Chapitre 11: Shadow of Death
I remember watching a burning building a few years ago, though my memories of the event are patchy. Some parts are hazy, distant, like fragments of a dream.
I remember the people—ashen-faced and kneeling on the pavement, their expressions a study in despair. Some trembled in quiet fear, their losses mercifully finite: a home they could rebuild with insurance. Others were louder, their grief boiling over in sobs or angry cries, as they realized the fire had consumed years of savings and effort. But the worst were the silent ones. They simply stared into the inferno with hollow eyes, because what they had lost could never be replaced.
That's the image that comes to mind when I see Jim.
He's slumped on the grass, a whiskey bottle dangling loosely in his hand.
His voice carries across the clearing in a half-slurred song, the melody wavering in and out of tune.
"Oh, the bottle's my friend, it don't ask me why,
It don't care if I'm broken, just keeps me dry.
Raise a glass to the ashes, let the old world die..."
The words trail off into a chuckle, rough and bitter, before he takes another swig from the bottle.
As I approach, the scene sharpens: his shirt is torn and dark with blood, and a jagged gash runs across his temple. A few smaller wounds pepper his side, staining the grass beneath him with red. His shotgun is nowhere in sight.
"Yer finally back, yeh little shit," he growls, slurring the words. He tilts his head slightly in my direction, the motion sluggish. His face is a mess of blood and soot, streaked with red and black like a poorly painted mask.
"Where the hell have you been?"
I scan the surroundings as I walk over, keeping my steps calm and measured. It's too early to jump to conclusions. The air reeks of smoke and charred wood, and there's an unnatural quiet, broken only by the occasional crackle of embers.
I lower myself onto the grass, sitting close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. For now, I don't. I just look at him.
I sigh internally, Reason working overtime to analyze his posture, his glassy eyes, the way he clings to the whiskey like it's his child. I simulate a few mental scenarios, trying to figure out the best approach.
Let's start with something gentle—maybe an excuse to placate him, show a little fear but hold it together enough to seem reliable. Sprinkle in a metric fuckton of kindness. A full five-star social buffet.
"J-Jim, I only went out for two hours! I was searching for some water, I swear—"
"Huh? Who the fuck asked you? Do I look like I give a fuck?" he cuts me off, as he tips back another gulp of whiskey.
"..."
Okay? Okay. He's probably concussed, so it's not his fault, no?
"Jim, come on! Please, tell me what happened here. Are there any people trapped underneath the rubble? Tell me so I can help!"
He doesn't even look at me. He just starts singing again, his slurred ballad rising in uneven bursts.
Great. He's further gone than I hoped.
Time for a different approach. One he probably won't even remember, so who cares. I raise to my feet, adjusting my stance and hardening my expression.
My voice turns sharp, cold. I grab his shoulders and yank him upright. It's easier than I expect—he's either lighter than he looks, or those points in strength are doing their job.
I loom over him, staring into his bloodshot eyes.
"What. Happened. Here." My voice is slow, deliberate.
He doesn't even flinch. Instead, he chuckles softly, almost to himself.
"Do you believe in God, sonny?"
"..."
Once again, I'm thrown off balance. I can almost hear the sound of scribbling in my head. Madness was taking notes.
Still, Reason pulls me back into focus. I give Jim a small shake—not too much due to his state- But I need something, anything useful before he faints.
"Jim, where's your shotgun?" I shift gears to the only question I truly care about. It's clear by now I'm not squeezing much intel out of him in this state.
He stares at me with a look I can't quite place. It's unsettlingly familiar, like the one I catch in the mirror on a bad day—haunted, searching—but not entirely the same.
"I do believe in God, sonny," he murmurs, ignoring the question entirely. My grip tightens on his shoulders, enough to hurt, or so I think. He doesn't react.
"I'm not the type to preach, y'see," he continues, his voice slurring but oddly steady, "but as long as I can remember, I've believed there's purpose. That we've all got a role in the grand scheme of things. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." He mutters the verse absently, his eyes unfocused. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."
I sigh, my patience fraying, and drop him back onto the ground. He lands with a dull thud, looking as unbothered as ever. Without hesitation, he grabs the bottle of whiskey from the grass and takes another swig.
I scan the clearing, my eyes darting to the corpses. None of them have shifted or stirred. There are eight total—five burned, three riddled with bullet wounds. Judging by the collapsed structure, there might be more crushed beneath the rubble, but there's no way to confirm that.
We were 25 just four hours ago. Now? At best, there might be 15 survivors left besides me.
Is this a battle royale? Did someone figure out a way to benefit from killing others?
My gaze flickers back to Jim, sprawled out, singing softly to himself. His wounds tell a story—one that suggests he was more participant than bystander. Did he shoot those three? If so, why? Was it self-defense? Good ol' insanity? Retribution? And where the hell is his shotgun?
I can't say for sure, but I decide that Jim is harmless enough right now. I lose nothing from revealing part of what I can now do.
I kneel beside him, letting out a slow breath. "All right, fine, old man," I mutter under my breath, more to myself than to him. "I'll play along."
Reason is unusually silent, which is never a good sign. When it doesn't offer commentary, it's because the way forward is murky, illogical, or riddled with traps. That thought nags at the back of my mind as I press my fingers against one of Jim's stab wounds. His torn flesh is warm, sticky with blood, and slack from exhaustion.
