Chapter 6: The Nightmare Worsens

“What is this?”

Suspicious, William touches them. He finds the fine black crystals are growing on his hand and sting. He tries to wipe them off, fling them off, even use his Evol to get rid of them. The crystals continue to grow.

Sensing something is wrong, Zayne reaches out and is about to touch William’s chest when—

It all happens so suddenly.

The crystals accumulate, and William’s expression goes from surprised to panicked. “W-what’s going on?!”

But the crystals don’t give him any time to react. Within second, his limbs corrode, twisting into uncomfortable, strange positions. The air around him explodes.

Zayne is tossed several feet back.

“Will!”

“Stay away from me!” William shouts.

His bones and muscles are torn and start to dissolve. He cries out in pain.

Zayne grits his teeth and forces himself to calm down. He tries to use his Evol to freeze the crystals. Frost covers William’s body, halting the crystals only for a few seconds. It didn’t stop them from spreading.

A few seconds should be enough. Zayne holds his breath, gathering frost once more.

“Zayne!”

The crystals explode. Zayne feels a sharp pain across his forehead, blood blurring his vision. He staggers and hears William shout through the pain.

“Forget it... Leave me to...”

Before he can finish, countless crystal fragments fly at Zayne. Zayne barely dodges them as he tries to fight against the crystals on William’s body using Evol.

However, his body begins to fail him. Pain explodes through his shoulder, fragments embedding themselves in his flesh. Zayne trembles.

“No... You’ll... get taken down... with me...”

The crystals, consuming bone, devouring marrow, climb to his neck. His arms, moving on their own, attack Zayne. William watches with dread as his body becomes twisted and gnarled.

“It’s already to late... Kill me...!”

Zayne’s mind goes back. “There’s still hope. As long as I can freeze it...” Blood fills his mouth. He grits his teeth.

“Hold on, please.”

Again and again, the ice tries to freeze the horrifying black crystals. They fail again and again and again.

“It’s... no use...”

As if a million little knives are piercing through his head, William uses his remaining strength to say...

“H-help... Help me...”

The tissue underneath the crystals rapidly forms a strange shell. For the first time, Zayne realizes that life, which always represents hope and salvation, can be terrifyingly ugly.

His movements slow down.

What can he do?

Can he do anything?

...He can’t, not anymore.

Living like a monster with no hope for deliverance... Is that redemption?

Crystals have encased William’s body, leaving only his eyes, which stare at Zayne with a mix of pain and hope.

The figures in Zayne’s nightmare merge with William. Their expressions are distorted by pain, their bodies twisted into grotesque positions. Unable to speak, their minds gone, their eyes can only beg.

“Kill me...”

“Kill me!”

**********

“I don’t... want to become a monster...”

——————————

Snow falls again.

Zayne moves his stiff fingers. The icicles in his palm are coated in blood, soaked with a boundless black.

William’s body takes a few steps and falls, eventually dissipating into grayish-blue smoke.

The people he killed in his dreams appear once more. Body after body sprawled in front of him, turning the valley into a giant tomb.

The wind reverberates into a mournful howl, sounding like a sorrowful cry from the sky or the cries and wails of countless people on the verge of death. Warm, sticky blood gurgles, melting the crystallized snow, which quickly freezes again. It melts and freezes over and over, turning into a tombstone. Zayne watches one of these winding trails of blood. His blood.

**********

He looks up. Them Grim Reaper stands in the distance, watching him on the snowy mountain covered in blood and death.

——————————

Three years later.

“The surgery will be difficult, but we’ll try it. Transfer him here.”

Zayne finishes his remote consultation in his office when Greyson knocks on the door.

“Dr. Zayne, here’s the Linde Award.” He carefully puts down the box. “Did you actually ask them to deliver this? It’s a very prestigious award in the field of medicine. I can’t believe you didn’t even go to the ceremony...”

“I had an outpatient to take care of that day. I couldn’t go.”

Greyson is shocked. “Was it not possible to reschedule?”

“Some patients book two to three months in advance so they have time to travel. I can’t reschdule.” He looks over his computer screen. “Do you have nothing else to do?”

Greyson leaves immediately.

After his work is complete, Zayne opens the box. Text is etched into the side of the exquisite award.

“Dr. Zayne successfully performed the world’s first abdominal aortic repair using Evol technology. He saved a patient who was attacked by Wanderers. This is both a miracle and a monumental moment in medicine...”

He shoves the box deep into his drawer, right next to another.

Inside is an award that belongs to William.

He stares at them quietly. His memory of William’s crystals-covered body in his moments of death merges with the abnormal crystals in the patient’s heart.

The blizzard that covers Mt. Eternal appears in front of him once more.

The snow buried William’s body, and with it, all those secrets.

**********

But strange crystals reappeared. The Grim Reaper, hidden in the darkness, opens his merciless eyes once again.

This uncertain, cursed fate is far from over.