We are all victims of how much it hurts when love is gone.
Eternity is not for everyone.
We cannot undo what has been said and done. Ursine Vulpine & Annaca
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POV Kevin
My middle school years ended the way they had begun, with many disappointments. Another emotional wound was soon added to the rest: my parents' divorce. They separated after nearly 15 years of marriage. It was hard to watch my parents argue constantly before they made the ultimate decision.
We love our parents so much when we're young that we tend to idealize them, and when the fall comes, the pain is sharp and lasting. I watched two people who had loved each other so much slowly drift apart in pain and anger. Even though my father was rarely around, he is still my father; I did have a few rare good moments with him. As a child, I saw with my own eyes the love he had for my mother.
"I have seen what love looks like, I have seen its beauty when it is alive, I walked in its paradise, it is gold, it is blue, it is in the skies. But I have witnessed the death of love, there is no blood, there is no body, nothing remains. This is how it goes when two people decide that love is dead." (Kévin)
It had a big impact on my psyche, as it did on my sister and my brother. It was hard and cruel, there were no other words for it, and all of it piling up made us shed a lot of tears. So, instead of crying as I had done since the very beginning of my life, as when I was in that hospital bed, I chose to smile.
***
Sometimes all you can do is smile, move on to the next day, hold back the tears and pretend everything is fine.
***
My father moved far away, and my mother naturally got custody of us. I resented them both, but especially my father for letting such an exceptional woman go. You idiot, I wanted to shout at him, you're letting go of the sun that lit up the garden.
My mother, Karla, had many qualities: hard work, kindness, courage and love, and unmatched beauty at 40, with beautiful caramel skin, lovely short black hair and magnificent brown eyes.
However, what could I do but endure it and move forward as best I could? My brother and sister also grew up with me, and their presence was a real comfort: squabbles, fights, but also a lot of love.
Middle school was also when I started taking the IHPC courses: Introduction to the Hunter Profession Courses.
They were taught by teachers with a special certification allowing them to teach combat techniques, power techniques or self-defense, since most people awakened at a very young age. So training them was important in several areas: reacting in case of danger if a dungeon broke, possibly being able to defend themselves, getting young people interested, and spotting the most gifted for the hunter profession.
Many new professions were born, such as police units specializing in hunter-related crimes, because many people abused their power in the early years and safeguards had to be created. Various professions therefore evolved to face this new era.
It very quickly became clear that I was mediocre, with the worst rank that had ever existed. I did exceed the limits of a normal human, but by a ridiculously small margin. It earned me even more mockery from my classmates; however, Arthur was always with me to support me in any situation.
Compared to me, he had a better rank—he was even the best in the class—but he was never haughty and never behaved in the least degrading way. On the contrary, he was my partner in every class and gave me piece of advice after piece of advice. I doubted him at first, but he proved to me that he was trustworthy. I had found what you call a true friend, the kind you can count on the fingers of one hand at the end of a life.
Time moved on until we started high school. I had never had as much fun as I did with Arthur, despite the many troubles. Our friendship kept growing stronger over time, which finally brought us to our last year of high school.
Life, which had never disappointed me when it came to cruelty, was going to test me again, as if I hadn't had enough. It was on a Monday morning that I learned the terrible news. I was in class when my phone started vibrating in my pocket. I quickly answered as I rushed out of class, because it was my mother.
The teacher called my name over and over, but nothing mattered except my mother. What's more, it was the first time she had ever called me during class.
"Mom!"
"Sweetheart…" she said in a trembling voice.
From her voice, I understood it was serious.
"Mom, calmly explain to me what's going on!"
"It's… It's your father!"
"Dad?"
"My angel, a blue rift appeared at your father's workplace. He… He didn't make it out…" she sobbed.
My body suddenly lost all its strength. I collapsed to the ground, my legs no longer able to bear my own weight. Life had knocked me down again, taking a loved one from me for the first time in my existence. My father was dead!
"No, it's a dream and I'm going to wake up, right? Mom, it's a joke, right? Isn't it?" I asked, unable to believe it.
"Kevin, I'm sorry…"
My phone smashed against the wall before my mother could finish her sentence.
The sadness slowly turned into rage, a rage that waged war on the grief inside me for as long as it could. I cried, I cursed, all the while refusing to believe it was real. The man who had given me life was gone without my having been able to say a single goodbye to him.
