I didn’t usually remember what it was I dreamt about.

  I would just sometimes wake up, feeling lost and sad. There would be a small bit of desperation fleeing from me as I tried my best to hold onto those scattering fragments.

  Faces I once knew, words I was supposed to say, things I never got to do.

  I wasn’t sure, but it felt like on most nights, I dreamt of the past.

  I guess it made sense. I had lived for over two decades; that still made up the majority of my life experience.

  Maybe one day the dreams would fade.

  I wasn’t sure how I would get that to happen, though.

  I guess until I figured it out, I would just have to deal with it.

  Wishes that never came true, prayers sent up to heaven that were lost in the wind.

  Misunderstandings that were never set straight, reunions that I could never manage to make.

  Those vague memories, always lost to me the moment I opened my eyes…

  I sometimes wondered why I could never hold onto those dreams. They were clearly very important to me, otherwise I wouldn’t keep feeling sad whenever they disappeared.

  I suppose there was just some part of me that dedicated itself to throwing away those useless memories, reminding me to get back on track and focus on what was important, always clashing with another part of me that yearned to pay the debt that allowed me to be in the present in the first place.

  There were some dreams I did remember though. There were some dreams that brought not senseless sorrow and uncontrollable longing, but quiet content and warm hope.

  It was just one dream, really. A singular dream that took multiple forms.

  I would see my sister.

  She would be wearing something different and be doing something different every time, but it was all the same in my eyes. It didn’t matter to me what she did, she would always be my sister all the way until the end.

  Sometimes, she would be wearing a lab coat, tinkering with tiny volumes of precious materials, spending the day slaving away as she messed around with intricate formulas, pushing through hellish days at work that would surely one day result in a miracle.

  Sometimes, I would see her diving and leaping through worn traps in ancient tombs, making a break for it as she outran death, filled with adrenaline and excitement as she chased down ancient treasures.

  She wore a witch’s hat quite commonly. Sometimes she would wear it at the back of the classroom, taking notes. Another time, she had wore it as she stood at the front of the classroom, scribbling on the chalkboard as she imparted her knowledge unto the youth. And there were other times still where she wore it onto the battlefield, flipping through mystical tomes as she fended off waves of monsters.

  None of those details mattered to me.

  She had grown up well. She was tall, her flesh had filled out enough to make her more than just a bag of skin and bones, she was beautiful.

  She was happy.

  It never seemed strange to me that I never saw myself by her side.

  Just the mere fact she was alive as an adult, living her own life, with her own job, chasing her own dreams, that was good enough for me.

  I would do anything for that future.

  That was the promise I had sworn, after all.

  ‘At any cost.’

  It was a future that was collapsing right in front of me.

  My hands shook uncontrollably.

  Electric shivers danced up and down through my nerves, jolting me with frantic pain as I stood there helplessly.

  I did not know what to do with them.

  I ran them up and down my sister’s body, patting her down, as if I would magically find something on her that was causing her current predicament.

  All I did was stir her from her painful sleep.

  She weakly twitched within my grasp, moaning lowly; the sound reverberating through my bones with a haunting chill.

  Bleary, clouded eyes slowly opened.

  “S-Sister…”

  “N-no!” I screamed, “s-stop speaking, save your energy.”

  Her pained, tired voice punched me in the gut.

  “Y-you’re home…”

  I felt my eyes grow moist.

  My peripheral vision started to grow blurry.

  “I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

  I started to choke.

  I don’t know if it was because my sister saw my sorry state, or she was just happy that I was back, but her lips started to twitch, fruitlessly attempting to wear a strong smile.

  She failed.

  Miserably.

  Her lips weren’t even able to pull themselves into a straight line, let alone curve upwards.

  “It’s… oka…” her mumbling voice faded away, trailing into nothingness.

  I felt my heart get lodged in my throat.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay!” I finished her words for her, shaking her to keep her awake, as if that would help.

  “It’s okay…” I continued repeating, panting shakily as I felt something roll down my cheeks, “I-I can fix this, y-you’ll be fine…”

  I don’t think I was trying to convince her of that. Those words were probably for myself.

  I couldn’t even say that for certain though, given that I was having a terrible time believing them.

  Her parched lips parted, trying to form some words of comfort. The words never made it off of her tongue.

  I stared at her trembling lips, begging for some kind of hint.

  Wait.

  I froze.

  Water.

  Water, I needed to get water.

  “I-I’ll be right back!”

