FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 354: Chapter 354: The Smile That Haunts

Zeyra nodded quickly from behind her, looking entirely out of her depth. She knew how to fight beasts and manipulate tribe politics, but dealing with the untouchable blood-soaked juggernaut of the battlefield suddenly breaking down in tears in a bed was completely outside her playbook. She didn’t know what to do with her hands.

Sol forced a smile onto his face. It felt stiff and completely fake.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” he lied smoothly. “Just a bit tired.”

Kira studied his face for a long, heavy second. She didn’t believe him, but she respected him enough not to push it right now. She nodded gravely.

“Okay. You rest,” Kira said softly, finally letting go of his shoulders. “We’ll be back whenever you are feeling okay. If you need anything… just call my. I’ll hurriedly come.”

He nodded assuredly, keeping that same smile on his face. But even he knew it looked extremely tired and incredibly sad.

Kira let go of him and stood up. She reached out, grabbed Zeyra’s wrist, and pulled the reluctant girl toward the exit. Zeyra looked back over her shoulder at him one last time, her eyes filled with complicated questions, before Kira dragged her out and pulled the heavy wooden door shut.

Click. The moment the door closed, the ambient light from the hallway was cut off. The room was engulfed in thick, heavy darkness.

Sol was finally all alone.

He let out a long, shuddering breath and fell heavily back onto the animal furs. He threw his forearm over his eyes, blocking out the dark.

He laid there, his chest rising and falling, and recounted the dream.

It felt infinitely stranger than a simple nightmare. It felt like a ghost had just walked over his grave. He could still vividly remember the smell of the school, the sound of the traffic, and the face of the girl.

That was his ex-girlfriend. His first, and honestly his only, real love back in that old world. The one person he thought he was going to spend the rest of his mundane life with. Even though he was incredibly sad for her leaving him.

But the tears… the tears weren’t for her.

They were for the boy sitting in the desk behind him.

His best friend.

Just picturing that bright, stupid, cocky smile made Sol’s chest feel like it was being crushed in a hydraulic press. It hurt worse than the Rockhorn Beetle’s spike tearing through his ribs. It hurt worse than anything the Great Orrath could ever throw at him. It was a deep, rotting pain that no amount of Dawn Essence could ever heal.

Because back on Earth, his friend had died.

He didn’t die in a blaze of glory fighting a monster. He didn’t die doing something heroic. He died from cancer. Slowly. Quietly. Wasting away in a hospital bed.

And Sol… Sol hadn’t even known he was sick.

Before he crossed over to this savage world, Sol had completely spiraled. He had hit a wall of unexplained, suffocating depression. He didn’t die in a blaze of glory fighting a monster. He didn’t die doing something heroic. He died from cancer. Slowly. Quietly. Wasting away in a hospital bed.

And Sol… Sol hadn’t even known he was sick.

He had broken all contact with everyone. He ghosted his girlfriend. He ignored his phone. He holed up in his dark room, skipping school, ignoring the knocks on his door, completely drowning in his own miserable, self-pitying head. He cut himself off from the entire outside world because he thought his own generic sadness was the heaviest burden on the planet.

It was only long, long after the fact that he finally crawled out of his hole and found out the tragic news.

His best friend had left the world.

He had been fighting cancer for a long time. Even when they were in high school, when he’d come to class every single day and greet Sol with that disgustingly bright smile. They would sit on the bleachers and talk for hours about their dreams, about the future, about everything they were going to do when they got older.

And the bastard had been dying inside the whole time.

He didn’t tell Sol. He didn’t want to be a burden. He just kept smiling and pretending everything was fine.

He didn’t know why he didn’t notice, even though the signs were screaming at him. The skin was a little too pale. The dark, heavy bags hidden under his eyes. The way his clothes hung just a little too loose on his frame. The sickly, exhausted undertone hiding right beneath that cocky smile.

How had he never noticed? How was he so damn blind?

Sol gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling in the dark. A fresh, hot tear leaked out from under his arm and ran down his temple into his hair.

He had always, always blamed himself. For being so damn blind. For not noticing he was losing weight. For not noticing he looked tired. For abandoning him when he needed a friend the most. For completely missing his last days.

He hadn’t even attended the funeral. By the time he found out, his best friend was already six feet in the ground for years.

Sol curled his hands into fists, gripping the animal furs so tight his knuckles popped. The guilt was a heavy, rotting weight in his gut. It was a poison that never fully went away. It was his absolute biggest regret in the world, the one thing he couldn’t punch, cut, or kill his way out of.

He was a Layer 1 Spirit Warrior now. He was a powerhouse. He could punch through solid stone. He could sever the heads of giant monsters with a single swing. He had beautiful, deadly women fighting over his attention. He was respected by veterans.

But lying alone in the dark, with the resurfaced memories that he had tried so hard to forget, that bright smile burning behind his eyelids, none of that power seemed to matter.

He just felt like that same worthless, oblivious, selfish kid who had left his best friend to die alone.

******

A.N: Dedicated to my friend, whom I miss very dearly, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you in your last days.

I just hope that you are having fun in another world like Sol, minus all his difficulties.

You’ll always be remembered, but you bastard, should have met me one last time before going.