Chapter 166

Hearts of Desolation (II)

Cain snuck a glance out of the window, out onto the busy streets of a city alive with wonder. By now, more and more people had begun gaining access to the marvel, though their experiences, Cain suspected, weren’t exactly beautiful just yet. There was a lot of hustle to get places, though his mind hardly had the energy to partake in the musings over it.

The Shopkeeper, after some ‘persuasion’, had opened the portal to the city and directly to a fairly lavish residence under his possession, one situated near the center of Initiate Strata, overlooking several main streets that wound around it. However, Cain hardly had the mind to pay to the real-estate value of the place or anything else, really, attached to it; his mind awander, he dully gazed out, a burning cigarette stuck between his fingers that he had only taken a single smoke of.

Those alive were fast asleep in the room next door, while the others he had stored into his inventory. A part of him was still in denial, though it was quickly being killed by the part that lived in hell for decades and experienced all this and much worse, time and again.

The sounds of stumbling footsteps startled him as he gazed back into the room, void of decorations save for a few chairs, and noticed Kramer holding up against the wall as he slowly made his way out of the room, his eyes locking with Cain’s right after, prompting the former to freeze in place.

“... shit. I thought I’d gone to hell.” Kramer said. “You... saved us?”

“... some of you.” Cain replied hollowly, uncertain as to how exactly to tell the man that only one other, beside him, had survived.

“Some... of us?” Kramer mumbled, a bad feeling surging within his chest.

“I’m sorry, Kramer,” Cain said. “I was late.”

“... only those in the room, huh?” the man pulled one of the chairs over to the window and sat down, his shoulders slumped. Cain reached into his inventory and took out a can of beer, giving it to him. “We were confident,” he added. “Even after... even after we were given the option to turn back and walk away. But... we were greedy. We would have had to give up all our rewards.”

“...”

“... it was hell, Cain,” Kramer added, taking a sip. “I... I felt like a child being judged by a God. We tried... everything. Yet, I don’t think that we even managed to land a single hit on him -- just one. Just one.”

“...”

“Hah, don’t look so shocked,” Kramer chuckled. “This is just... how I deal. In army, there was little time on the field to throw fits and cry, and even less incentive to do the same back at the camp in front of everyone else. As such, we’d all get royally fucked for a few days after and then... move on, the best we could at least. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gonna be a hell to bury them -- and... it’s gonna break me. But, I’ve been broken before. It’ll just take a little while...”

“... yeah”

“How... how did you kill that monster?”

“Kill?” Cain arched his brow, chuckling. “I’m afraid I’m nowhere near as spectacular as you make me out to be, man. I just bored him into leaving. Ask my wife. She’ll confirm it for ya’.”

“... an amazing woman,” Kramer chuckled. “Even as I was passing out from pain and just sheer hopelessness... I could hear her. She was cursing him out and still trying to fight. A part of me thought she was the world’s biggest moron...”

“... and, yet, for a brief second, you wanted to stand back up and fight with her?” Cain added.

“Yeah.” Kramer replied with a chuckle.

“She’s deviant like that; one time, she dragged me to this dreadful party. Awful music, no alcohol--”

“--what the fuck?!”

“Exactly! Anyway, awful people, vegan food... but, while I was being the brooding sort, I caught her dancing and seemingly having fun. For just a few seconds, I almost enjoyed that hell.”

“... God, I can’t imagine being married to that.”

“Ha ha ha, right?” the two laughed for a brief moment. “Tell me, Kramer. Am I crazy?”

“... crazy?”

“I keep sending them back in,” Cain said. “Even letting them go without me. The people I supposedly love. One part of me wants to chain them in my basement so they never get hurt, and another wants to let them loose to find their own way.”

“... you’re not crazy,” Kramer said. “Now, I’m crazy. At least... you can save them. Me? I can’t even do that. Do you know what I was thinking when I realized I can’t keep my eyes open anymore? ‘At least... I’m dying with them’. At least I’m dying with them... heh. Not ‘I need to save them somehow’ or ‘If I can just save a few’...”

“But you were there, at least. In the meantime, I was an entire fucking dimension away.”

“... we’re all our own people, Cain,” Kramer said, glancing at him. “Just as you don’t want to share in with their glory, you can’t share in with their blame. It’s not your fault we took the god-forsaken quest, or that we kept at it through and through, or that we completely missed all the signs that told us to get the fuck away.”

“...” he didn’t understand, Cain realized; but, he didn’t blame the man. After all, their viewpoints came from different perspectives; while one had a third of a lifetime and his developed instincts to rely on, the other had the future itself within his grasp. How? How can a man who came from the future not keep his own people alive? Incompetence, stupidity, and plain idiocy.

“Didn’t you say that you’d be out for at least three months, though? Why are you back so quickly?” as soon as Kramer realized it, he asked.

“It’s been almost half a year for me.”

“... what?”

“The place you were sent,” Cain explained. “Is... different. I can’t quite explain because, honestly, I’m remarkably dumb. But, anyway, for all intents and purposes, it’s been half a year since we last saw each other.”

“...”

“I’ll get you guys outside as soon as everyone recovers,” Cain said. “And arrange everything. If you need or want anything... just ask.”

“... the same thing I wanted before.”

“Huh?”

“To become a member of your party.”

“Even still?” Cain asked, feeling rather shocked. “After all this?”

“... yeah,” Kramer chuckled, finishing the beer. “This... is all I know, Cain. Before the Tower, for quite a while... I was lost. Living this... this fake life, you know? A girlfriend, an apartment, a semi-responsible job, friends... yet, I don’t know, I never quite felt like myself. Sometimes, I’d wake up in the morning and just... just stare at the ceiling, playing out the times that I could actually get excited over.”

“...”

“Then, the Towers fell,” Kramer added, taking a deep breath. “And out of nowhere... I felt a rush. On my first day in, I got attacked by a boar-like thingy and barely lived. Yet, even as I lay there bleeding and on the verge of death... I felt more alive than I had in years before. And, something tells me that staying next to you... the only time I won’t feel alive is when, well, I’m literally not.”

“... soldier through and through, eh?”

“Something like that. Besides, there’s still the matter of revenge. One one that monster... and one on that yellow-eyed bag of shit.”

“... I’ve arranged for the latter,” Cain said. “When everyone wakes up and recovers... we’ll go and have some fun first.”

“... good. I can’t believe he sent us out and told us we were strong enough for it. But, then again... we did get greedy for the rewards.”

“Well, my hope... is that others will toss the blame on him,” Cain added. “All wounds aside, nothing bites or gnaws as much as guilt.”

“... personal experience?” Kramer quizzed.

“A lot of it,” Cain chuckled. “Guilt... is silent, oftentimes. However, it makes people do dumb things. Like believing sacrificing themselves is the only way to absolve themselves from it or something. I call it the ‘invisible whore we forgot to pay’.”

“... yours are strong,” Kramer said. “Resilient lot, Cain. As long as you stand, so will they. That’s why,” he stood up and grabbed Cain’s shoulder for a moment. “You can’t ever fall or even for one second think... ‘at least I get to die with them’. Guaranteed, I don’t know you; but, if I believed the stories, I’d have thought you were a weird mix of Loki, some sarcastic scum, and Achilles.”

“...” Cain looked up at the man strangely, prompting the latter to laugh.

“I won’t say they worship you,” he said. “But... they are about a statue and a book away from deifying you. Now, I need to take a piss. And go back to napping. Goddamn, my head feels like it’s gonna split open...”