Gale's back hit against the cold wall behind him beside the entrance door. It was empty. Only the burnt remains of the campfire the convoy had used gave him proof that everything that happened did happen.

  He was alone again.

  His chest began heaving. Each breath came at a struggle. A burning sensation spread in his lungs, yet it was not from exhaustion. His hands trembled as he ran his fingers through his long uncut hair. Grip tight, trying to find anything to anchor himself to. Everything that happened, everything he did for them. A cruel joke given to him by the very life he fought against.

  Gale held up a fist and struck it against the floor. A small crater formed, as well as cracks that webbed out from the impact.

  Pain, though it wasn't as painful as the sight of all of them leaving him behind.

  Tears streamed down his face, blurring his vision. He tried squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe it would stop the tears. The action proved to be of no use.

  Memories kept flooding him; the one thing he couldn't run away from.

  Rachel's face haunted him the most. The sight of her skewered by the sword. Blood that spilled. And her body that lay still on the meadow grass.

  It wasn't that which hurt him the most. It was her face and her hand that tried to reach out to him as she flew to the exit.

  Gale's body shook. Sobs came harder. The tears wouldn't stop even as he clenched and gritted his teeth.

  He had saved her. Saved all of them. But at what cost?

  He was back where he started. Alone and isolated. Cut off from everyone and everything he had come to care about.

  The irony of it all was too much to take. He fought so hard to be more. To be something better than the frightened, lonely boy he had been.

  Be someone great. That's what he wanted to do. The books never told him the cost of it all. And now, here he was again.

  His parents' words became a curse. Stay low. Blend in. Survive.

  Once was a mantra that he lived by, now just a painful reminder that he should've pushed them all away to stop the inevitable pain.

  Gale slammed his fist against the floor again, shaking the whole tower. Dust fell off the weathered stone. The hinges of the door to the basement clanked.

  It was supposed to be the time he finally found people he could connect with. Friends who accepted him despite his differences. Accepted him for who he was rather than what he told himself he was. When his life was turning for the better, to be part of something.

  I thought I would finally be able to find the magic in this thing called 'life'.

  Each memory dug at him. The waves of sobs grew as he remembered his short life in this world.

  The orphanage where he first hurt the boy in the playground. He didn't mean to. He was scared of everyone that crowded around him. All he could think of at that time was to just defend himself.

  Shawn never came back to him after he got hurt. For his safety, it was better for Shawn to stay away anyway. Probably. So then why did Shawn turn on him? Beating him up just to try and take the book from his hands. He just wanted to be left alone.

  And then there was Rachel. He knew her even in the orphanage. The dark red haired girl who would pass by from time to time. Oh how he wished he could've gone with her to those places she talked about. Maybe even with her best friend.

  Ollie making jokes that he couldn't understand. Maybe Ollie was what he wanted to be. Relaxed, kind, and always joking around casually. Though it was funny how Annett always poked at him for such.

  All gone. Beyond his reach.

  He had pushed them away. Thrown her away, literally. To save them. To save her. And in doing so, condemned himself to the very fate he had been trying to escape.

  Gale's sobs gradually subsided. The tears kept flowing, blocking his vision. He leaned his head back onto the cold wall. No one to lean on. Not even books to talk to.

  Emptiness.

  Why did life keep doing this to me? Every hope I dared to have. Every happiness I dared to reach for. All of them. Always taken.

  If I just stayed alone, focused on surviving, maybe none of this would've happened. I wouldn't have put others in danger. I wouldn't have had to watch them all disappear.

  —I wouldn't be in pain.

  Gale's gaze went to his hip. On it, the broken sabre that had protected those bound to be more important than himself. He had tried to be a hero, tried to protect.

  Now, it was broken again. Alone again with no clear path forward. It would've been all easier to just have been alone from the very beginning.

  He slumped backwards, letting the exhaustion take over his body as his back slid down the wall he leaned on. Adrenaline slowly faded. His eyes drooped, tears no longer falling. Trying to lift an arm took an enormous effort as if lifting heavy weights.

  The only sound left in the tower was his own breathing and the occasional sob. Gale realized it all too late when he had thrown her into the exit.

  Now, he was truly alone. No books to keep him sane this time. No one to anchor to for any bit of warmth.

  Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision.

  He had saved them all, but in doing so, he had lost everything. The reward of heroism was the solitude he wanted the most. And as more of the darkness crept in, Gale couldn't help but wonder…

  Was it all worth it?

  Rachel's eyes fluttered open. She squinted at the harsh fluorescent lights above. It had been so long since she saw lights that bright, or any light that didn't come from her own fire for that matter.

  She blinked rapidly, adjusting her eyes to the brightness. The smell of alcohol and bleach filled her nose. Steady sounds of a beeping heart rate monitor beside her gnawed at her dull headache. Her body felt heavy. Of course it would from all that blood loss.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The dull haze in her mind lifted. Memories came rushing back like a flood. The rift, the battle. The first time she ever saw any tears from Gale's eyes as he threw her away. Rachel's heart clenched.

  Gale wasn't here.

  Her left shoulder throbbed, reminding her of her descent into the knight's sword. If the sword had just been a couple of more centimetres to the heart, she wouldn't be alive.

  She closed her eyes, fighting a growing sob, holding back the tears from falling. His face at that final moment was stuck in her mind. Tears flowed from his face. In that last moment, all he said was 'I'm sorry'.

  Her voice couldn't reach him. She wanted to shout at him, 'we fight together'. Yet she was already airborne, onto the rift that winked out of existence as she passed through.

  Gale had saved her. Saved all of them. All at the cost of himself.

  She imagined his back, facing the knight, the hordes of beasts, and Elliot's army, all alone. The chaos of the battle still lingered in her ears. Roars of the beasts. Screeches of the ghouls. Through it all, his apology seemed to be the loudest of them all.

  Gale was strong, more so than any other awakened she had ever met. But just because someone was strong, doesn't mean they didn't need to rely on anyone. She had eagerly hoped that she could have lifted a tiny bit of weight off his shoulders, whatever that weight may be. No one wants to be alone, even if they're strong.

  Remembering the first time they had met Gale in that world, he looked like a demon. A feral wild animal on the edge. His eyes squinted sharp. Limbs that twitched at any sign of movement from her. Even in high school when she tried to say hi, he'd flinch like bracing himself to get hit.

  However, beneath that exterior that he showed, she had sensed something more within him. The way he'd smile, laugh, and tear up while reading a book as she passed him by the cafeteria. It was a hint vulnerability and a longing for connection buried beneath paper world and successfully hidden from others.

  Not her.

  He had quickly proven himself dependable. Setting out traps outside the encampment. Providing food. Crafting armaments for them to use.

  It was the smaller moments that became endearing. The soft side he showed to those in his pack. Sharing knowledge of hunting and survival. While doing so, his eyes lit up, tone rising more energetically, though others didn't seem to notice.

  Sometimes he would even laugh at Ollie's grand stupidity as well as Annett's banter that deflated that grandness. Or even the times he shared a story from his past.

  And sometimes… he would glance her way only to quickly look away when she caught him.

  Rachel knew why. She had known Gale always wanted to run away. To survive alone. He had distanced himself from the others, especially when they stayed in one place for far too long that invited danger. There were many times she was certain he would be gone the next time she woke up, leaving them behind.

  The scariest moment was the fight after the shadow. Not because he hurt her, but because he had disappeared after they reached the stone tower. She was certain at that time that he had run away.

  He never did.

  Despite everything about the situation telling him to run, to let go of the responsibility to protect them, Gale stayed. Literally through thick and thin. Even when the odds felt impossible, he fought tooth and blood for them. He became the cornerstone of their survival.

  Rachel's heart hurt when she thought of all this. She respected him through it all for taking care of everyone's safety. For overcoming his own nature, unlike her.

  Did she really deserve to be the one in the hospital bed?

  "You're awake."

  Rachel turned her head to see Ollie sitting in a chair beside her bed, a half-peeled apple in his hands.

  "How long was I out for?" Rachel said, pushing through the roughness of her voice.

  Ollie set the apple aside and reached for a glass of water on the bedside table. He helped Rachel take a few sips before answering.

  "A while. Two weeks, to be exact."

  Rachel's eyes widened. Two weeks? It felt like only moments ago she had been hurtling through the rift.

  "Annett?" she asked.

