The story Briar wanted to tell me wasn't a long one. It was more like a children's tale, where a guy and a girl wandered through the middle of a forest, eating and sleeping. They talked like good friends; they argued like good friends; they lived like good friends...
The story was far too childish, but it made sense. She's the one telling it.
Even so, I remember that story very differently.
I closed my eyes. In my memories, all I could see was a crazy girl following me around; laughing, playing, and talking nonstop. She found joy in everything I did, but I was never able to enjoy things the way she did. I envy that part of her... I don't understand how Briar has managed to live in this world with such a childish mind...
No. I'm wrong.
The one with a childish mentality is me.
She never stops talking, and all I do is listen. The four walls seemed to shrink before my eyes. I'm... cold and hungry, but I don't want to eat; I don't want to feel warmth. I want to be alone and in silence.
Huh, but it's ironic.
Briar doesn't care about that in the slightest. That's just the kind of person she is.
It makes me think that Briar and Maissa are the same. Even when I feel like a piece of shit, they're there to bother me. I admit it actually calms me down a little, but I can't forget anything I've done. I'll never forget that horror... I'll never forget what they did to my body. And above all else, I'll never forget the way that person spoke.
I'll keep sinking here.
I'll rot in this corner.
I'll die alone.
There's nothing else I want...
"You can use your gold to buy lots of food. Zaun is bound to have something I can sink my fangs into. I can't wait anymore," Briar said in a self-assured tone. "So don't worry, man. We'll make it there in one piece. There won't be any more monsters on the way. And if one dares to show up, I'll eat it and show it who's boss!"
For some strange reason, she always knows what to say. If only I could say the same about myself, everything would be better. I could go home without fearing the reality waiting for me there.
But I've become a monster.
That's something I never wanted...
"That's not the problem," I whispered, too tired to shout; too broken to cry. "That's not the problem..."
"Then what's making you so sad, Midas? If you don't tell me, I won't understand. Humans are hard for me to understand. And it's even harder when they don't talk." She laughed. I heard her pillory bump against the wall. "Well, I know humans scream when they're scared. At least the ones I chased across battlefields did."
"I'm... not in the mood for this, Briar. Go be with the others. Let me rest..."
On the other side of the wall, Briar sighed. She gently bumped her head against it, and her tone changed.
"We spent years resting inside prison cells. Haven't you rested enough already?" She seemed to smile. She always makes that quick little inhale whenever she does. Then she tapped the wall twice. "You're such a slacker, Midas."
I shook my head and hugged myself tighter. I tried not to answer, but Briar kept talking.
"What are you going to do when we get back to Zaun? I've never been there before. Show me the city when we arrive."
"You won't like what you see," I replied, burying my voice in the shadows once more.
I closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep, but I couldn't. Every time I tried to empty my mind, all those regrets came back like a hurricane.
"I think I will. Ever since we left Noxus, you've talked nonstop about going back to Zaun, but now all of a sudden you don't want to anymore. I don't get it. Are all humans this complicated? Feels like the answer keeps slipping away from me. Nothing ever slips away from me!"
That cheerful tone again.
What's making her so happy?
I'm sure if I asked, she'd give me some stupid answer.
I should ask...
I should...
I...
"Why is it that ever since we met, you talk as if everything is wonderful? It's really annoying." That's not true. I just envy your ability to see things from a more optimistic perspective. "Ten years... Ten years, and you're still exactly the same."
I wish I could be like you...
On the other side of the wall, Briar stopped smiling. She looked toward the opposite wall, imagining it was the door to her cell. She imagined it was the moment she first became aware of herself.
"It wasn't always like that, you know? Back then, everything was red, Midas. Back then, everything hurt. Back then, I couldn't feel anything but anger. It was the only human emotion I knew from the very beginning of my life."
She lived surrounded by corpses and blood. She reveled in the feasts that battlefields always provided. She murdered enemies and allies alike. She stained the earth with death, and when everyone had been consumed, she was left alone on the battlefield.
When they locked her away, she was nothing more than a stupid animal that growled and barked; that slammed itself against the walls and clawed at the door. The sentinels laughed at her and watched her like a monkey in a circus. The years passed within that cell while all her hostility slowly faded away, but there was one thing she couldn't control.
Her hunger.
She endured unimaginable pain inside that cell. She tore off her own fingers to drink her own blood. She cried and begged the sentinels to give her just a little blood, but her pleas were never heard.
The pain of hunger made her think for the first time. She heard the screams and cries of the other monsters and realized they were all just like her.
But why was she able to stop screaming and crying from hunger while the others couldn't?
Among that mass of freaks, she believed she was the worst of them all. Yet even that didn't make her feel anything different. Her emotions had always been clouded by blood and screams.
But ever since she met Midas, that changed.
