It was 4 days after I got back into England; Lara seemed to think that I was improving. The morning was bright and good enough to run for once, but I wasn't allowed outside. I was going a little insane, not being able to do anything to keep myself busy was beginning to take its toll on me. We ate breakfast together seeing as I was beginning to get colour back into my face, but the sudden case of dizziness took that straight away.

As I got up from the dinner table, the world began to swirl around me, my balance became none existent. I lost my footing and ended up careering into a wall, receiving a decent hit to the head and very close to knocking myself out. Everyone crowded around me trying to figure out what was wrong with me, ignoring their advice about staying put, I got back up to my feet.

"You're going to hurt yourself." Lara worried.

Still without a way to answer, I leant up against the wall until I got my balance back again.

"Let's get you some fresh air kid, you've been cooped up too long." Sully helped me move towards the door to the grounds outside.

Once outside, I felt a surge of cold air hit me in the chest, through my wind pipe down into my lungs. The fresh air brought life back into my body, enough so that I could at least think straight. My vision finally returned to normal, albeit with a blue tint to it. Sully backed away from me, colour running from his face.

"Kid, your eyes…" He began.

All I could do was nod; I knew that my eyes were a flame. Sully being scared of it would have to change is I was to stay here in safety. I ran a hand down my face to try and wipe away the glowing fire. No such luck was available.

"You, uh. You look as if you miss something." Sully began.

I nodded and pointed at the assault course that caught my eye. I used to run all the time, obstacles being a large part of the fun for me, the chase also helped.

"Did you climb a lot?" Sully got braver and got close to me.

I nodded and pointed at a part of the course where you had to jump from a platform and grab onto a hand hold. The climbing wall being about 16ft tall, I was excited to try the challenge.

Sully looked around to see if anyone was watching, once he was sure he turned to me.

"I want to see you climb kid, see if what Lara tells me is true." He chuckled and moved towards the course.

Illness is bad when you don't do anything while ill, besides I wasn't that seriously ill anyway. The wall was a minor obstacle, something that I had become used to in my life. Before long we were at the wall. Without any sign of warning to Sully, I began to climb up the wall; the holds were small which didn't stop my small frame from scampering up the wall. About 10 seconds into the climb, I was ¾ of the way there. It was disrupted by Lara going berserk at Sully beneath me.

"He's ill Sullivan, why did you let him climb up there!?" She raged.

Not wanting to be a part of the argument, I focused on scrambling to the top of the wall and got on top of it. There wasn't much danger for me; I wasn't even stuck without a way off. In fact I found a nice looking platform for me to land on, besides I was looking for a way off of the wall that didn't involve climbing back down the wall.

I threw myself at the platform, landing on it firmly. Unfortunately, it gave out on a hinge. The platform swept out from underneath me, luckily though I managed to grab onto the inch or so that was still available for me to grab. There was a small bridge not too far from me, so I launched my body at the bridge, I pulled myself onto the bridge and ran towards the end to catch my breath. Not being that far from the ground, I decided to vault down from the platform, I felt infinitely better now that I had done something to keep active.

"J, you should know better. Running around after everything that's happened to you, you should be resting." She scolded

I shook my head and bounced on my toes to show the energy that I still had inside me.

"So you feel better now?" She asked.

I nodded, feeling adrenaline still running through my body. Lara looked at me pensively, trying to figure me out which was going to take a very long time.

"You know we have a gym." She explained to me.

I didn't know.

1 hour later.

I was still inside the gym, upside down, supporting my weight on top one of the gym horses. I'd been like that for a good 10 minutes, it gave me time to think about what I was going to happen to me later on in life, now that I was no longer under the watchful eye of Angel, I was free to build a life for myself. It was how, that was the question.

Pulling my legs together, I swung off of the high horse and landed on my feet. Waking Lara from her 'meditation' session.

"Something wrong?" She asked.

I shook my head, surveyed the white room we were in. The pool in the corner gave a low sound of pouring water, enough to relax even the most paranoid person in the world. So I climbed up the climbing wall, to let myself think for a little longer. Landing on a platform brought something to light for me.

My fear of heights was non-existent, I felt invincible now that the biggest scourge of my life was no longer there to hurt me whenever I did something wrong, the only thing I could do wrong now was stay in the past, fearing everything around me. It was then I realised that I was strong enough to protect myself, to stop people hurting me.

No longer was I Jason White, the child with the scars. Now I was Jason White, the child with the scars and no reason to fear them.

Before long, I got bored and dropped down from the ceiling, turning my landing into a roll. Not long after that, I realised that Lara was gone and so was one of the swords from the wall.

Whatever Lara was planning, it wasn't going to work, I heard her footsteps before she even saw me. Quickly, I sprinted over to the light switch and turned them all off. Now Lara was the hunted.
Without any more thinking, I dashed to one of the climbing walls and pulled myself into one of the cervices on the wall. My vision turned blue tinted again, the outlines of every object in the room stood out more than anything else. Once more, I saw Lara, making a move away from underneath me. It was too easy.

