Fallen Friend (Lina POV)

Lina felt tears running down her cheeks as she tried desperately to carry her semi conscious, rambling friend to their car. “Come on Madi! Lift a little more!” Lina cried out desperately, her stomach in her feet and her mind numb. “I’m tr-trying!” Madi retorted, seeming less affected by the situation than she was.

It was just their luck that there wasn’t anybody around. It was partially why they had picked the spot they did for the ambush, but now it worked to their detriment. Nobody around meant nobody to help Amani. The poor girl was still rambling in a near delirious state and Lina couldn’t pick out the words she was saying. She could only guess what Amani had seen.

They finally managed to make it to Adam’s car. She felt a pit of sadness and guilt in her stomach at the memory of her boyfriend. She’d gone along with him and his friends because it had seemed fun. And it had been fun, watching him dominate over so many other people. She never took their screams or cries seriously.

But when it had been Adam’s skull being caved in instead of some random loser off the street, and her friend in a near catatonic state, she understood the harm she had caused. She had no time to ponder that as they managed to shove Amani into the back seat. Lina pulled out the spare key that he’d given her, and threw the key to Madi, before starting to climb in the back seat with the barely conscious girl.

“What are you doing? I can’t drive!” Madi exclaimed and Lina cursed her friend under her breath. “Fine, give me those, I’ll drive. You stay with Amani, make sure she’s okay.” She said and her friend threw the keys back to her. She got in the drivers seat, put the keys in the ignition and turned them. She heard Madi get in behind her and after she confirmed that they were both strapped in, she started to drive off. She wasn’t taking any more chances. Her boyfriend was dead and one of her best friends was possibly dying. There was too much at stake.

The drive to the Healer’s Guild Sydney headquarters was tense. The Golden Wattle academy they had staged the ambush at was a fair distance away from the Healer’s Guild HQ, and it took them 45 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, the Healer’s Guild did not do ambulances or any such thing for unregistered guilds, a fact which Lina now cursed as she sat through the traffic.

They finally reached the Healer’s Guild building, and Lina put the car in park, before racing out the door to help Madi bring out Amani. Amani had stopped rambling at some point during the drive and was now ****. They'd had to stop on the side of the road when they realised that, until they’d confirmed that she was still breathing and alive.

Together, Madi and Lina hauled their **** friend out of the car and into the building. “Somebody, please! She needs help!” Lina called out desperately. Two men wearing white lab coats rushed to assist them, and one of them called for a stretcher. Another man appeared seconds later, and together they hefted Amani onto the stretcher.

“What happened?” One of the men asked urgently. Words came streaming out of Lina’s mouth, and she wasn’t even sure that she was making any sense. “I don’t know! We…we were in a fight and th-then she was on the ground a-and she was freaking out and saying things that didn’t make any s-sense.” Her voice trembled as she talked, but she tried to shove aside her emotions and **** herself to remain coherent.

“Sh-she kept talking about a monster or some kind of a freak, I really don’t know what she was seeing.” Lina continued. “Is it possible that she’s in some kind of shock from whatever happened in the fight you were in?” The man asked, and his calm tone slightly helped Lina’s nerves.

“Yeah she might be…” Lina said, her voice trailing off as she thought. Lina’s power might have made that possible, but she’d never reacted that way before to anything she’d seen. It just didn’t make sense. “We’ll do what we can.” The man promised, and they wheeled Amani away.

Several hours passed, during which Lina and Madi sat uncomfortably in the waiting room and anxiously awaited news from the healers. The waiting room was surprisingly mundane. The only differences between this waiting room and a mundane hospital waiting room were that the posters hung up on the walls talked about biomancy instead of mundane medicine and the beings that waited in the room were slightly more fantastical. While they waited, Lina saw a few different varieties of goblins, a harpy or two, several dwarves and an elf.

Finally, after a torturously long period of waiting, one of the healers who had first helped them, came out to talk to them. “You’re the friends of Amani, right?” He asked them. Lina and Madi both nodded. “Amani is fine, she’s alive and breathing. The problem is that she is in a coma, and we don’t know how long that’s going to last. Her condition appears to be caused by **** overexertion of her body and magic. Whatever happened to her or whatever she did, she couldn’t handle it, and this is her body’s way of keeping her alive.” The healer explained.

