小嫂子的味道

Her head was paining, flooded with dizziness, it was like someone was dragging her from a hallway filled with darkness toward a door of bright light. As of now, she was unconscious, thus the darkness. The door of light represented the realm of awareness and at last, the hallway was a bridge, a way to connect the two.

Everyone walks down this path when they wake up from their slumber, it was as easy as that. But here, however, it was not silly for her. The path of the hallway was not smooth and tidy, but covered with a sheet of iron nails. The floor too was not even and had cracks and gaps and dents on it.

And she was dragged mercilessly on this floor because she had to reach the light. Of course, it was not her own will; only a person who is wrong in the head would prefer to experience something like this, but in a way, she was the one to drag herself onto that floor.

She was dragging and torturing herself, making a bloody mess of her own body. Why? Because that was the right thing to do at the time.

It was not about whether she wanted it or not, whether she liked it or not…she had to. Simply put, her subconscious mind was dragging her conscious mind out of the deep slumber she was in.

I had told you what the hallway, the darkness, and the door of light represented. But what about the iron nails? Well, the nails were the same as what they stood for—small yet painful and unbearable when together. It is simple, and only, for this reason, I will leave it to you—to discover what the nails depicted.

Xara opened her eyes, roughly, in an instant. Her vision was blurry, her eyes wet, and various annoying noises resounding in her ears. They were the screams of monsters, of stabbing, of blood, gushing out, of guts falling apart, of bones breaking, of metal clashing, and lastly, the ambitious voice, the battle cry of a young man.

Since her vision wasn\'t clear, she rubbed her wet eyes to get a clear view and was Spene standing near her. Wearing a cloak of wounds, dyed in the color of blood, with his right eye missing, he was still fighting against the goblins who\'d surrounded them.

It took her a whole minute to recognize him, as the expression he had was totally unlike the Spene she knew. He had one eye missing, his armor was torn up and ruined, and the cuts he\'d gained were visible, but despite all this, he was fending off the goblins with not a hint of pain on his face.

Tears welled up and the eyes which she had rubbed just now were wet again. This was all wrong, she realized as her memory of what had happened came back. The satisfaction she had when she fell unconscious was now nowhere to be seen.

She had made a clear way for him to escape, he could easily have left this place. Yet he was here, why? She didn\'t and did know at the same time. And that frustrated her more than anything.

Her hand slowly went up, reaching out for Spene, but she was unable to grab him.

"Why?! ...why…are you still here?" she asked. In all the noise, her voice was no louder than a whisper, but enough for Spene to hear her.

He turned to look at her, and her expression changed. But what she saw was not resentment, fear, anger, guilt, or any other negative feeling. He wore a gentle, warm, and knowing smile.

"Why didn\'t you leave me and escape? I went through all the trouble to make a way for you, but…"

"Well," he said, pushing two goblins with his broken sword at the same time. "Sorry for the trouble, but I couldn\'t have left you to die here. Even if I survived that way…" clang, slash, thump, clang, slash, push, stab. "That bastard Favian, he would\'ve beaten the shit out of me when I will enter heaven after death. That guy is scary as fuck when the matter is related to you…" slash, slash, clang, push, slash.

He slit the throat of an armed goblin in front of him, kicked on and crushed his face, cracked open the skull of one with the hilt of his sword, stabbed the other, decapitated the next one, and so on.

He was indeed struggling, that was the truth. His sword was scathed, and dented, with rugged edges after all the fighting it had been through. All the odds were against him, but he did not waver. He stood rigid, strong, like a man, like a man he\'d looked up to.

His breathing was messy, rapid, unbalanced, and uneven. His lungs were aching. Each time he drew in a breath it felt as if he was inhaling a bundle of needles, when he exhaled it was like rubbing salt on the wound\'s made by the needles.

There was not a part of his body that did not suffer, but there was also not a single part of his body that wanted to leave a friend, a friend\'s lover, to die and save himself.

"Just…wait a minute, and lay there quietly…" kicking a goblin, he made it fall then stabbed multiple times with the sword. "I will…" turning rapidly to the side, he separated the neck of a goblin with a horizontal slash. "End this…" he punched a goblin, breaking all its teeth with his bloodied knuckles, then tore his throat apart from the inside. "I will end this very soon," he said in a breadth.

He passed Xara an assuring smile, full of confidence, a smile that believed in itself. A smile that did not shiver even when it faced a thousand gloomy ones, a smile which indicated that the host of this smile was not going to give, not going to let go of hope, not going to accept what fate had decided for him but create his fate.

The host of this smile was not going prostate, he was not going to break. His will was strong like obsidian forged with the lava of a violent volcano, however…

…his sword wasn\'t as strong as his will.

A crackling sound resounded in the area, and despite all the screams that small, little, delicate whisper was heard by both Spene and Xara. Something broke, and it was Spene\'s sword.

Not being able to withstand the pressure any longer, the blade broke into two from the middle. At the moment, it was like time itself slowed down for Spene as he watched the piece of metal shatter in two and land on the ground. On the other hand, Xara wanted to scream, but a pressure so heavy fell upon her that no words left her mouth.

This, of course, didn\'t mean that he gave up. Ambition filled him a second later, and he swung the broken sword, even slit the throats of some goblins who were in close range…this would\'ve been a perfect time for the power of friendship to shine and for him to gain a deadly power up.

… But the reality is often not that sweet.

The goblins stabbed him from behind, stumbled upon him, the bone of his right leg broke, and he fell. But he still…didn\'t waver from his goal. He got down on all fours and covered Xara, shielding her with his body.

She was stunned. Streams of tears flowed down her eyes like rivers from the mountains. She was crying, like a little girl. This was her second time losing someone she cared for…a friend, the only friend, maybe.

"Y-You idiot…how can you..." she whispered.

Her reactions were expected. After all, Spene was still wearing his smile, the same one he had before. Not a single shed of tears left his eyes.

"Dumbass, why are you crying? If anything, I can meet with Favian now," he said, his voice not depicting the least bit of pain he was going through.

"..." she wasn\'t able to say anything. She didn\'t know what to say. The goblins climbed over him, stabbed him with their knives, and made his back full of holes, but they were not able to reach Xara.

The amount of stabbing increased with each passing minute, and soon crossed the limit of what a human can endure.

"I\'m sorry to leave you here. After all, I\'d said that I won\'t… I\'d sworn to myself that I won\'t. But you see, the thing is..." he wasn\'t able to finish. Half because of the pain and his decreasing consciousness, and half because of the expression Xara had.

The smile on his lips grew, before transforming into a warm, comforting one, the smile the same as he had when both of them were yet to grow up and played together…the three of them. That was the last time she\'d seen that smile. And now it was probably the last time she will ever see it.

She raised her hand and caressed his cheek, more tears flooded out.

"Idiot...please...don\'t cry," were the last words she heard, and he spoke. The smile didn\'t disappear, but his body went limp.

… His soul left the body.

That was probably the time she cried the most in her entire life. And when she was done, she remembered.

She remembered the person who led them, the person who was responsible for all this, remembered how that person left them to die. Remembered the person she\'d thought of as nice, and accepted as a companion.

She remembered it all…and remembering ignited a new flame within her heart. The flame of anger, the flame of resentment, and, the one that burns them all—the flame of revenge.

And that day, the third floor of a labyrinth burned in the flames of revenge, hot as the ones in hell.

But that, as they say, is a story for another day.