  My voice cracked as I shouted.

  I leapt away from the bed, stumbling over myself as I ran through the house, picking up a bucket from the living room before I left.

  I ran through the abandoned street, reigniting the blistering ache in my legs.

  I didn’t care about the pain. I needed to get water, absolutely, no matter what.

  I sloppily tied the bucket to the rope, and tossed it all the way down, smashing against the walls as it tumbled down.

  I reeled it back up hastily. The water inside sloshed from side to side, some of it spilling back over the edges into the depths of the well.

  I tore the bucket out from the shoddy rope knot and sprinted back without a second thought.

  Again, the water splashed on my legs as I ran, flying out of the bucket as I stumbled on the rough street.

  By the time I had made it back, my hands were already bright red, sore from gripping so tightly onto the heavy bucket, and more than half the water inside had already been lost.

  I ran back through the living room and grabbed a cup, almost falling over – and losing all the water I had just gotten – because of my hasty multitasking.

  I slammed the bucket down next to the bed, shovelling water into the cup and bringing it to my sister’s mouth.

  I pulled my sister’s jaw open, tipping the cup over her mouth and letting the water flow into it.

  She swallowed weakly and slowly.

  Overflowing water dribbled down the side of her lips, tiny droplets falling onto the pillow.

  Her condition didn’t improve.

  Of course it didn’t, what was I expecting, a fucking miracle?

  It was a singular fucking glass of water, what was it supposed to do?

  But what else was I supposed to do!?

  I continued to feed my sister water, as she was too weak to even move from the bed to drink it herself, not that I would have let her even so much as get up from the bed in the first place.

  Half an hour passed.

  I thought so, anyways. The seconds stretched into tormented infinities, and all I could think about as the minutes went by was the painful memories that haunted me from an eternity ago.

  Her condition didn’t improve.

  She stopped drinking the water eventually, having drunk more than her body could reasonably accept.

  There had to be something else I could do.

  I-it couldn’t just be like this.

  What else, what else was there?

  Food.

  She hadn’t eaten since the morning.

  Fuck.

  I felt the sharp prick of guilt stab me in my heart.

  I knew it, I knew it. I knew this would happen when I started splitting food evenly with her.

  Why did I accept that just happening in the first place!?

  Why didn’t I fight back!?

  None of this would have happened if I just made sure she got the majority of our food!

  A small voice at the back of my mind whispered to me, telling me that it wasn’t true, that I was just desperate to find any excuse to explain what was happening. Anything that gave the current series of events a logical cause, something to blame.

  I wanted to find blame in myself.

  Because the alternative, if there was no blame with me, was that this was all due to simple random chance.

  An unlucky roll of the die.

  A cold, cruel, thoughtless whim of the world.

  And I couldn’t accept that.

  I couldn’t accept that this was all for naught, that all of my efforts could be blown apart by a simple, small breeze.

  I could not accept that there was no meaning to my actions, no meaning to my care for the little girl I had come to call my sister, no meaning or importance to my second life.

  There had to be a chance at salvation.

  I had to be able to save her, or there would be nothing left for me.

  I ran out of the room and burst into the living room once more, my reddening, frenzied eyes snapping across the house.

  The stew.

  A brief, panicked thought crossed my mind.

  Was it the stew that had caused this? Was it something I put in there that went bad?

  I shook the thought away, luckily still retaining enough of my cognition to recognise the flaw in my thinking.

  That couldn’t be it; I had eaten from the bucket too. Not only had I eaten the same food, I had eaten twice as much as her, if not more. If something in there had caused it, then I should already have died.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I hurriedly snatched a spoon and took a small mouthful of the stew.

  It was cold.

  I couldn’t serve this to her.

  I needed to heat it up.

  I tossed the spoon away, leaving it spinning and rattling on the floorboards.

  I ran to another room in the house, reaching into a rusty container and pulling out flint and steel.

  I started to quickly gather everything I needed to start a fire, and tossed it all together in a ditch outside.

  Dry scraps of cloth and wool, leftover charcoal, whatever wood was still good for burning.

  I crouched over the small pit, holding the black mineral shakily in my hand as my other feeble hand wrapped around a small length of steel.

  I brought it down, striking the two objects together.

  A few sparks flew, but nothing else happened.

  I tried it again.

  I felt the steel nick my knuckles, which were poorly positioned over the flint.

  I flinched and yelped, holding back the tears, and struck again.

