Elvi walked cautiously down the glassy wood stairs leading to the front door of my family's cabin. "Be careful." I reminded her. "I can get a shovel to clear it out first, if you can just wait a bit."

"Really... it's fi-" Elvi responded as she tiptoed carefully down the sheets of ice before slipping unceremoniously, falling backwards as she did. I lunged forward quickly, grabbing her arm to stop her fall as I held myself in place with the circular pillar holding up our porch shade.

"Phew" I sighed before speaking, "You should have wai-" I felt her shoulder pull away fiercely as she yelped in fear at my touch, flying backwards and pinning herself against the cabin wall as she glared back towards me guardedly. I looked towards her in shock as she slowly released the tension in her face and held her right arm with her left hand as she now often did.

"S-sorry..." She apologized in shame as her gaze fell down to the porch below us.

"I-It's fine... maybe I grabbed you a bit harder than I thought." I responded in my best attempt to not sound bothered by her sudden outburst.

"I... just don't touch me... please." She responded dejectedly before she walked ahead of me into the house. I felt a strange ache in my heart at her words, my gaze lingered on the door she'd closed behind her before shifting down to the ice on the stairs below me. 'Let's get rid of this.' I decided, setting aside my complicated thoughts for now.

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-Slrrsh- The slimy bowl of stew moved in circles as I swirled it absent-mindedly with the crude wooden fork in my hand. The stew itself looked to be a mix of different vegetables and even meat, ingredients of a kind that I'd never seen, but it hardly mattered to me. Even living with Usra she'd hardly ever put meat into the meals she'd cook for us, it was evident that the woman sitting across the table from me was doing her best to be 'accommodating' of my situation. I hated that.

"And she told me, right to my face, 'this chicken kinda looks like my husband did'. And that was why she couldn't bring herself to kill it! Can you believe it? Getting us in trouble with the Village Chief's men just because of her dead chicken-faced husband! Just remembering her telling me while she kept picking her nose, I almost wanted to slaughter it in front of her myself!" I continued to twirl my fork absent-mindedly as Tetsu's mother rambled on to her seemingly unaffected son.

"So, what about you guys? Anything interesting happen today?" She smiled as she put her hands together under her chin, waiting for a response. Silence permeated in the room as both me and Tetsu seemed to be more interested in waiting to see whether the food in our bowls would come to life than talk about the day we had with this woman.

"Tetsu?" I peeked up slightly as she spoke in a voice containing a thinly veiled threat and Tetsu's face immediately contorted before he put his fork down, swallowing the spoonful of stew he had just shoved in his mouth. This morning I'd heard yelling from across the field before Rafal had run off swiftly away from the rest of the boys who weren't swinging around their sticks as usual. I was a small bit interested in this.

"N- *Ach*. Nothing..." Tetsu responded after choking on his food for a second.

"Nothing?" Tetsu's mom's eyes narrowed into slits as she looked him nefariously in the eye. "Surely something interesting happened today, no?"

"..." Tetsu stared in silence at his mother in an unofficial battle before she finally opened her mouth to speak. "Rafal's mother came in to see me today." She spoke, and Tetsu's face immediately contracted at her words.

"I... I'll go after I eat..." The giant spoke in shame as his mother continued to eye him. "After you eat...?" She asked as she continued to glare at him unhappily. Tetsu's own eyes looked submissively between his mother's and the bowl of stew below him in a way that said, 'Please don't make me do this.' However, his mother did not move an inch as he sighed in silence before pushing out his chair and standing up. "I'll be going a bit." He said while I stared in confusion as he grabbed his fur jacket from a shelf near the front door before solemnly leaving through the front door of the house.

"He's a good boy." His mother started as soon as the door had closed behind him. "But still a boy. Please, forgive him for anything insensitive he might do to you..." I turned back towards her to see her staring in sympathy towards me. My blood boiled as I was once again reminded of that night. "Stop..." I spoke without thinking as she looked at me in confusion at my words. "Sorry... it's nothing. I'm... I'll head to bed now... Thanks for the food... " I stood up and pushed my chair back before walking out of the dining room and up to my bedroom door.

"M-my room is always open!" I heard her shout from behind me as I stopped to listen.

"You don't have to sleep alone, is alI I mean. I know it'll be a little strange for you, but th-there's really no shame in it dear. Especially after..." Her trailed off as I slammed the bedroom door behind me, unwilling to hear any more. Staring down at the unmade fur bed in front of me, I collapsed down onto it, shutting out all my thoughts as I stared up blankly at the empty ceiling above.

________________________________________________________________________________

He was always there when I closed my eyes. Leaning over me in the darkness. Leaning in closer and closer until my heart finally tightened enough to force open my eyes and peer into the nothingness in front of me. When I opened my eyes, he still didn’t go. In the corners of the room where the moonlight didn’t reach, in the closet, underneath my bed where I didn’t dare to look. I laid silently over him in constant apprehension at when he’d reach up and grab my shoulder from behind.

