, gently stroking her hair, then slowly stood and began the trek back to the Hospice Center.

—

Eros munched on his donut, letting his eyes scan the dozen oversized screens before him. If not for his awakened ability, he would struggle to maintain his attention on so many information streams and integrate them all so effortlessly. His third-tier Master Observer class was one of the primary reasons the Hierophant Order had been willing to recruit him in the first place.

It wasn’t easy getting an acolyte position, even on an outer nothing world like Zalrieth.

Nonetheless, his job was extremely important. An alert from him could, quite literally, decide the fate of the universe.

Most of the time, the alerts were minor. Unregistered classers trying to stir up trouble or build their own little kingdoms, outlaw classers trying to sneak off-world, petty rivalries between the ‘nobility’ threatening to fracture the world’s unity…

Dispatching Enforcers to deal with such minor threats, anyone could do that. But Eros was here for a much more important reason.

Not everyone in the Order was privy to the true danger that certain alert types represented, and if the time came to burn the planet entirely, they needed someone on site to make that call.

It wasn’t a glamorous position, sure, and the day to day was pretty dull, but it was a well-paying job, so he wasn't going to argue. If they told him to jump, he would only ask how high.

He continued to skim his gaze across the screens, yawning as he tossed the last of his donut into his mouth. Maybe he should just sleep. Take a quick nap. Alerts always came with a flash and hum that should wake him up. It wasn't like anyone checked on him, at least not until the evening.

During the system maintenance next year he'd have to work harder for a while. May as well get some rest now while he could, right? It was a pretty quiet day. No major disruptions, outlaws staying in their zones, just three or four interventions so far.

He leaned back in his chair, which was one of the most comfortable chairs he’d ever experienced. The Order was so generous when it came to these things, at least for high-impact jobs like his. Not just the chair, the screens, lighting, communication equipment—all of it was fabulous.

But before he could close his eyes, one of the screens flickered with a loud buzz, then turned red. Eros spun, his attention immediately homing in on it.

Forbidden Class Detected.

Classification: Healer

Rank: B

Eros sat bolt upright. All thought of rest fled as his body kicked into high alert. Healer! Here? Healers were S-rank threats, even as low as C-rank. Suris and Geneva, even a D-rank healer could be enough to give even Eros a hard time. He was certainly not prepared to deal with a Healer of his own rank.

If there was a B-rank healer on the loose, that was exactly the sort of thing that would get the planet disciplined in a way that would make the Break look tame.

Eros was starting to hyperventilate, but his training kicked in before he could lose too much time.

Observation was running at full power, slowing his perception of events to a bare crawl. He pushed his chair back, rushed to the screen, and honed in on the alert, rereading it.

Right, he wasn't imagining this, hadn’t misread it. He tapped the alert to see what it led back to.

Rather than bringing up an incident report, the alert simply disappeared. The originator over in whatever worthless city district it had come from already toggled their feed off, cancelling the notification.

Eros—being an Acolyte who had trained all his life for this—knew better than to dismiss it so lightly. Even if it was an error, it needed to be thoroughly investigated. If there was even the slightest chance of a Healer having survived…

He continued to stare at the screens intensely while he replayed the last couple seconds in his mind. Scanning the incident code and location data from the alert, he mentally input them to the search query.

Record restricted.

Access clearance granted: Gowen of Seventh, sub-authorization Acolyte Eros.

Ylria Moarth (nee Buhashi)

Record outdated. System scan required.

Soul Tier: F- (Last recorded rank: B)

Class: None (Last recorded class: Healer)

Age: 60 (Deceased)

Inactive for 21 years, 128 days.

Last updated: 5 seconds ago.

A Healer record, marked as inactive for twenty years, had flickered to life… then faded almost at once.

Eros immediately ran a validation on the record, just in case, while he watched to see if it would activate again, if it would come back to life.

But no, it did not. Just the singular update, as seconds ticked past.

