The moment my eyelids opened, a very bright and yellow moon stood there. Its closeness made me wonder if the tips of my fingers could touch it. 

The moonlight was peculiarly intense, aimed at something below which my eyes quickly followed. 

It astonished me how the ray of light became whiter the lower it went. 

Only when my sight reached the bottom that I perceived a silhouette: it appeared to be a girl. 

The most astonishing detail was how her incredible long hair floated upwards, leaving her bare pale and beautiful naked back reflecting the moonlight.

For instances I swore she was the moon. However the more I approached, the clearer it became that they were two different entities.

Henceforth, I kept observing her through day and night as time passed by in rapid succession.

Other figures passed by: young and old, men and women alike, some with peculiar appearances that were clearly not human. But all of them had something in common: they evaded her encounter with disdain in their eyes.

The darkness was her only friend. Wherever she went, it followed. Under the sun, it became her shadow. And below the veil of the nocturnal sky, it turned into something more.

She looked distinct from my friends. Her eyes were icy blue, and her hair was white, silky smooth, and long, very much with an enviable quality. And in a way, she resembled me.

For my friends, I too was different, possessing an unnatural blonde color. That turned out to be alright after a while since my mother also had it. Thanks to her, I didn’t feel alone or unloved, and through some effort, I managed to befriend a few villagers.

But the girl in front of me was all alone, making me want to say something to change that, to do whatever I could to help her feel better. Yet my feet didn’t move, for I had seen the shadow move behind her before, and the unknown scared me.

'I was and still am a coward. Even in my dreams I only run...’ so, I gripped my hands, clenched them tightly onto my skin, and I dared to make a difference. 

This was, after all, a dream. Nothing could potentially go wrong or so I thought.

Thus, with a step forward, one after the other, I approached both during the night sky where the moon poorly shone. Like before the shadow became a humanoid figure, and its arms blocking my path from reaching her.

"Out of my way!" My hand shone in tones of blue preparing to freeze it if necessary.

Suddenly as it felt threatened a screech followed, piercing my eardrums, causing my head to hurt.

"Freeze!" I shouted as loudly as possibly touching the darkness itself. I froze the humanoid from top to bottom turning it into an ice sculpture.

"Stay there quiet , will you?"

The scary silhouette  didn't give me any kind of answer, it couldn't.

I went to the girl encounter, facing her. 

"Hello I'm Iris!"

To my disappointment she didn't utter a word almost like she wasn't even seeing me, who was clearly in front of her.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" A little forcefully I shook her shoulders and I heard this entire space make a heart beating sound.

"What the?" My eyes looked above and to the sides, the sky was dyed in blood and it covered some letters. Slowly they descended from the sky, golden were they tone like the tales of Artana book. 

I felt the girl tremble and when our gazes met tears escaped the corners of her eyes. I could tell then that she could finally see me.

"You mustn't-" she coughed and I felt myself being pulled, my vision turning upside down and then further back something projected me.

Once I managed to get up, there it was the half blackened half blue figure in between us, its hand caressing the girl whose eyes looked haze once again.

"So its your fault!" My legs rushed at it, hand shining far brighter than before and it left an aura of darkness attempting to consume me. But I dodged to the side and then with a dash, my arms embraced the figure that opposed me, freezing it.

"Please don't get in my way. I mean no harm."

Black drops fell through its dark sockets shaking its head wanting to talk, to oppose me to the very end, willing to do anything it could, but to no avail. In my dreams, I was far stronger than ever, apparently capable of unleashing powers I hadn't even dream of.

Quickly, before it released itself again, I turned to the girl next to me, and shook her a bit more violent than before, "wake up, wake up!"

To my surprise, a black aura expanded from her pushing me away. From within, a book shone causing me to recollect the one under my bed. But this one was far different, magnificent even, from the details of the cover, to the red letters I couldn't read.

"I'll freeze you too!" 

And as soon as I said that, a malicious aura expanded from it, to a level far more intense than everything I had ever felt. I shook my head to the sides, that wasn't right not was it?

