Eilam woke up in his room in the twilight, the echo of dark whispers echoing in his mind as he struggled to clear the haze of sleep. The darkness seemed to envelop him like a cloak, and for an instant, fear took hold of his heart. However, an insistent noise pulled him out of his self-absorption. At first, he thought it was part of his dream, an echo of the shadows that stalked him at night. But the persistent sound forced him out of his bed and into reality.
The knocks on the door echoed with an ominous rhythm, an urgent call that flooded Eilam's room with a sense of dread. Cautious but determined, he approached the door, his hand trembling as he turned the knob with determination. Upon slamming open the door, a flash of courage and resentment crossed his face.
"Did you forget how to use the doors?" Eilam shouted, his words full of bitterness and frustration, waiting to see his brother on the other side. However, what he found left him breathless.
Before him, illuminated by the light of a lantern, were the managers of the refuge, their faces gloomy and full of sorrow. A shiver ran down the backbone of Eilam when it caught gravity in its glances, an icy foreboding took hold of its being before a single word was uttered.
"I'm sorry, Eilam," one of the managers began in a deep, awful voice. "Your brother, Vorian... has fallen on an attack mission."
The world of Eilam crumbled in an instant, the ground beneath his feet seemed to fade and the walls of his reality crumbled around him. Words collapsed in his throat, a knot of pain and despair gripped his being as he tried to assimilate the devastating news. Vorian, his protector, his hero, the only constant in the middle of the storm, was gone.
In shock, Eilam listened with a lost eye as the managers shared the atrocious details of the mission, how Vorian and the other warriors had faced a beast classified as an S-Rank, a catastrophic entity whose power exceeded all understanding. The unequal struggle had resulted in the tragic loss of brave warriors, including his beloved brother.
"It was... it was too powerful," continued one of the members, his voice trembling with the burden of tragedy. "They managed to hurt her, but... it was very late. They could only make her flee, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake."
Eilam was clinging to the door, his body trembling with shock and mourning. The pain enveloped him like an icy fog, his mind stunned by the incomprehensible loss. The voices of the managers were turning distant, like a distant echo in the midst of their personal storm. Suddenly, a voice cut through the emotional fog that enveloped him.
"Eilam," was the voice of the battalion chief addressing him. Hearing his name, Eilam came out of his cloud of confusion and answered, "Can I see him?"
The officers looked at each other with expressions of concern and compassion before nodding. "Yes, you can see it," one of them answered solemnly.
They took him to the central base, a place that Eilam had never been allowed to visit due to his lack of rank. As they went along, Eilam watched around him with a mixture of awe and uneasiness. The facilities were impressive, with electric cars moving parts of monsters for experiments and warriors loaded with advanced weapons marching down the halls.
Every corner of the base vibrated with clear activity and purposes, but Eilam had only one thing on his mind: seeing his brother. The managers guided him to a section away from the base, a silent and icy place where the fallen in combat rested.
Upon entering the room, the cold immediately enveloped him, a sensation that deepened as he approached the compartment where Vorian lay. Eilam felt a tightness in his chest as the managers slowly opened the compartment. There, before him, lay the inert body of his brother, his serene countenance but marked by sacrifice.
Eilam squeezed his hand tightly and whispered, "You promised, you promised you'd never abandon me." His words were broken, filled with an anguish that he had been suppressing. "It was my fault... I told you to leave, I... I yelled at you."
The weight of guilt and despair gripped Eilam as the accumulated pain finally shed in the form of tears. He fell to his knees beside his brother's body, sobbing and blaming himself for his last words and for not having had the opportunity to say goodbye properly.
"Forgive me, vorian... Forgive me," she muttered with tears, her body shaken by the intensity of her emotions. The room became an echo of his pain, the walls reflecting the suffering emanating from Eilam.
After a time that seemed eternal, an officer carefully approached and placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's time to leave," he said softly. "Tomorrow we will send Vorian's ashes to your house, along with his belongings and some things that he commissioned for us to hand you over personally."
Eilam nodded slowly, his eyes clouded by tears as he forced himself to stand up. With a shattered heart, he left the room, knowing that he had begun a new chapter in his life, a life marked by loss, regret and the difficult task of finding a way forward without his brother, but also with the burden of honoring his memory and his sacrifice.