I don't know how long I lay there.
Was it Minutes? Hours?
The world faded in and out. The Pain I felt was constant, a drumbeat in my chest, my side, my leg. Blood pooled beneath me. It was warm at first, but then it became cold.
This is it.
This is where I die.
Alone in the mountains.
...
Pathetic.
I waited for death, but it failed to respond to me
Something or Someone else did.
I felt a cold presence that made the air itself hold its breath.
I couldn't move or speak. And I could barely see.
But I felt it.
Someone stood over me.
But instantly the Presence vanished.
The wind mage was gone too.
...
What?
I tried to move. But Pain screamed through every nerve. Black crept at the edges of my vision.
Who—
Instanly
Darkness took me.
I woke to pain, again.
This time it was worse than before. My body was screaming, and my wounds were festering, fever was also burning.
Move.
If I stay here, I die.
I moved.
More Like I Crawled.
My fingernails digging into dirt, my knees dragging, and my ribs grinding with every inch. Each movement sent fresh agony through my body.
I found a cave and dragged myself inside.
Instantly, I collapsed.
The days blurred together.
Fever cooked me from the inside. My wounds wept and stank. My mind wandered through nightmares.
I remembered the wind mage's face.
I saw the thirty-seven villagers with dead eyes.
And I thought of myself. I am weak, broken and useless.
You're not enough.
You never were.
All that training and obsession.
For what?
To die in a cave?
Alone?
I screamed, but no sounds came out.
The fever broke on the seventh day.
I was still alive.
Why?
Why am I still here?
That mage should have killed me.
Something stopped him.
Someone—
I tried to remember.
Who?
I didn't know.
A traveler? A stronger mage? Perhaps a monster?
It doesn't matter.
Whoever it was, they're gone now.
And I'm alive.
...
Why?
I lay in the dark and faced the truth I'd been running from.
I am weak.
Not "not strong enough yet." Not "still growing."
Weak.
The wind mage proved it. He'd toyed and played with me like a cat with a mouse. I'd landed one hit, just one, and it was luck. Nothing more.
If that presence hadn't come—
I'd be dead.
Dead.
I stared at the cave ceiling. And let the truth sink in.
I'm weak.
I've always been weak.
I just didn't know it.
I stayed in that cave for a month.
I was healing.
Every day was agony. I cleaned wounds that wanted to fester, I found ater and hunted small game with hands that could barely grip.
My body screamed constantly, and I listened to it.
I did light exercises, which included Stretching and small movements. Nothing that would reopen wounds.
Slowly, my body remembered how to work.
By week three, I could walk without falling.
Gradually, I could hold my swords again.
They felt heavier than before.
By the Month's end. I stood at the cave's entrance. I looked back at the hole that had saved my life.
I came in here a dead man.
I'm leaving as something else.
I know what I am now.
I am Weak.
And I know what I have to do.
Get stronger.
I walked out of that cave.
Behind me, the darkness waited.
I have about a year and a half more before I head home.
What does it mean to be strong?
I asked myself
Is strength the sword that never dulls?
The warrior who never bleeds?
The king who never falls from his throne?
If so,
Then strength was never meant for me...
Or so I thought.
But as the nights grew colder,
I realised something strange—
Every time the world crushes me,
I still breathed.
Every time hope was shattered,
My hands still moved.
Every time I broke,
I gathered the pieces
and stood again.
Perhaps strength
was never about never falling.
Perhaps strength
is dragging my broken body forward
when the world had already written my ending.
Perhaps the strength
was asking that question
and still choosing to stand.
And so I have risen once more.
Not because I am strong
but because I refuse
to remain on the ground.
From now on, I refuse to taste defeat.
I have made my decision.
If strength is what I lack,
Then strength
is what I will take.
THE END