This happened sometimes when records were being interchanged or cleaned. This world did have a few outlaw classers; Necromancers, Seers, things that could be dangerous at higher levels but at E-rank and below were hardly a nuisance.

Could it be that a necromancer had found a healer’s bones and tried to revive them? The intersection of their powers could have generated a similar life-death aura flash to a living healer’s power. But if that was all, the record should stay dormant after this.

Eros flagged the account as under permanent suspicion and tied a personal alert to it. If the record ever updated itself again, he’d be informed immediately.

Next, see if there was anyone else related to the record in question. Probably extraneous, but there was no such thing as too careful with something this risky. If he let a Healer slip through on his watch, it wouldn’t just be the end of Eros’s career, it would invite retribution on everyone and everything he’d ever touched.

Paranoia was the absolute minimum requirement, in the face of such a potential catastrophe.

Eros took another deep breath and flipped to related records. No family on record, officially an orphan. A dead husband, whose records were sealed even to Eros.

He frowned and input his passkey again, but the record remained restricted. That was… very concerning. He hesitated to bother his master with something that could be nothing, but if there was anything he needed to know, it would be a bigger risk to say nothing. He attached a description of the alert and forwarded the relevant accounts to Hierophant Gowen before continuing his investigation.

Auren Moarth

Soul Tier: F-

Class: None

Age: 22

Last updated: 17 hours ago.

The son’s record was a pitiful thing. He had a list of system awakening attempts going back to age six, all with the same F- result.

Eros finally relaxed at that. With a Healer mother and an unknown for a father, the kid was one genetic misfortune away from getting his whole city glassed. Fortunately for whatever particular brand of dump Auren Moarth called a home, his threat level remained nonexistent.

Yes. False alarm. No need to panic.

A few checks of their social status confirmed they were upstanding citizens, without any complaints on file against Auren or the mother.

Letting out a deep breath of relief, Eros thanked the Titans for there being no danger, and prayed that it continued to be so. Because, Suris knows, he wouldn't have been prepared to deal with that mess.

He sat back down and swiveled his chair back to the center of the platform, letting his gaze wander over all the screens. 

Yeah, what was he thinking about? Hmm, a nap. Yes, a nap sounded good, didn't it? Then again, he doubted he could sleep after the whole Healer scare. The adrenaline was still slightly pumping through his veins. So maybe he should just grab a coffee and a donut. Just the way to decompress after a scare like that.

Eros nodded to himself. Yeah, that sounded nice.

He closed the window and leaned back, snatching another donut from the box on the desk behind him. Days like today made him question if he were in the right line of work… but it always worked out in the end.

Nothing to worry about. Just enjoy the easy posting and collect his retirement pay in a century or two. Nothing to it.

—

It seemed money was money everywhere, even in the Suburbs. The people responsible for handling the graves, despite looking much richer and cleaner than him, didn't reject Auren’s request when they saw he did, in fact, have enough silver coins to afford it. It cost the entirety of his meager savings, which he’d scraped and saved to put together gradually over the past five years, but for once he didn’t hesitate to make the purchase.

Some things were worth the price.

Osmond offered to accompany him to the grave, but Auren refused. He didn't want to burden the man like that, not when Osmond was already covering his shift. Taking a manager away from the hospital could potentially incur a fine for neglect of duty. Yeah, no. Auren wasn't that selfish.

And so he watched alone as his mother was buried, her face as calm as when she'd had her eyes closed every night. Then she was lowered into the earth in a casket—a pure white casket. The grave given to her was a lighter grey stone.

He didn't know what to write for her, so all he could inscribe was: REST IN PEACE, YLRIA MOARTH, A WOMAN WHO WAS LOVED.

There was no Hierophant to perform the ceremony, only an F-rank cleric who fumbled his way through her name as though he’d never heard a ‘yl’ before. But at least he was able to consecrate the grave and protect it from evil.

At this point Auren was so dead tired he couldn’t even conjure the energy to be angry.

After the brief funeral, Auren wandered back to the Hospice Center, but Osmond insisted he take the rest of the day off. Offered him the week, the month, however long he needed.