  I felt the vibration of the steel pass through my hand as I slammed the two objects together.

  Sparks flitted onto my hands. I kept my hands as steady as I could manage as a sharp burn pricked me.

  I roared in anguish as I struck the flint one last time, putting everything I had into it.

  The tinder pressed beneath the flint finally lit, singing my hand as it burst into flame.

  I screamed, the pain forcing me to drop the flint and steel into the fire.

  It didn’t take long for the flint to nearly explode in my face afterwards, given how much it had already deteriorated, and its original questionable quality.

  I was lucky that I hadn’t managed to gather much flammable material in my haste to pull everything together, otherwise the fire would have quickly spiralled out of control.

  I hastily hung the stew over the fire, before grabbing another spare bucket and running back to the well to prepare water for an emergency.

  I spent the next half hour carefully feeding my sister the berries I had gathered earlier in the day, anxiously waiting for the stew to heat up again.

  When I judged the stew to be warm enough, I quickly reached over the fire to pull the bucket out.

  The handle burned me.

  I cradled my hand, tears of pain falling from my face.

  I was moving too fast, I wasn’t giving myself enough time to think.

  But I couldn’t think. There wasn’t the time for it.

  I had to save my sister.

  I cradled my swelling hand, taking the stick from which the bucket hung, before putting the fire out with the water I had set aside.

  I needed to get the food to her now.

  I tore off a sleeve from my clothes, wrapping it around the bucket’s handle to provide me insulation from its scorching heat, and pulled the meal back towards the bedroom.

  My sister ate well, given that she was half-conscious and seemingly on death’s door.

  I didn’t remember much of what happened after that.

  Another hour or two passed as I stayed by her side, hovering over her as I prayed for her condition to improve.

  It didn’t.

  Eventually, she fell out of consciousness, unable to hang on against the sickness. Her breathing grew shallow.

  Her face continued to burn, but other parts of her body could no longer manage to keep up the heat that was essential to fight away illness. Her extremities started to freeze.

  She was only getting worse as time continued to pass.

  Nothing I did worked. Covering her more did nothing. Putting a wet towel on her forehead did nothing. Making her more comfortable did nothing.

  Her breathing started to get shallow, and her shivering grew desperate.

  I was out of options. There was nothing I could do.

  I had to find help from someone, somewhere.

  I had to go outside, but…

  I-...

  I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t just let her rot away and wither in this bed while I disappeared from her world and searched tirelessly and fruitlessly for some stranger on the street to save us.

  I refused to let her suffer alone.

  But…

  Was it not reckless as well to take her outside?

  We were in the depths of winter, and it was well into nighttime by now. If the environment in her bed was enough to kill her, then what would happen if I took her outside? Could I protect her from the elements?

  I was stuck.

  I had to make an impossible choice, and I didn’t have time to think.

  I scrambled.

  I picked my sister up from the bed, wrapping her in the sheets as tightly as possible before slinging her unconscious body over my back, fastening her arms around my neck.

  I didn’t know if it was the correct choice, but I was panicking, and I had to choose something.

  All I could think of at that moment was that I could not leave her alone without me.

  I would not let her last moments be alone, no matter how much I didn’t want that possibility to come.

  I ran out of the house, taking only my hammer with me.

  When we arrived at the wall, I quickly set my sister down for a moment, and smashed away at the wall until it was big enough for both of us to fit through.

  I wasted no time after that, throwing the hammer away and bursting onto the street.

  My mouth opened the instant my eyes caught vision of the road.

  “HELP!”

  I screamed out into the void with a hoarse voice.

  “ANYONE, HELP!”

  My voice echoed back towards me.

  It was midnight. The streets were deathly quiet.

  I had to find help.

  I hoisted my sister further onto my back and continued running.

  I screamed whenever I could, my voice weakening as each minute passed.

  I needed to get out of the slums. There wouldn’t be anyone useful here. The poor parts of town couldn’t afford medicine, and if they could, they were kept lock and key under the control of the gangs.

  I ran across the bridge that split the town in half, crossing over to the richer side of the city.

  There had to be doctors here, right?

  I ran through the hauntingly quiet streets, feeling the winter winds bite at me. My only solace was that I was sure my sister did not feel them, wrapped in her sheets as she slept.

  “DOCTOR! ANYONE! MEDICINE!”

  I screamed over and over.

  It became hard to see through the tears.

  It was hard to make out any of the words I was saying, my voice scratching away until it reached intelligibility..