“Can’t you do anything to wake her up?” Lina asked as her heart sank down to her feet. The kind looking man shook his head sadly. “We can’t do anything to speed up her process of recovery without putting her more at risk. More magic in her body is the last thing she needs. The best we can do is hope that her body recovers quickly, and keep her comfortable in the meantime.” The healer said. Lina nodded, her mind numb from the stress and grief of the day. “You can go in and see her if you like.” He offered.

Lina and Madi followed the middle aged healer into the small room that Amani was being kept in. Lina’s heart sank further as she saw her **** friend. She was glad that the rambling had stopped, and that she seemed to be sleeping relatively peacefully. She wished it had never come to this though.

They sat down in the two chairs next to Amani’s bed. The healer stepped out of the room and pulled the door most of the way closed to give them some privacy, leaving it cracked open in case of emergency. Lina looked over her friend. Her form seemed frail, like a stiff breeze might blow her away. Her eyes were slightly sunken and her light brown skin was broken up with small cuts and bruises. The healer had said they couldn’t use any magic on her, which meant they couldn’t even heal the small things like that.

Lina took her friend’s hand gently, and clasped it in hers. “I’m sorry Amani.” She said before she even knew she was speaking. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t want this to happen…I…” Her voice broke off and her gaze dropped to the floor. She bit her lip and tried to stop herself from crying. She felt Madi’s hand on her back, gently supporting her with the soft touch.

Lina looked up at her friend, who smiled sadly back at her. The two embraced, finding comfort in the fact that they still had each other, even after the people they had lost today, and even after Amani had gone into a coma. They separated and Lina sighed. She couldn’t bear to look at her friend for any longer, her once beautiful complexion turned sickly by her overexertion. “Okay, let’s go.” She said. Madi nodded wordlessly and they filed out of the room.

In silence, the two of them got into the car. Lina put the keys in the ignition, but didn’t start the car. She put both hands on the wheel and stared straight ahead. Her head was spinning, she was still reeling from the events that had occurred that day. Her whole life, turned upside down in a matter of a few hours. Just this morning, she had woken up next to Adam, loving life and on top of the world.

Now, here she was. Sitting in the car of her boyfriend who had had his skull caved in by a shadow mage, outside the abyssal equivalent of a hospital, unsure of whether or not one of her best friends was going to be okay or wake up. She’d lost half of her friends, when they decided to stage that ambush on that upstart, The Gamer.

Rumour had it that she was a latebloomer. Somebody with a lot of latent power like that could be exploited easily in a mana factory. It would fetch them a lot of cash. And even if she couldn’t be used in a mana factory, she could be used in other ways. When Adam and their gang, The Beastie Boys, had heard about The Gamer, they’d decided to try their luck.

They didn’t expect it to go this badly at all.

Adam had been their leader. He’d chosen their name because it was his favourite band. Now leaderless and fractured, half of their members killed, they wouldn’t stand a chance in the abyss. Life was rough in the abyss of Sydney. It was kill or be killed, and up until now, they’d always been the ones doing the killing.

Lina didn’t particularly enjoy ****. She was quite squeamish and didn’t enjoy the sight of blood. She’d managed to get herself into a privileged position where that didn’t matter. The right hand woman of the leader of a gang, she didn’t have to fight. Not that her magic was particularly strong anyway. She had barely any mana and would have needed to learn martial arts to be anywhere near the capabilities of her friends or Adam.

She didn’t enjoy **** itself, but she loved the feeling of being powerful, of ruling over others. She was happy to sit back and let the fighters in their group have their fun, then take her share of the spoils and celebrate their victories. The Beastie Boys never engaged in any gang warfare, they stayed out of that stuff as much as they could. They were only interested in easy pickings. All of this, combined with her parents lack of any real care about what she did with her life, meant that she felt pretty free to do whatever she felt like.

Now that was all gone.

Lina sighed and looked down at her lap. “We should get home.” Madi said, and Lina nodded. She became conscious of tears streaming down her face. When had that happened? She guessed it didn’t matter. Not a lot really did matter at this point. She’d have to find something different to do with her life now. That was, if she could recover from the shock and grief that this day had put her through.

Lina looked at her friend sitting in the passenger seat. “I’m glad you’re still here. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too.” She said. “Probably cried some more.” Madi joked and Lina snorted. She knew that deep down, Madi was hurting just as much as she was. Her friend was just better at hiding it. She turned the keys and started the car. She took a deep breath and started the drive home.