Auren wanted to work, to do anything but be stuck alone with the aching emptiness, but even he had to admit he was in no condition to be any use to his patients.

With nowhere else to go, he walked back toward his warehouse. The whole way, things felt numb again. As if everything were plastic, fake.

Just a few hours ago, he had been talking to his mom. Now she was dead. He would never see her smile again, never hear her voice. He would give anything to hear her voice again, even if she still had no words. But it was too late.

With this, he had lost every family member.

He was, for all intents and purposes, alone.

Before he knew it, he arrived at his home: a half-collapsed, barely intact warehouse, a remnant from better days when such buildings were common due to the business that passed through the city.

Now, all these warehouses at the outer edge of Zellene were useless, and even among them, this one was less intact than most. That was exactly why he chose it. It had insects, yes, and was not the most desirable place to stay, but that was precisely why other orphans, other Unawakened, other people needing residence, usually avoided it. There were many warehouses and empty buildings, after all; they didn't really have to squabble over places to live unless it was someplace worth living in.

He opened the door—more of a formality, really, as the damn thing was so rusted that a hard knock could make it fall—closed it behind him, and looked inside. The place itself was less dusty and shabby than when he first found it. The walls were cleaner now, not filled with moss. Rust was present on the few metal parts, of course, but that wasn't something he could fix. He'd covered the holes in the ceiling with whatever material he could find, mostly by climbing on top and placing wooden planks or shifting some metal sheets. So, while some moonlight shone through the gaps, it was intact enough for him to sleep there during rain or similar weather.

A small mattress lay at the edge of the warehouse. It was a big space, one he could probably personalize more, but he didn't have the energy to bother. He'd found the mattress in the dumps of the Suburbs—apparently not good enough for its residents, but a godsend for him—and placed it on the ground. There were also a few kitchen utensils, a makeshift stove for when he needed to cook, and a stash of medicine hidden under one of the few wooden floorboards in the warehouse. But that was all, really. The bare minimum, the necessities.

The rest of his earnings went towards saving for the Awakening ceremony—usually three months of his salary—and taking care of his mother. Occasionally, very rarely, if he felt like it, he would eat out.

He probably should have collapsed onto the mattress, but instead, he looked up at the metal piping. Between two of the metal pipes was a crudely made spear. Well, it was barely a spear: one of the metal pipes he'd carved into a point with great effort. He was sure it wouldn't work all that well, but it was better than nothing. He jumped, grabbed it, and brought it down.

He'd failed today, yes, and that meant he had to work harder. He shouldn't just go to sleep. No, he had to grind, grind harder, do more.

Normally, he would wrap it with a cloth. It was a handmade spear, with one end of a metal pipe sharpened, after all, so it had quite a few sharp edges all over it. He wouldn’t have wanted to scratch his hands accidentally, normally.

Today, the pain felt like a welcome distraction.

So he started his practice—a very loose definition of the word, really. He had no idea what he was doing, whether his posture was proper or not. But as long as he kept swinging the damn thing, as long as his body burned, he figured he was improving in some way, gaining some experience somehow.

So he imitated the few gestures he'd seen guards make with their spears or batons: lunge, slash, stab up, stab down, sweep, repeat.

Lunge, slash, stab up, stab down, sweep.

He did it again and again, with all the force he could muster, until his joints protested, his muscles screamed, sweat pooled on the floor, and tears—he realized—dripped down his face along with his sweat.

Not because of the physical strain, no, but because of all the emotions finally settling in as he worked his body to the brink.

He ignored the tears. What does it matter now?

He didn't stop until his vision blurred, until he felt dizzy and practically collapsed, using the spear to keep himself from falling completely, then to kneel. The sharp edges on the spear were stained with blood, his hands stinging from the abuse, but he didn’t care. He welcomed the pain. He let out ragged gasps as, for a few therapeutic seconds, he forgot everything but the sensations in his body: the way it burned, the sweat dripped, the heat rising from his skin—he could feel it.