I grinned at the despair, remembering the Saintess who made my very inwards tremble. Now that had been true power, this one lacked in comparison.

And when I thought the magical book would attack me, its aura went upward, pushing the golden letters away from the girl.

The dark figure broke off from the ice with the help of such evil aura but it didn't chase after me. Its face looked above at the glorious golden symbols that I couldn't decipher by myself.

I had failed to wake up the girl but against the two of them it was too much of an ordeal. Thus, I aimed what little power left in me and shot it upwards.

The golden symbols shone and faded successively, causing them to resist my skill. 

The darkened silhouette stared at me and wailed with all its might causing my ears to bleed, forcing me to place my hands on top of them, causing me to yell in fear and pain.

I didn’t understand what was going on, but it looked like the light itself was hurting the trio. 

But the white-haired girl didn’t move nor did anything about it. It made me curious of the reason why. Was she alive? Why didn't she care about any of this? The dream started to feel like something more.

‘If it was me...’ unable to do much more with my mana, I placed my hands on the light without thinking twice, intending to help her. But the moment I touched it, my hands ignited. 

From the harm, I too wailed in despair, feeling the blaze that wasn’t meant for a human being, understanding the pain from the dark silhouette. Thus, I suffered, waking up from it, forcefully.

“Ah!” I gasped for breath, looking down at my hands, cooling them off with my freezing. That had been the only thing I could think of amidst my drowsy state, and as far as logic went, it felt like a righteous action.

“Why!?” My confused self couldn’t understand this heat and the way the temperature didn’t drop, no matter how much mana I spent. 

Because of my screams, my parents hurriedly barged in, shouting, “what’s wrong!?”

“My hands burn!” I yelled back, lifting my hands in the air, showing them my hands surrounded by a blue aura.

Confused, my father approached me, close enough to grab one of my hands, “halt your magic.”

Upon his request, I stopped, feeling a burning sensation propagating yet again, followed by a lesser pain.

And his yellow aura illuminated the room, slowly becoming something more, “heal.”

That was when my hand started to incinerate further for the first seconds, but the pain slowly disappeared, leaving my hands in a pleasant state. 

I extended my other hand to him, so he repeated the process, and thank goodness, he did, “I don’t get it...”

“What happened Iris?” My mother questioned me, half-dressed. She must’ve picked any clothes that were close by before coming to my room.

“I think I had a dream... didn’t I?” I tilted my head to the left, trying to remember, but only a fog remained in its place.

“I... uh...” My mouth ran out of words. There were no traces of what I had gone through. Not even of the pain I had just felt. Everything was mysteriously gone.

“Maybe you had a nightmare where you hurt your hands,” dad did his best to subdue my confused state. It was normal to have bad dreams, especially after horrible things happened.

“I’m sorry...” 

My dad’s hand reached out for the top of my head, patting it for a bit, softly, then he kissed my forehead and wished me good night.

My mother followed through and pulled the sheets up to my chin, passing softly on my hands, caressing them briefly, understanding that they were in good condition. She added a smile, wishing me better dreams.

I nodded softly and then allowed myself to try again, clenching my fingers on the sheets, scared of what the dreamland had in wait.

 

It wasn’t until the afternoon of the following day, the 9th of the moon season, that the adventurers, a few from the more experienced ones, brought back what they could find of Brook’s body along with the gear we had lost there.

They were nice enough to deliver the bags without seeking a commission out of it, meaning that the guild staff had handled this matter yesterday.

From a small cart pulled by a vigorous man, we could see a white sheet covering what was inside. 

A woman, whose appearance looked slightly older than my mother, ran over to the cart in tears, quickly removing the layer, still not believing the story we had indirectly told her via the guild.

Once she picked up the rest of what could be considered an arm and analyzed it properly, that she fell on her knees, embracing the deteriorated meat.

