Etienne walked us a good chunk of the way home. In my mind, I imagined him wanting to be a gentleman, and not insisting on following me all the way to my apartment out of courtesy, but I think it was more because it was getting too much out of his way. We did have quite a pleasant chat though, up until he brought up his sister again.

In that moment, my thoughts went back to what Cain had said about his brother, back in the coffee shop. For some reason, I felt a strange tightness in my chest. I didn’t participate much in the conversation with Etienne after that, as even his upbeat banter could not distract me from those thoughts.

“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow then.” I waved at Etienne as he got on his bike.

“Yes, enjoy your break.” He waved back, before riding away.

“So what had been bothering you this whole time?” Cain asked as soon as Etienne was out of sight.

“You could tell?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

I thought that with my years of experience of putting up a polite ‘business-like’ front, both in this life and my previous one, I had become quite good at hiding my feelings.

Cain looked up at me with his usual displeased expression.

“Isn’t that the person whom you spend your days sending messages to, or making yourself pretty to impress him?”

“Yes, yes.” I nodded. “You didn’t tell that to his face though, did you.”

“No, I didn’t want to mess up your life even more.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, unconsciously mimicking the expression Cain wore moments earlier.

“What?” He asked, with a sincerely surprised tone.

I clicked my tongue and waved in a gesture of dismissal. This wasn’t really important, unlike what I asked Cain next:

“Do you miss your brother? I overheard you talk about him earlier.”

Cain’s expression suddenly became gloomier, and he accelerated his pace just enough to walk a few feet ahead of me, where I wouldn’t be able to see his expression.

“I do.” He finally replied, after a short moment of silence. “I’d like to go home one day, but – with everything that’s happened – I’m not sure if – if …” He trailed off.

I nodded. I understood well enough where this was going, and suddenly the meaning of that tight feeling in my chest became abundantly clear. It was guilt. Because of this moment, I was the only thing stopping Cain from returning home. Not in a physical sense, of course, like those people from the lab, but still.

“Where- where is it that you are from?” I asked, struggling to get the words out of my mouth.

The realisation that I needed to return Cain to his real home was slowly starting to sink in. But for some strange reason, coming to terms with that wasn’t as easy as deciding on interacting with one of the main characters from ‘immortal immorality’. Maybe it was because of all that had happened, especially yesterday, as I still didn’t feel fully safe in this city.

“Officially, Thwaytes, which was the nearest town proper from where I was born. Unofficially from” he paused. “you wouldn’t know that. Do you know where Vancouver is?”

“West Coast of Canada. I’m actually good at geography.” I replied with a distant tone.

Part of my mind had already began thinking on how best to get there, while another part of me was coming up with arguments as to why Cain should stay. My own safety of course was on the top of that list. Even if I could not die, it still hurt a lot when I got hit. But perhaps Cain was experiencing the same kind of pain, even if he didn’t show it? He interrupted this train of thought with the following words:

“There’s a True Nature Reserve, what you call a Wild Land, not far from Vancouver. My fa – my aunt and father live there. It’s not a village per say, more like houses here and there. Big open spaces, more than a few monsters. In other words, the exact opposite of this mess.” He gestured around, to encompass the buildings we were passing by. Then, he stopped and let me catch up to him, before continuing. “But it surprised me that you don’t already know that, seeing how you seem to have a lot of unique insight into my life.”

“Hey, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not all-knowing.” I joked.

He gave me a funny look as if he wasn’t fully buying that. I didn’t blame him, as I had no doubts that from his point of view the circumstances of our meeting did look rather strange.

“You sure seem like it sometimes, especially when you keep finding yourself at the right place, at the right time.” Cain said, with an illegible expression.

“It all stems from hard work.” I replied, assuming he was still referring to the lab.

“Oh hey, you know what ‘stems’ means. I’ve never heard you use that word before.” Cain said with a cheeky smile.

“Yes, because it never fit the context.” I replied as a semblance of a smile returned to my face. “Unlike some kids, I don’t try to fit as many complex words as possible in a single sentence.”

“I don’t endeavour such actions either, that’s just how I talk.”

“Yeah, right.” I smirked.

I didn’t see the rest of the journey home fly by, as we continued chatting in this lighter atmosphere.

***

It was long past midnight. Despite having turned the light off, I could still see my ceiling as clear as day. This was one of the disadvantages of living in this world, other than my array of passive skills.

In the endless minutes I didn’t spend thinking about the sheathed blade laying only a few centimetres next to my hand, my mind went back to the events of the previous night. In hindsight, I could not understand why I acted the way I did. I should have called the police, then and there. I risked so much by engaging in a fight. First, there was my own life, as I had no idea what kind of effect that artefact had had on my ability to ‘respawn’ after death. I could have died, for good, but in the heat of the moment, that thought had not crossed my mind, as if something was blocking it out. Then there was the issue of Cain. Even now, I didn’t believe he would have died there, as he would have probably run away if things got too dire, but he still did get overwhelmed by the end of the fight, and if not for my MP transfer, he might have not made it out in one piece.

I brushed my fingertips against the lukewarm hilt of my sword. I wondered where it came from, and why Laura had it in the first place. Perhaps it was a family heirloom…

An idea popped into my mind.

I blinked, then rubbed my eyes. I was not sure what had just happened. My best theory was that I had run out of MP while maintaining the skill. But that had never happened before, as the skill would always focus on the moment I wanted to see. This time it just kept going and going. But I could not allow myself to think about that now, as I would get no sleep at all if I did.

I moved back into a more comfortable position and thought back to the scene. So, it seemed the sword has been handed down by Laura’s mother. Did she die? Did that plane crash and she die? That boy was no doubt one of Laura’s many brothers. She had four or five, or some obscene about like that. She also had just as many sisters, as far as I was aware.

Perhaps this vision was a sign from the System for me to reconnect with Laura’s family. That brought me back to one of the original issues that were keeping me up: my safety.

Before I had the time to go down another rabbit hole of late-night thoughts, through the crack of my ajar door, I saw Cain silently walk past my room and into the kitchen.

Having nothing better to do, as sleep refused to come, and hoping for a distraction, I quietly got up and followed him.

He hadn’t turned the light on, but with the streetlights, and few lit-up windows outside, he had no trouble navigating the kitchen. He stopped in front of the window. Just like on that first day he’d arrived here, his gaze got lost in the city outside.

I wondered why he had come all the way here, in the middle of the night, considering that his room too had a window. But when I followed his gaze, I realised that he was looking at the crescent moon. At this time of night, it could only be seen from this angle.

I nodded to myself, and silently returned back to bed.

Laura wasn’t close with her family, and I had grown distant from mine when I moved out for university. But this didn’t mean I should take it away from Cain. Unlike me, this child had someone he cared for, and I was the only thing keeping him away from his brother.