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My chest tightens with anxiety as a glimmer of water shines through the trees ahead.Perhaps, if the dragon from yesterday had killed us, we would have had a quick and merciful death instead of this agonizingly slow descent. We wouldn’t be left with this impending threat of running out of medication—or starving to death.

My anxiety eases as I near the rippling stream. Few dare into these forests, mostly because of the close proximity to the northern Dragon Lands border. Many have gone missing or been found dead here.

But I have no choice.

If my father or brother were here, I wouldn’t need to fish for our survival. Maybe I would be somewhere halfway across the kingdom writing poetry, painting, or courting a man who’s wickedly good at dancing. But instead I’m here, and they are there, buried beneath what little we could honor them with: two small rickety crosses near the river. The years and weather have stripped the woods of their rich browns, fading them to shades of gray. I don’t let my gaze linger for long. Because each sidelong glance at the crosses is a reminder.

A reminder of how incapable I am.

A reminder of how helpless I am.

Yet it strikes like an insult to their memories to not stop and think of them.

I chew at my lip, biting back a surge of remorse. This is my twenty-second year. I’m twelve years older than my brother was when he died. Yet I’m still trapped in the moment. It’s nearly comical that I’m the one caring for our mother now. Because out of the two of us, he would have been able to dig us out of this shitty fucking hole we’re stuck in—despite him being older by only four years. That’s simply who he was: confident, capable, and strong. If he inherited those attributes from my father, I’ll never know for certain. My father died before I was born, and after my brother passed, my mother rapidly declined past the point of coherency.

I avert my gaze from my brother’s cross to the river. The water glistens in the light of dawn, its glassy surface rumbling with a hidden danger. I scan the water, but the fish trap isn’t where I set it yesterday. Instead, I find it about twenty yards farther downstream.

I hold my breath as I tread toward the bend of the river where an edge of the wooden contraption peeks out from a cluster of rocks. With each step I mentally beg for a fish to be caught in the trap. Because if not…I don’t know what we will do. We have nomedicine, and I have nothing left to trade for more. There’s no telling what will become of my mother without her medication, even if only for a day. But I can’t give that possibility space. It scares me too much.

My heart sinks as I reach the trap. No fish, and the fucking trap is broken. The body of the contraption is ripped in half, with the second piece missing.

Some asshole bear must have come by, seen the easy meal, ripped out the fish, and went on its merry fucking way. The realization I won’t have any fish to trade today crushes me, and I tremble with the weight of my reality. Tears sting the corners of my eyes as my desperation bubbles to the surface.

We are fucked.

So very, very fucked.

Either we will starve or my mother will become so deranged without her medication she’ll burn our house down. I pull the trap out of the water with shaking hands. A thick haze of hopelessness clouds over me, and I grip onto the wood as if it might calm the emotions threatening to overwhelm me. The wood creaks and snaps in my grasp. With a guttural scream, I fling the trap behind me, hoping to release the feelings of dread with it. Instead, the trap slips from my sweat-slickened hands and rockets into my father’s cross, pulling it part way out of the ground.

My shoulders sag. What have I done to deserve such a damnation? Maybe this is a terrible dream I can’t seem to shake. But that’s the thing: no one is here to save me. No one is here to tell me it’s going to be okay.

This is not a dream.

The weight of our fate looms, threatening to pull me under its vicious tide. I scramble for any semblance of sanity. My instincts drive me to memories of Cole and how he’d remind me to ground myself in the world around me.

I look up. Blinking back any tears threatening to creep up on me.

Five things I see.

Four things I feel.

Three things I hear.

Two things I smell.

One thing I taste.

The process distracts me from my own hopelessness—distracts me from myself. My racing thoughts slow as I shift into another perspective. An electric blue butterfly floats on a breeze across the water and disappears into the throng of trees. My pounding heart quiets, and my panicked breath levels.

After a few moments, I trudge over to the unearthed cross, kneeling as I reach a hand toward its wooden surface.

“I’m so sorry, Father,” I croak, shaking my head against the next well of sadness. I push the cross back into the packed earth, but my efforts are met with resistance. My gaze shifts to the ground as I clear away splintered trap remnants and crumbs of dirt.

My fingers brush against something cold, and a zap of energy zings its way up through my fingertips. I recoil with a gasp.

Is my lack of food over the last few weeks leading me to the point of hallucinations?

I creep closer for a better look. Buried under the cross, a smooth black surface gleams in the sunlight. I tug the cross out of the ground and place it next to me, revealing an oval-shaped black stone underneath.