I focus, drawing on the skill I've been honing. The muscles under my fingertips respond as I will them to knit together. It's like teasing out frayed strings and weaving them into place. The tissue reconnects in patches, growing taut as the fibers rejoin.
[Fleshcrafting - lvl 3 > Fleshcrafting - lvl 4]
Jim doesn't flinch. He doesn't even blink as I work. His calm is unnerving—most people would be screaming or, at the very least, freaking out over their body knitting itself back together. Instead, he just sits there, his bottle tipped lazily toward his lips.
That, at least, I can appreciate.
I move to the gash on his head, pressing the edges together with one hand as I coax the skin to seal. Blood seeps down my fingers, pooling in the creases of my palm as I work, but it's a familiar feeling by now. The injury closes unevenly at first, like a badly zipped jacket, but I adjust it until it smooths out.
"You know why smart people like me believe in God, sonny?" he says suddenly.
I stay quiet, my focus narrowing to the shallow puncture wound just above Jim's ribs. The edges of the cut are uneven, jagged—almost like someone stabbed him with a fork. I'm almost sad I left, it would have been hilarious to watch that.
Jim doesn't seem to notice my lack of attention, his voice rolling on, slurred but with a surprising clarity to his thoughts.
"Because God," he begins, pausing for another long gulp of whiskey, "gives meaning to one's life. Because without Him, we're left with… well, this."
I glance at him briefly, and he gestures weakly around the clearing, his arm swaying like a pendulum.
"We're afraid of living in a world where nothing matters," he continues, his voice rising slightly as if addressing an unseen crowd. "A nonsensical universe, where life… doesn't matter. Where we don't matter."
I let his words wash over me, barely listening.
"But this place, this goddamn place?" he goes on, his voice dropping into a low, bitter growl. "It's the antithesis of God. Spatial distortion, huh? What the fuck does that even mean?!" He barks out a laugh, harsh and humorless. "Is this supposed to be divine design? God's supposed to create meaning, order, purpose. But this—this isn't the work of God. This is…" He pauses, his face contorting in thought.
"This is either proof that Nietzsche was right and God's been dead a long time, or that He's a giant, celestial shit-stain," he concludes, punctuating the statement with a lazy wave of his whiskey bottle.
I finish mending the fork-wound and wipe the blood off on the grass, saying nothing.
"Anyway," Jim mutters, leaning back as if his speech had exhausted him. He raises the bottle one last time. "Thanks for fixing my cuts, doc. Want some booze?" He lobs the bottle toward me without looking.
I catch it out of the air with one hand. The glass is warm from his grip, still quarter-full. Without breaking eye contact, I toss it over my shoulder, watching as it arcs into the still-burning flames.
The bottle shatters on impact, scattering shards of glass and igniting a sharp flare as the alcohol burns away.
Jim watches the firelight dance for a moment, then shrugs.
"You little shit," he mutters, shaking his head. "That was Macallan 18. Do you know how hard it is to find decent Scotch nowadays?"
"..."
Ah, fuck it. If he wants theatrics, I'll give him some.
"You know you're going to hell for killing those three innocent people," I say, my voice deliberately shaky, as though I'm barely holding back some righteous indignation. The hardest part is keeping a straight face, but damn, if this works...
Jim snorts, a gurgling sound that might be a laugh.
"Five people," he corrects, punctuating it with a burp. "And they deserved it. Drunk bastards tried to force themselves on some girl or sum shit. Lass burned one of 'em alive. They didn't take kindly to that. I stepped in. They didn't take kindly to that either, so I shot a few. Balance restored, eh? Too bad the bar collapsed though..."
My lips twitch, but I force myself to keep a neutral expression as he continues.
"But this... this just proves my point," he mutters, gesturing vaguely at the destruction around us. "People creating fire outta nothin'? That shouldn't happen. Can't happen. It's all a farce, kid. None of it's real. So excuse me," he says, tipping his chin defiantly, "if I don't wanna play along."
I don't respond immediately, letting his words settle as I sift through them. The pieces fit together easily enough. It's a story as old as time and as boring as dirt, but still, makes me glad I keep my own lust locked deep into the pit of useless voices.
I glance around, scanning the clearing again. Nothing stirs but the faint crackle of dying embers and the occasional hiss of collapsing wood. No one seems to be coming back for now. No pyromancer girl. No drunken would-be rapists. No hapless bystanders stumbling back. They fled chaotically from what Jim is saying, so they probably got lost.
Sucks to be them, huh? Poor bastards never stood a chance.
Still, there's one glaring loose end.
"All right, Jim, so you're not going to hell. But if one of the bad guys had gotten their hands on the..."
Wait...
Spatial distortion. He mentioned Spatial Distortion earlier, didn't he? I assumed one of the others told him they had a skill like that but what if...
The alarm bells in my head go from a faint ringing to a full-blown symphony.
I whip around, my stomach dropping as my eyes lock onto Jim.
The shotgun—his goddamn shotgun—is back in his hands, the barrel already pressed firmly between his teeth. His bloodshot eyes meet mine, glassy but resolute.
The gunshot echoes across the clearing, deafening and final.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone