Chapter 35: Nightmares and Resolve

"...Mom! Dad! Please, no!"

"C-Cedric! Listen to me...focus!"

"...no!"

"Listen! H-Hide! Find somewhere to hide!"

"P-Please, no! I can't lose you!!"

"Son, this is not the time for you to be stubborn! Listen to me! Dad's got this okay, buddy? I need you to hide until the monsters are gone! I promise I'll find you once this is over! For now, find somewhere to hide."

"Dad..."

"You're good at that right? Cough! Y-you always win against your buddies whenever you play, so you must be really good at it! Now's the ultimate test to that, you hear me, boy!?"

"Mn!!"

"Good. Now, run and hide. If we're lucky, we'll each other soon, okay? Go! Quick!"

"...if there's another life...let's be bros, again..."

Gasps!

Cedric's eyes flew wide open as he was startled awake. The familiar ceiling of his prison room greeted him, allowing him to re-organize his thoughts up to speed.

He sighed as his head throbbed. Painfully being reminded of that awful past. He had thought that he was already past this since he hadn't had this nightmare for a couple of years now, but it seemed that he wasn't over it yet.

Harold's death certainly didn't help either...

Sitting up on his bed, he rested his back on the headboard. He closed his eyes and tampered his senses down. He didn't want to know what everybody was up to right now, he certainly didn't care either.

He just wants to spend time in silence. To mourn for the passing of Harold, his only friend, and brother in this shitty place.

What irks him about this is that he can't openly mourn for the loss of his friend. To the rest of the world, Harold was the worst...

A traitor to humanity. A willing participant of the Demons' plan to conquer Prime Earth. The worst scum to ever grace this planet, and so on.

He already heard his late friend making the headlines. He even saw some articles about him online. He read and listened to the remarks of the ignorant people outside. They called him names. They spat on him. Criticized and cursed him to eternal damnation.

Yes, what happened to the RMC already spread to the rest of the world. But none of that concerns Cedric at all.

Sadly, the world would never see it that way. And that hurts more.

What makes the pain even worse is that this wasn't the first time this happened.

This is the second time that Cedric lost his loved ones because of the Demon invasion.

The first time was when he and his family were just returning from the Awakening Center. Cedric could still vividly remember being so excited at the prospect of finally getting some training from his father. Yet, on their way back home, they got attacked by a horde of demons.

Someone turned into a node right in the middle of the city, causing a tear in space to appear which demons used to infiltrate the place. The savage demons attacked their ride and killed many people.

Due to his recurring nightmares, Cedric could still vividly remember it. As soon as their bus got hit, his siblings died. He remembered clutching their unconscious bodies as he desperately cried for help.

In his panic, he searched for his parents only to see them gravely injured. His father was trapped under the rubble while his mother was nowhere in sight. He tried to help his father and managed to free him but he was bleeding heavily.

His father then instructed him to hide, to live. Promising that he would find him as soon as everything was over...

A promise that he had failed to keep.

After the incident, he was met with the dead bodies of his family. Only the bodies of his siblings remained intact, his parents weren't so lucky. Only his mother's left arm and his father's skull remained.

And that left young Cedric severely traumatized. That image haunted him for years, and by then, he was already deep in his personal hell, which was the only reason why he managed to 'move on' from it.

But with Harold's death, everything came crashing down once more. Perhaps, it'll be even worse than before. Only time will tell...

And whether he likes to admit it or not, he's scared — no, terrified.

When his family died, he was weak and that was understandable, he just awakened that day, after all. But now, he's decently strong, yet in the grand scheme of things, it's still nothing.

He couldn't save them. Even with the heavenly gift he received, he remains just as weak and vulnerable as he was before. And that scared him a lot.

How many people close to him would he lose before he achieves the right amount of strength to protect them? How long would it take? How much must he suffer, before finally having a break from this miserable life?

As far as he could tell, he had nobody anymore. No family, no friends. Just him and their ghosts, probably blaming him for their deaths.

This event was like a cold bucket of water dousing his enthusiasm. Although he could say that he hadn't slacked off the moment he received this heavenly gift, he knew that he could do something more.

"...never again..."

"More..."

"I need more power...more strength..."