Chapter 12: Day 1 Shadow Sapphire Part 4

The hospital waiting room air outside the ICU was a held breath.

Arthur Web's knuckles, white on the plastic armrest, betrayed his darting gaze between the frosted ICU doors and me.

Iris’s cold fingers clamped my forearm, a silent anchor in the day's vortex.

Leo, a coiled spring of restless energy, worked his jaw silently.

Arya, arms crossed, leaned against the beige wall, her sharp profile against the bland floral wallpaper, her eyes missing nothing.

Ash, a still point in the churn, watched me with unnerving calm.

Leo’s voice, when he spoke, was a low rumble, the boisterousness leached out of it, leaving behind a raw edge of concern.

“Rey… you sure about this? Whatever ‘this’ is?” His eyes scanned my face. “You look… like you’re about to try and swallow a live grenade.”

Arya nodded sharply. "We're with you, Rey. Nevertheless, Leo's right. You're practically buzzing. Need a minute?"

Ash spoke quietly, "He's made up his mind." He looked at me, his gaze steady. "Sometimes the path forward isn't about thinking it through, but about a strong feeling, a need to act. That seems to be where Rey is now."

Their worried, trusting, loyal faces blurred. Gratitude hit me so hard.

That strange warmth in my chest, an echo of warmth felt deeply, pulsed, fighting the dread in my gut.

My throat felt tight, dry.

“Thank you,” I managed, the words sticking. “All of you.”

I dragged in a breath that tasted of antiseptic and fear. “What I’m going to try… it’s… it’s not in any textbook. I can’t explain it, not really. Not now.”

My eyes found Arthur’s. “Just… trust me. And hope.”

I turned to him, my voice low. “Mr. Web, we need to be in Emily’s room. Close to her.”

Arthur’s head jerked up, his eyes wide, raw with a desperate, fragile anticipation.

He didn't speak, just pushed himself to his feet, his movements stiff, puppet-like, and led the way.

The nurse at the ICU desk, her face a mask of professional weariness, barely glanced up as Arthur muttered Martha Web’s name, a hushed, urgent phone call apparently having smoothed our entry.

The ICU room was quiet, filled with soft beeps and the whoosh of ventilators under harsh fluorescent lights.

Emily looked tiny in the big white bed, tubes like pale vines connected to her. Her skin seemed see-through.

Martha Web sat hunched beside her, holding Emily's hand, her face showing her exhaustion and worry. She looked up as we came in, her red-rimmed eyes pleading with mine.

Images hit me, fast and sickening.

Iris, on the floor, blood everywhere.

Fire, the house collapsing, Leo still, Arya screaming.

Rose… her smile, her hand in mine.

Arthur lost in rage, then that awful, empty look before he…

No more.

The silent scream clawed at the inside of my skull.

This ends differently. This has to.

This path, paved with so much blood, so much failure, had brought me here, to this single, moment. I would not falter. I could not.

I took a deep breath, the air burning in my lungs. I moved to the side of Emily’s bed, the metallic scent of the machinery, the faint, sweetish odor of illness, filling my nostrils.

My friends clustered near the doorway, a silent, anxious phalanx.

Arthur and Martha stood a little further back, their hands clasped so tightly their knuckles were white, two figures carved from raw hope and unbearable fear.

“Okay,” I whispered, the sound swallowed by the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.

I closed my eyes.

The power ignited. Not a gentle stirring, but a silent, internal detonation.

[Alter Ego EX].

The name itself was a whisper of terror in my mind. I rarely touched it. The sheer, terrifying scale of its capabilities, the profound dread it inspired… that fear was a cold, living thing coiled in my gut, even now.

However, this, this was beyond any limit I’d ever approached. This was desperation.

My single consciousness became many, the shards reforming, multiplying with terrifying, exponential speed.

A legion. An uncountable legion of Reys, each a focused point of will, a psychic sentinel, interconnected in a silent, instantaneous network.

