Dan's Regret and Hope

I woke up in the military hospital in the academy's premises. Apparently, we've been missing for six months. When we disappeared, Ris reported what happened to the higher-ups. My father, despite his injuries, led the search party - he was hopefully we'd turn up somewhere, somehow. He was confident we'll be able to get back. They found me in the stream just outside the border, with cuts and bruises all over my body. My life was not in danger though. They said my father, the commander, cried when I was brought to headquarters. Mike was found three weeks earlier. He was found lying on an alley near the market. A Black Thorns soldier found him by chance. He was in a worse state than me. Aside from the cuts and bruises, he had a huge wound on his right shoulder blade - where he was stabbed by an attacking root - and he lost a lot of blood. He's still unconscious now. And Rik, she never showed up. She never came back. I kept replaying the scene in my head, trying to figure out if there's anything we're missing. I was the first to enter the portal but Mike showed up sooner. That could mean the passage of time in the demon world is not the same here.

"Don't worry, we'll be right behind you", her words keep echoing in my mind. It was the biggest lie she ever told. After being discharged, I immediately went and rummaged through her things in the lab. I found her notebook filled with her passion for research. Around the middle pages, she wrote questions: "Why didn't the scorpion kill me?" "How are portals opened?" "Can we actually communicate with the monsters?" She wrote a couple more questions that didn't make sense to me. Then she wrote sentences stating the "bizarre" encounters she'd had with the beasts, she labeled them as evidences. I flipped through the next pages and my blood boiled. She made discoveries - things she never told anybody. First, a portal's size can determine the size of the monster that can pass through - a huge monster can't appear from a small portal. Second, the bigger the portal, the more powerful the monster. Third, portals close a few seconds after they're used. My hand turned into a fist and crumpled the paper I was holding until my knuckles were white. She knew. She knew all along. There were only two portals, each the size enough for a person to crawl through. She knew only two could go home. She knew one would have to make the sacrifice, and she chose herself. "We'll be right behind you", I should've seen clearly behind the facade. I should've known she was lying. I shouldn't have let her push me through. I should've held her hand back then. I should've went to help Mike instead and made her take the damn portal. It should have been me. I thought I was the strongest among us - the most skilled, the most intellectual, the most courageous. But no, I let her offer herself to the darkness. I let her down. I abandoned her.

Why Rik? Why did you do it? We could've figured something out and made a new plan. I know these questions she might never get to answer, but I want to believe she will someday. She's very talented and can hold her own in a fight, but still I feel very anxious. Looking at the state Mike's in, it hadn't been easy for them. All I can do is hope she was able to leave the demon world, that somehow she took a portal to a different time, any time. Even if it's ten years from now, as long as she's safe. The commander has fully recovered and will be back in office soon. As second-in-command, I also have responsibilities I need to concentrate on. The commander has assigned a list of tasks for me, things I bet he's hoping would take my mind off of Rik. It's not working though. Where are you Rik?