"Ray,"

"Hmm?" I turned towards the voice. I didn't know why, but somehow it hurt when he called me that.

"Ray," I saw a sword flashing in the darkness of a cave, shadows gathering all around it.

"Run, Ray, we can't hold them!" I heard another voice through the darkness.

I heard dogs barking, and the sound of steel clashing against stone and teeth. The air felt strangely damp like I was swimming through magic.

"Ray ~o^~--^~mo**" The words seemed to sink into a sludge that I couldn't comprehend.

I looked down at my hands and one moment they were covered in blood, and I had a gaping hole in my chest, and the next they were clean, and my torso was fine.

"Ray!!" I heard a voice calling out in pain and desperation. "Save me! You're my only—ah! AHHHHHHH!!!!!" I heard the voice being drowned in the horrible sounds of teeth slicing, grinding and ripping flesh.

"Why are you still here?" I heard a mocking voice from behind me.

"You don't even have a god, yet you think you're worthy of coming along with us?"

"Well, whatever, just don't get in the way."

"Ray,"

"Ray,"

"Ray," The voices came from different directions with different intonations.

I tried to turn to see who was speaking, but only darkness surrounded me, until an incomplete torso crawled with its hands towards me, staring at me as it spoke in a ragged groan.

"Rayyy, only you can save us. Rayyyy, why did you abandon uss. Your duty's not over. We neeed you, Rayyyy."

The torso crawled up on my lap, grasping my shoulders hard to lift up its face into mine. "Why do you think you can abandon us, Ray. We're in so much painn. We're your classmates, Ray, what gives you the right." The face looked at me with utmost disgust as it practically spit on me. "You abandoned us, Rayy, what gives you the right?"

The torso's sense of alertness collapsed into confusion as it collapsed down onto the ground, muttering. "The right, the right. Rayyyy."

Then I heard growls in the dark, and the glint of blood-red teeth, and the stench of blood mixed with wet dog overcame my senses as I felt something leap towards me.

"Ahhhhh!!" I woke up, shaking, my forehead drenched in sweat.

"Silvie?" A sleepy murmur came from beside me, and I turned with great relief to see Rivi, blinking awake next to me. "What happened?" She looked at me, still half-asleep. "Nightmare?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice as the adrenaline from the dream still coursed through my system.

"Do you want to lay down with me? Sometimes it helps too…" She yawned. "Have something to hold onto."

I hesitated a moment, my propriety and embarrassment holding me back for exactly one second, before I assented, and snuggled close to her under her covers, my body still shaking as I wrapped my arms around her.

"Ohhh, you're shaking! There, there, I've got you now. It was all a dream, ok? Don't worry too much, it's…bad for your health."

I felt the warmth of her waist around my arms, the soft heartbeat of her chest, pulsing against my ears as I nuzzled my head under her chin. And they seemed like anchors in the darkness of my fear, grounding me in the warm tent, in the arms of the person who had claimed me as her own.

And just like that I drifted back to sleep, my worries slipping away as I lost myself in pleasant, dreamless sleep.

"Silvie…Silvie." I heard a soft voice tugging at my consciousness, and I blinked open my eyes groggily to find Rivi smiling over me.

"Time to get up sleepy head." She poked my cheek with her finger, and I groaned and recoiled though the touch wasn't that unpleasant.

"Today we decided to fly, right? Come on I've got some cool stuff I want to show you."

"Mmm, ok, ok, I got it."

***

A continent away Will Brown was sitting outside an inn, drenched in sweat, his whole body shaking. Images kept flashing through his mind of their last dungeon run. His barrier cracking and breaking under an onslaught of fur and teeth. Blood flying in the air, screams piercing the cavern as Leticia took a bite right on her shoulder.

And Will could only sit and watch as the nausea of mana fatigue washed over him, and it was all he could do not to puke out his guts or collapse into unconsciousness. Sitting there, watching, helpless was the worst feeling he had ever experienced.

And so here he was outside the inn while all the others were asleep practicing over and over, though lord knows that's not how the system actually works. But he just felt like he had to do something, anything to stop him from having to feel that again, from having to watch as his friends suffered and he couldn't do anything to help.

"Oh god, oh god," He muttered into his hands, his body still shaking from overexertion, his breaths ragged with anxiety. "Ceren you bastard!" He yelled up towards the sky. "Why'd you have to go and die!?" He looked down at his hands again. "Why'd you have to die?" He muttered weakly.

"Will," He felt a soft hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Grace, a coat draped over her nightdress standing next to him, the usual sternness in her gaze softened by fatigue and sleepiness.

"You don't have to push yourself so hard," She sat down next to him and leaned against him lightly. "I know it's hard seeing your friends get hurt and feeling like you could have done something to stop it if things were different, but we have to make do with what we have.

"Ceren's death isn't your fault. It's only misfortune smiling upon you, like Ray not having a god or Siri not having any offensive powers. In truth, if there's a fault for today's incident, it's mine for pushing us too hard when I wasn't totally sure how your loss of a blessing had affected things."

"I'm sorry ok?" She took his hands in hers, looking into his eyes, though he was looking away. "But sneaking out here in the middle of the night's not going to change anything. You should know how the system works by now better than I do. We're your friends, Will. Let's face this thing together. It doesn't matter if you're a little weaker now, we'll figure it out together."

Will took his hands back, still looking down at the ground. "Are we really going to fight in this war? Aren't things like this…just going to keep happening? I mean," He choked a little. "Are we really naive enough to think that if we go, we'll all come back alive?"

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