“Four hundred and five…four hundred and six…four hundred and seven…four hundred and eigh-”

  “You’re going to kill yourself, you know.”

  Adam collapsed to the cool floor with a sigh, his body burning. In the days since the fight with Hrime, he had been pushing himself more and more.

  Hannah, her blonde hair tied into a neat bun, also wore training gear. Walking over to Adam, she outstretched her hand. Grasping it, Adam was able to pull himself up with a groan.

  “I was nearly powerless against Hrime. I couldn’t save Marc, I wasn’t able to do anything against the yuletide monster, and now. Well, it’s even more imperative for us all to get stronger, isn’t it? Hell, that’s what you’ve been trying to do too.”

  Hannah glanced away, knowing Adam was right.

  “Look, things are…rough in the Physical World right now, but even Juhend is concerned for your health. Why do you think I got out of hand-to-hand training early? We’re worried about you, Adam. All of us. You don’t talk to any of us anymore, you spend all your time either reading or training. Fuck, Adam, I’ve seen you go off to the lake or the woods and practice ritual magic for hours on end multiple times.”

  Hannah sighed.

  “You’re pushing yourself too hard. Harder than you should.”

  “And what, Hannah? If I encounter Hrime again, am I supposed to lay on the ground and let her kill Hellig? If I encounter some monster, am I supposed to let Gusto kill himself fighting it for me? Ah, I get it now, sorry. It’s because I’m special, isn’t it? Nobody wants me to figure out how to use my powers because I can’t remember what happens?”

  “No th-”

  “Or maybe it’s precisely because my powers are so useful that Juhend doesn’t want me to push myself. Every time I get close to activating whatever weird bullshit is in me, I collapse to the ground. Is everyone just scared of me? Huh? Is tha-”

  “Shut up, Adam!”

  Hannah slapped him across the face with crisp force.

  “Listen to yourself! It’s not because you’re some liability in the field, and it certainly has nothing to do with whatever goes on when you use that magic of yours. It’s this-right here. You’re isolating yourself from us, you’re pushing yourself harder and harder each day, you’re barely sleeping, and when we try to ask what’s wrong you push us away.”

  Hannah stepped uncomfortably close into Adam’s personal space.

  “I won’t let you push me away. Not anymore. Gusto or Hellig or Juhend, fine. Gusto is unstable enough on his own right now, Juhend isn’t exactly a peer and Hellig is dealing with his own shit. But you will not push me away too.”

  She sighed. The spiraling night sky accentuated the green depths of her eyes, seeming to draw Adam into their stability.

  “You are nothing close to a liability in the field. You might not be able to control whatever power you have right now, but when it hits, it makes you every bit as strong as Hellig. And even without it, it’s not like you’re powerless. We all see you training your ass off every day and half the damn night out here, if you can call it day and night here. You are just as strong as any other Passenger out there. So, stop with this self-harming bullshit. We both know this isn’t about becoming stronger.”

  She walked past Adam, towards a wooden training dummy at the side of the field. Dashing towards it in a blitz, she outstretched her hand in a sharp motion, cutting through it cleanly. Its top half toppled to the ground.

  “If it was just about being stronger, you’d let your mind recover from all the books, and you’d let your body recover from training until absolute failure every day. Gusto took a full week to recover after that mission to the bookstore; he’s only just now getting back into training. Hellig took three full days, and his Realm is practically built on the whole light and rejuvenation thing.”

  Adam sighed.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Juhend managed to find you a Realm you harmonize well with in less than a week, and you’re already a Chosen. I’m the only one who isn’t.”

  Hannah shook her head.

  “I’m not convinced of that.”

  “What?”

  “Nevermind. Look, just… take it easy, ok? Let’s all go out to eat or something. How about it? When’s the last time you were even in the Physical World at all?”

  “I… actually not since we got here the first time, I don’t really have anything to go there for…”

  Hannah smiled, moving closer to Adam. She smiled, and her tone took on a more playful air.

  “Then think of it as getting out of the house for a bit. I’ll go talk to Juhend about it and see if we can kidnap you for a nice lunch, ok?”

  Hannah walked off towards the bastion.

