I woke to the sound of groaning and the smell of rot and blood. Before I even opened my eyes I knew who was waiting in my tent. Siting up I wiped the sleep gunk out of my eyes and looked over to see Lum sitting at my desk with two ghouls at his side and a zombie kneeling before him, the kid was poking it in the eye to the zombie’s vocal displeasure.

Lum was a quiet kid, but he was a magical prodigy. Only thirteen years old and able to cast complex and intricate spells, the only reason he wasn’t recognized as an “Official” mage was his age. In two more years when he was fifteen he’d be recognized as worthy of the title, but Lum was magically an equal to any mage I knew. I honestly suspected the kid might be my better when it came to magic, gods know why he looks up to me.

As I looked at him Lum stopped poking his undead toy and wiped his finger off on his pants. With a turn of his chair the kid looked me right in the eye and spoke words that made my heart sink.

“Don’t do it.”

I felt my guts tremble and my heart rate pick up as yesterday’s breakfast threatened to make a reappearance. Lum knew, he knew and he came to warn me off of what I was attempting. If it was anyone else I would have played it off, pretended nothing was wrong or tried to mislead them. If it was anyone else I could have, but not with Lum. The kid knew divination like I knew how to make my heart beat, an automatic and effortlessly natural reaction.

“Are you saying you don’t want me to go through with this, or it will end badly for me…”

I was honestly surprised by my steady tone, as on the inside I was so far beyond calm I was close to breaking down again.

Lum tilted his head and gave me a contemplative look that didn’t suit his young childlike appearance.

“Everything can end badly for everyone at any time, your actions, brother, simply have a higher likelihood of leading to a possibility you would consider a ‘Bad End’. I’m saying not to go through with this madness because I’ll miss you.”

I stared at Lum and he stared back at me. We stayed like that for a long time, just considering each other until a loud groan from the zombie pulled my focus away. I stared at the decaying thing and wondered what was wrong with it, Lum was an amazing necromancer and typically his undead neither rotted nor made noise. I looked back and decided I might as well change the subject and satisfy my curiosity all at once.

“What’s wrong with the zombie?”

Lum shrugged and looked down at the rotting creature.

“I wanted to watch it fall apart naturally, like a normal zombie would. I haven’t given it any mana and now it’s hungry and losing bits and pieces…”

Lum looked back at me and I saw he was tearing up. As I watched the boy I thought of like a younger brother begin to cry a part of me cried with him. I’d miss him, as well as all my other siblings, but I wouldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stay with Rainer, not as a slave nor as son. And after yesterday I couldn’t claim to be his soldier either, my loyalty to the man died out there on that barren field.

“Lux, in no instance I foresaw where you asked about my zombie did you stay with us and remain my brother. I didn’t want you to leave but I can’t make you stay, any instance where I try leads to your death! I can’t even tell the others because it leads to your death! Everything I want to do leads to your death!”

I felt horrible as I watched Lum cry in his seat. That was the downside to divination it seems, sometimes knowing the future leaves you helpless and stuck with impossible choices. Lum wanted me here, but anything he did to enforce that desire would kill me. Sure he could probably reanimate my corpse and stuff whatever remnants of my spirit he could dredge up into it, but it still wouldn’t be me. Lum could have a Lich, a stranger, or a brother who left him behind; but in each of those possibilities he would lose someone he loved. I did not envy him his skill in divination, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would.

“Tell me what to do brother! Tell me how to make you stay, how to make everything how it was supposed to be!”

I just looked at the thirteen year old in front of me. When I was his age I was watching old movies from before the collapse and was clueless of the horrors lying in wait for me soon. Even after my capture and during my training as a slave I had no idea of what I wanted or how to achieve it. In many ways I still don’t, but this kid knew exactly what path to take to get everything he wanted out of life. At least, he did up until yesterday when I had an epiphany about my life and threw off everything. Sudden brash decisions made in the moment had a tendency to do that to divinations.

Still I wouldn’t change my mind, I couldn’t live like I had before.

“Lum, I think you know better than I do that there is no going back now. Rainer crossed I line I hadn’t even known was there, and now I can’t stand to live like I once did. I’m sorry.”

Lum turned away and wiped furiously at his eyes, sniffling and trying to regain his composure. I let him take all the time he needed while I fussed at my tangled hair, it was getting long and I’d need a cut soon if I wanted to stop the bed head from getting out of control in the mornings.

“You know… Even if you succeed, you’ll be hunted. Avalon will let it go, even Rainer will accept it without issue, but Sarah will hunt you down. She’ll hunt for her lost little brother until the day she dies if you leave, and eventually she’ll find you.”

Well, now there was a scary thought. Sarah was the oddball of our family, she seemed the most normal and mentally sound of us outside of Rainer himself. In reality though I think she’s the most broken. The woman is obsessed, driven beyond all imagining in what she feels is a holy and righteous cause to bring about universal peace. Sarah is also the eldest of Rainer’s slaves and beyond protective of her younger “siblings”, if I did leave she would never accept it.

This was a complication that I hadn’t considered, even if I did everything and was freed of all outside influence and powers with my personality intact and unchanged Sarah would hunt me. She would hunt me until the day I died to try and “fix” me and lead me back to the “righteous” path she envisioned us on. The absolute best case scenario would still leave me with a devoted hunter tracking me until one or both of us died.