Then, for what felt like both an eternity and a second later, he stood up, holding the spear, and tried to jump to put it back. He couldn't jump properly, though. His muscles protested with all their might, and he stumbled, unable to slot it in. He tried once more. Failed again.

The third time, he took a deep breath and steadied himself a moment. He steadied the spear in one hand, ran a finger across his mother’s necklace for good luck, looked at the pipes, and jumped. This time it slotted in successfully, even if haphazardly.

Good enough.

He forced himself to sit and wash the scrapes across his palms. He may not care about the cuts, but the last thing he needed was to get an infection. He was too well trained to let that slide, no matter how tired he was.

He dug out the bandages from his hiding place under the bed and wrapped his hands securely, on autopilot once again. 

Then, practically trembling, he walked to his mattress and collapsed on it.

Sleep came easier when he was exhausted. Tonight, even that wasn’t enough.

His throat ached and his eyes stung, and however exhausted he was it wasn’t enough to distract from the constant lingering knowledge that she was gone.

Instinctively, his right hand wandered towards the necklace—the only possession or reminder he had of his mom. He stroked the gemstone gently, cupping his fist around it. For a second, that eased his pain. Ever so slightly.

Then, the gem shone.

Blinking, he dropped it and stared. A streak of his blood, even as he watched, was being absorbed into the gemstone.

He poked it, unsure what to think. He’d always assumed it was a commonplace crystal, not some kind of artifact.

The gem began floating, slightly above him, making him hurriedly sit up, before he felt the world spin.

Instantly, pain tore through his body. It wasn't like any pain he'd ever experienced. It didn't make him scream; no, it was disorienting. It felt like it disabled his entire being. 

He rolled from the mattress he was lying on, onto the hard ground, convulsing, trying his best to stop his own body from moving. After a few minutes, leaning against the wall for support, his muscles finally stopped trembling, and his body stopped shivering.

But as alien as the sensations had been, there was a hint of something familiar throughout the entire ordeal. It reminded him weirdly of the Awakening ceremony, somehow.

“Status?” He didn’t know why he even thought it, half delirious, but—

A translucent blue screen popped up in front of him, just as if he were using the Awakening Stone. Auren blinked in confusion at the translucent blue screen. He did not, in fact, have an Awakening Stone. Nor did he have a class. Or a status implant.

And yet…

HIDDEN CLASS AVAILABLE: HEALER (Accept/Reject?)

SYSTEM CLASS: UNAWAKENED (Modify?)

A Healer class? Even forgetting he didn't have an Awakening Stone, he must be hallucinating this status screen.

Healer class—the same Healers who were hunted to extinction by the System and the government? The class even more forbidden than the standard outlaw classes?

Auren scoffed. He must be going insane from all the stress. He waved his hand in front of his face and closed his eyes for a second.

Right, deep breaths. When I open my eyes again, the status screen will have disappeared.

He opened his eyes. The status screen had not disappeared.

Auren blinked.

The status screen remained.

Am I actually hallucinating this?

He didn't know how to feel. What kind of artifact was this, some kind of covert System implant? And a hidden class like this? Theoretically, if he actually had access to the Healer class, it wouldn't be surprising that he could see it.

But if it were real… did he even want the Healer class—the same class that would paint a giant target on his back?

His hand closed over the empty chain that had a moment before held his mother’s wedding crystal. Her last words came back to him, as though she’d only just spoken them.

Don’t let them find you. Take it.

This was… too much.

If she’d had access to a powerful class like this all along, why did she have to just die? Why hadn’t she used it herself?

But… in the end, she was a mother. And this was what she’d chosen to do with it.

What did he have to lose?

“Accept.”

Class: Healer (Fragmented)

Abilities: Heal [Available: Self] [Locked: Touch, Ray, Aura, Area]

In the same moment, he felt a shift to everything. The world around him felt different, more alive. The air tasted cold and clean, a new layer underneath the rust and decay.

