Right after answering him, my knees buckled and I almost collapsed before I caught myself at the last moment. I feel lightheaded and it feels like the ground beneath me is shifting back and forth under my feet. It’s like the whole world is spinning and all I want to do is sit down and find some sort of stability. I’ve lost a lot of blood and when the tension left my body, I was reminded of my grim situation. This fight needs to end, quick.

I can’t seem to shake off the dizziness and bite the tip of my tongue instead, the pain waking me up somewhat. Turning to the two brothers, I give them my instructions, “Jonas, Jonathan, I need the two of you to help me end this fight. When this is all over, the both of you will be right next to me during breakfast and dinnertime. Neither of you will ever have to go hungry again. If anyone gives you any trouble, I’ll be there right beside you to help you take care of them. But I’m going to need your help to finish this once and for all. Would the two of you please lend me a hand?”

The two brothers seem somewhat taken aback by my words. Maybe they weren’t expecting me to bow my head and ask for their help since I’ve pretty much done everything by myself this entire night. But if I want this to end quickly and safely, they’re the only ones who can help me. The two of them look at each other in silence for a few seconds before nodding at each other at the same time. Jonas looks at me and says with a grave tone, “We’ll help you. What do you need us to do?”

Eyeing the two of them for a moment, I give them a grin before saying, “I need the two of you to pick up rocks and toss them at the two of them over there.” I point at the last two survivors of Corbin’s remnants still circling around each other cautiously, waiting for an opportune time to strike. “Hit them with rocks to distract them and I’ll circle around them for a flank. When you see me right behind one of them, focus all your rocks on the remaining one and we’ll end this in one fell swoop.”

The both of them nod vigorously and there’s a blazing fire that’s been alighted in their eyes. They confidently run past me until they’re a few yards away from their targets and start picking up rocks before throwing them with all their might. The stones sail through the air above the heads of their targets or off to the side by a wide margin and do nothing except draw the attention of the red faced man and his former ally. Infuriated by what Jonas and Jonathan were doing, the red faced man and his former ally seem to come to an understanding and charge at the brothers. Frightened, the two brothers drop all the stones in their hands and turn around before running towards me. They don’t even stop when they reach me and run behind me, cowering in fear.

Sigh. I don’t know what I expected. I’m not angry per say, just… disappointed. A second later, I take off running towards the red faced man, ignoring the pain shooting through my left side. When he sees me running at him, a scowl appears on his face but he doesn’t stop or run away. I guess the brothers were useful enough to at least provoke the two men into not running away from me.

As I’m running at them, I’m readying myself to cast Flash at a moment’s notice. Even though I love Flash considering it’s the only spell I can cast, its incredibly severe limitations show themselves in situations like this. A cast range of five feet isn’t too short nor too long for a spell but that’s not exactly its effective range. If I cast Flash at its maximum range, five feet away from me, but the target is seven or eight feet away, it becomes useless. Flash is only effective when it’s cast right, and I mean right in front of the target’s face.

The tiny orb of light Flash creates is smaller than a grown man’s eyeball which means it’s a very difficult spell to land accurately and blind both eyes. Unless I’m right in front of them as well, it’s a hard spell to use. But if I’m right in front of them, it’s almost always better for me to focus on watching their movements and reading their attacks rather than angling for a good Flash. Also, Flash will blind me as well if I mistime the cast and considering I’m usually forced to cast it when I’m right face to face with the target, it’s a risky spell to use as well. After blinding myself accidentally hundreds of times during practice and spars, I’ve taught myself to instinctively blink the moment Flash is cast to protect myself from its blinding light. But even that’s risky because if I missed my cast, then my eyes are closed right in front of an unblinded enemy.

All this is to say although Flash has its uses, the majority of the time its uses are niche, risky situations. Even now when the red faced man is close enough to me that I can smell his breath and the other one isn’t more than three feet away on my right, I have to get creative sometimes. Raising my left hand at the red faced man’s eyes, I shout out loud, “Flash!” He immediately stops running and covers his eyes with both of his arms. But nothing happens.

Instead, it’s the other one that cries out in surprise from my spell. The red faced man lowers his arms in confusion only to be met with a faceful of dirt. He tries to take a couple of steps back but I’m already shoving my knife right under his left side ribs. He squeals in pain and tries to cut me with wild, blind slashes but I’ve already stepped out of his range. Circling to his left side, I put my right foot behind his left foot and let him trip himself in his frantic attempt to retreat.

Once he’s on the ground, I kick at his right hand, knocking the knife away. He tries to turn himself over onto his hands and knees to crawl away but I grab a handful of his hair and yank upwards before slitting his throat. He gasps in surprise and when I let go of his hair, his body lands on the ground with a thud, twitching a few times before going completely still. One left.