  "She already went back to the UK," Ollie said softly. "She wanted to stay, but... well, there were complications. I'm getting discharged tomorrow as well."

  Rachel didn't answer. Her mind was still stuck on Gale, alone in that other world. How long will it take for him to get out? There must be a way.

  "Ollie," she said. "What year is it?"

  He hesitated, paused, looking away, then said, "2064."

  The world tilted. Rachel gripped the edges of her bed, anchoring herself to anything solid.

  "Five years," she whispered. "But we've only been in the rift for a couple of months…"

  Ollie tried to smile, but sighed instead. "The rift had some pretty bad time dilation, I guess."

  "Gale," Rachel choked. Tears welled up in her eyes. "How long will it be till we see him again?"

  "I don't know. He could come back tomorrow, next year, or..."

  He didn't have to finish that sentence.

  Rachel felt something snap inside her. The tears she held back burst like a dam. She sobbed, shoulders shaking. Heart rate monitor's beeps sped up.

  Gale was left alone. Abandoned. Left behind in a hostile world with no way of knowing if help would ever come. The thought of him having no one around him, no one for him to hold on to. It was all too painful.

  It was all her fault. She should've found a way to stay with him. To fight by his side.

  "I should have done something," Rachel gasped between sobs. "We were supposed to stick together. I told him... I told him we'd face it all as a team. And now he's alone. We abandoned him."

  Ollie moved closer to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Don't blame yourself for this... Gale made his choice. He saved us all."

  "But at what cost?" Rachel cried, her words barely comprehensible through her sobs. "He always wanted to be alone. Always wanting to run away from protecting the group. And now he got his wish, but not like this. It shouldn't have been like this. Not like this…"

  She thought of all the times Gale had opened up to her, sharing bits and pieces of his past. Talked about the bullying at the orphanage. Becoming a ghost to survive.

  She remembered how happy he was to share the stories of the fantasy books he loved or the way his eyes focused when he concentrated on crafting something his parents taught him.

  "What if he thinks it wasn't worth it?" Rachel whispered. "What if he blames me for forcing him to be part of the group? What if... what if he never wants to see me again when he comes back?"

  Ollie gently squeezed her arm. "I don't know. I really don't know…"

  She couldn't shake the image of Gale alone in that world. He would probably say she's stupid for thinking that she knew him more than he thinks. He'd definitely tell her that she didn't know him.

  But it was because she knew him enough that she knew how he would feel, abandoned.

  "Is there any way to go back?" she asked, but she already knew the answer.

  Ollie shook his head. "Higher ups said it's a new world. No one has ever encountered it before. Even if they did, no one came back from it. If we could find it again, there's no guarantee it would lead to the same place. Sorry, but..."

  A new wave of sobs came. Her body shook even more. The tears wouldn't stop flowing, wetting her pillow.

  She failed Gale. Failed to protect him. Failed to keep them all together. And now he was paying the price for her weakness.

  "I should have been stronger," she murmured, more to herself than to Ollie. "I shouldn't have been reckless. I should've trusted him. All I did was put even more burden on him."

  The scene of Gale fighting off the knight was still fresh in her mind. Multiple times, she winced every time she saw the sword graze his flesh. And when she saw the blade above him, she tried to be a hero. It was all regret after that.

  "You got injured, Rachel. Gale made a choice to save you, to save all of us. Don't blame yourself for that," Ollie said.

  The words offered no relief. Everything that happened was all her fault. The battle replayed in her mind over and over. She could have approached it differently. If she had been faster or stronger, if she could have done anything different…

  "I couldn't protect him," Rachel whispered, sobs muffling her words.

  "Gale will come back. He's survived far worse than all of us. Don't blame yourself for this."

  Rachel shook her head. That wasn't the point. She knew the cost of saving all of them. Gale became trapped in that nightmare all alone. Who knows how long it would take for him to come back? Who knows how long it would be before she saw him again. When would it be until he came back home, to his real home?

  The monitor's beeps sped up once again.

  I hate the choice you've made. You threw me away. We were supposed to be together. I would've fought with you in that hell, even if it was just you and me.

  So then… why? Why can't I hate you? I didn't realize it back then. Didn't realize the consequence of everyone escaping together. The prize of all of that was rewarding you with loneliness.

  I'm sorry.