My mind was no longer my own; it was a cosmic supercomputer, a vast, thinking machine, every neuron, every connection, thrumming with an impossible, focused energy, preparing for a task of staggering complexity.

Trillions upon trillions of thoughts, all mine, all synchronized, roared in the silent core of my being.

I felt the very fabric of my single consciousness stretch, strain, then tear apart, reforming into this new, terrifying, magnificent whole.

Then, the command: Senses, transform.

[Third Eye A] blazed across that manifold awareness.

Bullet Time slammed into place.

The rhythmic beep of Emily’s heart monitor stretched into a low, resonant hum. Martha’s stifled sob became a slow, mournful wave of sound. Leo’s ragged breath was a distant, sighing wind.

I was adrift in a sea of slowed time.

X-Ray. Periscope.

My collective consciousness, that legion of ‘myselves’. Emily lay directly before us. Our combined psychic senses converged.

Her frail form, already so close, became utterly transparent to our myriad perceptions. Skin, muscle, bone—they dissolved like mist.

We saw into her marrow, into the rushing, poisoned river of her blood. The enemy, leukemia, a cancerous tide consuming her from within.

Pinpoint Targeting. Absolute.

Each of my trillions of observers, each shard of my shattered self, locked onto a single, cancerous cell. Not one would escape.

Every malignant agent was tagged, tracked, its fate irrevocably tied to my will.

The psychic battlefield was mapped, enemy combatants identified, their positions fixed in this frozen moment of hyper-time.

“I needed a weapon, a tool.” The thought resonated across my legion of selves.

The saline I’d stored in that dedicated, empty layer of my [Pocket Dimension S]. Just salt and water, meticulously prepared.

A mundane thing, now poised to become an instrument of impossible intervention.

My collective will, amplified by the focused might of [Alter Ego EX], I reached into that dimensional space for the Saline. It was the right tiny amount I needed for what I was about to do.

It was ready. My power had turned simple components into the key to this completely desperate plan.

Then, the onslaught began.

In the frozen expanse of hyper-time, my mind, this legion of Reys, focused its immense, collective will.

The task before us was monumental, a silent, internal war against an insidious enemy.

The symphony I was about to conduct was one of unimaginable complexity, each note a precise, microscopic intervention, the outcome utterly uncertain.

For every single one of the trillions of leukemic cells my aspects had targeted, a dual offensive launched.

First, the internal assault: micro-teleportation.

My power had a clear limit: I could only teleport whole, distinct objects. I couldn't, for instance, teleport just a piece of a cell away – that kind of "detachment" by teleportation simply wouldn't work. The target had to be a self-contained unit.

However, this also meant I could materialize a whole, detached object inside another, provided I could target that internal space. This was the key.

An infinitesimal, precisely calibrated droplet of hypertonic saline from my Pocket Dimension – a whole, distinct droplet – didn't need to be injected, nor did I need to breach the cell wall. It simply appeared, the entire droplet materializing directly inside the nucleus of each malignant cell.

This wasn't gentle diffusion across a membrane; this was a surgical, nuclear strike, bypassing all cellular defenses by placing the weapon directly at the target's core.

The shock, on a cellular level, was instantaneous. Osmosis, that delicate dance of life, became a brutal instrument of death. Water, the very essence of cellular life, was ripped from the cell's cytoplasm, from the nucleus, drawn out by the sudden, overwhelming, localized salt concentration I’d introduced.

Across my trillions of focused points of consciousness, I felt it. I saw it.

The cells shriveling, their membranes contorting like agonized faces, their internal structures collapsing under the sudden, brutal desiccation.

It was a microscopic implosion, a cellular self-destruction triggered from within.

The very act of the saline appearing, materializing from nothingness within their most vital core, was a physical bombardment, tearing apart the delicate machinery of life.

Each cancer cell became its own tiny, silent tomb.