"Human emotions are still complicated despite everything. Sadness, happiness, disappointment, embarrassment... Love... All those complicated emotions mixing together inside my head... Especially the last one. Love... I love blood... But is there something else I can love besides that?" Her cheerful smile returned. "Hehehe. I get dizzy when I ask so many questions."
"Love..." Midas repeated, thinking of Mai and his mother.
They were the only people Midas had ever truly loved. There was no one else in this world like them, but that only made him feel pathetic. He clung to those two people like a crying child. Loving his family wasn't wrong, but depending on them so heavily had hurt him for a very long time.
Instead of learning how to be strong, he had locked himself inside a prison built from his own memories. He constantly tortured himself with 'What could I have done?' instead of moving forward with 'What will I do next?'
"Midas..." Briar said, peeking one eye through the hole in the wall. "Didn't you promise we'd go eat some gromps once we got out of that cell? How are we supposed to do that if you decide to stay locked up forever?"
Midas stared into the void.
"I..."
"Midas..." she said with a smile. "Let's go to your home, and then let's go discover the world!"
Those words...
A memory struck Midas.
Maissa stood atop one of Zaun's scrap-metal buildings, looking toward Piltover. The lights of its towers shone like stars in the sky. Clouds drifted overhead, decorating the night alongside the moon and the massive airships crossing the heavens.
Midas stood behind her, hiding, afraid.
That day, his older sister had told him something.
Briar's words reminded him of that promise.
Tired, broken, and drowning in memories that had once made him happy, Midas buried his face between his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, a faint light illuminated his gaze.
"Could you tell me what's waiting for me out there? Could you tell me what the world has left for me?" Midas asked with a trembling voice. "Could you... give me back the hope I lost so long ago...?"
Nothing remained except regret and guilt.
What could the world possibly offer a man whose hands were stained with blood?
Briar leaned against the wall and thought for a moment.
"I don't know," she answered almost immediately. "But that's the whole point of discovering something, isn't it? Let's find out together! I'll be with you, seriously!"
"Hah... I see..." Midas said with the voice of a weary man.
Briar looked up at the ceiling. With a peaceful smile, she said,
"I've never talked to someone like this before. Do you think I can be as normal as everyone else?"
That was a rather curious question. Midas glanced toward the hole in the wall, expecting her to say more, but ironically, Briar was doing the exact same thing.
"I don't know... What does being 'normal' even mean?"
"Hahaha. Good question. I have no idea."
Resting his head against the wood, Midas showed a faint, sad smile.
"Yeah... I have no idea either."
Until that moment, he had never really thought about it. He even found it funny that something so mundane had completely escaped his mind.
What is normality, anyway?
"Come on, Midas. Let's go outside for a while, okay? Don't stay in the dark. Don't drown in pain. We're free now! We can do whatever we want! But you can't do that if you stay here."
Briar stood up from the floor. She kicked open the door and headed toward Midas's room, where she did the same thing. Everyone in the crew watched her curiously, hoping for good news, though they were strangely confused to see the girl casually kicking doors open as if it were nothing.
On the other side, Midas frowned at the sudden light assaulting his eyes. He saw Briar standing there, smiling innocently like a child. Her mysterious pale-white eyes said more than a thousand words, and the expression on her terrifyingly adorable face led him to a conclusion.
The pillory resting on her shoulders.
The hemolith that imprisoned her true self.
Just like him, even far away from the Immortal Bastion, neither of them could escape what they were.
"Come with me, Midas. Let's eat," Briar said, extending her hand with its sharp nails for him to take.
In the corner, he couldn't help but look at her as though she were an angel of light.
They lived completely different realities despite being almost the same.
Then he shyly rose from the floor and took a few steps until he stood before her.
He raised a trembling hand. He was about to take hers, but stopped at the last second. Briar, however, smiled and lunged forward, grabbing his hand without the slightest hesitation.
At that moment, the hemolith on her shoulders glowed faintly.
Midas opened his eyes wide, startled and confused.
"You..."
"Let me take you outside, crybaby."
She led him by the hand onto the ship's deck. Everyone turned their attention toward them, but Midas was so confused that he barely noticed.
With Briar standing before him, he thought:
'She's... crazy, but... aren't I just like her?'
Both sides of the same coin walked hand in hand into the light.
'Now I understand. What I couldn't see all these years. It was beside me this entire time.'
He raised his gaze and looked at the crew members, who were applauding the hero who had saved them. No one needed to say anything. Their silence, their joyful expressions, and their cheers told him everything he needed to know.
'We're free, but we're not... We'll remain prisoners of the monsters we are. But despite that, we'll keep moving forward precisely because we're the worst this world has to offer.'
His eyes, once dimmed by lingering depression, lit up faintly as he looked into Briar's.
'She knows it. That's why she can live in this world. I still have a long way to go before I can follow in her footsteps, but for now, I'll keep watching her... I'll keep being her friend...'
One of his chains—the one that had imprisoned him in a state of perpetual loneliness—finally broke.