-Huuu- The cold mountain wind whistled through the window as I turned over to pull out a crude wooden stake from underneath the fur blanket, staring at it intently for a few seconds while he stood behind it. I turned it over towards the sharp side before sinking it slowly into my pale arm that was spread out over the mattress in front of me. As I did so I knew nothing but the pain for a moment, the darkness behind was just darkness and the shadows in the corners were just shadows. He flickered out and back into existence before I continued to stab at the edges of my arm where many bruises were.

‘What a shitty body…’ I thought as I stared at the once deep scars that had already healed enough to be seen as only bruises now. I could barely feel the pain of the cuts on my unnatural body. I used to think that my body was one of my greatest setbacks when I lived as a scientist in my past life. Having to constantly wash it day and night, being forced to spend days in recovery at a simple awkward fall or misstep. Even having to eat and sleep every day had become a chore for me who only wanted to push my studies forward in my younger years. I often thought that if I had the extra half of the life that was locked away behind the human condition, I’d be able to truly live my life. To find the love that I was never able to, to start a family, to get around to fulfilling all the dreams I’d thought up during my childhood. To pursue everything that I’d known would make me feel alive…

But the truth was that it didn’t matter how much more time I had, how many lifetimes I was able to live. People didn’t change so easily, all the time in the world wasn’t enough to save someone from themself. I’d end up alone as I always did. I looked back at the moon over my shoulder as my eyes burned at its glow. Only under its shine was I able to find peace, staring at it until my brain forced my eyes closed every night. I didn’t sleep anymore, and I often wondered if I ever would again.

-TOK TOK- The window through which I viewed the moon shook violently under the violent knocking of a well-built arm that reached out towards it.

“Hey! Don’t knock it so hard, dumbass. We’re trying to be quiet here, remember? Or do you want to wake up your mom again?” I heard a familiar voice through the pane as the arm trembled slightly in response to its words.

-Tok Tok- The arm knocked twice more, much more reserved in its power this time as I pulled myself up to slide open the window and look at the two nuisances that bothered to visit me so late at night.

“...” I stared in silence at the two of them as they did the same, both gawking at me without saying a word.. “What…?” I spoke, finally, covering my collar that was exposed in my night pajamas with the blue scarf I took back from the ‘safekeeping’ of Llana. Tired of the noiseless staring contest they had suddenly engaged me in. As I did so, both Reltin and Tetsu looked down and away in shame as their faces flushed red. I inwardly scoffed at their lackluster attempt to come across any less shameless after their blatant gazes.

“W-we were having our weekly d-dragon knights meeting and.. Uhh,... we were wondering if you wanted to umm join us…” Reltin whispered quietly as he constantly moved his gaze between my eyes and the snowy ground below him.

“Dragon knights…?” I stared in confusion as I asked him.

“It’s our training group’s name.” Tetsu answered in his usual low and reserved voice. “Reltin came up with it. when we all first started to train together. I’m the silver dragon, Reltin is the red on-” Tetsu explained before Reltin hurriedly jumped over to him, shouting jaggedly over Tetsu’s voice as he did.

“Aaaa-ahahaa–aaaah.” Reltin interrupted while covering Tetsu’s mouth with his hands. “I think his head is still a little shaken up after training today, we had a bit of a day, huh!? Pfft, silver dragon. What are you even talking about…” Reltin explained with a forced smile as he glared up at Tetsu with a threatening glint in his eyes.

“But you loved being the red dr-” Tetsu started. “APAPAPuppuppp” Reltin Interrupted him once more, looking towards me before speaking in an overly relaxed, cool tone. “Anyways, we’re just kinda hanging out in the back porch, eating sweet kruves while we share stories and stuff.” He said as he leaned with his arms crossed onto Tetsu who looked back down at him with visible confusion.

I stared silently at the two of them for a few seconds before falling back down into my bed and gazing blankly at the deep darkness on the opposite side of the window. “S-so, uhh, are you coming?” I heard Reltin ask from the other side of the wall. The man stood silently in the darkness, staring at me with a lifeless expression as I answered back. “Sure…” Before standing up to undress myself and change out of bedroom clothes.

“A- Ohhh, -uhhh we’ll be waiting for you outside then.” I heard Reltin abruptly shout from behind me before the footsteps of both boys running away sounded as I began to pull off my clothes. I grabbed my fur coat from the closet in my room where the man stood in the corner before walking over to sit down on my bed while putting on my boots where he watched me from under the mattress.

