(Aug 27)

It’s been a couple days, and I’ve been mentally preparing myself to go speak to William.

I’ve been acting like a little baby, even after a few days I was still nervous at the thought of talking to William again.

I hate how nervous I’m feeling when thinking about talking to William when this should be a normal thing.

First of all, I plan on apologizing to William for punching him and I intend to get his respect back for me. Harsh as he was, everything he said was true and I’ve been acting naïve.

I have… been writing in my journal for the last 30 minutes stalling myself from going to William’s place.

I think I am ready now though.

So, I’m going to head to William’s lab.

.

I knocked on William’s door and I heard William’s voice from inside calling me in.

I creaked open the door and saw that William was working and writing something inside of a notebook, probably research stuff.

“Welcome Anthony.”

He greeted me without even looking up at me, his eyes still glued to his work as if he didn’t care about my existence.

I said ‘hi’ back and then awkwardly grabbed a seat and sat in it.

I took a deep breath and was about to apologize to him when suddenly William spoke up first.

“Idiot. You were about to apologize to me, weren’t you?”

Wait what. How’d he know that?

William let out a deep sigh and looked up from his work to stare at me.

“It hasn’t been too long since we’ve met but I’ve learnt a lot about you, about your dragon powers… but also your personality.

At first, I was only studying you to learn about and develop your dragon powers. But then as time passed, I started to enjoy teaching you things.

Don’t apologize. You’re not in the wrong. Don’t say sorry for things where you’re not at fault, have some respect for yourself.”

I didn’t know what to say in this situation, so I kept quiet.

I let William keep talking.

“So anyways, Briggs let me know that he told you about the situation… it is quite serious. In fact, we were actually extremely lucky during the wyvern attack.”

Lucky?

Why are we lucky when the wyvern destroyed the city and killed tons of people?

“I was looking into the wyvern attack because something about the situation seemed a bit… odd. Why did the wyvern specifically attack you?”

Oh, I did wonder about that as well.

Did William figure out why?

“You are part dragon, and you have dragon essence.”

Yes, I know this, this was established and confirmed a long time ago. Get to the point please.

“Well, let me confirm something. You know how wyverns were born right? How they came into being?”

Yes again.

Wyverns are just dragons, that were born without dragon essence.

William nodded and continued.

“My theory after a bit of thinking and studying was that wyverns have a natural instinct to seek out and find anything or anyone who possesses dragon essence. In this case it was you.”

Makes sense, I guess.

Wyverns are born without dragon essence when they are supposed to have it, so it would make sense for them to seek it out.

“Wyverns are quite powerful, in a normal battle there would be no way someone of your caliber would be able to defeat or even injure it. So how were you able to even survive a fight in it?

The answer is simple, it was not using its full power. It wanted to eat you and steal your dragon essence, and to do that it cannot let you die. If you died, your dragon essence would be lost so it needed to eat you alive.”

So… I fought and nearly died to a wyvern that wasn’t using it’s fully power?

What is this bullsh*t?

“With all these factors, the damage was kept to a minimal. The wyvern was targeting you instead of attacking the city and it didn’t use all of it’s power…”

And yet it still caused so much destruction.

“Now imagine if you weren’t there. How much destruction and chaos would have ensued? How many more people would have died?”

Many.

Many more than the number of casualties now.

In fact, this city might have been screwed.

William stood up from his chair and walked closer to me.

“This. This is literal proof of the fact that you saved people, of the fact of how many people you saved. Do you now understand a bit of how important you are? This is what I meant before by your life is more important than a couple other normal civilians.

Yes, it’s harsh. Insensitive. Cold you might even say. But it is still the truth. You saved hundreds, no, even thousands of people, you will continue to do more. You will accomplish more.”

He started to speak louder and louder and I felt a little intimidated by the suddenly aggressive William who was coming closer to me.

William stopped speaking just then and then slumped back into his chair and took a deep breath.

He grabbed a bottle of water on his desk and drank it as he composed himself again as I just sat there in my seat awkwardly.

Everything he has told me I already know; I’ve thought a lot during the time before I came to Williams place.

I thought about what I’m going to do, long and hard, I’m not going to half-ass things.

What William says simply refreshes my thoughts and strengthens my resolve.

“So, Anthony. I’m going to cut to the chase and ask the question I’ve been wanting to ask.”

I swallowed my saliva as a drop of sweat rolled down my forehead. I don’t know why but this moment had so much needless tension.

Why was it so dramatic when he was just asking me a question?

“With what I just told you in mind, there are 2 main choices you can choose, don’t feel obligated or pressured to pick one option over the other. I will completely understand if you pick either choice.”

William spoke in a deep serious voice and leaned forward, his glasses slightly reflecting light and his eyes were closed.

“Will you choose to stay and fight with us in this war?

Or will you choose to leave?

I will not force you to do anything you don’t want to do; you don’t have to fight. Afterall, this city isn’t your real home. Think carefully about this.”

I had already made my decision; it was obvious what I was picking.

I opened my mouth slowly and spoke up.

“William. I’m leaving.”

This is my answer.

“Eh?”