WARNING: Contains explicit language. If that bothers you, skip this chapter.

Author's Note: If the language of humanity bothers you that badly, you might want to consider skipping the whole series to be honest. There's not a lot of scenes in the story with explicit language used in them, and they're usually there for a reason. Skip them all, and you skip out on a lot of the human emotion which helps fuel the use of them.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, dying sucks. There’s the pain of incineration as your whole corpse is consumed by fire. Then there’s the same intense pain as your body rebuilds itself through fire. To put it simply, it’s about the worst experience a person could ever have. Popping a twenty pound baby out of a two inch womb couldn’t be half as bad. Dying sucks bad.

I would’ve said that dying was probably the thing I hated the most in this world, and until a few moments ago, I wouldn’t have been lying to you. I didn’t even hate the minotaur or the rats who had killed me multiple times as much as I hated dying itself. But, that wasn’t true anymore: there was now something I hated much worse than dying, and that was this BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEPING BLEEP OF A BLEEPER in front of me!!

Feeling fire consume you is terrible. Feeling it restore you isn’t any better. But, experiencing the same type of feeling drawn out over twenty minutes? That’s an order of magnitude worse! At least with the flames, my corpse burned up and was destroyed in a moment of seconds. This Jello-Muncher did the same thing, but it dragged it out sloooowly. Twenty minutes of my flesh slowly bubbling, dripping, and dissolving off my corpse!

The torrent of suffering I felt was so great for the twenty minutes after I died, all Cloudme could do is scream. Cloudme didn’t try to run or escape or get away. Cloudme just screamed and hurt and hurt and screamed.

But, after that twenty minutes, a miracle happened: Nothing!

Blessed, sweet, glorious nothing. No pain. No torment. No tingle of connection to my corpse. The Jello-Muncher had consumed my corpse completely and there was nothing left for Cloudme to feel a connection to. The Jello-Muncher was beginning to ooze down the hallway away from us once again, so I felt no pressing need to struggle to escape from it when I was reborn. This beast was slow moving and sluggish, and I could probably walk and get away from it in all honestly. I had absolutely no doubt I could outrun it and escape, so I just indulged myself and hovered and enjoyed the numbness of nothingness.

Nothing is pretty awesome. Nothing beats nothing. It’s just an empty feeling, void of sight and sound, lacking feeling or odor. It was pure relaxing bliss.

Well, for about ten minutes or so, it was. After that, nothing gets boring. There’s nothing to distract you from nothing. There’s only one single thing that’s in the Nothing with a person, and that’s their thoughts. It didn’t take me long to realize I didn’t like mine either.

I’d been an idiot again. I’m the one to blame for Isabella getting hurt. I hadn’t heard that stupid trumpet sound in quite some time, and I wasn’t expecting it then. I was already on edge; a whole day of constant hug-feed-hug had whittled my nerves down to almost nothing. It’s like putting up a tent over a mosquito’s nest to make out with your girlfriend. Every few moments, just when things start to get good, one of the suckers comes along and bites you! Once or twice is annoying, but manageable. But hour after hour, endless repetition all evening long?

My nerves were completely frazzled, and then I’d tensed up to deal with Izzy having to feed again, and while I was tensely frazzled, some stupid sound went off and I hurt Izzy. Mother, forgive me. I didn’t mean to. She almost died, and it was all my fault!

And now she was lying there on the couch, on the brink of death, and there wasn’t anything I could do to make it right. I couldn’t even tell her I was sorry. She wouldn’t have heard me while she was passed out like that anyway. I’m a horrible, horrible person.

Cloudme yelled out in frustration, but nobody cares in the nothing. I still wanted to hit something. To just beat out my self-loathing on something else. But there wasn’t nothing to beat on in the nothing. Just me and my guilt, floating here in the nothing.

Tears of pure emotion ran down Cloudme’s cheeks and tinkled scattered across the hallway. For what felt like an eternity, Cloudme simply hovered and raw emotions wracked my spirit. I absolutely felt terribly.

And, the more I thought about things, the worse I felt.

I’d fallen asleep like a baby on the rooftop. I’d let Isabella get rained on up there for who knows how long! If she caught pneumonia and died, that too would be all my fault!

