Maybe this childhood will be better than the last.
The words echoed in the hollow space inside me, a taunt that felt too close to a truth I didn't want to examine.
A low groan broke the mind-spell.
Julia was stirring, her hand fluttering to her temple where a nasty bruise was already blooming. Her red eyes fluttered open, blinking in confusion at the cracked ceiling.
Niran was the first to move. "Hey, easy," he said, his voice rough but gentle as he knelt beside her.
Dao was slower to approach, her arms crossed, a wary tension in her stance. But even she couldn't ignore someone hurt on my floor. She found a half-empty water bottle and brought it over without a word.
Julia sipped it, her gaze darting around the wrecked apartment—from the grey, deflated husks on the floor, to Preecha's silent observation, to me still sitting amidst the chaos. "Did we... win?" she asked, her voice raspy.
"In a way," Preecha said from his corner. "We used a loophole." He didn't elaborate. He was watching her, his knife-sharp eyes assessing her reaction.
"It's a long story," I said, finally finding my voice. It sounded tired.
"It's a crazy story," Niran corrected, managing a weak grin. "And you're kinda in it now, whether you like it or not."
We fell into a fractured, exhausted routine: cleanup. There wasn't much to do with the bottom-feeder husks except sweep them into a dustpan. As Niran went to dispose of them, a faint, ethereal glint caught my eye. Half-hidden under the sofa leg was the small glass vial. The one that had held my tears.
It was no longer empty. A thick, swirling liquid the color of a stormy twilight sloshed inside it—condensed, solidified despair. My despair.
I picked it up. It was cold, a deep, soul-sucking cold that felt familiar. It was the cold of the void where I'd met Kephriel. The cold of my own bones.
As we worked, we talked. We told her everything. The accident. The coma. The desperate prayers. Kephriel. The chains. The cost. It all came out in a tangled, unbelievable heap.
Julia listened, her face pale but her new red eyes wide and intent. She didn't interrupt. How could she? She'd seen the monsters. She'd felt Kephriel's chains on her soul.
When we finished, the only sound was the distant city traffic.
"So,"
Julia said, setting the water bottle down with a shaky hand. "My choices are: try to go back to a normal life while seeing monsters everywhere, with no one to believe me... or stay with the only people in the world who understand."
"It's not much of a choice," Dao said, her voice softer than before. The initial spike of jealousy had faded, replaced by a grim sense of shared fate.
"No,"
Julia agreed. She looked at each of us—at Niran's protective stance, Preecha's quiet intensity, Dao's weary resilience, and finally at me. "It's not." She took a deep breath. "I'm in."
It wasn't a joyful declaration. It was a surrender. An acceptance of a new, terrifying reality.
"Alright then," Niran said, clapping his hands together, trying to inject some energy into the grim mood. "Welcome to the club. The membership fee is your sanity."
A faint, real smile touched Julia's lips. "Already paid in full."
My attention never left the vial in my hand. I rolled it between my fingers, the storm-grey liquid swirling hypnotically.
"You've been staring at that thing for ten minutes,"
Preecha noted, his voice cutting through the post-admission silence. "What is it?"
"It's... me," I said, the words feeling inadequate. "The tears it harvested. It feels like... concentrated power. But my power. My pain."
All eyes turned to the vial. A palpable tension filled the room. They could all feel it now—a low, psychic hum emanating from it, a siren song of pure, potent sorrow.
"What are you gonna do with it?"
Niran asked, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant.
The unspoken question hung in the air: Could you use it? Could you drink it?
The thought was both repulsive and irresistibly compelling. This was the essence of the pain that had defined my life. What would happen if I took it back? Would it fill the hollow space? Or would it poison me? Would it make me stronger, or would it finally, completely, destroy me?
It felt like holding my own soul in my hand, and I had no idea whether to cradle it or crush it.
Kephriel's voice whispered in my memory, not as a sound, but as a feeling:
"Delicious."
He would know what to do with it. He would consume it without a second thought.
I closed my fingers around the vial, its coldness seeping into my skin. I looked at my friends—my cursed, loyal, insane friends. Our little group of five was now a council that would decide the fate of a god's power.
Dao finally voiced the question that had started it all, her eyes now fixed on the vial in my hand.
"What... what do we do now?"
The question hung in the air, heavier than ever. The answer was no longer about survival. It was about what we were willing to become to win.