“Huuu” I breathed out resolutely before climbing through my open glass window. I felt a slight tug at my legs as I did so and whipped backwards while my heart rate skyrocketed, only to see the end of my leggings caught on the jagged end of the bed frame which I had pulled out the wooden stake from. I pushed back my leg to get it unstuck before pulling myself, legs first, through the window, my feet planting on the ground as I fell out of it.

I saw a black smoke billow in the sky over the side of the house that blocked my view. I walked around the corner to see four familiar boys gathered around a decently formed campfire on a bundle of timber, surrounded by rocks. They held sticks over the fire as if roasting marshmallows, only instead of marshmallows it was a strange pink fruit that sat at the end of their sticks, roasting above the open flames.

“Oh! If it isn’t the white dragon herself! Red dragon here was just talking about you~” A slim blonde-haired youth sat on a log opposite Tetsu and Reltin as he shouted out towards me. “Sh-shutup!” Reltin immediately snapped back at Arton after his words. “B-besides she hasn’t even decided to join yet…” He mumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

“H-hey!” A smaller boy with a reddish brown bowl-cut greeted me from beside Arton as he waved ecstatically. “Rafal…? I thought…” I remembered his strange actions in the field today as well as Tetsu’s mother’s words as I waved back at him timidly. Tetsu flinched at my words, twiddling together his hands as he kept his gaze down at the fire burning in front of him. “Oh you don’t gotta worry about that at all~ Heh.” Arton said as he looked between Tetsu and Rafal with his narrow eyes.

“Yeah, after what my mother made him do today, Rafal’s the one who should be apologizing to him.” Reltin laughed maniacally as he spoke, staring triumphantly at Tetsu who continued to hold his head down in shame. I walked up to the campfire, taking a seat at the empty log farthest from the rest of the boys as they looked awkwardly between themselves at my cold actions.

“Uhh.... do you want a sweet kruve?” Reltin asked me, getting up to grab the strange pink fruit from a bowl by the campfire before walking up to me with both it and a stick in hand. I looked at it for a moment in silence before grabbing it slowly and hanging it over my lap, watching the fire silently as the rest of the boys sat in silence. I began to wonder what it would feel like on my skin.

“So, anyway guys. We’re still going to go with the original plan for today, right?” Reltin said in an abnormally authoritative manner as he looked between the other boys and myself. The other boys nodded at his words before continuing to either eat their roasted pink fruits or stare blankly at the others around the fire. “So… no one?” Reltin started. “No one has a scary story to tell?” He finished and my blood turned cold as my eyes hardened at his words. “Seriously, nobody?”

“I do.” I said blankly, reigning in my emotions as I stared up at him and the other boys with cold eyes. “O-oh uh, yeah, g-go ahead.” He said as he moved his head slightly in discomfort to avoid my gaze.

“There was once a man who lived in the darkness.” I started. “...he was nowhere, but also everywhere, all at once. In the corners of rooms where light didn’t reach, in poorly-lit closets and sheds where there was no way for the sun to burn him out of existence. There was something very strange about the man, however. Nobody could see him, no matter what he did. At first, he’d try to talk to them, threatening words of violence and indignation at those blessed people who could walk out in the sun without worrying about disappearing like him, who could speak and smile with other people in the outside world underneath its warm glow.” The boys leaned in closer as I continued to speak.

“When that didn’t work, he gave up on trying to become like them, instead trying to grab them himself, to pull them into the darkness to join him so that he wouldn’t be alone any longer. When that didn’t work either, he gave up. He settled for being able to watch in silence as the people around him continued on with their daily lives without an ounce of acknowledgement for his existence. He continued to stare at them from the darkness. While they ate, when they’d go to grab a jacket from their closet, even when they’d sleep he never stopped watching.” There was now no one in the circle who wasn’t looking at me with their full attention, even Tetsu who sat with his head down was now peering up at me from the gap between his arms.

“But there was one thing that the man didn’t know. Something that his self-resentment and stubborn character prevented him from seeing. Some people could, indeed, see the man. They would see him while they bathed in their buckets in the morning, when they got home from work, when they woke up in the morning. There was a reason, though, that none of them acknowledged the man in the darkness. Never looked him directly in the eyes, and never talked about him to anyone they knew. You see, they had an implicit knowledge, an instinct etched deep in their mind telling them that- screaming at them that the moment they recognized his existence, he would be able to pull them into the darkness with him. Never to see the sun again.” I spoke in a ghastly tone as my voice started to break against my will.

“So they tried to forget him. They ignored him when he watched them, they tried to block the thought of him out of their mind with pain, they cut themselves with crude edges and burned their eyes with bright lights in hopes of forcing away his influence over them. Some days they wonder if they should just give up. If they should give up on all the pain and suffering of their life in the sun to sleep eternally with the man in the darkness.” My relaxed voice ceased as it began to mix together with the seething rage I felt in my mind.

