Chapter 40

An End, a New Beginning

Somber silence reigned supreme over a small, yet beautiful hillside facing east. Roughly a hundred people stood in concentric circles around a central clearing where two coffins were being lowered slowly by a harness, low sobs the accompanying symphony.

It was a beautiful day by all other accounts -- cloudless, not too warm, just windy enough to keep the people cool. Yet, all those things mattered little in the face of the harrowing reality.

Cain and Emma stood just outside the immediate circle, the latter crying silently, tightly holding the former's hand and resting her head on his shoulder ever so often. This was something that Cain had always found fascinating about her, and a quality that he was always desperate to possess. Emma was one of the strongest people he knew and likely could endure the hell itself... yet was never afraid of showing her weak self to the world.

If she was happy, she would laugh -- and if she was sad, she would cry. Some days one would think nothing could affect her at all, and some it would be easy to claim that waking up with bad hair was enough to make her cry. She was like this as far as he could remember, and he was envious of her for it just as far back.

He dealt with grief and joy completely differently -- if he was happy, he would mute it, curb it, ensure to never ‘go overboard’. And if, on the other hand, he found himself on the opposite side of the spectrum, he’d bury it and weed it out for years on end.

Looking around, he realized that people both like him and Emma were everywhere, as strength and weakness oftentimes came hand in hand. It was in human nature to want to share in both the joys and the sorrows with those they loved, yet many would hold back from fear of scaring those same loved ones away. He was the same; all his life he believed that Emma fell in love with the 'cool Cain', with the guy who would randomly decide to hike into the woods in search of cool animals, or a guy who would stand up to your everyday, local bully, or a guy who could drink eight cans of beer and not even get dizzy.

It was a lovely funeral -- as lovely as a funeral could get, anyway. But... all the same, Cain felt it was so tiny. Not in terms of how many people were there, or the place, or any of that -- but just the act itself in comparison to life. No amount of ‘grandeur’ could ever match up the life, and he saw the attempts at it... pointless.

In the distance, he noticed Justin’s parents and Decker’s family approach Rick and thank him, from what he could infer. The old man certainly spared no expenses, but Cain worried most of all that it was because of the guilt rather than something else.

Sighing, he looked around and noticed that people have slowly begun to disperse. An hour, perhaps two if stretched... for a lifetime. It was an eerie notion, no matter how much he thought about it. Life summed up in a few sentences of praise, to which everyone nods... and right after returns to their lives.

Emma dragged him over slowly to Rick and Justin’s and Decker’s families, expressing her condolences, hugging them gently. It was sobering, seeing her interact with them, even making them laugh with tears still in her eyes. He’d realized why he would never be able to do it all by himself -- he was a very, very, very flawed man.

“... excuse me,” a shaky voice of a woman startled Cain awake and forced him to look to the side where he saw a middle-aged woman, Justin’s mother from what he gathered, looking at him. “Are you... are you Cain, perhaps?”

“Uh--yes, m’am,” Cain said. “My deepest condolences for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she smiled faintly and shook his hand. “Justin mentioned you. Even said you were the coolest guy he’s ever seen!”

“... aah, I highly doubt that,” Cain replied her smile with his own. “Unless he’s never looked into the mirror before, then maybe.”

“... thank you,” her smile widened, tears once again beginning to drip down her cheeks. “I’m sure... I’m sure he’d be really happy to hear it.”

“... if you ever need anything,” Cain added. “Don’t hesitate to call us. Any one of us.”

“Hm.” she nodded as she turned around and joined another group, leaving behind Cain who could only sigh and take out a cigarette. He’d started smoking almost as much as he had during the ‘peak years’.

“That really was pretty cool of you,” Emma said. “Pretty cool...”

“... can you imagine it?” Cain asked, taking a puff of the cigarette. “How they’re feeling? If it was Lana... I’d likely rip everything asunder till I crawled my way into heaven and stole her back.”

“... aaa, watch out, we have a badass over here,” she chuckled lightly at his nonsense, yet reached out and grabbed his hand tightly. “I don’t want to imagine, C’. So, instead of taking that chance at stealing her from heaven... isn’t there a way, you know... uh... in the Tower to make her, uh, immortal or something?”

“...” Cain glanced at her dubiously and chuckled. “As long as she remains within the Tower’s vicinity for a few years, she’ll become an immortal naturally. Or as close to it as you can get, anyway.”

“Huh?”

“Mana,” Cain elaborated. “It maintains cellular activity indefinitely. Cells themselves stop aging, and, in time, the process is even reversed. So, as long as there’s access to Mana... people won’t die of natural causes.”

“... holy shit...”

“Eh, even with that, by the time I returned, there were fewer than four billion people alive.” Cain added. “Just as it maintains your body, Mana also tends to... uh... push certain urges forward -- like wanting to fight and such. ‘nless someone has really strong willpower, pretty much everyone eventually keels over and enters the Tower. And then promptly get stomped.”

“... wait--are you saying... Lana will soon wanna go in there?!” Emma asked with a horrified expression.

