The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

  - Franklin Delano Roosevelt -

  2nd Lieutenant Gaspers stumbles further into the cave, looking like he’s seen hell. Still, why didn’t the Knights cut him down? Does that mean that we can all move freely? No, no fucking way. So why then?

  “On your fucking knees!” one of the Sergeants yells at Gaspers, barrel of his rifle pointed with intent, “Not a step closer!”

  No one complains, in fact, that Sergeant isn’t the only one with a gun pointed at Gaspers.

  Gaspers slows, eyes bulging, snot caked under his nose, stains and chars all over his uniform. There are large patches of drying blood on his knees, I don’t think it’s his.

  “Lower your fucking weapons!” Gaspers snaps suddenly, then blinking, he cowers again, he reminds me of a man on the edge of madness.

  Some people do actually lower their weapons, but most still don’t trust him. Looking beside me, I see Tran locked on, eye down the sights, ready for an excuse. He hates incompetence and Gaspers is a walking, talking, somehow still breathing embodiment of what not to be if you’re an officer.

  “Where’s everyone else?” the Sergeant asks, moving toward him, he motions to a soldier, “Frisk him, no weapons.”

  The soldier pats Lieutenant Gaspers down, but he doesn’t find any weapons.

  “He’s clear, besides the shit in his pants,” the soldier says, scrunching his nose and falling back.

  “Lieutenant, where is everyone else?” the Sergeant asks, he isn’t bluffing, I think he’ll smoke him if he doesn’t like the answer. This Sergeant is part of Gasper’s platoon, tension is high.

  “Dead,” Gaspers says, eyes falling to the ground, “All of them are dead.”

  “What?” the sergeant says, his eyebrow twitching.

  “How’d you manage to survive then?” another Sergeant asks, teeth gritting, he’s pissed too.

  There’s a strange feeling in the air, like something is coming, I feel dread rising in my stomach, knotting inside me. Glancing at Cortez, she looks the same.

  “I don’t like this,” she says quietly.

  “What happened to…” the Sergeant starts but is cut short.

  It begins as a low rumble of purposeful noise, then becomes a thunderous, bone chilling roar… laughter, from in the tunnels. I’ve heard it before. It’s the Lich. His voice booms through the tunnel now, thundering into the cave.

  “All shall kneel before death,” more ominous laughter, “All shall become ash before the Undying Flame, fear me mortals, embrace your demise.”

  A wave of terror rolls over everyone. The air itself feels like it’s trembling. All eyes snap to the tunnels, fear embracing us tightly. His crimson eyes burn deep with satisfaction at our resolve shattering under the weight of his words.

  Tran swears under his breath, pulling out his mag, double tapping it and sliding it back in.

  The Lich steps forward, right on the edge of the cave, looking up at the statue of the Goddess.

  “The Undying Flame does not fear the forgotten,” he says, pointing one of his bony fingers at the statue.

  Red fluoresces across the room as his finger turns to ash. His eyes hewn from darkness and crimson slant downwards at the missing finger.

  “Open fire!” the Sergeant from before yells, “Pin that bastard down!”

  He’s not wrong, this might be our best shot. Raising my rifle, I unload everything in the chorus of inspired gun smoke. Flipping my empty mag, I slam in the next. Then the next, until all I have is one left. The entrance to the tunnel is covered in dust from all the rounds that shattered stone when they missed.

  “Hey!” Tran yells, running behind me. My head turns, Cortez pulls me to the ground suddenly.

  A plume of fire dances past where I was, my eyes turn… Tran. Clawing forward, I rush toward him, smoldering still. Behind him near the font beneath the statue of the Goddess, I see Gaspers, his right hand has mana circuits in front of it. Fire mana circuits, he fucking torched Tran... in his left hand he’s holding some kind of vial that dances with darkness. He tosses it into the waters.

  The air cracks as the bioluminescence in the cave goes wild, sparking different colors. Thick tendrils of dark vines spring up from the fountain and wrap the statue of the goddess, cracking the foundations of it. Stone trembles and cleaves, falling to the ground, crushing people to pulp. The entire cave shakes as the tendrils advance outwards.

  “Tran!” Barlow screams, running towards him.

  I lose Gaspers in the dust cloud, but I rush after Barlow toward Tran, Cortez hot on my heels.

  “No, no, no,” Barlow says, pulling Tran up.

  My eyes widen, sliding to my knees, I look closer, he’s alive, barely. Face completely unrecognizable. He’s wheezing, the dust is making it worse.