The sheer scale of it was a crushing weight. Trillions of these pinpoint assassinations, occurring simultaneously in my dilated perception of time.

My mind, this vast legion of selves, screamed under the strain, each successful neutralization a tiny, infinitesimal victory, but the collective effort was a psychic war of attrition, a battle waged on a scale beyond human comprehension.

As each cell succumbed, becoming an inert, shriveled husk, the second wave of my assault began: Extraction.

These dead invaders couldn't remain. My will shifted. Myriad consciousnesses targeted these neutralized remnants.

I didn’t just dematerialize them; I actively teleported them, billions upon billions, out of Emily’s body and into another designated, barren layer of my [Pocket Dimension S] – a waste disposal unit, a lightless void from which there was no return.

Clean, healthy tissue was left behind. The precision required was absolute, a microscopic dance of life and death.

I couldn't afford a single misstep, couldn't take a single healthy cell.

My Third Eye’s X-Ray and Pinpoint Targeting, amplified by the legion, worked in perfect, terrifying, synchronized overdrive, distinguishing friend from foe with unwavering, infallible accuracy.

In the ICU room, to the horrified, hopeful eyes of Arthur, Martha, Iris, Leo, Arya, and Ash, I was a statue.

Sweat poured down my face, soaking my shirt, my body trembling with an effort they couldn't possibly comprehend. A low, almost sub-audible hum seemed to emanate from me, the sound of a thousand overloaded circuits.

Minutes ticked by on the wall clock – five, then ten, then fifteen. An eternity in the real world.

To me, adrift in the whirlwind of my accelerated consciousness, subjective eons were passing.

I swept through Emily’s system again, and again, and again, a relentless, microscopic hunter, my legion of selves purging the last, lingering vestiges of the disease.

My head throbbed, a dull, agonizing counterpoint to the silent roar of my exertion. I felt like I was holding back a storm, a monstrous, invisible tsunami, with my bare hands, my mental fortitude strained to its absolute, screaming breaking point.

Then, a profound, echoing silence.

The last malignant cell vanished into the void of my Pocket Dimension.

The storm in Emily’s body was over.

The immense psychic structure of my Alter Ego began to retract, the trillions of observers, their task complete, flowing back, coalescing into my singular, shattered, exhausted mind.

The strain of that re-integration was like a physical blow, a brutal decompression. The sudden return to normal perception of time was jarring, a violent, nauseating deceleration.

I swayed, a low groan tearing from my raw throat. My knees buckled.

Arthur, eyes wide with terror and awe, his face tight with unbearable tension, lunged and caught me before I hit the floor. His arm was surprisingly strong.

"What… what happened?" He breathed a ragged whisper in my ear, his face inches away, his eyes wild with a fierce, terrifying hope that was almost too much to bear.

I gasped, my lungs burning, aching. I blinked, my eyes feeling like they were full of sand and grit. The sterile brightness of the ICU room swam back into focus.

I saw Arthur's desperate, ravaged face, Martha’s equally transfixed, her hand pressed to her mouth. Iris’s tear-streaked, anxious face was just beyond him, Leo, Arya, and Ash rushing forward, their own faces etched with a mixture of fear and dawning, incredulous hope.

"It's… done," I rasped, the words scraping my throat, each one an effort. My entire body felt like it had been flayed, then put back together wrong. "The cancer… it's… gone."

Just as those words left my lips, a sudden flurry of alarms erupted from Emily’s monitors. The rhythmic beeps escalated into a frantic, urgent chorus.

Martha gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with terror. Arthur lunged towards the bed.

Nurses burst into the room, their faces taut with professional urgency.

“What’s happening?” one demanded, her gaze sweeping the monitors, then Emily.

“Her vitals… they’re… they’re improving?” another nurse murmured, her voice laced with disbelief as she checked a readout. “Rapidly. Dr. Chen, get in here! We need STAT labs, now!”