  I saw a few men on the other end of the street. Their clothes were dirty, stained black with smog and coal.

  “PLEASE!”

  I ran up to them, desperate to find anything at all.

  I knew they were just labourers, and could do nothing for me, but I stopped caring about things like that a while ago.

  “PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO H-”

  A tired, blackened hand shoved itself into my face, throwing me to the floor.

  My face smashed into the cold stone beneath me.

  I cried, a choked sob leaving me.

  I stumbled back onto my feet and continued pushing on.

  “HELP! MY SISTER, SH-... SHE NEEDS…”

  My voice started to die.

  All the clinics I had mapped out had closed. All the streets were empty. Not even the city guardsmen were awake anymore.

  I was well and truly alone.

  I refused to give up.

  I could not afford to.

  I pivoted on my heels, running into the opposite direction.

  The Adventurer’s Guild.

  There were apothecaries there.

  One of them… one of them had to be up.

  “ANYONE, ANYONE! PLEASE, I-I NEED HELP!”

  But of course, my hope was not rewarded.

  The Adventurer’s Guild was silent.

  Even the taverns, which usually stayed open during the night, sheltering young men and women who partied and drank until they passed out, were all but empty.

  Still, I had to try.

  I ran up to the doors of the stores I knew to sell medicine, and banged on them until the wood started to splinter.

  “PLEASE, IS ANYONE HOME? I-I’LL DO ANYTHING, J-JUST PLEASE-...”

  The stone tiling I ran on became soaked with my tears.

  My legs started to give out. They went numb a long time ago, the fiery pain having faded into nothing before the first hour had even passed.

  I wobbled forward, unable to keep myself upright any longer.

  My sister’s weak breath on my shoulder was the only thing that kept me moving. There was still time for her.

  “P-please…”

  I could barely muster the strength to even open my mouth.

  I stumbled deeper and deeper into the district.

  I knocked on all of the doors – not even just those of the apothecaries, just every door I could find – but still, no one answered.

  Suddenly, I heard something far out in front of me, startling me.

  “Ugh, fucking hell…”

  A coarse voice spat out in frustration.

  I bristled, jolting upwards, finding myself filled with one last burst of energy.

  I-... was I hallucinating?

  “I swear, how fucking hard is it to get a request approved? Holy shit…”

  That was a voice.

  A human voice.

  There was someone else.

  I wasn’t alone, not yet.

  I crawled forward, barely managing to keep my knees above my chest.

  “Fucking regulations and paperwork. Go kiss my shapely ass.”

  It was the voice of an adult woman.

  I tilted my head up weakly.

  A ghost-like figure trudged through the street. Midnight black hair melted into the abyss, becoming one with the darkness of the night.

  Yellow eyes glowed, shining through the void like morning stars, reminding me of my sister’s gaze.

  A pale, beautiful figure, wrapped in an ill-fitting cloak that slid halfway down her shoulders, walked towards my direction.

  “Dear Sol, what use is the rank of an S-Rank if all it fucking gives me is a giant fucking headache whenever I need an errand done? Holy shit, your servants are fucking useless.”

  I could barely make out her words, and I couldn’t wrap my head around what any of them meant in my delirium.

  I didn’t know if she could help. She might have just been like the workers I had seen earlier, but I had to try.

  “I haven’t gotten home in a fucking year. Just let me put up my fucking request to find this extraplanar bullshit so I can get out of this shithole of a continent and get back to a side of the world everything makes some fucking sense.”

  “P-please…” I whispered weakly, stumbling up to her.

  She gave me a quick glance, but just walked past me.

  I turned around, following me.

  “Please, y-you have to help me… m-my sister-...”

  “Shove off, kid, I’m tired and I need to drink, but all the bars are fucking closed. I need to just find this god-damned fuckass metal so I can just disappear from this place.”

  She didn’t push me to the floor like the labourers.

  Despite her harsh tone, there was still some human decency in her.

  I had to hang on to that small shred of kindness.

  It was nothing, but nothing was all I had.

  “Please!”

  I lunged forward, reaching for her wrist.

  I stumbled and missed, falling to the floor.

  “M-my sister… s-she’s sick, I-I need medicine, please…”

  I cried, begging pitifully.

  I leapt forwards one more time, latching onto her hand.

  She turned around and glared harshly at me, lightly brushing my hand away.

  Her touch was soft.

  “I don’t have time for your nonsense, kid. Go beg someone else, don’t you have parents or so-”

  “WE DON’T HAVE ANY!”