The tiredness— that a moment before had been all but overwhelming—faded. The soreness in his muscles, the sting in his hands. All of it disappeared in moments.

Without the glow of the crystal, the room had fallen into darkness, and that seemed to give him a strange sort of clarity.

This was all real. He was a Healer, a real classer. Even if it was a hidden class, even if it was a broken Class.

If this was true, what was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to do next?

And somewhere out to the east, as if in answer, something pulled at him from off in the direction his mother had been pointing. A gentle magnetism, a crystal-clear promise.

Auren got to his feet. No longer exhausted, no longer numb, only filled with this vivid confidence.

He wanted to move. Even if it led him out into the Broken Lands, however far it took. The broken class, the empty space, what else was going to fill them?

Besides, what did he have left to lose? It wasn’t like anyone would miss him if he never came back. Not like the world would care if he wandered too far.

He started out walking, and then he was jogging, and by the time he reached the arbitrary boundary line dividing broken suburbs from broken wilds, he was pushing at a full sprint. For a moment he paused, the breath between one step and another, but the thought of turning around, of going back, felt unbearably suffocating. Stifling.

He had to get away, and if there was even a shred of a hope out there, something he could run toward at the same time…

Auren stepped forward into the Broken Lands, into the glow of the gems lingering on the broken shards, running on towards the place he would find an answer.

At one point he stumbled and fell, hard enough that the sharp gems and broken pavement scraped his entire arm bloody. Before he could even register the sting of pain, as he instinctively looked at it, the injury healed over. By the time he got back to his feet, it was like he’d never fallen at all.

He was up and running again almost before he registered the fall at all.

And he ran. Full speed, without slowing, for minutes that felt like hours. He was panting, of course, heat rising from his skin, but every time his muscles ached, they were soothed almost immediately. Healed, just like the cuts.

He could keep going as long as he wanted, like he could run and run and run—run until the very world ended. Running through this darkness towards a goal, towards some sense of meaning, the connection that he'd lost when his mom had died.

The fragments of her legacy.

The effort of constant motion was oddly meditative, the cycle of strain and release soothing. And it would have stayed that way if not for a monstrous creature lunging at him from the darkness without warning.

One moment he was sprinting through the dead plains, dodging crystal formations effortlessly, the next he was off the ground with something stabbing through his shoulder and into his neck.

The monstrous thing was too fast, too big. Auren barely had time to meet its eyes before it had him in its mouth.

One clawed hand through his shoulder, it bit down on his middle, teeth scraping against ribs with a crackle of bone as it tore off an entire chunk of flesh, roughly half his chest.

He still held his spear, but before he could do more than take in the situation, the creature was already throwing him to the ground. He landed hard enough that under ordinary circumstances he’d have passed out from the impact, but with his new Healer class keeping him fresh, he only saw stars for a brief moment.

The monster towering over him was like nothing he’d ever seen before. Not one of the twisted creatures who roamed the outer fringes of the city, something far bigger and more hideous. A lumbering black mass with eerie white teeth squatted on its haunches as it chewed at the piece of Auron it’d torn free, picking at its teeth with one clawed finger.

Apart from its oddly human-shaped claws, it looked mainly canine in form, though distorted in places—incredibly thick backside, squat neck with a pointed head, the tail slender and bristly rather than furry.

Auren looked down at where his ribs were slowly twisting back into position, flesh beginning to fill in the space between them, and all he felt was the cool wind against his exposed flesh.

It let out a satisfied huff and suddenly he was staring straight into two oversized red-purplish eyes with black sclerae.

Auren had never let go of his spear, and this time he was ready. He pressed the butt of the spear against a crack in the pavement, then whipped the point upward in the same instant the monster lunged for him again.

Auren barely managed to roll aside as the monster slammed down onto the spear. He winced at the pressure against his exposed ribs. But he wasn’t dead, and wasn’t in the monster’s mouth again yet, so that was progress.

