You know, normally when you read a tragic backstory in a book, you might feel sad for a little while, feel indignant over what happened, or you might not even give a shit. The thing is, the difference between reading something from a page, as opposed to hearing it from the mouth of the actual person afflicted is much larger than you could imagine.

Seriously, I’m still slightly shaken by what I heard from this girl. I even feel like I have a bad headache right now. There’s just something about seeing the pain and anguish in her eyes as well as hearing it from her voice, that just crushes your spirit. And her being all depressed and silent next to me is just compounding this to make me feel horrible..

Honestly, I’m not sure what to do here. I really wish I had Thomas with me at this moment. While he was a dumb and mischevious goof ball, he was always very good at lifting your spirits when you were feeling down. And it’s not like I can copy Thomas to make her feel better, after all, I’m not a dog…

Guess I’ll continue to do the only thing that I’ve been able to reliably do in this new world, walk… 

I continued to walk with the girl holding my hand until we reached a point where the trees gave way to an endless grassy plain. Looking around, I could see where the barrier had ended a few meters before the edge of this forest. Meaning, while we were probably safe from the elves inside the forest, we were no longer safe from the dangers of the outside world… 

I’m not sure which one of us did it first, but both of us had stopped walking as soon as we reached the edge of the forest. By this point, the sun was beginning to go down and night would soon be approaching. Since I hadn't been making an effort to squash bugs that weren’t directly under me, I wasn’t really absorbing enough vitality from the little critters to properly sustain myself. As a result, I was beginning to feel hungry, thirsty, and tired, on top of the headache that had only gotten worse. At the same time, I was beginning to become aware of a fact, that I had somehow forgotten a matter of great importance… 

Turning to look at the little girl holding my hand, I couldn’t help but sigh at my stupidity once again. How could I forget that she would have to eat and drink? And even pretty soon at that! I mean seriously, eating and drinking are two things I’ve been doing every day for over 17 years! How could I forget about them in less than a week! This is just making my headache worse… 

Really, I don't know what’s wrong with me. 

While I was thinking about what plan of action to take, the girl seemed to have awoken from her trance as she slowly turned her head to look up at me. After seemingly being satisfied of staring at me for about a minute, the girl slowly opened her mouth and asked in a faint and feeble voice:

“Was it… was it really my fault that my mommy died?”

Looking down at the poor girl, I couldn’t even manage to muster a smile as my head continued to throb, as a result, I simply released a tired sigh and said:

“No, it’s not your fault”

After hearing my answer, she seemed to ponder upon it for a few minutes before one again looking at me and asking:

“Then why?”

I wasn’t stupid enough to not know what she was asking and wanted to know. I knew that she was still a young girl, not only that, but one that had been sheltered from the outside world and had no contact outside of her mother for around 10-12 years. She was obviously very confused about what she had been forced to see and go through, and wanted some sort of answer to understand why her entire world and regular life had been taken from her. At the same time, she most likely wanted to know if she had done something wrong to cause this. There was even a chance that if I didn’t at least attempt to do something, she would always blame herself for opening the door and allowing her grandmother to discover her… 

I still can’t believe her own grandmother would do this. I can understand that maybe she didn’t have much in the way of affections to a granddaughter she had never seen, but still, to knowingly cause something that she knew would lead to her OWN daughters death is just ridiculous. Then again, things like this happened back in my world too. Parents disowning and kicking their kids out because they were gay or had different believes. There’s even cases in other countries of girls being attacked for not covering themselves, or having sex before marriage, or not wanting to marry someone. I’m just getting a worse headache thinking about this.

Yeah, people can be pretty shit can’t they? There’s not really an easy to explain answer for her question. I mean what can I tell her? That her mother died because the people around her were ignorant and spiteful? A kid won’t understand that. And right now I really don’t feel like trying to understand it myself, not with the way my head has been throbbing.

…… 

……………      

Well… why do I even need to make her understand such complex things at all?

Right, why should I have to think about a proper explanation about what happened when there’s actually a very simple reason as to why.  Right, I could just give her the simple cold truth about the world, it’s not like I’m lying to her at all, right? 

At this moment, the throbbing sensation that had only been increasing in my head faded completely, and I could hear something whispering directly into my brain. I couldn’t understand what the sensation really was, or what the ‘words’ meant, but I had a strong urge to voice my answer to the girl. Thus, with this urge guiding me forward, I turned my head and looked into her confused eyes. However, as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I felt a notification go off in my mind.

While I wanted to pay attention to this notification and use my ability to figure out what had happened, I decided to simply put it aside for now and answer the girls question.

Thus, being guided by a force I couldn’t properly understand, I started deep into the eyes of the traumatized girl in front of me who was searching for answers. Not realizing that my own eyes had started to turn yellow and glow menacingly, or that my mouth had slowly started to form a smile, as I opened my mouth and answer the question that was plaguing her conscience, saying. 

“Because all people are selfish”