CHAPTER 99: ALMOST MEANS NOTHING

"Friends don’t leave each other to rot." Noah snarled as he slammed Arlo back into the wall again, gritting his teeth. "Friends don’t let monsters tear one another apart."

His grip on Arlo’s collar was iron, his breath hot with barely contained rage.

"I really tried," Arlo gasped, his blindfold shifting slightly with the motion. His voice wasn’t defensive. It carried a tremor of genuine desperation.

"Noah, you have to believe me. I tried to go after you. I begged my grandfather to let me move. But he locked me down. You don’t know how he is. You know I wouldn’t just leave you there. I almost escaped, but—"

"Almost," Noah snarled, cutting him off, his coral colored eyes burning like coals. His teeth clenched so hard his jaw trembled.

"Almost doesn’t mean anything, Arlo. Almost doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t come. Almost doesn’t change that I rotted in their dungeon while you got stronger."

He shoved Arlo harder against the wall, the air between them thick and suffocating. Shadows flickered faintly along the edges of the ward, whispering, laughing, feeding Noah’s fury.

Arlo’s lips parted as if to argue again, but then his head tilted slightly, like he was looking at something no one else could see.

A slow, horrified realization crossed his face. His breath caught.

"Your status," Arlo whispered.

The words struck Noah like a spear. His eyes widened in shock. He hadn’t checked his own status since he woke up. He’d been consumed with hatred, with survival, with hollow laughter and empty resolve. He had forgotten. And Arlo... Arlo could see it.

For the briefest instant, panic flickered across Noah’s face.

No!

He couldn’t let anyone see anything he didn’t want them to see. Not even Arlo. Especially not Arlo.

Noah’s instincts surged. He called on the race effects of the Dark Dragon, that ever-present hunger curled deep inside his soul.

The shadows around him writhed, and his status blinked out of existence, erased, until he was ready to show people. He couldn’t allow just anyone to see all the spells and skills he could use.

Arlo’s breath caught audibly. His hands trembled against Noah’s wrist, not from the pressure, but from shock. "I... can’t see it. I can’t see anything. Your status... it’s gone."

Noah’s lips curled back, not in a smile, but in a baring of teeth. His grip tightened on Arlo’s collar, pulling him close until their foreheads nearly touched. His voice dropped to a venomous whisper.

"Good."

Arlo flinched.

"You don’t get to look at me." Noah hissed. "You don’t get to see me. Not anymore. You had your chance."

His burning eyes seared into Arlo’s blindfold, as if daring him to keep searching for what he could no longer perceive.

"I don’t care if you begged, if you cried, if you fought. You didn’t come. You didn’t save me. So don’t you dare stand here and pretend you tried."

Arlo’s voice cracked. "Noah, I swear—"

"I said no more excuses!" Noah roared, slamming Arlo once more into the wall. The sound echoed in the infirmary ward like thunder, making the shadows shiver in anticipation.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Arlo’s breath was ragged, his face twisted with helplessness. Noah’s chest heaved, his hatred spilling out of every pore, every shadow.

Finally, Noah loosened his grip, not in mercy, but in disgust. He shoved Arlo back and let him drop slightly, his own expression hardening into something cold.

"Listen closely, Arlo," he said, his tone calm now, but that calm was worse than the fury. It was the calm of a storm about to drown the world. "I don’t want to see you again. Not here. Not anywhere. Stay out of my sight... or next time, I won’t hold back."

The shadows whispered approval, curling around Noah’s body like smoke, visible to no one but himself. His eyes glowed in the half-light, and his smile was no smile at all.

Arlo stood there, frozen, breathing hard. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, but he didn’t raise them. He didn’t argue. Not anymore.

Before him, Noah’s hands trembled, not from weakness, but from the effort it took to hold back the storm boiling within him.

Arlo steadied himself, chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. He didn’t move closer again. His hands remained at his sides, trembling faintly.

Noah stepped back, his expression smooth once more, though the fire in his eyes had not dimmed.

He turned slightly, gaze sliding toward the window, as if Arlo no longer existed.

"Get out." He said flatly.

Arlo stood there for a heartbeat longer, his lips parting as if to say something more. But the words caught in his throat. His shoulders sagged. He turned, walking slowly to the door.

The door closed behind him with a dull click.

Noah stood in silence, his breath steadying. His shadows seeped back into the room, sliding over the walls, the ceiling, the floor. They whispered, cackled, cheered, their voices curling through his mind.

He closed his eyes, their chaos swirling around him. His heart kept beating in a steady rhythm. He had waited in the dark for three months. He could wait a little longer.

He stumbled back to his bed and sat down. A few seconds later, the door creaked open, spilling a sliver of light into the ward.

Noah didn’t move. He remained hunched on the edge of the bed, his shadows clinging to the corners of the room, whispering their endless chorus.

A nurse stepped inside, clutching a small pouch in both hands. She kept her eyes down, as though the very air around Noah was suffocating her.

"Your... guest," she said softly, voice trembling, "the one who just left, he asked me to deliver this to you." She placed the pouch carefully on the table beside him, her fingers twitching as though eager to be gone.

Noah stared at her for a long moment, his blank eyes stripping her of any courage she might have had. At last, she swallowed and turned, retreating quickly out the door.

The latch clicked shut. Silence pressed back in.

Noah’s hand drifted toward the pouch, his fingers brushing the worn leather. He lifted it slowly, wary as though it might bite. The jingling weight was unmistakable. His brows furrowed, shadows leaning forward to watch as he tugged the drawstring open.

Coins glinted back at him.

His breath caught in his throat.

And then memory crashed over him. The monolith. The blades flashing in the dark. The suffocating webs. The Acid Toad’s roar. The way he had bled, fought, endured, only to wake up shackled, tortured, abandoned. And this, this pitiful pouch of coins, was his share of the harvest.

A reward for his suffering. A handful of metal meant to buy his silence, his obedience.

His hands trembled. The coins slipped and clattered against one another, the sound like laughter in the empty ward.

He clenched his fist around them until the edges bit deep into his palm, the sting of pain grounding him in rage.

His breath quickened. Shadows writhed on the walls, teeth and claws stretching long, mirroring the storm inside him.

His chest heaved, his vision tunneling red.

Noah leaned back, his body trembling with a hatred too vast for words. His throat worked, and then the sound tore from him.

He roared into the silence, the sound raw and guttural.

It shook the bedframe and rattled the windows. It was the sound of fury, of betrayal, of everything he had swallowed clawing its way free.

Coins spilled from his fist, clattering to the floor as his shadows howled with him. The roar went on and on, a sound no human throat should ever produce. It wasn’t a plea. It wasn’t grief.

It was a promise.

A vow that the world would burn for what it had done.