Mirea opened her eyes slowly after, for a moment she did not understand what she was seeing, cracked stone above her head. Lines ran through them like veins that were about to give up, dust flew everywhere in the air, the dust was so thick that every breath felt and tasted wrong.
Her arms were tight around something warm. Or rather, someone warm. Her eyes snapped down instantly to him.
"Erlan…"
They were not in the barn anymore, not even close at all. Wherever the rift stone had thrown them, it was nothing like home, the place looked like what used to be a great palace.
With tall stone walls stretching out on both sides of a very long hallway, there were carved with weird and fading symbols that she could not understand. The pillars were so aged that they were beginning to lean at awkward angles, cracked and chipped, like they were seconds away from collapsing if someone breathed too hard.
Everything in this place felt old, ancient and dead, the whole place was on its last leg seriously, Mirea honestly doubted if it would stay standing when they try walking.
"Okay, let's do this!"
Erlan was still barely alive.
His body was trembling in her arms and his chest was rising and falling unevenly, each breath he too was worse than the last. And the blood coming out of his chest soak both of them, it was sticky and warm but that didn't matter right now. The most important thing was him.
Mirea swallowed very hard as she moved, summoning everything she had left and lifted him onto her back, his arms slipped weakly over her shoulder. It weight felt heavier that it should have been, not because it was heavy but because she knew what it meant.
She started running.
Her footsteps echoed down the hallway, loud and lonely, bouncing off stone walls that hadn't heard living sound in who knows how long. Dust kicked up under her feet, making her cough, but she didn't slow down.
She couldn't.
There had to be something here.
A room. A relic. Medicine. Anything.
Please.
Her eyes scanned every corner as she ran, collapsed structure, cracks in the floor, in the walls, but nothing here looked useful at all, the hallway just kept going and stretching on like it was mocking her.
"W-Where… *cough *cough" Erlan coughed hard against her back. She felt the warm liquid soak into her clothes. Blood.
"Where are we…" he managed, coughing again, his breath hitching.
Mirea didn't slow down.
"I used a rift stone." She said quickly, her voice shaking but it was loud enough for him to hear. "I don't know where we are. Just hang on please, I'm gonna find something that'll heal you."
She turned a corner and nearly tripped.
The hallway opened up suddenly into a wide chamber.
She skidded to a stop.
The room was huge and circular, very huge. The ceiling rose very high above them, it was collapsed in places letting faint light pour in from the cracks above. There were broken statues lined along the walls, most of them were shattered at the waist while some were missing their heads. The same symbols etched on the walls of the hallway were etched in the floor here too.
The place looked like a worship chamber, not that it mattered anymore though. It was empty, no supplies, nothing useful to help stop Erlan's bleeding, just useless.
"Damn it," she cursed under her breath.
Her heart sank.
She turned towards another tunnel on the right side of the chamber and prepared to run again, her legs were screaming in protest but she forced herself forward anyway.
Then Erlan tapped her back softly, so soft that it was barely there.
"Mirea…" he whispered.
She froze.
"Put me down," he said weakly. "I can't go any further."
"No," she snapped immediately, tears already spilling. "Are you crazy. Nothing here will help you if I stop. We just need to keep moving."
He laughed.
It was a quiet wet and wrong laugh. Blood spilled down his mouth dripping down into her shoulder as he spoke.
"I can't get better," he said softly. "It's too late."
Her jaw clenched.
She hated that he was right.
She hated that her body knew it even if her heart refused to accept it. The wound was too deep. The blood loss was too much. His breathing was already failing. She could feel his grip loosening with every step she took.
There was no saving him.
Not like this.
"At least…" he coughed again, his voice barely a sound now. "Let me live my last moment in peace."
Her steps slowed.
Then stopped.
Mirea stood there shaking, tears falling freely now, blurring her vision. She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood, trying to hold herself together, trying to be strong like she always pretended to be.
Slowly, she nodded.
"O okay," she whispered. "I will set you down now."