"Stanley, what are you doing up here?" Bradley asked after he walked up to the balcony with a bowl full of soup.
"Huh? Oh, I was just listening to the mayor’s speech," Stanely said as he looked back at the dispersing crowd. The speech had ended, and they were all leaving for their own place.
"Let’s go inside," Bradley said and took his brother in.
He sat by Stanley’s side while he watched his brother slowly eat the soup. He wanted to feed it himself on account of it being hard for Stanley, but Stanley proved to his brother that he was strong enough to do that despite his temporary loss of muscles and strength.
As Stanley devoured the soup to fill his hungry stomach, Bradley sat on the side with a contemplative look on his face.
"15 days..." he said softly.
Stanley’s hand paused as he looked toward his brother. He knew what he ant by 15 days. That was the number of days remaining until he was the mayor of this town.
"Are you ready to lose your powers?" Stanley asked.
Bradley gave a dry chuckle. "Am I ready?" he asked. "Who knows? I’ve been training a lot for it, but I’m still scared of losing my powers. I spent so many years with it, just giving it up feels... wrong."
Stanley couldn’t empathize with that statent. He only had his powers for just a month. Changing it would most likely make him feel bad, but not to the sa extent as his brother.
"Still, I’ve got to do it," Bradley said with a sigh. "I need to have the healing powers to help everyone, don’t I? That’s what I’ve been practicing for the past 2 months after all."
Stanley consud a spoonful of soup before asking, "Why don’t you have the power yet?"
"I’m going to get it after the ceremony after I beco the mayor," Bradley said.
"Why not earlier? You could spend so ti getting used to it so that by the ti you are a mayor, you can already know how to use that powers," Stanley asked.
"That’s what I asked him too," Bradley said. "But he says he can’t."
Stanley frowned a bit. "Why?" he asked.
"Sigh, I think he’s worried about the upcoming clash with the townsfolks. Those people that talk about female empowernt and equality, basically the resistance group that has re-purposed themselves, we are going to go after them soon. So, in case there are injuries there, the mayor needs to be ready to handle it."
"Oh... I see," Stanley said. Given what the mayor had just announced at the end of his speech, it was understandable.
He finished his soup soti later and Bradley left the room, leaving him to rest.
Stanley fell asleep not long after, waking up later in the evening when Bradley returned again to feed him.
After eating, Stanley walked around a bit to get his body used to it again. He walked in circles around headquarters and even t Freddy on his walk.
Freddy had co after hearing about Stanley and wanted to et him. He was more than happy to see Stanley doing well, even though he was weak.
"I’m sorry. I should have been there to help you. Instead, you had to take the burden all by yourself," Freddy said.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," Stanley said with a dejected look. "It was my fault anyway. I heard you apologized to her parents already. How are they doing?"
"They are angry," Freddy said. "Well, they were the last ti I saw it. It’s been nearly 2 months so they should have returned to normal life by now."
Stanley felt a little sad hearing about that. Could they really return to a normal life after losing their child of 14 years? Their life wouldn’t be normal anymore, would they?
After talking to Freddy for a bit, Stanley returned to his room with the help of his brother.
"Starting tomorrow, you should start training even when I’m not around," Bradley said. "I might not be able to co whenever I want to."
"It’s alright, brother," Stanley said. "You go do your thing."
Bradley left the room a minute later, leaving his brother alone.
Stanley stayed up for a while, thinking about the many things that had happened and were going to happen. He couldn’t help it after all. Perhaps because of having slept all day long, he couldn’t fall asleep at night at all.
As a result, all he could do throughout the night was stare up at the ceiling and think about the many thoughts in his head.
As the thoughts that he had been ignoring all this ti started getting louder and louder in the silence of everything around him, Stanley started hating being alone.
When he was alone, his thoughts won despite his best effort to keep them aside. In the silence, they were louder than anything else. In the darkness, they were plenty dark themselves.
He lay there, unable to get rid of these thoughts, and could only do the thing that he could do in this situation. He let the thoughts consu him.
It was a long while before he finally fell asleep that night, not before being plagued by his guilt and regret about everything.
He had thought he was getting better, but the recent actions had once again brought it all before him.
Still, Stanley believed this was a good thing. Hiding his thoughts inside of him was just asking for them to weigh it all down. Even if he felt bad right now, letting it all out was most definitely the best choice he had.
The only thing he had to worry about was not losing against those thoughts.
At the very least, he wanted to fulfill his dream of killing at least a single Crawler before he did so.
As nearly 3 months had passed since the last Crawler attack, it would be any day now that a crawler or two would sneak in through the Veil.
Stanley had to get his body ready for that fight.
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