Saving Ifesto

I looked at Alvira—she still stood like a statue sculpted from magma and fury, her body tense like a drawn bowstring, as if she carried the weight of an entire city within her. I asked her in deliberately calm tones, testing her composure:

"What do people think now of the Higher Entities? After everything that happened... how do they see those they once worshiped?"

She answered without turning, her voice low but charged:

"Divided. As always, when masks fall."

She raised her chin slightly, as if watching smoke rise from beneath the earth, then paused—a silence that felt like she was diving into me, searching my tone and words for hidden motives. Then she continued, her voice sharp as a blade:

"Some believe we deserved what happened. They see it as punishment... for forgetting balance, for clinging to Tyro and abandoning the others. Tyro alone became our god, our sun, our heat. We turned our backs on balance—and lost our compass. To them... the sickness is justice."

She looked at me, her eyes glowing with a dark, fiery hue—not born from flames, but from loss. And she said:

"As for the others... they've renounced all the Higher Entities. They see them now as nothing more than selfish beings. The sickness is not a message—it's a declaration of war. In their eyes, the Entities created the plague... and just sat back, watching us die like it was some kind of play. To them, the Entities are monsters, not gods."

Something small trembled deep inside me as I heard her words. It wasn't anger—it was an old wound, scraped raw again. Her tone was calm, but there was something in it—something like bitterness. I asked her without hesitation:

"And you?"

She responded after a pause that lasted two heartbeats:

"I stand in the middle. I don't believe in their justice, but I don't curse them either. I don't have time for that. All I want is to save my people. Stop this slow bleeding. Stop our fall."

There was something strange in her voice—a mix of rage, resolve, and a sadness that doesn't cry. Her voice sounded like the earth itself when it crumbles in silence. I wanted to know more, so I asked:

"Do you have hope... any lead? A plan?"

She looked away, toward the alley we came from, as if seeing ghosts of the past I couldn't perceive. Maybe she saw her siblings... or faces now buried beneath scorched soil. Then she said:

"There's something. Just a theory. It could be true—or just a desperate shot in the dark."

She stepped closer, as if entering a secret confessional circle, and whispered, as if afraid someone else might hear:

"A cure. It can be made from the eyes of rare creatures... the Kakino-Mati. It's not just a remedy—but a restorative that brings inner balance back, lets the body reabsorb solar energy."

My eyes widened, and I felt a surge of shock rise within me. I said instinctively:

"Kakino-Mati? You're joking."

She shook her head, her tone dead serious:

"I'm not. There's an old manuscript, forbidden. I found it among my grandfather's papers. It says the eyes of these creatures represent the mirror of primal energy... they're the only thing that can reorganize it inside an infected body. But the problem…"

I cut her off, already knowing the answer:

"They're rare, aggressive, impossible to approach—let alone track."

She nodded and added, her voice hushed as if dragging a heavy truth from her chest:

"Exactly. Five of our soldiers died in a single attempt. The rest refused the next mission. Now... there's no one left who can take the risk. Or who dares to."

She looked at the ground for a moment, then raised her eyes to meet mine again. She wasn't seeking pity—just a moment of understanding. She continued:

"I can fight, yes... but I'm no elite warrior. I'm not like my father, or my brothers—who all fell, one after the other, when the plague began. I'm a healer. War isn't my home... but now, I have no choice."

We fell silent for a while. Only the hiss of steam rising from the earth, like the city itself was sighing in pain from beneath its skin.

Then she stepped closer, looked into my eyes, and asked with a bluntness that didn't know how to lie:

"And you? What do you truly want? What brought you into the heart of hell?"

I swallowed the hot air around us and hesitated for a moment before saying:

"I came to reclaim something that belongs to me. Something priceless. Not for sale. Not to be stolen... it's simply mine."

She raised an eyebrow, wary:

"And you want to bargain with me?"

I nodded:

"I'll help you find a living Kakino-Mati—and protect you until you make the cure. But in return... you'll help me get what I'm after."

She asked directly:

"And what is that?"

I looked at her, leaving a deliberate space of mystery, and said calmly:

"You'll know soon enough."

She stared at me for a long moment, as if trying to peel back the layers of my words, to rip through the veils and reach the intent beneath. I saw doubt in her eyes, and caution—but also... a spark of hope. Then, suddenly, she turned her back and motioned with her hand:

"Follow me."

She walked with steady steps into a narrow, steam-drenched passage, the walls glowing with a soft red light, as if lava breathed behind them. I followed her—and each step drew me closer to something I wasn't ready to face… but desperately wanted.

In the heart of Ifesto, where no law and no light remained.