Ashen stayed up long after the low murmurs of the newly settled camp had faded into the quiet hum of the sleeping world.
Sleep was a luxury he couldn't afford; his mind was a whirlwind, spinning with the chilling revelations of the today.
He had been taking his situation far too lightly, dismissing it as a vague, distant threat.
Now he finally realized dragging this might not be so much of a good idea. He needed to decide how his future is going to look like, that is if he even had one.
'How long do you think I have before you drain me?'
He thought, his voice tight even in the confines of his own skull. The question was a desperate plea for some consolation.
Nexis replied, its mental voice unnervingly casual.
Ashen shot upright, a jolt of pure shock electrifying him.
He hit his head on the low ceiling of the tent, but barely registered the pain.
'What?! Two days?! What do you mean two days?! I thought you said I was dying slowly! Isn't that too soon?'
His thoughts tumbled out, a frantic, desperate protest.
Nexis corrected.
'Why didn't you tell me about this earlier.' Ashen cried internally, his fists clenching on his knees.
'I thought I still had time! I thought I could figure something out!'
Ashen let out a ragged sigh, the breath catching in his throat.
He laid back down heavily, staring up at the rusted, pockmarked ceiling of the parking garage.
The flickering light from a distant, guarded lantern cast dancing shadows along its corroded lines, making it seem like the very structure was decaying before his eyes.
Two days.
That was all.
Not enough time to fix anything. Not enough time to prepare Elara for a world without him. Not enough time to simply… live.
He wasn't scared of dying—not really. He'd come close too many times to count, had stared into the cold eyes of death in the Drift more often than he cared to remember.
What Really terrified him was what kind of person he'd have to become to live.
Killing. Feeding. Draining people just to survive another sunrise. The orb made it sound so simple—a natural act, take what you need. But it wasn't simple. It was monstrous.
He had seen what that kind of brutal logic did to people.
Survivors who had let the harsh demands of existence rewrite their morals, twisting them into something unrecognizable.
He'd watched men burn down entire camps for scraps of food, turn on their closest allies over a single bottle of water, leave screaming kids behind because they were "slowing things down."
Every time someone uttered the chilling phrase, "it's just survival," someone else, an innocent, always paid the price.
Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could live. His body screamed for it, for continuation, for life.
But who would be left at the end of that? Just another monster hiding in human skin, a reflection of the very horrors he despised?
He couldn't be that. Not for Elara, who looked up to him, whose innocence he swore to protect. And not for himself, not if it meant becoming utterly devoid of the humanity he still clung to.
'So there really is no other way, huh?' Ashen thought, his voice thin with resignation.
Ashen's body twitched.
He narrowed his eyes, staring fixedly at the ceiling, though he was staring right into his own mind.
'What do you mean by 'well'…?'
"…"
Ashen's mind went blank for a couple of seconds, then screamed.
'You f-cking bastard!!'
'What is it?' Ashen demanded.
A sliver of hope, cold and fragile, had just pierced through the suffocating despair.
'So where are they?'
Ashen pushed, his mind already racing, dismissing the 'impossible' part. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Ashen's physical expression didn't change. He remained lying on his back, staring at the unseen ceiling of the tent.
But inside, something shifted. A spark. A fierce, defiant flame ignited in the pit of his gut, banishing the cold despair. A path, however narrow and treacherous, had just appeared before him.
'Then I'll find one.'
Ashen's mental reply was quiet, but infused with an ironclad resolve. There was no room for debate in his tone.
<...Seriously?> Nexis sounded genuinely incredulous, a rare flicker of disbelief in its usually cynical mental voice.
'So you mean to tell me you have no idea about where any could be?'
Ashen ignored the insult, focusing on the core problem. There had to be a lead, however faint.