Turning around, I come face to face with the last remaining survivor of Corbin’s leftovers. His eyes are open and it looks like the effects of Flash have worn off but he didn’t try to run away. I think he knows there’s no point in doing so. There’s a solemn look on his face as if he’s accepted his fate.

I don’t try to prolong this any longer than it needs to be and start walking towards him. He does the same while maintaining eye contact and when we’re a mere three feet away from each other, he lunges at me with his knife, aiming for my gut. Sidestepping his lunge, I grab onto his wrist with my left hand and pull while jamming my knife into his own gut with my right. He groans in pain but grits his teeth, firming his jaw, unwilling to show weakness during the last moments of his life. Instead, he stares right into my eyes with his own bloodshot eyes without saying a word.

Rewarding his perseverance, I pulled out my knife and stabbed it into his abdomen a dozen times, eliciting painful grunts with each thrust but he didn’t break eye contact a single time. On the last stab, I pierced the blade into his heart and he suffocated a scream emerging from his throat. His eyelid convulsed several times but he still kept his eyes open, staring right into mine, showing me his unwavering will. Twisting the knife in his heart, he lets out a gasp and his body violently shudders one last time before he starts falling forward. Yanking the knife out as the body fell, I intently watched his final moments up until it landed on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to feel right now. On one hand the indestructible determination he showed during his last moments made me feel some form of respect towards him. On the other, I can’t help but wonder whether I’ll be like that when it’s my time or whether I’ll turn into a sniveling, whimpering mess. Probably the latter but hopefully the former, I guess.

Taking a moment for myself, I close my eyes and take a long, deep breath before wincing in pain from my knife wound. Sucking in a deep breath, I lift my shirt up and take a look. The cut is about two inches wide but it seems pretty deep. It’s directly below the scar from where Reed stabbed me back in Midriver. What do I do, what can I do? Looking around, I see lit torches intermittently hung on The Pit’s stone walls and remembering how I treated my arrow wounds from before, a horrible sense of dread fills me.

But before that, I need to take care of loose ends. Turning around, I meet the brothers’ eyes but they look away, seemingly ashamed of what happened. A smirk grows on my lips and I can’t help but shake my head at them. They’re not the greatest minions but they are my minions. I can’t seem to hate them for some reason.

But no, they’re not the loose ends I was thinking of. Walking over to the man who Jonathan knocked unconscious, I can see a woman there tending to him. It seems she slipped out of the cave Corbin’s remnants were standing in front of during the whole scuffle. When she sees me walking over, her face loses all color and she tearfully pleads, “Please, please, please spare my brother. I know he wronged you but he did it to save me. I’ll do anything you want, just please let him live.”

Her small face, bright eyes, and scrawny frame don’t move my heart at all. The pain coming from where her brother stabbed me overwhelms any possible feeling of mercy I could have. For some reason, Mary’s face pops up into my mind and overlays itself onto the woman’s face. But even that’s not enough.

Squatting down, I stare right into her eyes as I slowly reach out with my knife and impale it into her brother’s heart. He gasps in pain with his eyes still shut and slowly exhales his last breath. Her tears spill forth like a waterfall but she does nothing in retaliation. All she does is throw herself onto his body, weeping on his chest.

Standing back up, I turn around and walk towards the horrified brothers as the mournful sobs continue behind me. This time, the brothers aren’t willing to look me in the eye due to fear rather than shame. Walking past them, I offhandedly say, “Let’s go. It’s time to get to work.”

The brothers quietly follow behind me, afraid of drawing my ire. The first thing we check on is the boy. The red faced man stabbed him in the neck but I’m not putting too much trust in his abilities with a knife. However, it seems no matter how questionable your abilities are, a knife wound to the neck is still a knife wound to the neck. The boy’s lying in a pool of his own blood with his front side facing toward the night sky. His eyes are open but there’s a dull look in them without a sign of life.

Moving on, we check the five bodies leaning against the cave Corbin’s remnants were using as a gathering point. Two of them were actually still alive though they were barely hanging on. The one whose wrist I slit and the last one I stabbed and lost Corbin’s knife were the ones still alive. It’s a miracle they survived but without medicine or medical supplies down here, they won’t live for long. If I don’t get this wound closed up soon, I won’t be much further behind them.

After stabbing the both of them in their hearts and ending their lives, I try to stand back up but I’m overcome with a wave of lightheadedness. I’m incredibly dizzy and it feels like everything around me is spinning once again. I try to bite my tongue again but it doesn’t work this time and my legs give out from under me, sending me falling onto my back. Everything around me darkens as I can hear the brothers worriedly shouting at me but I can’t understand what they’re saying. When it’s my time, will I face Death with a stiff upper lip and a heart filled with defiance or will I beg and plead at her feet to give me another chance? All I know is I’m too tired to keep my eyes open.