The Question (Skylar POV)

Skylar couldn’t sleep. She’d tossed and turned for hours, trying every sleeping position under the sun that she could think of. Her eyelids felt heavy and her body was tired, but her mind was racing and she could not sleep. She looked over at the clock. It was 2 in the morning. She didn’t know why she couldn’t sleep.

Actually scratch that. She knew exactly why.

She sighed in frustration, and got up out of bed. She went to use the bathroom, then came back to her bedroom and drank some of the water from the glass she kept on her nightstand. It was always important to stay hydrated. She looked outside into the backyard of the two story house that she lived in with her parents. The training dummy sat there, lifeless. She had the sudden urge to punch something and following that urge, she put on some clothes, laced up her shoes and went outside.

Skylar activated the enchantments on the training dummy to make it more sturdy, keep it from making any noise that would wake up her parents and to have it try to hit her back a little. She got to work training, punching and kicking the thing, dodging it’s attacks and using her magic like she’d been learning to for years now.

She knew this wouldn’t help. She just wanted to clear her head.

Why was she feeling like this? So conflicted? Well that was an answer both easy and complicated. She didn’t like trusting people. She didn’t feel comfortable doing it. Ever since she was 12 years old, she’d withdrawn from people and become much more reserved. She put on a front of aloofness, making sure never to let anybody in.

She hit the dummy again, then dodged an incoming attack. Could she keep living like this? Is this what she wanted? Instinctively, she said yes to that question. That was her life plan after all. That was her goal, that was what she had wanted and what her parents had wanted for her. They’d always been strict but after that day, things had changed.

But now things were changing again. She didn’t know if she wanted them to. She felt so drawn to all three of them. She’d spent time with them, trained with them, tried new things with them, laughed with them. They had made her feel things that she hadn’t felt in a long time. They’d made her feel safe and happy, like they wouldn’t judge or betray her.

Could she trust them though?

She unleashed spears of shadows towards the dummy, each one of them impacting the magically reinforced wood with a satisfying thock sound. She’d joined their guild on a whim. She couldn’t pinpoint the reason that she said yes to joining them, that day when they’d asked her.

When she and The Gamer had worked together to fight off that gang attack, she thought she may have found an ally. Somebody to work with from a distance, who might come to her aid again if something happened to her. Gemma had helped her once before right? It wasn’t too far of a stretch that she might help her again.

But she never imagined that things would turn out this way. That she would meet three amazing people who seemed so nice, so welcoming, so genuinely caring. They were a breath of fresh air for her, when she was usually so paranoid and distrusting of people. She had pretty good reason to be distrusting of people, to be fair.

That didn’t make this any easier though. Was her reasoning good enough? Should she push them away and return to her life of solitude? She rolled under one of the attempted strikes from the training dummy and sent a fist of shadow crashing into its face. She had learnt to be self reliant, independent. She didn’t need anybody.

That didn’t mean that she didn’t want anybody though. Occasionally, she caught herself thinking about what it might be like to spend time with friends. Watching a movie with them, laughing and joking around, sharing stories, sharing experiences. Trusting them, knowing that they would have her back as much as she would have theirs.

She’d gotten a taste of it last night. A mere hint of it, when she’d spent time with Mia, Gemma and Ivy. She’d meant what she said when she joined them. She absolutely would leave their guild if they turned out to be idiots. The thing that made it so difficult for her was that they seemed to be genuinely amazing people.

Mia was outgoing, straightforward and fun. Gemma was thoughtful, passionate and diligent. Ivy was innocent, sincere and caring. And all three of them were the nicest people that she’d ever met in years. Nicer than anybody she’d found at school or in university. She wanted to experience more with them. Get to know them better and she wanted them to get to know her.

It was a stretch to say that she wanted them romantically. They seemed really really happy together, and she did find all of them attractive. But she couldn’t think that far ahead yet. She still didn’t know whether to trust them properly. She’d lived the last 8 years of her life in near complete isolation. Only talking to people when necessary.

She’d trained with her parents, listened to their lessons on her powers and how to navigate her way through the world. She’d kept her head low, and followed a strict plan for what she wanted to do. Her parents had never really pushed her to do these things. They’d never had to. She went along with what they wanted for her, because she wanted it too.

She wanted to be safe. That was her life goal, and it had been for years. The three of them, Skylar and her parents, had learnt exactly how unsafe the abyss was, those 8 years ago. Skylar herself had learnt how unsafe people were. How dangerous it was to trust people. How trust could be used against you.

After that point, her parents had devised a strict exercise, diet and training plan for her to follow. She was not to eat anything outside of that plan, or do anything outside of that plan. Nothing could distract her from her goals. She was to train and get stronger, learning how to take care of herself in the abyss should she ever find herself in trouble.

By the same token, she was to stay out of the abyss as much as possible. She was to study, get good grades in school and go to a good university. Her parents were able to pay for her degree, meaning that she would graduate without any debt. From there, she was to find a decently paying job and work to be independent from her parents.

But now Gemma, Ivy and Mia had thrown a wrench into her plans and she didn’t know what to do.

She lost focus as she contemplated the problem and a strike from the training dummy sent her flying backwards. Skylar went sprawling on the ground and rolled over, getting up. She doubled over slightly, winded from the impact. This wasn’t a battle, and she wasn’t trying to train properly, so she could take it a bit easier than she otherwise would have. She sighed and tried to pinpoint the problem.

She had a decision to make. She hadn’t anticipated that she would care so much about these people, but she did. She wanted to be their friend. She wanted to spend time with them, laugh and enjoy herself with them, more often than she did. But equally, she did not want to leave behind her current life plans. She did not want to trust people. There was no way to figure this out logically.

The pros and cons were easy to figure out. The safe option was to distance herself from them. Leave the guild and continue to live life on her own. It was safe and the outcome was certain. She was confident enough in her own hard working nature to be able to succeed completely on her own. That was the downside though: she would be on her own.

On the other hand, she could open up to the three of them, tell them about how she felt and why. She could let herself be **** and in exchange, she might be able to finally find some real friends, people she could trust. But the catch was that the outcome was uncertain. It was unsafe, and she was unsure what would happen.

The secure, safe option, or the more risky but potentially more rewarding one?

She sighed again and threw the question out to her subconscious. She absolutely not could make her mind up in the logical way, so she would use the illogical way. She closed her eyes, cleared her mind and tried her best to listen to what her subconscious told her. To what her heart told her.

When she received an answer, she opened her eyes. It was clear as day. She knew what she had to do. Her heart had spoken, and she was going to listen. She deactivated the enchantments on the training dummy and walked back inside. She washed her hands, took her shoes off, undressed, and got back in bed. She was sound asleep within a few minutes.