  “Healing,” I say, pressing my hands on his charred skin.

  I’m swept into the trance, everything going dull, and time slowing. I can feel every wound in his body, his lungs… they’re fucked, his windpipe is scorched. He’s going to die... I can’t save him. I don’t have enough mana.

  A hollow second of dread passes, fuck that. I have to try. Mana threads and throbs, my body burns, I shouldn’t be channeling right now, but there’s no choice. Tran does not die today. I’m not losing anyone else.

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  Tran’s choking up blood, trying to speak, his hearts beating so fast, trying to compensate for the lack of oxygen in his blood. Fuck. Focus. Mend. Heal. The threads of mana amplify, becoming filled with purpose, working faster than they’ve ever worked before. Keep going… keep…

  My mind spins as I’m ripped out of the trance suddenly. Someone pulling me. A massive sword cleaves the ground where I was, carving… fuck. Tran’s dead. His body a mutilated mess. Cortez drags me behind the rubble of the statue.

  “Tran…” I sputter, trying to crawl back, my body is weak, mana burns spindle up my arms.

  She slaps me.

  “He’s gone, we need to run, stand up.”

  Her eyes are shaking, but she hasn’t given up yet, she never does. Carry the Torch.

  My legs burn as I stagger to my feet. My eyes taking in the horrors between the clouds of dust, gun fire in every direction. Blood spraying everywhere like a slaughterhouse. It’s a fucking massacre. Heads roll, arms fall, legs cleave. Cortez pulls me, fast, but my legs can’t keep this pace. My body is refusing, the toll of using too much mana. Falling to the ground, Cortez grabs me and drags, managing to duck before a blade can cut off her head, she rolls to my other side, dragging me again.

  “Leave me… run,” I say.

  “I’m not fucking leaving you.”

  “Leave me!” I yell.

  “No,” she growls.

  She drags me low to the ground, going beneath the dust in the air, it’s disorienting. She pauses, seeing someone we know. Barlow, kneeling over Gaspers, his right arm is cinders, his left hand, bashing Gasper’s skull in with his helmet. He’s screaming while he does it, blood spattering all over him.

  “Barlow! Let’s…” Cortez’s voice falls short.

  No…

  Barlow’s body slides in half. Crimson eyes inside an obsidian colored helmet turn to us now. Cortez picks me up, slinging me on her back, running as fast as she can. She tumbles over a body, sending us rolling onto the slick blood covered floor of the cave. The dust is clearing, becoming matted with blood.

  The knights walk between the corpses of the fallen, stabbing those who pretend to be dead. Shrill cries becoming muffled. Cortez tries to stand again, but a blade cuts her, sheering off her lower leg. Her eyes blink. She turns, ducking from her knees to avoid the next strike. She crawls toward me on the ground, hair skewed over her eyes, soaked in blood. Desperation written on her face. Crawling, we meet halfway. I try to stop the bleeding from her leg.

  “Go,” she pleads, “Survive.”

  “No,” I manage to say, words choking in my throat.

  She embraces me tightly, “Jimmy I…”

  A sword stabs into her, slicing through her chest. My world shatters. I barely feel the blade pierce my side after it runs her through.

  “Healing…”

  My spell fizzles out, burning my arms.

  “Healing…”

  Again, burning up my chest toward my neck.

  “Jimmy,” she sputters, blood rolling from her mouth, her hand stroking my face, “I…”

  Her eyes widen, the words trying to form.

  “Healing!” I scream.

  The trance bleeds into my mind for but a moment before it stops. I feel the overload starting to ricochet inside of me. Burning everything.

  Her eyes glass over… she’s gone.

  “Healing… Healing… Healing…”

  Nothing, I can’t even feel mana anymore.

  A knight raises their sword over their head, bringing it down.

  “Wait,” the Lich Aderaic says, holding up a hand.

  The air gusts as the blade stops only a breath from my face.

  Aderaic moves towards me, motioning the knight to the ground. He plumes his cape behind him as he sits upon the knight’s back. The rest of his Knights form a large circle around me, blades facing down into the stone. All of their beady red eyes on me.

  “Proceed,” Aderaic says, a wicked grin in the flames of his mouth.

  My teeth grit, “Healing…”

  I try again and again, even if it did work, she’s gone, there’s nothing anyone can do now. I’m dying, I can feel it. The chain reaction of mana overload can’t be stopped. It will rend every cell in my body. Death is just a footnote to the pain of losing everything though.

