He was back.
The memory gripped him like a vice, dragging him into that day—the one he never spoke about.
He remembered running through the streets, lungs aching, heart still clinging to hope like a fool.
The pharmacists' faces came first. Cold. Disgusted. One look and the door slammed in his face.
Then the sign above the next store: Doctor Luc.
He stepped inside, the clinic sterile and quiet. Each step pulled him deeper into the past, unraveling the walls he'd built to forget.
At the counter, the clerk didn't even glance at him.
Just kept tapping away at a screen, like a twelve-year-old boy with cracked shoes and a desperate look was nothing more than background noise.
Tarrin opened his mouth.
He couldn't stop himself.
He wasn't in control anymore—just a passenger, watching it all go wrong again.
"Can I please get the Tubrixin?"
Tarrin winced internally. He remembered the way his younger self spoke—timid, naive, desperate.
This was before he learned the art of words. Before he knew how to twist a lie, how to sell truth as fiction.
This was the moment that taught him.
If he had convinced one of them on this very day, she might've lived a little longer.
The clerk barely looked at him. "It's four hundred. You got that?"
Tarrin remembered the way his face tensed. He tried. Gods, he really tried. Eyes wide. Voice trembling.
"I was robbed. Just half an hour ago. Please—it's for my mom. She's sick. If I don't get her this..."
A beat. Fishing for pity.
"I'll pay you back, I swear. Take my name. Call the cops if I don't."
The clerk's look soured, his patience thinning by the second.
"Look, kid. No money, no meds. Store policy."
Tarrin didn't stop. He couldn't. "I'm telling the truth, man. She's dying. What am I supposed to do?"
The man didn't flinch. "Then leave. Or I call security."
Silence. Defeat.
Tarrin turned without another word, jaw clenched, stomach hollow.
He reached the door, muttering, "Dick," under his breath—just loud enough to be heard.
No medicine. No second chances. And time was almost up.
The rest of the afternoon dragged like a noose tightening.
Shop after shop, door after door, the story stayed the same—Tarrin walked in, pleaded, lied, begged.
Promised he'd pay it back. Swore his mother was dying. Tried to cry on cue. But today, the world wasn't buying it.
No pity. No sympathy. Not even a shred of human decency.
By midafternoon, his voice was hoarse from pleading, his legs sore from pacing the cracked sidewalks of southern Merlen.
His last trick had already been played, and he had nothing left but desperation.
So he took to the streets. Lower than low.
"Hello, kind sir, could you spare a moment?" he asked a man in a tailored coat, voice shaking, stomach clenching with every syllable.
The man didn't even glance his way. Just kept walking.
Some gave him a dismissive wave. Others just stared through him like he was invisible.
With every rejection, the illusion blurred—the memory bleeding into the now. The two Tarrins, young and older, merged into one.
He wasn't just watching anymore. He was back inside it. Living it.
And it was hell.
He drifted from one broken alley to the next, the scent of rotting food and piss clinging to every breath.
Filth caked the soles of his shoes. His shirt stuck to his skin with sweat and grime.
Still, he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
'This one. Maybe this one.' He told himself, stepping into yet another pharmacy with a pitiful face carefully arranged.
Same result.
The clerk looked at him like a bug on glass.
Disgust. Indifference. Nothing else.
By now, the lesson was carved into his bones: this world has no space for the weak. No one comes to save you. Not when you need them most.
At seven in the evening, he finally gave up.
His feet dragged along the uneven road back home, hands trembling, face numb.
The only thing weighing down his pockets were two measly Lunars from a stranger too soft-hearted to know better.
It wasn't enough. Not to buy the medicine.
Not to save her.
Not to save himself.
By the time he reached the apartment, Tarrin's legs were numb with exhaustion. His body moved on autopilot, one step after the other.
He opened the door with a blank stare, the creak of the hinges greeting him like an old, unwelcome friend.
The place hadn't changed.
Dust clung to the corners, a thin film coating the table and shelves. The air was stale, thick with silence. Since his mother had gotten too sick to move, the house had fallen quiet—untouched, unlived-in.
"I'm home, Ma," he called, stepping into her room.
She turned to him slowly, her eyes finding his. But his gaze stopped at her face—pale as paper, her skin stretched thin over sharp cheekbones.
His gut twisted with every wheeze that scraped out of her lungs.
"How was your day, honey?" she asked, her smile weak but there. Always there.
Even as a kid, Tarrin could see through it. Behind the curve of her lips, behind each word—there was strain. Each breath seemed to cost her a piece of herself.
"Nothing much," he said, forcing lightness into his voice. "Just hung out with Martin for a bit. What about you? You feeling better?"
He tried to smile, but it felt brittle on his face. His voice trembled at the edges.
Then she coughed.
A harsh, wet sound that echoed too loud in the room.
Blood splattered into her palm.