A doctor hurried in, his expression grim, quickly taking in the scene. He began issuing orders, his team moving with practiced speed, drawing blood, checking Emily’s responsiveness.

Arthur and Martha clung to each other, their faces a maelstrom of fear and a dawning, wild hope.

I saw the doctor pause, staring at a monitor, then at Emily, then back at the monitor, a look of utter bewilderment spreading across his features. He exchanged a shocked glance with one of the nurses.

The next hour, even within the same room, stretched into an eternity. The initial flurry of urgent activity subsided into a tense, watchful quiet as they awaited the lab results.

My friends stood by the door, silent, their eyes fixed on me, then on the small, still form in the bed.

Finally, the oncologist, Dr. Chen, re-entered, holding a printout, her face a mask of profound astonishment. She approached Arthur and Martha, who looked up, their expressions raw with anticipation.

“Mr. and Mrs. Web,” she began, her voice hushed, almost reverent, her gaze flicking from the printout to Emily, then to them. “We’ve run Emily’s bloodwork. Twice.”

She paused, shaking her head slightly as if still struggling to believe her own words. “I… I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire career. The results… they’re normal. The leukemia… it appears to be in complete, inexplicable remission.”

The adrenaline left me, and I sagged, exhausted. Leo and Ash caught me, their hands on my shoulders.

Iris rushed to my side. "Rey! Are you okay? What did you do?" she asked, her eyes wide with awe and worry.

Arya just stared, stunned.

"I… I think I healed her," I whispered, the words feeling huge, the reality of what I'd done just starting to sink in.

But Emily didn't wake up.

The lead oncologist, a woman with kind, weary eyes that had clearly seen too much suffering to be easily surprised, yet now looked profoundly shaken, sat us all down later in a small, quiet consultation room.

“Physically,” she said, her voice gentle, but with an undercurrent of professional bewilderment, “your daughter is… remarkably, inexplicably, cancer-free. From a purely oncological standpoint, she has been cured.”

A fresh, hopeful sob escaped Martha. Arthur squeezed her hand, his gaze fixed on the doctor, hanging on her every word.

The oncologist continued, her expression sombering, the earlier awe giving way to a familiar medical gravity. “However… she has slipped into a comatose state. Her brain activity is minimal, consistent with someone who… who has no drive to return to consciousness.”

“It’s as if, despite the body’s healing, her spirit… her will to live… has been extinguished.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, a cold, sickening counterpoint to the earlier triumph. I had foreseen this, in a way, a terrible premonition.

The body, yes. But the will…

“We don’t know why,” the doctor said, her gaze full of a deep, helpless sympathy. “Sometimes, even when the battle is won, the mind doesn’t return. She may awaken tomorrow, next month, next year… or, and I am so deeply sorry to say this, perhaps never.”

Arthur Web, who had just been handed back his daughter from the very jaws of death, now crumpled. Not with the explosive rage of before, but with a different kind of despair, a hollow, soul-crushing emptiness that seemed to suck the very air from the room.

Martha’s quiet, heartbroken weeping filled the sterile space.

He turned to me, his eyes no longer holding blame, or even that earlier, desperate plea, but a new, deeper, almost unbearable question.

“You… you did so much. More than anyone… Is there… is there anything else?”

I looked at the devastated parents.

I… I was almost there, the thought echoed in the profound weariness that had settled into my bones, a weariness that felt older than time. The resolution of this cursed day was almost at hand.

I did my best to heal her body, but her spirit, her will to live… that was out of my mind, beyond my direct grasp.

Then, an idea, a desperate, fragile flicker, born not of power, but of that lingering, inexplicable warmth in my soul.

"Mr. Web, Mrs. Web… may I… may I sit with her? Alone? For a little while?"

They nodded, their faces etched with a grief so profound it was almost unwatchable, clutching at any straw, however slender.

My friends waited outside, their faces pale, their earlier elation overshadowed by this new, cruel twist.