"Yeah, right," Cain grinned confidently. "I ain't letting that girl anywhere near the Tower until she's like 800 years old. Early on the effects aren't bad, and there are a lot of items in the Tower that pretty much nullify the effect. It actually became a really good, if not scummy, business as it was mostly used to protect young kids... but it went for like 200-300 million bucks or something per one item."

“--stop, just... holy crap, just stop,” Emma took a deep breath, forcibly calming herself down. “Please... don’t destroy what little faith I have in humanity as it is. I don’t wanna know, and I don’t care to know.”

“Ha ha ha, fine, fine,” Cain laughed freely as they slowly joined the rest of the people in their descent down the hill and toward the graveyard’s exit. “I won’t say anything.”

“... what’s the plan now?” Emma asked suddenly, glancing at him.

“The plan?”

“For the Tower.”

“Ah. I do have something in mind,” Cain said. “And since the last one of my ‘somethings’ turned out... well... this time around, I’m going for a sure thing.”

“And that thing is?” she grumbled, rolling her eyes at him.

“It’s a place we used to call Tomb of Swords, or Graveyard of Blades, or something like that, I forget,” Cain said, scratching his head. “It’s this quasi-dungeon with fairly decent rewards, especially now. There’s a caveat though.”

“Of course there is...” Emma sighed. “What is it?”

“Only five people can enter at once.” Cain replied.

“... five?” Emma frowned.

“Hm,” Cain nodded. “So, we need to find one more person.”

“Eh? Aren’t there five us already?” Emma quizzed. “You, me, Jamal, Diya, and Rick, right?”

“Rick ain’t going.” Cain said.

“... oh.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Can’t blame him,” Emma sighed. “If it wasn’t for you... I wouldn’t go in there either.”

“For me?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “With you by my side, I know that even if something happens to me, you’ll be there for Lana.”

“... oi, don’t go dropping death flags like that, woman,” Cain frowned, gently flicking her forehead. “What if the flag gods take you seriously?!”

“Oh, now we have flag gods roaming about?” Emma grinned as she asked.

“Hey, you never know with those bastards,” Cain shrugged. “Just how many innocent lives have they claimed in fiction over the decades? Those things are scary, I tell ya’.”

"..." she chuckled and rolled her eyes at him again, glancing back at the top of the hill for a moment just as they reached the exit. "To think... this is just one of the literal tens of thousands being held daily across the world... and it's almost not even spoken of in the media. All the news cover are the guys with fancy magic, girls who managed to beautify themselves through magic, what kind of strange monsters and items and biomes are in there... it's like nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that this thing alone is exposing just how fucked up we really are."

"Well, duh," Cain stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Do you think people wanna hear how shitty they are on a daily basis? It's still a novelty," Cain said. "Last time around, we started reflecting about a year in. Actually, at least here in America, you were at the forefront of the campaign."

“Huh?!” Emma exclaimed incredulously.

“There was this campaign to build a memorial for everyone who died during the initial rush,” Cain explained. “And you were one of the main campaigners on the east coast. By that point... we’d stopped talking, and I’m fairly certain you thought I was dead.”

“... then,” Emma said. “That’s likely why I was so fervent about it...”

“Ah, so I wasn’t just lying to myself?” he glanced to the side and grinned.

“I can’t believe you let me believe you were dead... wow.”

“Hey, it’s that classical guy thing,” Cain explained. “Where we don’t deserve you and think you’ll be better off without us and such. It’s in the genes.”

“...”

“Alright, fine, I was just a pussy. There, happy?”

“... how... what happened to me?” she asked suddenly, startling Cain as the two came to a halt, right in front of their car. She didn’t dare look up, her eyes glued to the stone pavement, her hand tightly knit into his.

“... I don’t know.” Cain replied suddenly.

“Huh?” Emma looked up with a doubtful expression. “What do you mean?”

"It was during one of the long expeditions that I was a part of," Cain explained. "I spent around two years in the Tower, and when I came out... I'd learned you died. When I tried looking into it... there was basically nothing. No police report, no newspaper clippings, just a one-line obituary."

“...” Emma turned silent as the atmosphere cooled. Cain unlocked the car and glanced back at the hill one last time before entering. “Lana...?”

“... same.” Cain replied in a heavy tone.

“Oh my god...”

"... hey," he said, pulling her chin up and forcing her to look him into his eyes. "For all intents and purposes, it never happened."

“To you it did...”

“No,” Cain shook his head. “That day when I saw Lana and you walking up to me in the park... erased all that, Em’. And only reinforced further the extent I’ll go to... to make sure you two are safe.”

“... that was kinda creepy...”

“... yup,” Cain nodded, shuddering, as he started up the car. “God, what happened to me? I used to be able to drop cool lines that floored you practically every day...”

“I don’t know,” Emma chuckled. “You lost it, man. You just lost it.”

"Remember our senior year?" Cain asked. "When I told you I'd love you even if you didn't have legs and you got so horny I was worried about my life?"

“... yeah,” Emma said with a smile that quickly turned into a frown. “In retrospect...”

“... that was creepy as fuck too... by both of us...”

“...”

“...”

“Just drive.”

“Yup. Just drive.”