Kill the Sun

Nick and Wyntor looked at Horua with bated breaths.

The Recovery Liquid could heal all kinds of physical injuries, and if there was anything wrong with Horua physically, it would get healed very quickly.

These Recovery Liquids were for Extractors, which meant that they were designed to work on people several times stronger than the average human. 

Using several drops on a child was a huge waste since the child couldn't possibly absorb all of it, but Wyntor used that many anyway.

Seconds passed.

Nick waited with gritted teeth.

Right now, Nick's feelings were going crazy.

Horua couldn't be dead!

It had to work!

After around 30 seconds, Wyntor put his hand on Horua's chest again.

"Nothing," Wyntor said with a sigh.

Nick became more fearful and panicked as he kept looking at Horua.

"It can still work!" Nick said.

"Theoretically, yes, but something like that is very rare," Wyntor said as he stood up. "I'm sorry."

When Nick heard Wyntor's apology, he felt like he had entered a dream.

It was like none of this was real.

This couldn't be real, right?

Nick just kept looking at Horua.

Soon, Horua would open his eyes, right?

His breathing would return, and his heart would start to beat again, right?

Nick just looked at Horua.

Right now, Horua's eyes were still open, but his eyes had rolled into the back of his head.

His body had completely relaxed.

'He'll wake up, right? The Recovery Liquid can still work!' Nick thought.

Wyntor moved to the corner of the room and leaned against it with a sad expression.

A minute of silence passed.

Nick kept looking at Horua.

"Let it go," Wyntor said. "It's over."

"Not yet," Nick said urgently as he kept looking at Horua's body.

"Nick, it's been over two minutes without a heartbeat. It's over," Wyntor said with a sigh.

Nick kept watching Horua's body without answering.

A couple more seconds passed.

"You tried your best," Wyntor said. "Even though it ended up like this, you still did the right thing."

Nick didn't answer.

"Maybe he would have preferred death over the state he has been in the last three months," Wyntor added. 

"Maybe it's better this way. If he had survived, whatever he had gone through might have been too much for him to bear."

"If he actually survived, he might have even spoken the Sentence."

"Maybe there was actually nothing we could have done."

Silence.

"Maybe the boy died three months ago," Wyntor slowly said.

"He has a name," Nick said.

"Huh?" Wyntor repeated in confusion.

"He has a name, you know?" Nick repeated with furrowed brows as he looked at Wyntor. "You always keep calling him the boy. Why do you refuse to call him by his name?"

Wyntor raised an eyebrow in pity. "You want to know that now?"

Nick gritted his teeth as his rage exploded.

However, he quickly realized that he was actually just venting.

Wyntor hadn't done anything wrong.

"I'm sorry," Nick said with a restrained voice as he looked back at Horua's body.

Several seconds of silence passed.

Nick just continued looking at Horua with hope.

Soon, he would wake up.

Another two minutes passed.

"You don't need to stay here," Nick said. "You probably have something to do."

"I'm not leaving without you," Wyntor said.

Nick sighed. "You don't need to worry about me."

"I'm not," Wyntor answered.

Nick furrowed his brows in confusion and gazed at Wyntor.

Wyntor gestured to the Dreamer, which was still standing in the corner.

"I'm worried about it. I don't want you to attack it out of rage," Wyntor said. "I trust in your ability to get through this, which is why I'm not worried about you."

When Nick heard that, he gritted his teeth as he turned to look at the Dreamer.

Nick still remembered how the Dreamer had looked at Nick while Horua was screaming.

It was almost like the Dreamer was taunting Nick!

Nick clenched his fists so hard that he nearly started to bleed.

"Nick," Wyntor said with a serious voice. "The Dreamer didn't do anything wrong."

"How do you know?!" Nick said in a loud voice.

"Because there is no reason for it to kill the boy," Wyntor said. "On top of that, it didn't show any sign of attacking Horua."

"But didn't you see how-"

"Because you shouted at it!" Wyntor interrupted Nick before he could finish.

Wyntor knew very well what Nick was about to say.

"It taunted me!" Nick shouted in rage.

"It looked at you in confusion!" Wyntor answered with a serious voice. "You shouted at it with all of your power. Of course it would look at you!"

"Even more, when you charged at it aggressively, it just flew back without even preparing an attack! Otherwise, the alarm would have gone off!"

"The Dreamer has been cooperative this entire time!"

"While we still have to be careful of it since it's a Specter, it hasn't done anything wrong this time!" Wyntor shouted at Nick with a reprimanding voice.

Nick gritted his teeth.

He felt like the Dreamer had been taunting him.

He felt like the Dreamer had deliberately killed Horua.

Yet, he couldn't argue with Wyntor's assessment.

Wyntor was right.

It didn't seem like the Dreamer had killed Horua on purpose.

Nick could only grit his teeth and look at Horua's body with shock, rage, frustration, and hope.

Maybe, Horua would wake up soon.

Five more minutes of silence passed.

Horua hadn't moved.

His body had turned even paler than before.

No one said a word.

"Let it go, Nick," Wyntor said. "There's no reason for you to continue staying here."

Nick's fists clenched even more.

He wasn't willing to leave.

He couldn't believe that Horua was dead.

After everything he had done in the last three months, Horua had still died?

Nick had taken such good care of Horua.

But now, he was dead.

Nick's rapidly moving thoughts seemed to scatter, leaving behind indiscernible but calm snippets of thoughts.

This wasn't real, right?

Another minute passed as Nick just kept looking at the corpse.

How did things end up like this?