I sat by Emily’s bed, the rhythmic beep of the monitor a mournful metronome.

I activated [Alter Ego EX], not for legions this time, not for war, but for a singular, focused, infinitely gentle purpose: to project a small, quiet aspect of my consciousness into Emily's mindscape.

I found myself in a vast, desolate expanse. A dark world without light, without hope, endless grey plains stretching under a starless, perpetual twilight.

And there, in the far, desolate distance, a small, flickering ember of a figure, a lifeless, translucent specter that was Emily’s consciousness.

It was turned inward, curled in on itself, rejecting everything, radiating a profound, bone-deep weariness and a palpable desire for oblivion.

My Alter Ego aspect approached, a soft, unassuming light in that grey wasteland.

I tried to speak, to offer comfort, to gently nudge her towards the idea of waking up, of the life that awaited her, the love of her parents that burned so fiercely for her.

My voice was just an echo into the abyss, swallowed by the vast, indifferent silence.

The specter barely stirred, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor of rejection its only response.

Alter Ego might heal her psyche if she were receptive, I realized with a fresh surge of despair, the understanding a cold stone in my gut.

But even with that power, if the person rejects it, if the will to live is truly gone, no healing can happen.

An aspect of Alter Ego can only nudge towards the light, offer a hand, nothing more. It's a force upon external reality, not a tool to forcibly encroach on the sanctity of another's will, another's.

I withdrew, the desolation of her mindscape clinging to me like a shroud of ice.

The conflict that started with Iris, with Stellaris, has concluded, I thought, as I rejoined my friends and the Webs in the waiting room, the earlier tension replaced by a quiet, aching despair.

There is no need to fight anymore, no immediate, murderous threat to struggle against.

Arthur Web was a broken man, his rage extinguished, replaced by a fragile, desperate hope for his daughter's awakening that now seemed to be flickering out.

And certainly, redoing the day, erasing this fragile peace, this partial, agonizingly incomplete victory, felt… wrong. Not urgent.

But deep down, that's not what I was truly thinking.

I wasn't furious and angry like the last time I'd faced an unbearable, tragic outcome. I was just sad. Profoundly, achingly sad.

This sadness, in its quiet, pervasive way, might be even deeper, more corrosive, than my previous fury. It was the sorrow of a victory that felt like a defeat, of a miracle that wasn't quite enough to bridge the abyss.

Arthur approached me, his eyes holding no blame, only a weary, heart-wrenching gratitude.

"Young man," he said, his voice thick, hoarse, "what you did today… it was a gift. A true miracle. Emily is alive. She has a chance. That’s… that’s more than we dared to hope for."

His gaze drifted towards the ICU, a profound, unbearable longing in his eyes. "Don't be sad. Don't despair for what isn't yet. I will not. We have hope. And we will wait for her, for as long as it takes. We will see our daughter smile again."

Martha echoed him, her hand finding mine, her touch surprisingly firm despite everything.

"I don't know what you did," she whispered, her voice trembling, "I really don't. All I know is my girl has a new lease on life, a body free of that terrible disease."

Her gaze was unwavering, searching mine. "So please," she urged, her voice thick with emotion, "be proud of yourself. Be proud that you gave us hope, gave us a reason to believe. Thank you."

A strange, painful irony settled over me.

Here were these two parents, who had been through an unimaginable hell, now trying to console me, to lift my spirits, when by all rights they should have been the ones receiving comfort.

Their strength, their gratitude in the face of such an incomplete miracle, was a quiet, powerful rebuke to my own creeping despair.

Their words, meant to comfort, twisted the knife of my quiet despair.

I had given them hope, yes. But Emily was still lost in that grey wasteland, a flickering ember against an eternal night.

And Rose… Rose was still a casualty of a previous, failed attempt to make things right, a sacrifice I hadn't even known I was making until it was too late.