Watching her like that made me revoke the emotions of yesterday, the painful ones of hearing his last moments: that was the detail I hadn’t told the guild, I couldn’t. And in a way, that made me relieved, knowing that his mother wouldn’t get to know about it, believing her son died as a proud member of the guild.

Ryze stood close by to her. He must’ve known his mother. I didn’t hear anyone say anything. Aside from the sounds the woman did, the silence was profound and impactful, almost cutting some of the air around, making us breathe as carefully as possible.

“My son... my poor son,” the woman mumbled some words, lifting her chin, and looking up to the sky. Took her a long while before adding something more. “May the goddess Aria look over him.”

“May his soul live on,” many added in echo, mainly the few wearing white robes, the fellow priests part of the church of Astia village, a place I had never set my feet on.

‘His soul...’ dad had told me about it, but from their words, it felt like they had a different perspective on what it was. Yet, I didn’t have the guts to question them now, not now at least. 

I took a deep breath, regaining some of my calmness and restoring my sanity.

The priests took the body out of the cart, carefully placing it on the ground.

“Ma’am, cremation or burial?”

Her sorrowful eyes glanced over at the priest, and whimpering, glass-breaking words followed, “there’s nothing to bury.”

The man held on to her thoughtfulness with open arms, picking every piece of him and making a pile. There wasn’t much of a ceremony for a lowborn like us. But that was fine. To the villagers, it still had meaning, and it would ease the heart of Brook’s mother and even my own.

Once it was done, they lit up a stick with fire magic and burnt the remnants from four different spots.

“May his soul find rest in the goddess’s sanctuary,” he declared finally, leaving the mother’s heart with some hope, reducing her pain if only by a tiny bit.

‘If Aria was a proper goddess, she would’ve saved him,’ I scorned her in my mind. The helplessness within me made me drive my emotions to anything else, to someone else, to her. Whilst that was not okay, she had become my scapegoat, and it helped me come to terms with my lack of power. After all, if she was a goddess and didn’t bother to save him, how could I? I turned around, escaping from the smell of rotten burnt pork, the intense smell that propagated like a decease, and the smoke that would soon bring more tears out of my eyes. 

I was done crying, thus I moved away from the cemetery, all the way to the faraway fountain in the center of the village where I took a seat and stared at the water running mysteriously by itself.

‘Why were we born into this world?’ I pondered deeply whether there was an answer to my question. 

‘Couldn’t we live in a world just for humans?’ I leaned my head forward and then shook it to the sides.

“That’s not it,” I recollected the war books humans had fought amongst themselves many times for territories and the like.

“The world belongs to the strongest side. That’s it, isn’t it?” I grinned in a twisted manner at my conclusion.

“And because Brook was weak, he died,” my mouth returned to normal and my emeralds dimmed. 

‘He and I, grains of the same bag,’ such was an old saying from my old world. It meant that we were both humans and since our race had the least power in the system, it made both of us innately powerless.

‘How will I protect my family if I can’t even protect my companions?’ My right leg began shaking, up and down as I became more and more anxious. My eyes caught a glimpse of my left hand.

‘If only I had a teacher,’ I was in need of an expert for the ice element. There were ways to expand and improve my freezing skill, but my father didn’t own such knowledge. Thus, my growth had halted.

I still felt proud of what I had already achieved, a magical ability without as much as possessing a class. This meant that independent of the class I decided on, I’d keep it with me.

‘If only I had managed to turn that entire area into ice...’ the chances were likely that as long as the creatures didn’t have a mobility skill. They would have slipped on the icy ground, allowing my teammates to kill them. One of them had even died thanks to it.

‘They’re not invincible!’ I thought to myself, a bit more exalted. After all, if one died, others could too. But it needed preparation, and I needed tons more mana. However, my inner thinking turned into hope, a tiny light at the end of the tunnel that I had yet to walk through. I gripped my fingers on my knee, making the relentless shivering stop.

‘The next time I’ll do better!’ I recollected Brook, deciding to get back to those creatures the next time we met.