As the adrenaline faded, reality crashed into Arthur with the force of a tidal wave. His breath caught in his throat as he sat up in a sudden, desperate movent.
"Luke!"
He turned to see his friend lying limp on the ground beside him, staring at the night sky with an empty gaze. One hand rested over the wound in his chest, which still rose and fell faintly—a whisper of life, flickering like a candle in the wind.
Arthur crawled to his side, movents frantic and disjointed. "NO!" His hands trembled violently, mind racing a million miles per second as he kneeled over Luke's body. The moonlight caught the tears beginning to well in his eyes, turning them to silver.
"No, no, no..."
Arthur gently moved Luke's hand away from the wound, and suddenly tears began to flow compulsively down his face as he fully comprehended what he'd done. The reality of his actions hit him with crushing weight—he had manifested that blade, he had ended his friend's life.
"I—I didn't... I'm sorry, I—"
Words failed him completely. What could he possibly say that would undo this mont? What apology could nd the terrible wound he had inflicted? He tried desperately to cup his hands over the injury, to sohow stop the blood from leaving Luke's body, but Arthur's mind was scattered, fragnted by shock and grief.
He went as far as desperately scooping the blood back toward the wound, as if he could reverse the flow of life leaving his friend. All the while, he whimpered the word "no" quietly under his breath, a prayer to a universe that wasn't listening.
Then, a sound escaped Luke's lips. A simple groan, barely audible even in the stillness of the night.
Arthur's head snapped toward Luke's face. He placed one hand on the side of his friend's cheek while keeping the other pressed firmly on the wound. The warmth beneath his palm was fading rapidly.
"Luke?"
Luke simply looked up at him with dark, glassy eyes, already distant, already traveling sowhere Arthur couldn't follow.
"Luke, you can't die... please, you can't die. I'm sorry, but please just don't die..." Arthur's voice cracked, splintering under the weight of his desperation. "Don't leave all alone again, Luke, please. I need you."
Tears flooded Arthur's face, streaming down in rivulets that caught the moonlight. His words ca out broken, fragnted by sobs that shook his entire body.
Luke's head twitched slightly, and he let out another weak groan. Arthur's eyes lit up with a faint, desperate hope—a fool's hope, but the only one he had.
"Yes, Luke, fight! Please..."
But Arthur's hope withered and died as Luke turned his head away from Arthur. Slowly, with the last remnants of his strength, Luke began reaching out toward the flowers that surrounded them. His hand moved with agonizing slowness, trembling as it inched toward a rose—the source of his corruption, the object of his devotion even now, at the threshold of death.
His fingers extended, reaching, straining toward the gray petals. They ca closer and closer to the root of a nearby rose, but right before making contact, the hand stopped. Frozen in midair for one heartbreaking mont.
And then, only a second later, it fell limp.
Luke's chest, beneath Arthur's desperately pressed hand, stopped its shallow rise and fall. The whisper-soft breaths that had been passing through his lips ceased their journey, leaving only silence in their wake.
Arthur's eyes held true and utter terror in them, the kind of primal fear that cos only when confronting sothing too painful to comprehend. "No... please, no."
He used his blood-stained hand to turn Luke's face back toward him, but was t only with the dim and colorless countenance of his friend, staring back at him with empty eyes—windows to a house that no longer had anyone living inside.
Arthur's whole body began to tremble, a violent shaking that started in his core and radiated outward. Tears fell like a waterfall, unstoppable in their intensity.
"NO... NOOOOO!"
His scream erupted from sowhere deep and primal, carrying all of his emotions with it as it traveled across the realm. It was the sound of a heart breaking, of a soul being torn in two. It was rage and grief and guilt and loss, all tangled together in one raw expression of pain.
Arthur pulled Luke closer and held him tightly against his chest, rocking back and forth as he scread and cried. His friend's body was already growing cold, the warmth of life seeping away into the night air.
Arthur's heart hurt—it hurt so very badly, like it might explode at any mont. An intense pressure built beneath his chest, a crushing weight that he knew he could never relieve. It was as if soone had reached inside him and was squeezing his heart with rciless hands.
His mind fractured as he scread into the night, his voice echoing off the temple walls and across the field of roses. Hours passed, and soon, deep into the night, Arthur's screams ceased as his voice was lost to exhaustion. His tears dried on his face, leaving salty tracks that marked the path of his grief.
And beneath them, the dead gray roses had turned red once more.
Luke Thomas, a fifteen-year-old boy who had been cruelly torn from his loving family after the developnt of his realm core, was dead at the hands of his best friend. In life, Luke had been many things. He was a coward at tis, afraid of the dangers this realm presented. He was weak as well, always bottom of the class in anything physical... just like Arthur.
All he had wanted in life was to play video gas, to return to the simple pleasures of the world they had been taken from.
But he was also kind. He cared for those around him, for his friends, he cared for Arthur. And despite his distaste for becoming one, he had been obsessed with stories of the Chosen. His idol was the Fla Lord, whose legends he would ramble on and on about to Arthur in the cafeteria.
He loved ran but hated sushi.
But now, in this field of roses, Luke was dead. And with him died a part of Arthur as well.
The moon eventually tucked itself below the horizon, and the sun dawned, shining its light onto the scene and the roses. Arthur still held Luke in his arms, unmoving, a statue of grief frozen in ti. His muscles ached from remaining in the sa position for so long, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the agony in his heart.
He glanced up, raising his head to et the light of the morning. The sun's rays illuminated his tear-stained face, the dried blood, the emptiness in his eyes that mirrored Luke's.
Even after rembering everything Luke erased, it still felt like those days were stolen... Like they weren't real. They felt less like mories and more like a clear yet blurry dream. And so, for Arthur this was his very first new morning in two weeks.
It was his birthday.
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