Chapter 15: What Is Family…?

Chapter 15: Chapter 15: What Is Family...?

It does not matter, Victor reminded himself. I’m getting out. I’m not staying in a world that just massacred hundreds of barbarians like livestock.

Still. His old habits.

He was halfway through comparing Hollow Hunger’s second unlock requirement against his current Pain Tolerance percentage when certain movement caught the edge of his vision.

Out past the ring of their dying bone firelight, something shifted between two huts.

Babarians had good eye sight in the night, being in the body of one, Victor was no exception.

This thing was segmented and moved low to the ground, it’s wings folded tight against its bloated body. It was one of the swarm’s stragglers.

It looked like it had gorged itself too heavy to fly straight, picking its way forward through the ground instead its six clicking legs.

It was moving toward the girl who’d brought him the beer.

She was curled up near the fire’s edge, fast asleep, and completely unaware.

Even in this campfire, how warmth was received was based on hierarchy. It was always Warriors before Gatherers.

It happened fast.

The creature lunged for her throat, wings snapping open for the final lurch forward.

There was no time to call out to the others. Victor looked to his side, spotted the axe resting near his leg. The picked it and flung it before his brain finished the thought.

He had seen this move in movies before. And Popo did used it to end a barbarian. So it had to work.

Unfortunately, unlike Popo’s skilled, practiced throw, it didn’t kill the creature. It just knocked it sideways, a dull CLANG like iron hitting wood, enough to buy half a second.

The creature shrieked.

The girl woke up screaming, "BUG! BUG!!"

Kiki was already moving before the sound finished leaving her mouth. She snatched her broad sword and flung it in one motion. It spun once through the firelight and buried itself in the creature’s head.

SLUSH.

It fell backward, legs twitching in the air.

The girl scrambled back on her hands, panicking, and dove straight into Victor’s arms.

He barely had time to catch her before another one came from behind.

Victor’s Battle sense level was too low to catch the attack.

By the time his side vision caught the pointy needle from the bug’s mouth, he knew it was too late.

Damn it! It’s going to pierce my head. The thought settled in his mind.

But then he felt strong pressure from his side.

A hand shoved Victor and the girl out of the way. It was hard enough that it shoved them both into the dirt.

Victor turned in time to see the person. It was Jaja.

But this savior wasn’t fast enough to fully dodge. The creature’s point meant to impale Victor drove into Jaja’s side just as he turned, the impact spinning him half a step.

The camp erupted. People woke up shouting, scrambling for weapons. "Popo! POPO!"

Jaja didn’t fall. He roared instead, swinging his fist down into the creature again and again. Raw babarian strength, bone against chitin, until its blood and mucus splattered across his face and chest and it finally stopped moving beneath him.

Only then did he stagger back, breathing hard, chest heaving.

A pause. And then Jaja’s gaze moved down.

The wound sat low on his side, deep enough that Victor could see the dark of it even in the firelight.

It was already spreading outward from the punctured skin in thin, branching lines. Black veins crawled from under his skin like ink through water.

He’d been injured.

Jaja looked up. His eyes found Victor’s gaze, then dropped once more to the wound spreading black through skin.

"...Fuck." He cursed loudly, the word cracking in his throat as his knees buckled.

Two barbarians were already there to catch him, an arm slung under each shoulder before he hit the ground.

Victor just stood there, frozen and Speechless.

Did he just save my life?

The thought didn’t fit right in his head. It kept sliding off. It just did not make sense to him.

No one in his life, not his dead beat father, not a single friend he could actually name, not even Nadia in weeks of pretending, had ever outrightly stood between him and something dangerous.

And he was a person that had been in a lot of dangerous situations because of his size.

Men and women had bullied him and beat him up just for being fat. And in some cases, just for being weak and looking at them wrongly.

And here was a man he’d known for less than a day, bleeding black poison into his own side, because Victor had been too slow to save himself.

Popo shoved through the gathering crowd and kneeled beside Jaja, hands hovering over the wound like he was afraid to touch it and afraid not to.

"He’s been poisoned."

"We have to drain it out." Someone suggested. The young barbarian boy was already moving. He rushed over with a length of hollow wooden pipe, kneeling fast, and pressing it toward the wound.

He was about to put his mouth to the other end when—

"Wait."

Victor’s voice came out before he could stop himself.

But he had to. He just had to.

He lunged forward, kicking the straw from the young Barbarian’s hand.

"What are you doing?" Popo’s head snapped up, sharp with panic. "If we don’t draw the poison out, he’ll die."

Victor didn’t answer him. This was not out of disrespect, he just had something else on his mind.

With the way he moved, he was already kneeling in front of Jaja, close enough to see the sweat beading along his brow.

"Why?" Victor asked, "Why did you do that?"

Jaja blinked at him, like the question made no sense. Then he let out a pained, breathless chuckle.

"What do you mean?" His voice was already thinning at the edges. "We are... family."

Something cracked open in Victor’s chest at those words. It was a kind of ache he couldn’t name.

It was definitely not grief, but not quite joy either.

It was something closer to a memory he hadn’t let himself touch in years.

It was of his mother. She was laughing over a pan of frying chips. The kitchen had been too small and too hot, oil popping loud against the metal.

Little Victor was six years old, chasing a ball he’d thrown too close to the stove. For curiosity, and trying to mimic his mother, his tiny hand reached for the pot handle before he even knew what he meant to do with it.

She’d moved faster than he’d ever seen her move, diving between him and the fire, her palm closing around the scalding handle instead of his small fingers.

It sizzled.

She hadn’t even cried out. Just winced, cradling her burned hand against her chest with a napkin.

Even little Victor knew that it stung harshly.

But when he’d asked her in that small terrified voice, " why," she’d only laughed. That same breathless, pained little laugh.

"What do you mean why? You’re my son. My... family."

Victor’s throat closed. Opened... closed again. "Family."