I dropped down behind her, she turned to which I was able to knock the sword out of her hand and push her away from me. She adopted a fighting stance, I stood normal.

"I knew you were flexible, but I didn't think you were that clever. Sorry I underestimated you." She smiled.

"You do know I can see your eyes right?" She taunted.

I still remained defensive; throwing any kind of blow would result in Lara countering it. A frown hit her face as the lights was suddenly switched on, blinding me for a few seconds.

"What's going on?" Nate was at the door.

Once my vision returned to normal, Lara explained the test she was doing. She knew something about me that Nate didn't.

"Don't you think it's about time you told me what J is?" Nate crossed his arms.

Lara looked at me apologetically, but she turned to Nate and explained what I was to her.

"J's a Tiwinoku, a special race from China. Legend says that they are given powers from the gods, the way his eyes light up like they do, it's all what he is. He's still human Nate... Just a part of the chosen few." Lara explained.

"Chosen few?" Nate seemed amazed.

"When a village was struck with lightning, the villagers began to change. The few that were actually changed were named 'the few'" Lara explained wrongly.

Quickly, I took out the notepad and pen and began writing down what actually happened, I knew the stories and legends more than anyone else did. I gave the note to Lara.

"You're wrong. A girl was hit with the bolt of lightning, when she survived she was made queen over the villagers. She was chosen by gods to bring judgment over the village. With her powers, she turned everyone in the village into a Tiwinoku, when the gifts of the Tiwinoku was known to the rest of China, there were wars. Over the course of a decade of cold war between humans and Tiwinoku, the humans launched an attack, when the Tiwinoku prevailed they were given the gift of being able to pass their powers onto their offspring." She read the note aloud which only seemed to get Nate more and more excited.

"Wow.. so there is something that J can do that we can't?" Nate asked like I wasn't even there.

I smiled chuckled slightly, Lara seemed to understand what I was laughing about.

"J's much stronger than both you and I put together Nate. He's broken close to every bone in his body and managed to survive it, he climbed to the top of a 6 story building when he was 8 years old and managed to survive 14 years with his father, that alone should be enough to tell you he's stronger than anyone else." Lara chuckled with me.

"I didn't know his father." Nate looked down.

It wasn't long before I felt a burning sensation around my wrist, the cuts which had barely healed had appeared to have opened again. Blood trickled down my hand and hit the floor in slow motion. The feeling of blood pumping out of my wrist was disgusting, it felt as if someone was dragging something under my skin, I hated the feeling more than anything else in the world. It was enough to force me to my knees.

The bleeding became so bad, that we had to stop talking for a minute. I even fainted slightly and the doctor had to be called, within a few minutes he was re-stitching my cuts. Before long the bleeding stopped, but the pale look on Nate's face told me that the damage had already been done. After a long and boring examination, the doctor finally came to the conclusion that the wounds weren't that badly ripped and should heal much faster for some reason.

He was right too.

By the next morning, the wounds had healed tightly, in fact they no longer burned at all. It didn't seem as if they were going to give me trouble again.

I woke up in my own bed that morning by the sound of Lara knocking on the door.

"You two, come on, time to get up!" She called.

Groggily, I looked at the clock. 11am. Both Nate and I groaned in distaste of having to wake up so early, we were told to clean all the blood from the floor of the gym, after all it was my fault that the gym became a red river. The day began like every other, I had a shower first as it was my turn that day. Nothing really changed about the wounds, in fact, they'd sealed closed. As I exited and Nate entered the bathroom, Lara came in through the door, carrying two gym bags.

"Come on, get dressed into these, J. Where's Nate?" Lara handed me a bag.

I pointed at the bathroom door, Lara immediately understood and left, leaving Nate and I to get cleaned and dressed. Once I was clean and back in the room, Nate was stood looking confused into one of the bags.

"Combat training?" He asked.

I shrugged my shoulders as I took the other bag, only to see that the clothes were the wrong size for me. Our bags were mixed up, after sorting out this weird problem I stretched my limbs for a few seconds each. Nate followed suite, he knew why I was doing this, Lara wasn't one for casual training. Once we were ready, we headed downstairs and into the gym. We saw Lara loading something.

"What are you doing?" Nate asked.

"Loading up, what does it look like?" She smiled as she sorted out an array of guns on the table.

"When did you say we were doing this?" Nate asked while I straightened out the digital midnight BDUs I was wearing.

"Yesterday, remember? I said I was going to treat you after having to clean up yesterday." Lara explained as she sorted through some more materials on the table she'd set up.

"Can never remember what I use in this." She sighed as I walked around, trying to get used to the uniform I was dressed in. That was until Lara did something.

"Heads up!" She started tossing a few pieces of gear my way.

Holsters, vests, belts and goggles began flying at me, stacking themselves as they each hit me in the chest and fell into my arms. I realised what I was supposed to be doing so I set about putting on the gear that Lara had thrown my way, Nate on the other hand just picked out pieces of gear off of the table that interested him. Once I was done, I looked badass. A drop leg holster on one side, a mag pouch on the other, a helmet and goggle visor on my head. Lara handed me a shemage to keep me warm and cover the collar. I laced up my new boots before Lara interrupted me.

