Lukas stood there, with a blank expression on his face. The world was so... empty now. The wind howled, and the rain pounded on his back. A bit of light shone through the clouds, but the rest was drowned in the dark shadow of the thick storm clouds.
He tried to dance, tried to relive the feeling that left him so alive. But he stumbled. He fell. He hit himself. He clumsily hit the trees or dug his blades into the mud. It was pitiful and hard to watch, at least no one had to.
The only one who could, wanted to kill him. It leapt and cut him every time he made a mistake. By now, he was soaked in blood from the myriad of small cuts across his skin. His head was heavy and blurry, soon he would pass out.
Maybe it was the loss of blood, the constant mental strain from his focus and madness. Or more than that, a culmination of every tiny stress he had accumulated over the last few hours.
As he swayed and buckled, his knees gave way and his face hit the mud. He couldn't stand and struggled to keep his eyes open. He had long hit his limit, and now as his mind shut down, he reminisced on the past few minutes.
The ghast took its last step to kill Lukas, but its foot never hit the ground. In an instant, a bolt of lightning tore through its chest, rupturing its heart. The lightning arced and crackled around the forest floor and danced through the rain. The colour was an eye-catching bright blue, one that was instantly identifiable with the Tempest, Kai.
Lukas' last vision before he passed out was Kai running over to him. His last thought was hoping that the man he saved was alive.
***
"... do you think... could..."
"What are you talk... there's no..."
Lukas awoke the next day in a bed with nothing but the sound of two people talking. He couldn't see, even when he opened his eyes. He could feel the movement in his fingers and toes, and he brought his hand to his face.
As he touched his eyes, he realised his face was covered in bandages. He began to tear them off, unravelling them to let the light pour into his eyes.
"Yeah... I... HEY! DON'T TEAR THEM OFF!"
Although he could not hear everything the pair spoke of, it was obvious the last comment was addressed to him. But by the time she said it to him, he had already torn off most of the bandages. The rest were off by the time he had understood what she said.
He was blinded by the light, and could only make out blurry shapes as his eyes adjusted.
"Huh? Sorry, I couldn't hear you too well. Where am I?"
"You're on the 2nd floor of the Mistfell Station. When Tempest dropped you off, I thought you were a goner. You were drenched in blood, but luckily it was mostly shallow cuts."
The nurse took the rest of the bandages off of his face and threw them somewhere near his bed.
"Huh... your face has already healed over. There's a few scars, but it's mostly gone. I'll quickly check on the rest of you, don't move."
As the nurse inspected his wounds, slowly unravelling the bandages, Lukas began to ask a few questions that lingered at the forefront of his mind.
"What happened to the other person?"
"Kid, we had quite a few people last night due to the storm. You're going to have to be more specific."
"The other person Kai brought back. He was missing his leg."
The nurse tending to his wounds fell silent, and the other swiftly left the room. The remaining nurse cursed under her breath and muttered something. As she continued to remove Lukas' bandages, she took a deep sigh.
"He... didn't make it."
Lukas' heart sank. He didn't know the man, not even his name, but he had hoped he would survive.
"Was it my fault? Did I not bandage him correctly? I thought he wouldn't make it if I took him back, so I had Kai do it."
"No sweetie, you did the best you could. But he already lost too much blood. We managed to properly bandage his abdomen, but he passed away shortly after passing out from blood loss."
"If only I was there sooner-"
"No, don't blame yourself. Too many people fall into that trap. Every other day something comes in here guilt-ridden about someone else. You didn't know him, yeah? Sad as it is, you have no reason to carry the guilt of his passing. If I did that for every person who died in here, I wouldn't be here right now."
She took a deep breath tossing the bandages aside as she did.
"People die, you have to learn to live with that. It ain't your fault unless you kill them yourself. So don't get hung up on it. Mourn him, but don't let it drag you down."
She looked over at Lukas once more, with a tired expression.
"Other than that, you look... fine. I'm surprised you are in this good of a condition. But you should be good to go, just don't overwork yourself the next couple of days."