Juliet felt something warm spread through her chest, right through her heart, and continue on a different plane, reaching her very soul.
The next moment, when she opened her eyes, she was not at Fort Mountain anymore.
No, she was…
"Is this St. Peter?" she whispered.
Huge walls cordoned off the town, which had clearly been expanded with buildings she had never seen before. So many people were going back and forth, screaming in a market she had never seen before, where they sold monster parts, weapons, and much more.
"Yes," she heard a voice by her side and saw Jacob with her, smiling softly. "I'm going to show you something."
They started walking toward a remote building, secluded and half broken. Juliet immediately recognized it as Jacob's house. But it was not in pristine condition. The roof was half caved in, the door was off its hinges, and even from the outside, she could tell that there would be filth everywhere once inside.
"What's this?" she muttered, uncomprehending.
"A different future," Jacob explained while going forward.
Once inside, Juliet saw food remains half-rotten on the ground, clothes ripped and bloodied on a few chairs that had survived the furniture onslaught.
Jacob brought her to his aunt's bedroom, where they found the most miserable person she had ever seen.
She could barely recognize a version of Jacob, with filth on his face, red eyes, and half ripped clothes, hugging a pillow and sobbing quietly, bobbing from one side to the other.
The despair was so thick in the air that Juliet swore she could taste it in her mouth.
"Francis is looking for me," the present Jacob said, "Helena too."
They felt steps behind them, and Juliet turned. She saw Francis, a guy who had not been present in their current predicaments, start shouting inside the house.
"Jake, are you here?"
The miserable Jacob in front of them didn't say anything but just curled into a ball and put the blankets over his head.
"Jake!" she felt Helena's crystalline voice fill the air.
The future Jacob started trembling under the blankets and kept hiding, uselessly hoping that they would not find him.
"Oh, Jake," Francis's pained voice broke Juliet's heart as soon as the guy entered the room.
Helena came right after.
"Come on, man. We have to train. Let's get you cleaned up!" they said.
Jacob did not move one inch; he just kept hiding and trembling.
"Jacob," Juliet felt Helena's tenderness in her own heart, such was the affection the future Helena was displaying for him, "training awaits."
Francis looked toward Helena, unsure about what to do, but she kept just staring at the blanket.
Juliet felt her heart clench when, after a couple of minutes, nothing happened.
Helena urged Francis to go get some food while she kept standing, not moving an inch. Then, finally, she just stood there, without saying a word.
Juliet felt the current Jacob say something.
"Pure dread. I was paralyzed. She waited like this for two hours. The madwoman didn't say a word, just waited," she could feel the emotion in Jacob's voice and a tidal wave of it through their Ancestral Bond, "that's how long it took me to stop feeling a useless piece of crap that day. And this happened more than once. She was always there, she waited without saying a word. She never, never blamed me for making her waste so much time. Once, I was so angry that I told her she was probably regretting wasting all that time on me."
Jacob paused for a second, catching his own breath.
"She told me it was nice to have broken every once in a while," Jacob shook his head, "and I thought breaks, really? This woman is wasting her time on me, this beautiful and talented woman, and she says that all those countless hours were just breaks. That's when I felt something settle. It's like one moment you have this huge imbalance inside you, your body's chemicals are all over the place, and this storm feels like it will never pass; then, one day, someone says something so fu**ing stupid and…"
She felt a huge stab of pain come through the Ancestral Bond.
"And you realize that you are worthy of something, or at least of someone's love. I did not show you that moment because I just wanted to put on display how miserable I was, Juliet."
Jacob dispelled his past, and they kept floating inside a virtual space in his soul, in a timeless zone.
"Some people I knew killed themselves because of this feeling. They couldn't bear feeling so useless, feeling like they could accomplish nothing in their entire life. Of course, it's something that already existed before, but the apocalypse really made people take a long hard look at their lives. Breathing becomes hard, and you just want to hide away from people, to lay down and close your eyes, to get some rest and never have to feel like that anymore."
Jacob made a gesture with his arm, and a simple sword appeared between his hands.
"I started practicing the sword even though I knew I would never become as strong as Helena or Francis. My talent was – and is – abysmal. I couldn't save them when they died; you could even say that they died protecting me. And then, I kept training, I trained, and I trained, knowing that I would never be useful, that I would never be strong."
Then, Jacob used the battered and blunted sword he had in his hands to make a simple cut with his arm extended above his head.
Suddenly, Juliet felt like the world was ending, that the cut he was making would literally cut reality in two, that it would split mountains and crush Dragons and Hydras, pulverize Charybdes as if they were nothing. It was a cut that would destroy every obstacle, every enemy. Everything that ever stood your way.
"This is not a Martial Technique if you are wondering," Jacob laughed while making the sword disappear, "it was what I started to think of when I decided to train for real after Helena made calm me. Every time I took the sword in my hand, even though I knew I was destined to be the weakest human alive, I would imagine myself splitting the world in two, destroying every enemy that was infesting Earth. Even after everyone else died, I kept believing it, even while knowing it would never be true. Eventually, I developed a similar technique to the one in my dreams… But, the thing was that I knew I was sh*t. I mean, I had the mathematical certainty that I was, but I kept hoping, dreaming, and going forward…"
Jacob felt like saying more would do nothing. So, therefore, he started putting an end to the soul projection he was using. But he said some last words, first.
"So, just don't lose the hope. Ok?"
…
Juliet awakened a moment after she had closed her eyes. Even though it had seemed like ten minutes passed, it had only been a few seconds of real-time.
She felt calm, focused. She understood what Jacob said, even though maybe not all of it. But she had a starting point now, something to cling to, to grab. So she looked at the tiny spark in her hand and made imagined it like an Inferno that would burn all her enemies with a flick of her mind.
"Thanks," she told Jacob since the Ancestral Bond was already speaking him everything else she had wanted to say.