SPLASH!
Water exploded everywhere as they crashed into the river.
Malik took the hit first, his body slamming into the surface to shield the kids.
But it didn’t matter.
The force rippled through him and reached them, pulling painful, choking coughs from their tiny lungs.
‘Shit… no…’
Hearing them struggle gutted him, but he couldn’t comfort them.
‘…Not now. Get it together!’
His limbs weren’t moving; they couldn’t.
‘No, no, no!’
This was just like before—too much like before.
It couldn’t be happening. Not again.
They were going to die!
‘NO!’
He thrashed, kicked, and fought the pull of the water with everything he had, but it was no use.
Malik was wrecked—too beat up, too drained to even try pulling off this kind of miracle.
The river dragged him deeper, the pressure squeezing his chest until his lungs screamed for air.
And then… a disaster happened.
Huda and Sinbad slipped from his grasp.
‘NO! NO! NO! NO!’
His fingers clawed at the water, desperate to reach them, but it was like trying to swim through tar.
‘FUCK!’
Their small forms faded into the dark currents not even three seconds later.
Click-click-click…
All of a sudden, a shadow loomed over Malik, circling him, and blocking out the faint light from above.
As if it were following some cruel script, the monster had decided to reveal itself at the worst possible moment.
Malik… he recognized it at once.
This was the same damn beast.
Its teeth glinted like jagged knives, blindingly white, its massive maw gaping impossibly wide as it did earlier—mocking him with every move.
‘Fuck. You.’
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Blink.
The same damn thing happened.
Malik’s chest felt like it was going to cave in.
How many more times could he do this?
Each attempt dragged him closer to a breaking point he couldn’t even begin to define.
His every muscle was betraying him.
It was falling apart before anything could even happen, like they were expecting him to fail.
The phantom aches of limbs that weren’t injured yet, the constant nausea, the flickering in and out of focus, and the haze of the world around him.
He NEEDED this to end.
Because if it didn’t, going insane would be the least of his worries.
Malik sucked in a deep breath—something that felt more like a gasp—and forced himself to follow the path he’d marked out before.
The one that had almost worked.
He adjusted, angling his falls differently this time, calculating with what little energy and focus he had left.
‘Just gotta time it right… Everything’s gotta be perfect…’
But it wasn’t.
It never was.
Each time he thought he had it under control, something else went horribly wrong.
Missed the next Aether pocket.
Didn’t twist the right way.
Didn’t brace enough.
And in the end?
The ground came up too fast, slamming into him like a vengeful God’s fist.
His body shattered.
Again.
Blink.
His body was barely holding together now.
The pain was unbelievable, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter.
All that mattered was—
Splat!
They hit the ground.
The cracks, the impact…
It felt like being crushed by the whole world.
Blink.
Malik had stopped keeping track of the numbers a while ago.
But if he hadn’t? He’d know this was attempt number ten.
Death number eleven.
One might expect him to have been broken by now, but…
“Come on… Come on… Come ON!”
He roared into the wind and hurled himself at the next Aether pocket like it was the last thing keeping him alive.
And for the first time—finally—it didn’t betray him.
Something about this one felt different.
Why?
Because it worked.
It actually sent him where he wanted to go.
His path to safety was right there, so close he could almost taste it.
Only one more Aether pocket stood between him and life.
His heart thundered in his chest, each beat slamming against his ribs.
‘Just one more… just one.’
Twisting mid-air, Malik angled his body perfectly this time.
Not too fast, not too slow. His aim was dead-on as the pocket yanked him in.
And then—
BOOM!
It spat him out past a hill of jagged rocks and straight toward a thick mess of trees in the distance.
His only chance at breaking the fall.
His last hope to make it out alive.
‘Three…’
Malik’s eyes locked on a tree bending awkwardly to the side, standing out from the dense pack of green.
‘Two…’
It was his target.
The one thing he was aimed toward.
‘One!’
Curling into himself, Malik squeezed Huda and Sinbad tightly into his chest, almost breaking their ribs.
“GAAH—!”
The impact was brutal.
His body slammed into the tree, the force cracking bones he didn’t even know he had.
The tree bent further under the sheer force of his fall, creaking like it might snap.
For a fleeting moment, everything slowed.
But time had other plans.
The tree rebounded, flinging Malik to the right, deeper into the patch of trees.
He crashed into another tree before tumbling down, his back slamming hard into the dirt below, the weight of Sinbad and Huda still cradled in his arms.
And that’s when it hit him.
It wasn’t just pain—it was an all-encompassing, white-hot freight train of agony.
Every nerve screamed in protest, but Malik didn’t scream with them.
He couldn’t.
His breath whooshed out of him, and for a long moment, air refused to return to his lungs.
“Haaaaaaah!”
But an equally long moment later, he finally gasped, his chest rising and falling in short, ragged bursts.
He clung to consciousness with sheer willpower, even as his vision blurred and darkened at the edges.
Through the haze, he saw them.
Sinbad. Huda.
Still wrapped in his arms.
Still alive.
He had done it.
They were safe.
But the cost…
“H-Hey.”
Malik whispered, the words slurring a little.
“Told you I’d save you…”
He pressed his dry lips to their foreheads, planting soft kisses on both of them.
“I told you…”
But as the words faded from his mouth, the pain became too much.
His body gave in.
The ground beneath him felt so oddly soft. So welcoming and inviting.
His right hand twitched against the dirt before falling limp, but even in unconsciousness, his other hand stayed locked around the two.
Malik saved them.
…He did.
And the world turned dark.