I turned to my friends, the words already forming, heavy and final in my mind, in my soul.

I turned first to Iris. She was watching me, her face pale, her eyes still reflecting the raw emotions of the day, but with a fragile strength I hadn't seen in her before this ordeal.

"Iris," I said, my voice thick, "you were so incredibly brave today. Facing him, facing everything… you have a fire in you, a resilience that's… astonishing. Never let anyone, or anything, extinguish that. You deserve all the happiness, all the peace, this world can offer."

I reached out and squeezed her hand. "Thank you for trusting me, even when it must have been terrifying."

Iris’s eyes welled up again, but she met my gaze squarely. "Rey… what you did… I don't understand it. But you saved us. You saved them. Don't… don't do anything reckless now."

There was a plea in her voice, a dawning fear of what my words might imply.

"Leo," I began, meeting his worried gaze, his usually bright eyes clouded with concern. "Thank you. For always having my back, for being the brother I never had, even when I’m being an idiot, a reckless fool. You never quit, and that strength… it’s something I’ll always admire."

Leo frowned, a knot of unease forming in his brow. "Rey, what are you talking about? We’re not going anywhere. We’re here. For you. For whatever comes next."

I moved to Arya. Her face was pale, her usual sharpness softened by our shared exhaustion and sorrow.

"Arya," I said quietly, "your mind, your loyalty… they’re incredible. You see things no one else does, and I know I can always count on you."

I met her gaze, letting a hint of the day's earlier, staggering revelations surface. "And thank you… for sharing your truth with me, back there, in the living room. I heard you. And I won't take what you said lightly. It meant more than you know."

Arya’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of her usual sharpness returning, but now edged with a growing alarm. "Rey, stop this. You’re scaring me."

A flicker of her usual spirit sparked in Arya’s eyes, though the exhaustion remained. She managed a small, wry smile. "Always, Rey. You know that. Even when you're being frustratingly self-sacrificing or about to do something incredibly reckless."

Her smile faded, her gaze sharpening with a familiar, protective intensity. "But what you just said… 'won't take it lightly'… that sounds… final. Don't talk like that."

Her eyes narrowed, a flicker of her usual sharpness returning, but now edged with a growing alarm. "Rey, what are you saying. You sound like you are saying your goodbye.”

I faced Ash, my mentor, my friend, the one who had, against all logic, believed.

"Ash. Your belief in me today… it was an anchor. You saw something in me, something I didn’t even see in myself. Thank you for showing me the power of true perspective, for having faith when no one else could."

Ash’s expression was unreadable, a mask of calm, a subtle tightening around his eyes.

"Rey," he said, his voice quiet but resonant, handing his hand for handshake "goodbye for now, till later.”

I shook his hand, but the idea that he knows what I’m doing lingered in mind.

Finally, I turned to Rose. Her hand was still near mine, and I took it, my gaze soft, filled with that inexplicable warmth, that echo of a love that felt both impossibly distant and terrifyingly, beautifully real.

"Rose… thank you. For your kindness. For your forgiveness, when I didn't deserve it. For showing me what true strength looks like, even when you were fighting your own battles. You… you helped me find a part of myself I thought was lost forever."

Rose’s eyes filled with tears, her lower lip trembling. "Rey, please… what are you doing? Don't say these things. Not like this."

I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then released it.

I looked back at the Web couple, now huddled together, watching Emily through the ICU window, their faces a portrait of fragile hope and enduring, agonizing love.

I had given them that, at least. A chance.

But it wasn't enough. Not for Rose or Iris. Not for the quiet, insistent ache in my own soul, an ache that whispered of other failures, other losses, other paths not taken.

I murmured, so low only I could hear it, my gaze fixed on some distant, internal point, the translucent, shimmering outline of the skill menu already materializing before my mind’s eye, a familiar, terrible invitation.

"[Save & Load S]… Slot 01… Load."

Day 1 Shadow Sapphire. The End.