In the middle of the night, Eternal Meteor lay in bed wrapped up in her blanket like a caterpillar, rolling back and forth—then opened her eyes again.
"I can't sleep at all!"
She struggled her way out of the blanket, then guiltily glanced at Rudolf, who was sleeping on her side. Meteor tiptoed out of the room again, moving as quietly as possible.
She went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face, patted her cheeks with both hands, and prepared to head back out to the track for more training.
"Sleeping properly is really that hard for you?"
"It just feels like I'm wasting time. And the moment I think about how my gate start still isn't finished, I get restless all over."
"Sure, sure—now even sleeping counts as wasting time. Fine. Keep it up and you'll die of overwork."
"Why bother sleeping long while alive? You'll sleep forever once you're dead. Besides, with this body's recovery, even overwork death would have to wait until my soul gets rejected first."
That one shut X up. With this body, the usual worries didn't really apply.
Meteor set up the gate again—at this point the metal had a slight dent from repeated impacts. Watching her get into position with practiced ease, X still couldn't stop herself from warning her:
"You understand that every 'recovery' is waking this body up again, right? It's a miracle bought purely by spending what little time you have left."
"I know. But if I don't push further, how am I supposed to outrun those horse girls who were born as geniuses and have trained hard since childhood? You said that yourself."
"I meant 'take it slowly.' Who the hell starts by going completely insane?!"
Meteor didn't answer—she let the sound of collision after collision answer for her.
X could only sigh. You couldn't talk her out of it. So she forced herself to focus on thinking of a solution.
No one knew how long passed.
Then, suddenly, the two alternating impact sounds became one single sound—followed by Meteor's wild laughter.
"I FINALLY DID IT—HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
X snapped back to attention—
—and saw Meteor sprawled near the front of the gate, propped up on both hands. Blood poured from the wound in a continuous flow, flooding her face so completely that her expression couldn't be seen. It ran down her neck, drenched her whole body, turning her white sleepwear entirely red—like the flames of a meteor ripping through the atmosphere, the blood shifting and sliding with every rise and fall of her chest.
"HOLY— You didn't stop even once, did you?! You've been slamming into it nonstop?! Are you out of your mind?!"
X blurted out a curse without thinking. If some innocent horse girl walked past and saw this, they'd probably faint on the spot.
"N-No… I did stop… for a b-bit… a little…"
Her breathing grew louder and rougher. Meteor lifted her right hand with difficulty and pinched two fingers together in a tiny "finger-universe" gesture. Even with her entire face painted in blood, the shape of her mouth was stretched into a huge crescent grin—she was genuinely delighted she'd mastered an early gate start.
"B-But… now that I've relaxed… why do I feel… so dizzy…?"
"How do you train like that—? Huh? Why'd you close your eyes? Don't tell me you actually passed out?! Hey—Meteor…!"
X's voice grew smaller, distant, blurred. A strange drowsiness pressed down, the world dimmed to black, her strength drained away—
and she collapsed, consciousness completely gone.
When Meteor woke again, she stared at a pristine white ceiling and fluorescent tube lights.
"Nice ceiling… but wasn't I on the track? Where is this…?"
A bad feeling hit her.
She turned her head.
On the white bedsheet beside her was a horse girl lying face-down, with hair split into brown and dark brown at the crown—painfully familiar.
Meteor's heart dropped.
"I'm done. I'm so done. X? Hello? What happened?!"
No response from X.
So Meteor tried to slip out of bed as quietly as possible—without waking Rudolf.
"Hold on! You'll be okay! Eternal Meteor!"
Before Meteor could even get one foot out, Rudolf jolted upright like she'd been dragged out of a nightmare, shouting Meteor's name.
Meteor froze in a half-escape pose.
The two of them locked eyes.
"Uh… President, you should go back to sleep. I won't bother you. I'm just—uh—gonna go now."
Meteor attempted to replicate her previous escape maneuver and flipped herself out of bed—
—but this time she moved too fast. Her vision suddenly went pitch-black and her body pitched forward.
Just before she hit the floor, a pair of arms caught her and lifted her back onto the bed.
When she recovered enough to open her eyes again, she saw Rudolf's face—dark enough to rival an unwashed cafeteria back-kitchen pan that hadn't seen a scrub in ten years. Around her eyes, there were faint traces of red.
Meteor instantly understood:
I'm finished.
"You have any idea how worried I was?! If I hadn't found you, you might already be dead!"
Rudolf's memory replayed on its own, making her heartbeat spike even now.
She remembered: waking up in the dorm, getting up to use the bathroom…
"Did I drink too much water at lunch…?"
Then coming back—more awake—and realizing Meteor wasn't in the room.
A wave of nameless fear swept through her entire body.
She ran out without thinking, searching for Meteor.
And just as she pulled out her phone to call, she heard faint, broken laughter drifting from the track. She sprinted toward it—
only to find Meteor collapsed in a pool of blood.
Seeing Meteor soaked through—clothes drowned in red—Rudolf's breathing stopped for a heartbeat.
She didn't allow herself to panic.
She rushed forward, tore the sleeve off her own clothing, and wrapped it tight around the wound that was still pouring blood. She didn't pick Meteor up—she forced herself to be rational—she called an ambulance instead.
She mistyped the number twice from shaking hands before she finally got through.
"You'll be okay. You have to be okay!"
Rudolf clutched Meteor's hand and stayed by her side until Meteor was wheeled into emergency.
After the rescue was finished and Meteor was moved to a normal ward, Rudolf sat by the bed, listened carefully to the doctor's report—and only when she was told Meteor was fine did the cord of tension in her mind finally snap loose.
She fell asleep at Meteor's side.
Until the nightmare woke her again.
Until she saw Meteor trying to run—about to fall—
and caught her, pulling her back onto the bed.
Now, looking at Meteor's face, Rudolf couldn't stop it: that image from last night—Meteor's face completely covered in blood—overlapped with the present.
If she hadn't found her…
Would Meteor have bled out and died?
The fear hit so hard Rudolf's voice jumped several pitches higher.
"You have any idea how worried I was?! If I hadn't found you, you might already be dead!"
Then, with all the shock and terror boiling into one conclusion, Rudolf demanded—
"Why were you trying to kill yourself?!"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 74)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter20)
My patreon : patreon.com/queen_sin