The monster didn't seem to agree. It ignored the spear piercing it and pounced on him, crushing him to the ground with a growl.

He grabbed at the spear, but it was too deeply embedded and he couldn’t get a good grip from where he lay crushed beneath the creature’s stomach.

But it seemed that it wanted to toy with its prey some more. Instead of biting his head off, it grinned down at him, then nuzzled its nose under his side to flip him over.

Auren didn’t want to be flipped. Unfortunately, his body was way too small compared to the monster’s. But his resistance made it angry, so it stopped being gentle. It snapped its teeth around his leg, then jumped up and shook him before leaping into the air and throwing him with a snap of its head.

He landed hard, on a pile of broken stones sharp enough to slice his back to shreds.

That one, he felt. He shouted, barely able to think through the blinding pain, but behind the pain was anger and he had a lot to burn.

He had no weapon in his hands currently. The spear was still deep in that monster's chest. But he had all these broken chunks of stone and crystal scattered around, which he knew from experience were plenty sharp enough to cut.

He snatched them up, one after the other, and hurled them into the creature with all the force he could muster, holding nothing back as it rushed him.

Even after running half the night, he still underestimated how much the constant healing burn amplified his muscles. He put so much speed into his throw that for a second he thought he’d dislocated his hand.

But however amplified his throwing arm may be, he wasn’t very practiced at aiming with chunks of irregular rock. Most of his missiles flew harmlessly to the sides of the charging monster, a few falling short, but two hit the monster squarely in the chest.

It didn't do much. A few new cuts on its chest, but that seemed to only irritate the monster. It growled and led with a claw, swiping him into the air before jumping at him.

It reminded him of a dog; playing fetch using him as the stick.

Auren twisted in the air and kicked out, driving his spear deeper into the monster’s body, even as its claws pierced into his chest again and slammed him to the floor.

Auren grabbed the spear and tugged. For once, the fact that it was made of a straight piece of sharpened pipe came in handy. Rather than a spearhead that could get caught in the monster’s flesh, the weapon slid free easily, drenched in the black blood of the monster.

The monster went to withdraw its claws, but Auren grabbed hold of its claw with his other hand, forcing it to stay where it was.

Not long…

His skin healed around the monster's nails, trapping it in his body. Auren’s hand clung to the monster’s arm in a death grip, preventing it from breaking free.

It would try to pull its paw free, but between Auren’s grip and his body’s insane healing speed, it couldn’t escape.

The monster snarled and tugged, then reared up and clawed at Auren with its other hand, trying to get him off.

But while it was confused by this odd human who could heal, Auren had his spear once more. And as it struggled to disentangle itself from him, Auren hurled the spear into its face. Whether from focus, desperation, or simple beginner's luck—his spear pierced through the monster's head, right through its eye, poking out the back of its head through the skull.

The monster yelled incoherently, and Auren let go of its arm to lunge for the spear. Its thrashing tore its claw free of his body and sent him flying, but he’d caught what he wanted and his weapon came free with a squelch and a deflated eyeball adorning its middle.

He landed awkwardly, rolled hard into a pile of rocks, almost stabbed his own eye out on a crystal jutting at just the wrong angle, but he recovered faster than the monster did.

Auren ran at the screaming creature as it thrashed, dodged its half-blind claw swipe, then threw himself straight into its chest.

He held the spear low as he plunged it into the monster again and again. He stabbed its face, its neck; lost in the furious rhythm as he drew it back and stabbed it in.

He ignored all the scratches, sheer adrenaline keeping him focused on his goal.

Auren didn’t know how many times he did this, but by the time he was done, the monster's head was barely intact.

The monster had stopped flailing, its arms sprawled limply to the side, its tail unmoving. Its face was an unrecognizable lump of black flesh, torn and perforated in a hundred places. 

Auren stood there, panting great deep breaths in an attempt to stop his body’s violent trembling, staring down at the thing he’d just beaten to death with a sharpened pipe.

“Bravo!” someone called from behind him, and it was only then he registered the applause.