Must pass through the door

Shuji had thrown himself determined, no matter how much it weighed on him, to kill that man and put an end to this madness. But in the end it was not he who did it.

Both that man and he froze when they realized that another one of them, taking advantage of the confusion, had stabbed him in the heart from behind.

He wished he could say it was a relief.

That was the first thing he felt, but died right away. The one who killed him withdrew the sword, letting his body fall to the ground over a large, ever-expanding pool of blood, and then he began to laugh.

Shuji's hair stood on end.

That laugh doesn't bode well, he thought immediately.

However, he hoped it was just a nervous laugh. He wanted to believe that this madness had ended there. A terrible way they would remember for the rest of their lives, but at least a few had survived, it hadn't been a complete massacre.

Yes...

Not a complete massacre. Yet.

Because it turned out that greed could outweigh trauma and fear of death.

It was that simple.

——

Shuji had gotten what he wanted out of this conversation. Against all odds he had convinced Luna, she was now really on his side, she really understood what he was going through.

However, he didn't feel triumphant. On top of the world.

He just felt tired.

Was that normal?

He judged it wasn't. His mental state was screwed up, everything was screwed up, so the really weird thing would be for him to have a normal reaction.

"I'm sorry if I ruined this," Shuji muttered, staring at the surface of the water, one hand on his stomach. He had calmed down, but he still wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't throw up again.

"This wasn't about the fish. What does it matter? "Direct and sincere. Candid?

In any case, he should try to be more like her, in general. This had been good for him. Even if he didn't feel like it, it had taken some sort of weight off his shoulders, hadn't it?

"Yeah. I'm glad you said that because... I want to go home. I just want to go home. "Shuji swallowed hard. Maybe it would be better if I threw up, he thought.

Luna nodded gravely, not taking her eyes off him.

"I know. I know.

——

"It's a room made of gold! Huge! Shuji was pleading desperately, interposing himself between them, raising his hands. Anyway, trying his best to be conciliatory. They should be celebrating their survival, not looking at each other like this. "For God's sake, come to your senses, we can share." Even if they split it four ways ,they could probably go the rest of their lives without spending it all. "We can...."

He wasn't wrong.

But that wasn't the crux of the matter. It didn't matter that it could be split, it didn't matter that they would have enough, plenty even.

People always wanted more. More and more.

So they attacked him for trying to be the voice of reason. One of them, catching him off guard, stabbed him in the shoulder, pushing him against a wall. Shuji let out a grunt of pain and narrowed his eyes. He couldn't believe this was happening. He didn't want to believe it.

That this man had betrayed them all and led to the death of several people he had begun to consider good friends had been bad enough.

But this, the survivors throwing themselves at each other's throats for nothing more than greed?

Were they really the same people he had known?

In any case, chaos had erupted and there was no way to contain it. Deep down he knew it. He knew that if someone was going to leave this room (yes, someone, just one person), then that someone would have to do... something unforgivable.

With the monster it had been as he suspected. That man had been controlling it, perhaps from the first moment, perhaps he had simply seized the advantage when he was left alone. In any case, after he died, the monster had quickly fled. To lick its wounds, to whatever it was, the point was that it wasn't a problem anymore.

The only problem was this shit.

Human nature.

He knew... He knew he had to kill if he wanted to live. And he wanted to. Had to give everything to come back. But it wasn't... It wasn't... It wasn't that easy.

Maybe these monsters could kill like that, but he had been raised in a civilized society where problems were solved with words.

Yeah, so what? How was that going to help him?

Shuji put a hand on the pommel of the sword. Screaming, he yanked it off his shoulder violently and unceremoniously. He screamed from the fear, from the discomfort of feeling his muscles tearing as he pulled out, but not so much the pain. Not so much because the pain was barely a shadow and maybe that was the worst of it. Maybe he was hurt more than he had thought.

But however he was, he swung the ax in the blink of an eye.

A blow too quick for his attacker to dodge. He saw it in his eyes, that he knew it would be impossible. He saw his heavy resignation.

And in the end what he did was stop with the ax blade millimeters from his neck, like a prisoner sent to the guillotine.

He had betrayed him, like the leader, and had tried to kill him. But he hadn't been able to do it, and perhaps, to his horror, he couldn't. Whatever the cost. Because it really wasn't that easy.

He didn't have to put his determination to the test a second time.

Shuji jumped back instinctively. Less than a second later, a shower of stalactites hit the ground. They weren't made of gold like the rest of the room. That was because they hadn't been there until a moment ago, someone had summoned them, with a spell or a skill, what did he know. In any case they both reacted well, avoided getting impaled, and avoided death.

They had avoided it, but so what?

There was no way to control this anymore. Everyone was up to their necks in shit, damn it.

Shuji rushed to get up while another one was trying to get on top of him, instead of helping him to stop this madness. He couldn't even recognize him. He couldn't recognize any of these beasts, and they had never really been anything to him, had they? He had only seen what he wanted to see.

He wasn't going to have a choice, one way or the other.

There was no way to avoid that...

"Wait. Wait!

Things would take their natural course.

Pleading, as he crawled out of the cave. Pleas in the voice of a person he had thought he knew who, desperate as he was, was drowned out by the sound of his ax scraping the ground, raising sparks against the stones.

His ax was in that position because he could hardly hold it, let alone lift it.

He, of course, had been the only winner.

The last survivor, who had gained nothing, actually quite the opposite. Rather, he had left something important forever in the darkness of that cave, and the only relief was that no one needed to ever know what had happened, since he was the only one left to tell the story.

Shuji could take no more, he collapsed, turning away so he could look up at the endless blue sky.

The pleading ceased soon after.

Exhausted. Completely exhausted.

And now he felt exactly the same.

——

Shuji put his hand on the doorknob of his room. The rest of the day had gone... better. He knew he couldn't say much, after how he'd exploded, but he almost hated that it was over.

It could have been so much worse, he knew. He could have kept quiet and not even tried to convince her.

He could have failed, for example.

And now she'd be on her way anywhere but here. As long as she could be away from him, away from the "lunatic," then it would have been fine with her.

But it worked out well. But she had believed him, and wanted to help him anyway. He, well, he was at a loss for words. And it almost seemed too soon to him. That the day had gone by in the blink of an eye.

Time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?

"Good night," Luna said. She had walked him to the door. Maybe she thought he was expecting something like that, even if he'd simply been lost in thought. "Honey."

Somehow, he got goosebumps.

"Good night."

That was all he said. Without even turning around to look at her. Somehow he knew she would understand, though.

Shuji lay down on his bed, or rather plopped down. Yes, on top of the sheets, just like that. He didn't even bother to pull them off and cover himself with them, even though it wasn't hot at all. He was exhausted, as he had said. Exhausted.

But...

Not in an entirely unpleasant sense.

——

That night there were no nightmares, whether in the form of memories or imaginings of his subconscious.

That night he dreamed of the ocean.

And the first thing he witnessed after awakening was an ocean of flames.