"Ma!" He bolted to her side.
But she just gave him that same smile—gentle, practiced. Another lie.
"It's alright. Not as bad as it looks," she whispered between shallow breaths. "I just… need a moment."
Tarrin's throat burned.
"You want anything? Water? Food?" The fear in his voice cracked through, no longer hidden.
She gave a small nod, her voice rasping.
"If you could fetch me a glass of water…"
Tarrin gave a quick nod and made his way to the kitchen. He filled a glass with water, hands steady, but something heavy curled in his chest—a quiet, gnawing dread.
He chalked it up to exhaustion. Nothing more.
He grabbed the last piece of stale bread, sliced it, and placed it on a chipped plate. That was dinner.
When he stepped back into the room, he wore a faint smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Here you go, Ma… and sorry, it's just bread tonight. I couldn't get anything else."
His mother's gaze softened with a quiet sorrow. "Thank you. It's plenty. And… I'm sorry too."
She coughed again. A sharp, dry sound that seemed to tear something inside her.
"For failing you as a mother. For making you carry all this—for forcing you to care for someone who can't even move without help."
Her words hit harder than any slap.
Tarrin froze, throat tightening. His mother—fragile, wasting away by the hour—was apologizing to him.
Apologizing.
His fists clenched.
Anger flared hot in his veins—not at her, never her—but at everything else.
At the man who walked out on them. At a system built to grind people like her into dust. At himself, for being too small, too powerless, to change any of it.
"Don't say that!" he snapped, voice sharp, raw. "Don't you ever say that!"
She didn't flinch. Just looked at him. Her eyes held everything—grief, guilt, love, and that same unbearable fragility.
"Thank you, son," she whispered. Then, softer still: "Do you think… you could stay with me tonight?"
Her voice trembled, like she was afraid of being alone with her thoughts. As if the silence might swallow her whole.
The next few hours passed in a blur of quiet conversation. Tarrin tried to pretend everything was fine, but each cough chipped away at the illusion.
He could feel it—her body was giving out. Slowly. Inevitably.
He didn't know how much time was left, only that it wasn't enough.
He needed the medicine. He needed a miracle.
Even if it meant stealing. Even if it meant killing.
Because what was one more life compared to hers?
A glance at the clock—10:07.
Tarrin excused himself to the bathroom. The mirror greeted him with hollow eyes and a pale face.
He forced a smile, whispered to himself, It could always get worse.
As long as she was still here, it was bearable. Just barely.
But when he returned, the world shattered.
His mother was shaking violently, her body arched, foam trailing down her lips. Her eyes rolled back, showing only white.
"Mom! Mom!" Tarrin dropped the glass, rushing to her side.
His hands trembled as he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her gently, then harder. Panic bloomed, cold and suffocating.
He looked around, helpless. His lungs refused to draw breath.
"What do I do?! What should I do!?"
The shaking didn't stop. It only got worse. Why wouldn't it stop?
Why?
Why her? Why not me?
"Please, Mom. Please, no…" His voice broke, reduced to a whisper.
Someone. Anyone. Save her. Please...
Then the shaking stopped.
Her chest stilled. Her eyes—once warm, always filled with love—were now lifeless. Her lips, which had spoken so gently, hung open, stained with spit and blood.
Tarrin froze. The silence in the room was deafening.
"Mom… wake up. It's not funny anymore," he said, voice trembling, clinging to a lie even a child wouldn't believe.
She didn't move.
Reality crashed down like a sledgehammer.
She was gone.
Just like that.
Tarrin slid to the floor, his back against the bedframe, eyes empty, soul hollowed out.
Something inside him broke.
His heart clenched so tightly, he thought it might stop too.
One thought echoed through the void:
Why?
A hollow ache spread through Tarrin's chest as he looked around the dim room, the weight of loss suffocating.
Then—cracks.
Reality itself began to fracture, splintering like shattered glass.
The walls dissolved. The air turned cold. And in an instant, everything vanished.
Only darkness remained.
Tarrin's breath caught as he snapped out of the illusion. His eyes flicked open, heart pounding in his chest.
'What the hell?'
He looked around, dazed. The air felt heavy, the silence unnatural.
'Was that it? Is it pulling me out now?'
Before the thought could finish, a chain shot from the void, wrapping around his arm with a metallic snap.
"What the—?" Tarrin recoiled, but a second chain lashed out from the dark, binding his other arm.
Then came a third. A fourth. A fifth.
In seconds, he was shackled, unable to move. The chains tightened like cold fingers digging into flesh.
Panic twisted in his gut. He struggled, but it was pointless.
The darkness didn't answer him. It simply watched.
And then—
It spoke.
A voice, ancient and vast, echoed from the abyss. It didn't just speak—it warped the air around it. Tarrin felt the world bend at the edges, like existence itself bowed in reverence.
The voice whispered:
"It takes three to make one."