As I lay there on the surface of the bone, watching the beautiful sky while wondering what I should do next.
I felt Izel moving inside the bone... clearly, she was waking up.
I pushed myself up and stood before jumping down, sand scattering beneath my feet.
I turned and looked into the dark tunnel, noticing the girl who had pulled herself into a sitting position, running her hand across her face to wipe the dust away.
I pulled out a vial of water from my ring, then threw it toward her. "Here, this might help you wake up."
Izel raised her hand and caught the vial before staring at it silently for a while.
Because of the darkness, I couldn’t make out her expression clearly.
But her voice alone was enough to explain everything. "That... what happened earlier wasn’t a dream, right?" she asked, her voice pleading slightly.
Maybe she thought she had been dreaming.
But I answered, "No... everything happened as you remember."
Silence.
The only sound was Izel’s slightly rough breathing and the whistling waves of wind that occasionally blew outside.
Her lips moved, forming words with a trembling voice. "Then... Talia..." It was clear what she wanted to say.
So I understood the answer I had to give.
"Talia died," I replied calmly.
I continued, "At least she died without pain."
"Talia..." Izel murmured, her voice almost turning into sobbing.
Well, I could understand her grief. Their relationship had been good... perhaps they were somewhat close friends.
Her eyes remained on the vial as she muttered in a tone filled with regret. "All of this was my fault... if only I had paid more attention in that lab, none of this would have happened. The ruins wouldn’t have noticed us, and we wouldn’t have ended up fleeing to that place, and that great monster wouldn’t have appeared."
"And Talia wouldn’t have died."
I listened to her rambling quietly... well, she wasn’t entirely wrong, and she wasn’t entirely right either.
After seeing that she had finished, I spoke, my voice coming out colder than I intended.
"No, Talia would have died either way."
Izel’s hand tightened around the plastic vial until it burst with a muffled sound, water splashing everywhere.
She gritted her teeth as droplets of water fell from her face. "And how would you know that...?"
I smiled calmly. "Because she died there, that was her inevitable end. Or at least she would have died at that time anyway... it was her fate to die there... it’s that simple."
Izel shouted angrily, "Simple...? Why do you always speak of fate? Are you going to justify her death with some invisible threads we can’t even see? What does someone like you know about losing someone close to you?"
I sighed. "You don’t understand, Izel... no, most people don’t understand what fate truly is."
She looked like she wanted to shout more, but I interrupted her.
"Fate is more complicated than we think... it isn’t a thread leading us to a specific event. Instead, it’s like a closed path that prevents the thread from heading toward another outcome... the thread may deviate along the way, and events may change."
"But it always reaches the same ending."
"That’s why the ending never changes."
"Only those small, insignificant events change."
Izel fell silent, and so did I before continuing.
"Of course, there are ways to change that... to twist the path itself."
"What are they?" Izel asked unconsciously.
"To bend the thread and make it strike the boundaries of the path several times at the right moment, until the path itself changes."
She asked the question that was probably on her mind now. "And how can that be done?"
I smiled. "Perhaps if you possessed detailed knowledge of the future and every possible event, then you could cultivate the path and create a different outcome... and of course, we don’t, because that’s impossible."
I didn’t mean knowledge like mine... no, that was pale and insignificant compared to what I meant.
If my knowledge could do that, we wouldn’t be here now.
But that wasn’t the only way to do it.
I raised my finger.
"Or simply become strong enough to step outside the path itself."
My philosophical words seemed to calm Izel a little, but that quickly changed.
She gritted her teeth again, the darkness of the tunnel hiding her face. "You’re the one who doesn’t understand... it doesn’t matter how you justify this with fate or anything else... it doesn’t matter. In the end, Talia died."
She raised her head and looked at me. "And you... you talk about it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world... she was your teammate too." Her tone trembled.
"Are you even human? Do you understand what it means to lose someone close to you?" There were many mixed emotions in her voice.
I smiled. "Of course I do."
"No, you don’t," she replied angrily, ignoring anything I said.
I sighed as I pulled out another vial of water and threw it toward her. "Your emotions are controlling you right now, so let’s stop here before things escalate." This time she didn’t catch it, letting it fall onto the sand in front of her.
I didn’t care and turned away. "I’ll be outside. Come out after you calm down a little. And please don’t waste water. I think we’ll need it in the future."
With those words, I walked out of the bone before jumping up again and lying back down on top.
Well, I knew she would be somewhat shaken, but this was more than I expected.
"She’s more sensitive than she looks." Well, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Because that is human nature.
I felt her curl up and hug her legs where she sat... perhaps she would start crying over her friend.
I raised my hand, stretching it toward the broken moon.
I wonder how bad things are in the Axis now because of our disappearance.
I suppose they’re trying to cover this up and find us by any means possible.
"How much work has piled up on her by now?" I muttered, remembering a certain office.
It had only been a few days since leaving the Axis, yet it felt like weeks because of everything that happened.
...
Time passed while I remained lying there on the bone beneath the night sky.
I pulled out my phone and looked at the time.
[9:10]
Hours had passed while I was here, not even counting the time I had been asleep... so it must have been about a full day... perhaps a little less.
Yet despite all that time, the night showed no sign of ending.
"Is there no daytime anymore?" I muttered.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case... there weren’t many things left that could surprise me.
With the moon itself shattered, why wouldn’t the cycle of night and day change?
There were several explanations for this—perhaps the planet had stopped rotating or something similar... well, I didn’t think it had gone that far.
I lifted my head, looking at the stretch of the graveyard of bones and beyond it, the land rising and falling continuously, formed entirely of sand.
I had thought that once the sun rose I would see better, but it seemed that wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
After some time, I finally felt Izel move.
She stood from her place and headed toward the exit of the bone.
I rose and sat on the edge, so when she stepped out, I was directly above her.
I saw her stop there, staring at the sky with wide eyes... her eyes slightly red at the edges, while her lips moved to form a few words.
"Where are we?"
"A distant place... very distant," I answered simply.
Izel turned her head and looked at me. "Do you know where we are now?"
I shook my head. "No... but it’s obvious we’re nowhere near the Empire. Or at least, I don’t recognize this place... do you?" I hadn’t planned on telling her this was the ancient Earth. That would complicate things too much.
At least not now.
Izel stared at the sky in silence.
"No... I don’t know where we are." With those words, she looked at me again.
She stared at me, her eyelids slightly red, then lifted her hand to her hair and began twisting it.
Her pupils danced everywhere except toward me, seemingly trying to gather the courage to say something.
I raised an eyebrow. "What’s wrong with you now?"
She clenched her jaw as if to spit out something sharp, but soon exhaled and said nothing.
Wow, that was new.
"Just say what you want to say or stop acting like that in front of me... it’s a little unsettling."
She frowned. "Unsettling? What do you mean? ... Or just forget it."
She took a deep breath before speaking words I never expected to hear from her.
"Th... thank you for saving me earlier."