  Pulling Cortez closer to me, I see a single purple flower lays near her, from the plants that now fall from the ceiling. The twisting black vines swallowing the once beautiful light of the cave. Taking it gingerly in my shaking hand, I lay it on her. Folding her hands over it. Regrets, sadness, they fall from me, there is nothing left, everyone I love, dead. Gone. All of their torches… extinguished.

  “Yes… there it is…” Aderaic begins, leaning closer, “The destruction of hope, the last remnant before one loses themselves to complete despair. A fitting end to such a trivial ordeal. You are all fortunate to have witnessed the Flame,” he stands, looking down upon me, “Go to the afterlife and tell them of its glory.”

  Trivial? Is that what we were to him? Whatever… fuck him, fuck his flame. I’m ready.

  My teeth grind as I stagger to my feet, I will look death in the face.

  His mouth of flame twists into a snarl “Aura of Fear.”

  Fear incarnate pounds into me, sending me to my knees.

  My hands shake uncontrollably, I’m terrified, I want to run, I want to hide, I want to wake up from this horrible nightmare… defiance spurs. My mind flashes memories, knowing the end approaches, yet still, my shaking hands press me from the ground. The pride of my father filling my bones, he would tell me to stand and look my death right in the eyes.

  Defiance surges past the fear. It’s not courage, it’s not false confidence, it’s sheer fucking will that raises me up, meeting his cold gaze eye level.

  Aderaic tilts his head at me, “It is rare that someone can stand in my…”

  “Shut the fuck up…” I say, pushing back my blood-soaked hair from my eyes, “I didn’t ask for a fucking monologue.”

  He pauses, almost like he’s stunned.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you, or your fucking lame ass flame,” I say, defiance pulsing through the fear, “Get on with it already.”

  His eyes trace back and forth in mine. Something behind him distracts me for a moment. The eyes of the statue. Moving slowly, they turn looking directly at me, golden light flashes from them before they go empty.

  He snarls, clearly offended, “Very well,” his hand raises into the air, a huge magic circuit forming, “I shall carve reverence into your soul.”

  My legs try to buckle beneath me, but I stand, not for myself in this moment, but for all the souls that have been lost. I am the pride that was their existence. The last alive that must carry the torch until the bitter end. There is no other way, not for me, not for them.

  The massive inferno of magic roars above us, burning away the dying plants on the cave’s high ceilings. Like starlight, the embers of ruin fall down upon the cave’s cobbled floor, littered with the dead. Each ember going out before it reaches them. My vision is failing, the wheezing in my lungs is getting worse. I feel the mana overload rupturing my organs. Everyone that I cared about is gone… I feel empty, broken. This is our end, I am the last survivor, soon to join the others. I carried the torch. My breaths become even more staggered. There is nothing left, no one to protect, no one… my eyes fall to Cortez, no one left to love. All I have left is defiance, the last ember of the torch.

  Suddenly, seemingly without reason, the Knights all fall to the floor in thunderous clanging of empty metal. The magic circuit above the Lich fizzles out. The raging ball of fire disappearing. There is little light now, just the embers, one last set of crimson eyes and the flame inside the Lich’s chest.

  Light blooms in the darkness, my eyes barely able to stay open to see it. The embers swirl into pattern, turning into the shape of a woman.

  “Impossible…” Aderaic says, stepping backward, his alleged undying flame barely flickering, “Gods aren’t supposed to…”

  Light flashes and the woman is upon him now. He stumbles backward slamming to the ground, stone cracking beneath him as though gravity pays reverence to her unyielding gaze. She raises two fingers closely together.

  “You can’t do this!” he screams.

  She tilts her head at him, her fingers snap, and he explodes into dust. Sending a shockwave through the air.

  There is no joy in seeing him disappear, no satisfaction, just… emptiness. Falling to my knees now. I pull Cortez into my grasp once more. The woman approaches slowly, a strange ethereal glow drapes her body. My vision fades in and out as my eyes droop. She looks down upon me, looking at the flower I placed on Cortez, then up into my eyes. Eternity dances in her eyes, endless waves of color just like the plants.

  She slowly, and gracefully kneels down next to me, grasping my face gently, her hands are warm, and buzzing with energy. She comes close to my face, putting her forehead against mine before lowering her mouth to my cheek, licking a tear as it falls. Her eyes closing, light blooming through the skin. She pulls me closer, wrapping me in her embrace. My eyes fade to darkness, death’s call pulling me. I barely feel her mouth next to my ear as she whispers but a single word that shakes the fabric of existence around us.

  Worthy