And then I’d just left her there on the couch, all damp and cold. I didn’t dry her off and I didn’t try to put anything over her. BLEEPING BLOP, I could’ve taken off the dress I was wearing and wrapped her in it, if nothing else. Instead, I fed it to that Jello-Muncher just so it can grow stronger!

Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Even worse; I was a worthless idiot!

And then I abandoned her. I didn’t know what to do, and I panicked. I was afraid she was going to die in there on me, and I was going to have to just sit and watch that, and I just got my stick and ran. I could’ve stayed and tried to take care of her, but I didn’t.

I just flared up like a mad bull and rushed down the hallway and found the first creature out there and basically threw myself into its belly. Who the BLEEP was that supposed to help? It didn’t help her. It didn’t help me. All it did was destroy one of the few dresses we had left; most of the others were cut up and used to wrap meat in to put in the fridge.; and then it trapped me in the nothing.

Cloudme screamed out again. And then again. And then one more time for good measure. But, nothing happened.

I had to do better. I had to become stronger. I had to learn to master my emotions. Maybe it’d be better if I could just learn how to get rid of them altogether. If I didn’t have the stupid emotions, I wouldn’t’ve jumped like an idiot coward and caused this whole mess to happen.

I needed to learn to keep my emotions on a tighter leash. Bottle them up and never let them out. Only then could I give Isabella what she needed; someone truly capable of helping to ‘cherish and protect’ her.

Or maybe…

Just maybe, she’d be better off without me being around at all. She’d did fine on her own before I showed up. She had food and clothes and was safe. And now look! She couldn’t wear the clothes anymore, and that was all because of that stupid book I’d given her! She wasn’t safe. I was the one who hurt her the most. She even told me she ran around naked at first, just because she was that scared of me!

Mother, forgive me! You tried to teach me to take care of girls and to watch out for them since I was stronger since I was a guy, but I didn’t do that. When I get back, if Isabella is still alive, I’m going to tell her everything. I’m going to let her know she’s better off without me. That she’ll do better on her own. I’ll start sleeping in the tub or something. I won’t bother her anymore. I’ll tie myself down if I have to so I won’t hurt her the next time she has to recharge her energy using my life. And when we get out of this mess, and I can get her wherever she wants to go, I’ll say goodbye and let her life out the rest of her life without me bumbling along and ruining it.

It’s the best thing for her, after all.

SLAP!!

I blinked several times to try and sort out what had just happened, and then I collapsed onto my knees with a sharp, ringing pain bursting through Little Bud!!

“Don’t! Don’t you ever say such a thing again!” Isabella stomped her foot down on the ground and waved her finger back and forth under my nose while I was trying to collect my thoughts.

I’d finally revived. I’d went back to the room, where she was still passed out sleeping. I’d waited patiently for her to wake up; it wasn’t until sunrise before she stretched and got up. And then I’d told her what I’d decided. I just spilled everything to her. I let her know how worthless I was, how I knew she’d be better off without me, and how I was going to try and stay away from her so I wouldn’t hurt her until we got out of here. I was telling her that when we got to safety, she’d be free, but then all at once she slapped me. Which, that didn’t really hurt. She was too weak to hurt anybody with something as light as one of her slaps – so she then made a glowing blue ball of flames and shot me in my balls with it!

“You understand me?” Isabella stomped her foot on the ground and almost hopped. “Or do I need to beat some more sense into that tiny little pee-brain of yours?!”

“I understand,” I groaned. Already I was starting to heal, but I certainly didn’t want her to realize that. I don’t know what had gotten her so angry, but I was worried she might try to set my little buddy on fire again!

Reaching over, Isabella grabbed me by the chin and tilted my head up to face her. “Let me tell you a couple of things, you stupid idiot!”

“First,” she stomped her foot for emphasis. “IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!” How can such a little woman make such a huge racket? “I was the one who was learning a new skill. I was the one who lost control. I should’ve had better control over it, but I didn’t. You may have hit me, but I was the one who lost control and had my talent go out of whack! Not you! Me!!”