  I screamed at her with all that I had left, my voice deathly hoarse, scratched beyond repair.

  The woman flinched, reeling a small bit in shock.

  I saw a flicker of pity and confusion cross through her eyes.

  I latched onto that small spark with everything that remained in me.

  “WE DON’T HAVE ANY PARENTS! WE NEVER HAD ANY! ALL I HAVE IS HER! PLEASE, I-I CAN’T LET HER DIE! SAVE HER! I-I’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING, I’LL BE YOUR SLAVE, A-ANYTHING, PLEASE, J-JUST… Please…”

  I lost the last bit of miraculous strength in me.

  My legs slammed onto the cold street.

  I kneeled and begged, holding my sister tighter to my back.

  “Please, give me medicine, I-I’ll pay anything, just save her…”

  “I-...” The woman stumbled over her words, hurt flashing through her eyes. “Look, kid, I’d love to help, really, but I’m on a time crunch here. I need to find this damn rock before it disappe-”

  BEEP

  A strange, mechanical sound froze the two of us.

  It was such a strange sound, so out of place compared to everything I had come to recognise as a part of this world, that it shook me back awake.

  It sounded almost electronic or digital.

  There was a strange crackle hidden behind it, like some sort of radar or sensor.

  A flash of confusion spread across the woman’s face.

  “W-what?” her eyes lit up in panic, “no, that’s impossible…”

  Her hands hurriedly ran across her loose cloak until she found her pockets, which she then reached into to pull out a pocket-watch shaped device.

  “It’s here!?”

  Her eyes widened. She spun her head from side to side, frantically looking around for whatever she was chasing.

  “P-please…” I mumbled weakly, grabbing onto her heel.

  I couldn’t let her leave.

  “Buzz off, kid,” she shook her foot until I got off of her, scowling, “I’m a bit busy right now, look, I’ll get back to you in a seco-”

  BEEP

  The confusion on her face intensified.

  “Huh?” she blinked, her head snapping back towards her device.

  “No, this-... this signal… that… that doesn’t make any sense. It’s-... it’s right in…”

  She looked up from the watch, staring straight into my teary eyes, her puzzlement growing.

  “You?”

  I gulped.

  I set my sister down on the floor next to me, and started patting myself down.

  “P-please, whatever it is I have on me. Whatever you’re looking for. I-I’ll give it to you, just p-please…”

  I stumbled into her, hugging her legs as I fell back towards the ground.

  “Just save her, I’ll do anything.”

  “...”

  What felt like an eternity passed in silence.

  The woman sighed eventually, breaking through the quiet.

  “Al-... alright, I’ll save your sister.”

  My head snapped up in disbelief.

  “R-really, you mean it!?”

  My hoarse voice started to shake again.

  I started to lose vision of what was in front of me, my sight clouded by the oncoming flood of tears.

  “Yeah, I mean it. But, in return-”

  “Do you promise!?” I latched onto her waist, trying to shake her with my weak body.

  I didn’t care what price it was I had to pay, even if it was my life. All that mattered to me was that she would not go back on her word.

  “I-I pro-”

  “You have to swear it!” I screamed at her with my dying voice. “Swear, upon whatever you have! Anything at all, just swear!”

  “I-...” The woman sighed heavily.

  She looked at me with a complicated look in her eyes. I wasn’t awake enough to process what those feelings might have been.

  I started to cry in front of her. I held her tighter and tighter, not wanting to let this hope go.

  Then, she moved.

  “Really, what was I doing? Was I just about to let a kid in front of me die because of a fucking rock? Am I that fucking tired and worn out from this shithole of a country?”

  Gentle, warm arms wrapped around my body.

  My tears soaked into her cloak.

  She pat me comfortingly on the back, letting me sink further into her body.

  “Fine. I promise. I, Belle Symphonia, swear upon my dream of the moon and the stars, that I’ll save your sister.”

  I bawled my eyes out, breaking into a choked sob.

  It wasn’t over for us just yet.

  We still had one more chance to live in this cold, uncaring world, which showed no mercy to even children.

  “T-thank you…” the words just fell out of my mouth as I sobbed loudly, “thank you.”

  I repeated it over and over.

  “Hush now, kid.”

  She stroked the back of my hair, like I would sometimes do for my sister.

  “It’ll be alright. She’ll be okay.”

  Thank you, Belle Symphonia.

  I would never be able to repay this debt.