POV Kevin's mother
I saw my son come home, and when I met his gaze, his eyes begged me to have been wrong. And yet that was the sad reality. I took him in my arms to comfort him. No man or child should have to feel this, but that was how life was. My stomach knotted at the sight of his face, my tears threatened to take over, and his brother and sister were in shock too.
The man I loved, with whom I had shared 15 years of my life, the father of my children, was dead. He was one of the few awakened on site with enough strength. He had sacrificed himself to let the others escape while a guild was called in to close the rift. Your father was a hero—that was what I wanted to tell them, and then, in the end, I changed my mind. A hero, but what good is a dead hero, a father who will never be there for his children again?
"Cristian, the only hero you should have been was your children's hero."
POV Kevin
An entire week went by, extremely sad and gloomy. Arthur stayed with me, my sister Marie and my youngest brother Yan for several days. His presence, his calm, his humor and his humanity were enough to lift our spirits.
My father was laid to rest during a solemn ceremony, with hymns each more magnificent than the last. I suppose I had been given a ceremony like that too. In tears, I threw a flower into the hole where the coffin lay before saying my last words: "Goodbye, Dad."
My father liked to quote this line by Nina Bouraoui: "The dead become more and more present as life goes on, like absence, like sadness; we never get over the death of our loved ones; life is also made of the absent who burn our hearts." (Mes mauvaises pensées, 2005)
The name of my father, the man who had sacrificed himself to save people, appeared in the newspaper, in the meager local news section. Just one day after the funeral, two men came to visit us. Their names were Richard Neville and Moretti. Moretti wore a stylish suit; the other wore an equally elegant but much more sober outfit.
Both came from a large French guild called the Royal Eagles, whose coat of arms was a golden eagle. That day, only my mother and I were home. We thought they had come to apologize or offer their condolences, because the area where the incident had occurred was one of their warehouses. However, the reason for their visit was something else entirely.
They sat down at the table and my mother kindly offered them tea.
"Don't bother, we're not here on a courtesy visit," Moretti cut in.
"Then why are you here?" my mother asked.
"Well, during his fight, your ex-husband destroyed a great deal of merchandise belonging to our guild. The losses run into the millions. That's why we came here to ask you to pay us back," said Moretti.
There was a heavy silence. This demand was not only absurd, but extremely sadistic. I couldn't hold back, because with this demand, they were also insulting my father's memory.
"Are you kidding us? My father saved lives. And you dare come here and ask us to pay for your stupid merchandise!"
"If your father hadn't played the would-be hero, professionals could have avoided the damage," Moretti declared coldly.
"Say that again!"
Without thinking, I lunged at Moretti, unable to hold back my anger. Before I could touch him, I felt an enormous force grab me. I was slammed violently onto the table, which collapsed in turn.
My body was numb and aching, my mind drifting. I felt a liquid running down my forehead—it was blood, which then ran into my eyes. I was pinned to the floor by that powerful hand, unable to move.
"You're not even awakened, kid. Know your place."
"Son of a bitch!"
I tried to gather every last scrap of strength in my body, and the man tightened his grip on my head.
"Please let go of my son, Mr. Neville!"
My eyes turned to my mother: she, who was so strong, now looked resigned.
"Mom, no! Don't do this…"
"Kevin, be quiet."
She turned to the two men.
"If I refuse, you'll take us to court or take our house and our belongings? All of it as damages?"
"You guessed right, and I doubt you can afford a lawsuit. I also doubt you want to lose your house. All for the good of your family, of course."
"Very well, I'll sign the debt acknowledgment."
I watched my mother, the woman I had always admired, give in to this terrible, odious blackmail. He handed her a paper, which she signed with a trembling hand.
"Oh, and I'm counting on you to keep this secret. We wouldn't want any bad publicity."
They got up to leave, and Moretti turned to me while I was still bleeding, the blood running into my eyes.
"You can glare at me as much as you want, kid, but there's nothing you can do about it, and your father was a nobody."
"I'm going to…"
"That's enough, leave, please!" my mother shouted.
They finally left. And yet Moretti had said something true. I was weak—no, powerless. I was so insignificant that he hadn't even realized I was awakened.
On top of that, we had now taken on an astronomical, undeserved debt. What could we do? Standing up to a guild as powerful as a government agency was suicide. I was cursed, and my family was paying the price too. I couldn't hold back my tears, which ran down my cheeks, mixing with my blood. My mother took me in her arms, but nothing could take away that bitter taste in my mouth.
"Why am I so weak?"
***
Two more weeks went by; life had almost returned to normal, back to the usual routine. Still, the feeling of powerlessness had never left me. I was sitting through that boring, dreary math class. During training, I couldn't fight with the others, at the risk of getting hurt.
The only things I could learn were martial arts and swordsmanship. So that was almost all I did, and over the years I had become a real pro. Unfortunately, against a real awakened, it was useless, since my power was practically nil.
Arthur, however, always set aside thirty minutes for me to spar with him. Of course, he held back, limiting his abilities so that I could face him on roughly equal terms.
"You know, if you had a higher rank, you'd be really strong—a monster, I'd say."
"You said it yourself: if I had a higher rank. But I'm so weak that ranking up is practically impossible."
Fragments of memories came back to me, of that day when I had been powerless, when a guild had sent awakened to intimidate a poor little family. A sudden hatred welled up in me.
"Arthur, fight me for real!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
He released his energy and my legs began to tremble like a leaf in the wind. Despite everything, I took a fighting stance, sharpening my senses to the maximum.
Arthur vanished from my sight, yet time seemed to slow down despite my trembling legs. Every inch of my body was on alert.
Then I saw it, a brief glint, and I parried a blow. I was thrown into the air before crashing to the ground.
"Ah, I'm really no match for you," I said, getting up, my body numb and covered in scratches.
"What are you talking about? You blocked one of my attacks! You…" he said, running over to me.
"Gather around!" called the teacher named Henry.
"As you know, in two days it's this month's raid. Prepare well, and see you tomorrow."
In truth, I had never taken part in a single rift raid with the school. They had always discouraged me from doing so, given my weak abilities. However, frustration and rage overwhelmed me. I wanted to move forward and become strong, and for that I absolutely had to fight.
So this time, I begged the teacher to let me take part. Besides, even if I was weak, I was still awakened, and it was my right. Despite strong opposition from my mother and some teachers, they finally gave in to my request.
The big day came quickly. I was now lugging around heavy protective gear to make up for my weakness. That was one of the conditions that had been imposed on me. Arthur was waiting for me with a smile:
"So?"
"I've got stage fright."
"Don't stress, it's going to be fine."
With us were three professional awakened supervising us, as well as Professor Henry.
"OK, we're going to stay together and, as usual, we'll be accompanied by Gaby, Yac and Charles," Professor Henry declared.
Rank 10 dungeons contained monsters that even a normal human could kill, even if it might prove difficult. With three rank 8 professional awakened supervising, there had never been any problems, here or elsewhere. Especially since most of the students in the class were rank 9, except Arthur, who was close to rank 8.
We all went in; the sensation of crossing over was very real. It was like passing through a thin film of water. Once everyone was inside, a cry of horror rang out behind us: that of the professional awakened who had crossed last.
"Shit, a gray portal!" one of the professional awakened shouted in shock.
The portal, which had been ruby red a few moments earlier, suddenly turned light gray. Something that almost never happened had just occurred. We were now in a rank 8 or 7 rift.
Everyone was paralyzed, except the teacher and the professional awakened, who had kept their composure.
"All right, we're in a gray rift, and we won't be able to provide proper protection. Everyone stay together and remember your training! Those who can attack from a distance and those who can heal, get to the back! Fighters and tanks up front, we're going to advance in a triangle formation!" Gaby declared in a loud but calm voice.
My legs were trembling; my death now seemed almost inevitable. However, Arthur put his hand on my shoulder with a serious look.
"Don't worry, I'll stay close to you!"
"Thanks, buddy."
"I'm going to assign Charles to Kevin, who will need more protection than the others," Professor Henry declared.
All eyes turned to me, and they were all full of contempt. They had to protect someone who couldn't fight, at the expense of their own safety. In other words, I was dead weight who could drag them all down.
Those looks were interrupted when horrible cries rang out; a shiver ran through each of us. A horde of black wolf monsters with deformed, horrifying bodies appeared.
"Prepare for battle!" Henry shouted, taking a defensive stance.
My heart wanted to leap out of my chest while everyone prepared for the worst.
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Do not pray for an easy life.
Draw your strength from adversity and the sufferings of life, for strength is not born from the absence of difficulties, but rather from our ability to face them and rise above them.