I started to say something and she poked a finger up each of my nostrils and yanked. “I’m not finished yet!” She was screaming at me, and was turning as white as Cloudme usually was. I suppose that was her body’s way of heating up, since she’d changed? Not only was white for blushing; white was also for white hot under the collar!

“Let me tell you something!” She yanked on my nostrils and I rose up to take the pressure off them. I guess it’s true. It really doesn’t take much strength to lead a bull by the nose.

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be in here all alone. I’d be running out of food. I wouldn’t have gotten a book which is helping me learn magic so I can protect myself. So what if I can’t wear clothes now?! I’ll be damned if I give a shit! Look at my tits if you want to. Look somewhere else too. I don’t care!”

“Because of you, “ she let go of my nose finally and poked me in the chest to emphasize she was talking to me, “I found something much more important – a means to help keep myself alive. ALIVE!

"Clothes for magic? Any jackass who would refuse a trade like that just deserves to get caught by a goblin swarm, dragged off to their caves, screwed by a thousand of them, and then die after giving birth to their fiftieth goblin bastard!”

“You. Y. O. U.” Again she poked me in the chest with her tiny finger. “You gave me a means to protect myself. It’s your food in here that I’m living off of. I told you I’m allergic to peanuts already, and that’s just about all that’s in that vending machine over there now!

“It’s YOU who killed the things, cut up the things, and harvested the things that I now have to eat and live on for the next few weeks so that I can learn and get my skills and spells up. It’s YOU who volunteered to let me steal your very life, just so I could get better!

“I promised I’d do anything you told me to do, and what’s the worst thing you do to me?” I tried to speak up and tell her that I’d just about killed her, but she drew back her fingers, made a fist, and then shoved it in my mouth and left it there like she was trying to grab my tonsils and pull them out!

“The worst thing you’ve did? WOOOOOOO, you squirted on my belly! Well guess what?! That’s even less of a big fucking deal than me not wearing clothes! You need relief from that 'man-itch' people talk about? Dammit, feel free to rub it out on my stomach any time! Fill up the damn tub with it, and I’ll go take a bath in it while singing, ‘I like it, I love it, I want more of it!’ It won’t bother me one damn bit to have your seed on me, near me, around me, or in me! After all you’ve did for me, I’ll use it for god damn mouthwash and not even complain after I gargle with it!

My mind was going blank once again from all the yelling, and by this point I had no idea what to do or say anyway. I just sat there like a good boy and listened as she continued on.

“It’s the end of the fucking world! Monsters have came out of who knows where, and eaten everyone else around here! You’re the guy who found me. Who’s helping me learn. Who’s feeding me and watching over me. You’re the guy who wouldn’t just bend me over and bounce me till I was popping out babies for you. You’ve been good to me, watched over me, and helped protect me. You’ve formed a party with me that we can never disband or break. You've fucking let me steal your very life just for my own needs.”

Her voice was starting to calm down, and tears began to dribble down her cheeks. “Don’t you ever say you’re just going to throw me away like some piece of yesterday’s trash. Do you have a single clue about how much you’ve did for me? How alone I was in here before you came? How frightened? I don’t ever want you to tell me you’re going to leave me again, or try and make me leave."

Slowly, she slumped up against my chest and tears ran from her face down my stomach.

“You’re going to make me a promise,” she lightly whispered into my chest. “You’re going to promise me, by your honor, your Little Bud, your Mother, and anything else you hold special that you won’t leave me like that.”

“Promise me,” she sniffled. “Please.”

“I promise,” I told her as I slowly wrapped my arms around her. “I promise by my honor, my Little Buddy, my Mother, and by You. I’ll never threaten to leave you again, and I’ll never ask you to leave. If you want an idiot like me around, I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”

“Aaaahhhh!” Suddenly she shoved herself back away from me and another blazing ball of blue flames flashed from her hands and smashed into my groin. “I don’t want to hear anyone call you an idiot. Not even you. You’re not an idiot. You’re the guy who saved me. My hero.”

I just nodded while on my knees and groaning once again. Isabella wiped her nose on her arm several times and then calmly headed into the bathroom.

I don’t know what the hell just happened to be honest. Mother, please help me sort it out. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand a woman…