“On those especially difficult days where there was little keeping those people away from those dangerous thoughts, there were always idiots.” I started once again with gritted teeth. “Dumbasses who instead of leaving them alone, bring them out to talk about their own made up demons. Monsters that have no leverage in the real world. Fantasy stories that mattered as little as the head on their shoulders. And for what? For fun!?” I stood up starkly and glared at the boys with defiant eyes.

“Stupid, little boys that knew no better than to swing around sticks in a field for hours on end every day for what they called ‘training’. Perverted goblins that would visit a girl’s room in the middle of the night just to gawk at her body while she suffered in silence.” At my last sentence I moved my gaze directly onto Reltin and Tetsu who both looked back up at me with wide, shocked eyes as I continued to shout.

“I mean, seriously, all you idiots do is stand around swinging sticks in a field all day. How in the hell do you ever expect to get good at the sword doing dumb shit like that!?” I screamed, releasing a metaphorical fog in my heart as I spoke with honest emotion for what felt like the first time in my life.

“I-it’s only for the first part of our training…” Rafal whimpered quietly in response to my criticism.

“You… you guys are all way shallower and dumber than you think, you know that!?” I stared directly at the man that stood in the darkness behind them as I spoke. “Reltin, you think you’re making yourself come across cooler when you try to hide things about yourself, acting like someone you’re not. But you really just come across as insecure and pathetic when you do that. You should be honest with the people around you and stop trying to hide how much of a loser you are!” Reltin looked up at me in continued shock as I didn’t take my eyes off him, urging him to respond with my gaze. “U-uhh, yeah… sorry…” He spoke in a timid voice as he turned away from me.

“Arton, you really need to stop goddamn staring at me with those eyes.” I said, now turning to him to speak as he looked back at me, taken aback. “Your problem is the exact opposite of Reltin’s. You keep out of everyone else’s business like you don’t care but in reality you’re probably the most nosy out of everyone here, spying on everyone with your creepy slit-eyes while they aren’t looking. You need to stop telling yourself you don’t care about them and be fucking honest with yourself..” I said, gesturing with my arms to the other boys there. Arton nodded silently as he continued to stare up at me in shock.

“Rafal.” I started, turning towards the small kid who looked terrified as he stared back up at me. “You don’t really have any big problems to be honest. You just need to work on your courage a little bit.” I said in a more moderate tone than I’d used with the other boys as Rafal paused in surprise at my words, a small amount of confidence forming on his face as I said them.

“And finally, Tetsu. You are probably the worst out of everyone else here. Instead of lying to yourself or lying to everybody else you truly believe that nobody else is good enough to help you with what you wanna do.” At my words, the other boys looked up at the giant, confusion and slight frustration present in their eyes. “Sure, you’ve worked ten times harder than anyone else here, but that doesn’t make you any better than them. You still need other people to get anywhere in life, and who knows, maybe if you told them what you were dealing with yourself they would be able to help you more than you thought they ever could.” As I finished dealing with all the boys in front of me, I turned my gaze upwards, back at the darkness behind them for the final challenge.

“And last but not least, me.” I started with a smile. “You keep on complaining about being constantly alone, about never having a home with another person in your life. Yet you never thought of making one yourself. You’ve only contemplated selfishly about how someone else had to have made such a perfect place for you when you didn’t put in any of the effort yourself.” The shadow continued to stare in silence in the depths of the darkness as I spoke to it. “You gave up because you never found the place you were looking for. You thought you were giving up on everyone around you, but in reality the only one you were giving up on was yourself.” The shadow flickered as I continued to speak. “I won’t be anything like you. I’ll build my own place, my own spot in this world that’s just for me. My own home, the home of Levi- no… of Elvi Laplace.” I finished with a resolute smile as the shadow flickered once more, turning back into my old earthly body before it slowly faded away into the moonlight behind it.

“Yo, who the hell is she talking to now?” Arton whispered to Rafal who sat by him just as confused. “Maybe it’s the s-shadow thing she was talking about.” He whispered back.

“Yeah, or maybe she just lost her mind.” Arton responded with conviction.

“So…” I started, looking back at the boys who sat below me as they all looked up at me in confusion. “There’s only one thing I’d be willing to accept as an apology from you guys…” I said as the boys looked between each other in confusion and some gulped in anticipation.

“Become my students!” I said, conviction powering my voice for the first time in what felt like years.

“Uhhh…” — “Ah”-- “Ehhh” — “Huh?” All four boys grunted in confusion at my words as they continued to look between themselves.

“SAY YES!” I commanded in an aggressively violent voice.

“Y-YES” The boys shouted in unison as a bright light enveloped me in my mind and for the first time in a while I saw the familiar white words of the system floating just in front of my temple. “You won’t regret it.” I said with a smile as I smiled at the words projected in front of me…