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It happened before you could react. The swift motion of the blade that one of the highest-ranked enemies you were battling with wielded, cut through your abdomen with sharp pain, leaving you choking on your breath as you stumbled away from the enemy. It was a mistake on your part. You were distracted, turning your head towards Aether, when you heard him grunt in an unmistakable sound of pain. Aether got a low hit from his side but was back in motion the next second, turning his focus onto the enemy as he quickly got back to fighting.
You instinctively covered your wound with one hand, warm, sticky blood making its way from your abdomen to your legs and to the ground fast enough that it left you with a feeling of fear. You had no time to give in to the pain. However, as your survival instincts peaked, the hot rush of adrenaline ran through your body like electricity, making you grip your weapon harshly. The enemy attacked again, wasting no time and certainly not waiting for you to catch a breath as he swung his blade sharply. You dodged in time, grunting from the pain that even this swift, slight motion gave you, resulting in the blade grazing your left cheek like paper.
You had no time to reflect on yet another wound as you got into your attack stance, the anger that heated your whole body, giving you a little more push to fight back. You swung your weapon harshly, sloppy from being wounded, as you fought back with the enemy. You could hear Aether and others fighting loudly, too focused on wiping out the entire army of the upper legion of the Abyss, as they killed one after the other.
You bit down on your lip, suddenly feeling ashamed of yourself for getting distracted in the heat of battle, the one mistake none of the others seemed to make as stupidly as you did. Your lack of being able to keep your attention in one place always came to bite you in the ass, and you were okay with that most of the time. But to think that you let that happen in a life-or-death situation like this made you feel foolish and incompetent with the people you’ve come to call your friends on this journey. You would be okay If it resulted in your death, but you would never forgive yourself If your stupidity cost you the lives of your friends.
As the enemy attacked again and again, it’s only intention to be transparent to you that he certainly wasn’t gonna stop until you took your last breath. You uncovered your wound to wield your weapon with both hands, with your dangerously decreasing stamina and sense of surroundings.
Your eyesight was becoming blurry, your slowly increasing dizziness making it harder for you to be aware of the enemy’s growing attacks. You were getting increasingly sloppy, the thin line between your will to survive and the need to close your eyes for a second at least, making it almost impossible to detect what was real and what was fake.
Were you fighting right now? Was there really a dangerously blood-lusting enemy in front of you, waiting to end what you could call a short-lived life? You didn’t even get to try all the foods of Teyvat yet, didn’t help Aether reunite with his sister, didn’t cook that one food Paimon wanted from you for over two weeks now, you didn’t get to revisit Mondstad -and oh how you missed the city of freedom- you didn’t get to revisit Angel’s Share or the Kamisato siblings and the Crux. You haven’t got to do anything yet.
You haven’t got to confess to Aether yet.
Your eyes slowly opened back up, your confused eyes meeting with the gray sky. Before you could look at your surroundings from your position on the ground, the sounds caught up to you first. Screams, blades crashing on one another, and the familiar voice of the blonde traveler were enough to pull you back into reality.
However, before you could even get your head off the hard ground you were laying on, the enemy you were battling against stood over you with a sick grin, seemingly very satisfied that he finally got you where he wanted.
Contrary to your sickeningly fast beating heart, your body wasn’t obeying any of your brain’s orders to survive. Every single part of your brain was screaming at you to move, an alarmingly increasing rush of fear consuming your body, making it clear that If you didn’t do something now, these were going to be your last moments. Your eyes glanced to your sides in panic, opposing to your frozen body, as you caught a glimpse of your weapon.
Once again, it happened before you could react. The body that was frozen out of fear just a few agonizing seconds ago reacted before your brain caught up to your movements. Just a second ago, your eyes fell on the weapon that was next to you, and the next second, the same weapon’s shaft was in your hand in a tight grip, the other side of the weapon cutting right through the enemy’s body that was hovering over you.
You caught the guy’s eyes on top of you, his eyes wide from the unexpected attack that happened in mere seconds, leaving him with a weapon cutting right through his chest as his blood spilled down onto your face.
And then, he took his last breath, leaving his body limp as he fell to your side.
I’m alive, you thought to yourself. I’m alive. I’m alive. Hot tears threatened to spill from your eyes as the aftershock of the whole situation started settling in. I’m alive, you thought, just a second before all the adrenaline slowly left your body, almost mocking you with the way it made the wounds from your body known to you again. The sharp, agonizing pain from your abdomen left you breathless once again, leaving you coughing for air, only resulting in coughing up more blood.
‘’And that was the last of them,’’ you heard the voice of Aether, seemingly out of breath as a few others started talking. ‘’Archons, finally! I need a long bath after this.’’ you heard another sound chime in, followed by another. ‘’You guys know what this calls for? A celebration feast tonight, and it’s all on me!’’ you heard a few people start cheering and laughing, unable to make out who was who.
You smiled, nonetheless. You wanted to be able to join them and cheer with them, but your body was tired. You decided it was nothing a little nap wouldn’t be able to fix. Besides, you were already feeling your eyes threaten to close, begging you to rest just a little. Who were you to resist? You were sure the others would understand. It was just gonna be a little nap, and then you could go and join the celebration feast with them. Before closing your eyes, you also decided that you would confess to Aether. But before that, you just needed to rest your eyes for a little while...
‘’Hey, where’s-’’ Aether asked, frowning as he looked at the others. The little celebration talk died down as they all seemed to notice the girl’s absence.
“Where is she?” The golden hero asked again, his voice trembling from the panic overtaking his body.
“Hey, relax, I’m sure she’s somewhere around-“ Aether ignored other’s voices as he frantically looked around. You were there a moment ago. He saw you fighting, he was sure. You were okay, you looked okay a moment ago.
When was the moment ago he recalled back to? His brain started flooding with the flashes of the battle that took place just a moment ago, trying to recall back the last time he heard your voice in the heat of it. When was it? Where were you?
He started walking fastly around the bodies of the Abyss soldiers, trying to get a glimpse of your familiar clothes. Surely you weren’t among them? Maybe you were just sitting under a tree, trying to catch your breath? Yeah, that seemed reasonable. After all, there was no way you’d be lying amongst these bodies, right? No, he wouldn’t let something like that happen in the first place, he was sure.
Then, he caught sight of the familiar colors you wore everyday. Right next to an Abyss soldier’s lifeless body.
His eyes widened in terror as he realized that you were lying next to it, unconscious.
His body moved on its own as he rushed over to your body, almost tripping over the bodies on the ground.
“Hey, hey hey hey! Why are you lying here? Come on, this is no place to take a nap!” he shook your body frantically as his own body started running cold with fear at your unresponsiveness
“Open your eyes, come on come on come on…” some watched in fear, some watched in shock and some watched in sympathy as the golden hero of Teyvat held his partner’s body close to him, desperately trying to talk a dead corpse into coming back to life.
“No no no no… don’t- don’t do this” a sob escaped his lips, “Please, please open your eyes. Come on, open your eyes, please. I’m begging you please don’t-“ another sob “Please don’t leave me”
All of a sudden, it started raining. Aether thought of it as a sick joke when the first rain drop fell on your face, followed by others. You hated the rain.
He looked up at the sky with a scowl. It was bright, not even a cloud in sight. The sun’s burning gaze shone down at him, as if it was mocking him.
He looked back down at your body on his lap. The scorching sun above was making him feel like he was in the depths of hell, yet your body seemed to be getting colder.
He decided that he hated the sun that day.