If the gods were watching me at this moment, they were laughing there asses of at my piss poor luck in life. With a sigh I tried to look on the bright side of things, then I remembered that there was no bright side and just tried not to get to depressed.

“Yes. Yes, I imagine Sarah will be an issue…”

Lum looked down and his brown hair covered his hazel eyes.

“But you’re still going to try to escape?”

I nodded.

“But I’m still going to try to escape.”

Lum sunk deeper in his seat.

“Even if you know it would hurt the family?”

I grit my teeth and nodded again.

“Even if it hurts the family.”

Lum’s voice was almost a whisper as he spoke.

“Even if it would break the family apart?”

I clenched my hands and tried to not feel the pins stabbing into my heart.

“Even if it broke the family apart.”

Lum was quiet a long time as he stared at the ground an silently wept. I knew it was weeping now, not crying, crying was a release of emotion but weeping was mourning a loss to great to bare. The difference between the two were subtle until you see a person weep, then the difference is as clear as night and day.

“Even knowing I love you?”

I had to swallow, if I didn’t something would have come out of my throat and promised to stay. It would have done anything to comfort the boy in front of me, said anything to make his hurt lessen just the tiniest bit. I think that something was my heart, but I swallowed it down anyway. I could live a life for my family, I might even be able to live a life for Lum, but if I did that it wouldn’t be my life I was living. Sure at first I would pretend to not care about being enslaved against my will, I’d try to be like I was before. Eventually I’d fail, and it would hurt my family when I did. Then I’d try and fix that by altering either my mind or memory for their sake, and that would be the moment I stopped being myself entirely. I’m sure I could do all that, but more importantly I was sure I didn’t want to do that. I loved Lum like a younger brother and there were very few things I wouldn’t sacrifice for his happiness, but this was one of them.

I’m a selfish creature. It’s one of the fundamental aspects of my personality, a flaw that I embrace wholeheartedly. I can do a lot for someone I care about, but I will never sacrifice who I am for anyone but myself.

I didn’t say any of this though, instead I simply told the truth to Lum without trying to explain or justify it.

“Yes, even knowing you love me I’ll still leave.”

I opened my arms as Lum climbed into my bed and tried to hug me to death. I patted his back softly as he wept quietly into my shirt. I was going to leave the kid eventually, in one way or another, so the least I could do was be there for him now.

***

It was coming up on noon when Lum finally pulled away from me. As he sat on the edge of my cot and faced the far wall of the tent he spoke softly but with force.

“I love you brother, and I will respect your decision, but if you live through your attempt for freedom I will aid in any way I can in finding you and bringing you back to us. I will help Sarah and Josh as they hunt you. I will devote myself to Kel’s attempts to summon you back. I will have my legions search endlessly for you alongside Carter. Lux, I will respect your decision to leave, but I will see you brought back to us. Even if it means you come back in chains tighter than the slavery you so resent now…”

And just like that I knew that it wouldn’t just be Sarah after me. It would be everyone, my whole family, everyone left I could consider a loved one would be coming after me to being me back here. Back to a life under the rule of the kingdom of Avalon and probably even back to a life with Rainer. Back to a life I couldn’t accept.

In that moment Lum promised me that every member of my family would become my enemy, he would see to it personally that each and every one of them would want me to return to this life whether I liked it or not. Lum could see each possibility and steer fate to the outcome he wanted, he could engineer his future in a limited fashion merely by viewing the possibilities of fate. Lum could make this promise and mean every word of it and see it all through with uncanny surety.

I stared at the back of the boy’s head and spoke my thoughts on the matter.

“In all honesty Lum… That’s actually quite terrifying.”

I watched his head dip once in acknowledgement.

“I-”

Lum started to turn to face me, but he suddenly stopped and faced straight ahead again.

“One last piece of advice brother. If you want to escape this life I’d suggest you run far and you run fast. You never stop running, never stop chasing your precious freedom, because the minute… the second you do we’ll be there to bring you home. Even if you dodge us, escape us, fight us, hate us, scorn us… Even if you hurt us as badly as you can, we’ll still come for you. That is our love for you Lux, and nothing short of killing us all will stop us from making our family whole again. Even if the cost of that whole family is your freedom and happiness.”

Lum got up from my cot and walked to the tent flap his undead moving into position behind him as guards. As Lum opened the flap and was about to leave he paused and turned back to me, the steal in his eyes was more than a little jarring to me. The Lum I knew was a soft spoken and obedient boy who had a hard time even disagreeing with one of his siblings, the eyes I saw looking back at me were nothing like the eyes of the Lum I knew.

“You think you’re selfish Lux? Think about this, I engineered entire lifetimes of events so that I could enjoy a happy family life together with my loved ones. I alter the fates of infinite potential realities simply to win against Josh and Kel in go fish every Tuesday game night. You, brother, are even now the most selfless of all my siblings and I am the second most. Do you think the rest will be quite so understanding of your desires as I have been, do you think they’ll hear out anything you say as we drag you back home?”

As Lum left my tent I suddenly felt very worried for my future. I was a decent fighter and one hell of a mage, but I doubt anyone could get away from six mages devoted to see them captured. You’d have to be a demigod or have a djinn on your side to even try. I didn’t have a djinn, and my parents were anything but godly.

I wonder, is it stupid or is it insane to attempt something doomed to failure right from the start?