“You remember me?”

“Of course, we were in first grade together.”

“What are doing… who is she?”

Sam put Naomi down against the wall. That's when he realizes how many people there was: at least twenty kids, looking at him in fear, as some were shivering on the other side of the room.

“…her name is Nam… Naomi. I found her unconscious… are you all hiding here?”

“Yes. We are… can I talk to you for a second?”

Without letting him answer, Xavier grabbed Sam shoulder while asking someone to take care of Naomi.

Despite his surprise, Sam didn’t say anything. The blond kid’s uneasiness was obvious, as well as what he wanted to know.

Back near the entrance, Xavier looked back at the group, assessing they were far enough.

“Sam… do you know what the hell is happening?”

“…I’m not sure, but Adel… a friend of mine thinks the adults are coming to kill us.”

“Sigh…”

“It doesn’t seem to surprise you.”

“I… I was the first here. I was at the entrance, waiting for someone, when the explosion happened. And there was someone inside.”

“An adult?”

“Yeah. She was surprised to see me, and tried to attack me, so I defended myself.”

“It was a woman? Did you killed her?”

"No… she's unconscious, I tied her up in one of the classrooms. I… this is crazy…"

His voice was trembling.

Of course it was, in less than an hour, it was the apocalypse outside and it was turning out that the people behind it were the ones supposed to protect them. It would be understandable for anyone to lose his shit, let alone a 12 years old kid.

“Xavier! Calm down! Everything will be fine.”

“But…”

“We are not alone! We can still do this! We can still leave the city before it’s too late.”

“I… but what if we are caught?”

“Everything will be fine. I came here on my own… I’ll get everyone out.”

As Xavier was slowly gathering himself, Sam looked at the other kid. He knew a lot of them, as it was the school he used to attend to. They were all around his age, even though he and Xavier were probably the oldest.

At that time, Sam had no problem being the centre of attention, but thought his old friend was best suited to give a speech and convince everyone to get outside. However, he wasn’t in a good state of mind himself.

So, as time was pressing, Sam went in front of everyone.

“Hi, I’m Sam. We… we need to go.”

“What’s happening?”

“It’s… this is war. The city is no longer safe, we have to escape.”

He could see in their eyes the uneasiness going, but none of them panicked, or screamed, or even cried. It was as if they weren't kids, but grown up, who had already understood they might die at any second. But it wasn't just an impression, this generation was too much ahead of the previous one.

The kids were too smart, too strong, and too mature for their age. It was the whole reason the purge was happening in the first place.

Of course, the maturity was was relative, but at this instant, they all understood there was no going back to the way it was.

A hand was raised, slightly shivering.

“Yes?”

“I… I don’t want to be pessimistic, and all, but… what do you plan to do?”

“We will run, and leave the town.”

“Are you crazy?!”

Another child shouted.

“Did you not hear the gunshots? They are everywhere!”

“No. We can avoid them, I already did, and I can do it again.”

“How?!”

“I… I am a level 6, and I can see the future.”

“What?”

“It was a lie. I had to convince them fast.”

“Did it work?”

“Yep.”

In no time, we were all on the street, and I took the lead. Xavier took Naomi on his back, for obvious reason, and we beat the road. However, it didn't take long to come across our first problem. As they were about to enter a narrow street, Sam stopped the group.

As he checked what gave him this bad feeling, his eyes widened like never before.

Between two relatively unscathed building was a 2-meter wide path. In an instant, Sam spotted the splattered blood on the ground and walls, but that wasn’t the source of his surprise and shock. In the middle of the said street was Alice’s back, as she was crying over Adele’s body.

In front of them were a group of soldiers, pointing their gun at Sam’s graving sister.

Filled with rage and anger, Sam took out his gun and entered the street, screaming and shouting like a madman. He didn't even aim, but each bullet found its way in one of the men's skull, leaving…

“Sam… what gun are you talking about?”

“I took it from the guard Xavier knocked out, at the school.”

“Oh… okay.”

“…wait. I… I took the gun to take out the soldier…”

"Well, of course, you did. It's not like you could have taken them unarmed."

"No, I mean, the reason I thought of taking the gun from the adult in the first place, at the school, was that I wanted to defend Alice, and avenge Adele…"

“…it doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t know they were in danger.”

"Oh… you are right… I am not lucky. I didn't come across the street by chance. I saw it. When I was in the school. I… I had a vision."

"Wait… you mean you could already see the future…"

"I... I guess so."

The bane of a perfect memory.

Naomi was painfully aware of it.

Everything that happened during the purge, she remembers it.

Everytime details, stuck in her brain forever.

Fortunately, she was unconscious for the most part, but even though, the simple fact of seeing someone die and killing someone was enough to give you nightmares for life. To top it off, being able to watch it with perfect accuracy each time you close your eyes didn’t help at all.

If it weren’t for Sam, she would have gone crazy.

She knows that perfectly, but only started to realize how important he really is to her. She was eager to finish her god damn nineteenth struggle and see him in the next one.

At the very least, she would have appreciated something to keep her mind from thinking about it.

Instead, she got this stupid struggle, where she has to wait. Just wait. Nothing more. For a whole week.

It was already her sixth day, and she didn’t do much besides looking at the shape of the clouds.

She was able to conjure her own food, so she didn't even have to hunt. In many ways, the life of a Sorceress was quite convenient, even though in this particular case, Naomi was in need of a challenge.

Although she did get one, it was a week ago, and it was nowhere near Sam had to go through for the first part of his adventure. She tried to train, to increase the number of spells she could use, but she had already come to the limit of what she could do with self-tutoring alone.

She had already reached the peak of her class.

However, she had yet to master her Virtue, and who can blame her. What is ‘Temperance’ to begin with, except a constant moderate state of mind.

In a sense, it was fitting her usual calm and mild personality, but lately, she was having trouble keeping her cool. She has been away from the other for a long time, and this meeting with Eve raised some worrying questions.

She was being impatient.

The wait was killing her.

6 days had already passed, and even that wasn’t relieving.

There was no guarantee Sam would be here after she crosses the door. It was quite the opposite, it took him almost 2 months to catch up to the group the first time, there’s no reason it would take longer now.

Nonetheless, she wanted to move on to the next place.

There was nothing but grass here. For days she walked around and there was nothing else to see. At this point, it was not a sea of grass anymore but an ocean.

The vast blue sky was not enough to entertain her either. Apart from a pair of shapeless clouds, there was nothing to be thrilled, except for a faraway cumulonimbus who seemed significantly bigger coming her way.

“Sigh…”

Here she was, so bored that she was thinking about clouds now.

She looked around, once again.

On her left, there was nothing but grass.

On her right, there was nothing but grass.

Behind her… there was something.

Something she instantly recognizes.

Something that shouldn’t be here yet.

The door.

The heavy old door that transports them after the struggle was done.

Naomi took out her book, and her objective wasn’t crossed yet, meaning the door… wasn’t here for her.

And as she expected, it opened.

Abruptly, as if being kicked from within.

Shortly after, someone stepped out, as the magical door faded away into the air, along with the colors on Naomi's face.

She instantly recognizes the person in front of her, they knew each other pretty well in fact. Maybe more than each of them would like to.

“Alice…?”