  Adam sighed and shook his head, suddenly dropping to one knee as Hannah disappeared into the bastion. His head briefly felt as if it were in the clouds, and he felt an impending sensation of doom. As swiftly as it appeared, it disappeared. Looking down at his callused hands, he took a number of deep breathes, pretended nothing was wrong, and started counting again.

  …

  In a clinic in Pasmerktas, a baby was born significantly later than doctors were expecting. Its birth was not characterized by its wailing, nor even the screams of the mother. It was the smoothest, least painful, easiest birth any professional present had ever witnessed.

  Not a soul in the Physical World noticed another star, faint and far off in the distance of the cosmos, bleed its light down to the earth. This light, slightly oily, happened to drip down and condense into a new born child.

  The Verdammts were overjoyed at the health of their new-born.

  …

  It had only been roughly a month since Diell Day. The weather, however, was under no inclination to warm. Snow was piled on street corners and icicles hung from the eaves of houses and shops.

  Adam wore a thick winter coat and boots as he trudged through the snow, following a ways behind Hannah as she window-shopped for various goods in the plaza. None of the rest of the group was present. Hellig and Juhend were at the bastion discussing what to do about Hrime, while Gusto had wanted to visit his own Realm for meditation.

  It’s not a date. We aren’t back together. We’re just going to lunch… Why is my stomach all twisted up over this… I’ve fought monsters and Chosen! Stop it, stomach!

  Adam moved forwards with a powerful sense of anxiety and worry. Partially stemming from the intimacy of being alone with Hannah again after such a long time, partially from the recognition of the environment around him.

  While it had only been roughly a month, a lot had changed in Diell City. Flyers were posted all over the plaza and on many street-corners. Speaking of “Join the Imperial Army, Save Our Allies!” or “If Martes Falls, Diell City is Next!”.

  They were, of course, quite natural to see. In the past month, Donnerstag, one of Martes’s busiest ports, had been devastated by a powerful adversary that the public still didn't know anything about. Then, the Accepted Pantheon Missionary Fleet, the largest naval force in the world, dispatched a portion of its forces under the command of Vice Admiral Bruenor Flos to reinforce the small nation. The imperial army had also sent troops, including blimps and naval escorts, but literally overnight the entire missionary relief fleet had disappeared without a hint of distress making it to the outside world.

  Since then, three other relatively major cities had fallen. None had more than a couple thousand survivors, many of them insane or grieving. Often speaking of zombies, monsters, or even the wrath of some divine being, not many could put much stock into the validity of these stories. Perhaps it would have been better if they had at least known who they were fighting, but not even the imperial military had so much as seen this mystery threat. The armies and cities and ships that fell had fallen without ceremony and without enough valid testimony to paint anything more than a rough picture of some vastly overpowering force that somehow wasn’t visible until it struck.

  Violent crime had also risen dramatically in the past month, over 37%. Petty crimes surged more than 50%, and the number of still-births as well as the rate of infectious disease transmission had both increased markedly. While the worst of these statistics were present in the far-southern country of Martes, a sense of anxiety was present all the way in Diell City. While Martes was still far from being a wasteland, it was noticeably less populated than it had been this time last month.

  Martes and the Diell Empire were historically rather close allies, and the disappearance of an entire naval fleet couldn’t just be kept under wraps. Thankfully, Bruenor himself was on land at the time, and ended up extracting out back to Diell City to personally report to the Emperor safely. He had not yet been sent back to Martes, at least to Adam’s knowledge.

  Making their way from street to street, Adam finally let his guard loosen somewhat. Hannah was in a good mood, Adam had enough cash to get a few interesting trinkets, and the weather wasn’t terrible. This wasn’t to say that it was warm, but rather, it simply wasn’t windy or snowing.

  Suddenly stopping abruptly, Hannah looked back towards Adam.

  “Hey, c’mon, you gotta be in a good mood too or else this whole outing is boring! Oh, I know, let’s go to that restaurant my uncle took us to on Diell Day, what was it?”

  “The Oryza Alba? I think it serves Viernes cuisine if I remember correctly.”

  “Yeah, that’s it! C’mon, let’s go.”

  Hannah, nearly speed walking, led the way as if it were old times.