"J, come over here, let me explain what we're doing."

I went over to Lara who crouched down to my level.

"I know that you're not feeling well after you collapsed the other day, but I know how good you are with physical activity. If you feel like you're going to faint again, press the button on this and I'll come for you." She handed me a walkie talkie.

"The thing is, you wont be on the ground with us, the place we're going has a sniper scenario. You'll be in a building with a rifle covering the advance of the troops, no one can fire back at you unless they're another sniper so you need to have a secondary and a spotter." Lara explained as she looked through a pile of guns.

"That's why you're wearing a dark camo compared to the rest of us." She smiled and handed me a sniper rifle.

Lara was describing an airsoft game, we were going to be playing airsoft with some strangers. However this was more of a trust exercise than anything else. Lara was trusting me to take care of everyone while the others tried to take care of me. It was a good idea, one that I would probably enjoy. She gave me a few magazines for the rifle and an electric MAC11. Nate was looking pretty cool too, he had a shoulder holster with a pistol in it, artic camouflage, and he had a m16.

"Ready?" He asked.

I nodded.

"Where's Sullivan?" Lara looked around.

"Here, hold on kid." Sully came through looking not all that different from what he normally did, he just added a leather jacket.

"Very tactical." Lara laughed.

"Hey, it works for me."

We all got ready, guns in bags and everything in Lara's van. Nate and I sat in the back of the van because there was no room in the front. Nate would look over his pistol every now and again before he put it away again. It was pretty quiet until Nate spoke.

"Um, I'm not sure how to say this but... Are you going to be alright?" Nate asked.

I nodded and tapped the collar, it had some sort of auto injector built into it. Nevertheless, I was fine medically. Mentally was a different story, I had doubts about how much good I would do on the field, whether or not I could do what I was expected to do. Either way, I still nodded to Nate who seemed happy with the response I gave.

"I have to ask, when you collapsed, you said my name... Can you talk?" He asked.

I nodded slightly, I could talk, but I just chose not to, it made me feel a little more comfortable, then again, I knew Nate enough to know he wouldn't hurt me if I spoke.

"But you don't?"

I shook my head.

"You're worried?"

I nodded.

The van began to slow, Nate stopped talking for a minute, he looked like he was about ready to jump out of the van, which was a bad thing seeing as the van sped up again. I gestured for him to calm down. The journey took another 30 minutes before we reached the place, skipping breakfast was beginning to take it's toll on Nate and I. As the van stopped, we waited, making sure that we didn't jump out onto a dual carriageway. A few bangs on the door told us that we had to get out.

Quickly, Nate and I got out of the van and found ourselves in a snowy forest. The beauty of the snow made my eyes twinkle more than they usually did. Sully gave me a pat on the arm.

"Come on kid, give me a hand with this stuff."

He had me carry the guns while he carried most of everything else, Lara and Nate gave the documents in and paid for us to get in, finally we reached the staging area. Lara brought us over to a group of military types. I set the guns down on a space on the table, Lara handed me one of the herbs and let me light it up, I let out a grateful puff of smoke, allowing the herbs to take effect. One of the military types began humming 'smoke weed everyday' cracking a few of us up.

"How long do we have before the game starts?" Nate asked.

"Long enough for breakfast." Lara retrieved some smoothie type... things from one of the bags and handed them out.

I took a few gulps of the breakfast drink before I began to not feel hungry, it tasted quite good, it almost replaced the terrible taste of the herbs.

"This your sniper Lara?" A Mohawk sporting guy came over.

"His name's J. He doesn't speak, so tell him what to do and he'll do it." She explained to him.

"Aye, you look the sniper type. How are you with the rifle?" He turned to me.

"Can't speak." Lara reminded him.

"A shame, you might've brought a speaker along." He taunted.

"He's a good kid, McTavish. Just give him time to get used to the position and he'll cover us through everything." Lara gave me a pat on the arm as I puffed on the herbs again.

"I'll be spotting this time, Ghost and Roach are doing something else today." He explained.

There was a voice coming from his headset.

"That's our que, need help getting your gear?" He asked me.

I shook my head and retrieved my rifle and magazines, after fixing on the helmet and placing the goggles down, I followed McTavish through the door and across the field. He ended up jogging towards the building and I followed his lead. His gear was already in the building, the building was a supposedly an abandoned military college. The place was still in relatively good shape after being shot at for god knows how long. We reached the 4th floor and found a room on the very far corner. We had jogged a good 10 minutes to get to the building, meaning this game was going to be a long one. We were at the corner closest to the setup area. I saw McTavish's gear on the floor of a classroom where we stayed for the rest of the setup. I loaded up the rifle and checked the scope, it seemed to be zeroed in.

"So, you're a mute then?" McTavish asked.

I nodded.

"What happened to you? I mean, there's a reason for it right? Some consequence for speaking?" He pressed.

I hesitated, but nodded and lifted up the rig and shirt enough to show some scars.

"Parents?"

I nodded again as I checked the MAC11.

"You've no need to worry about that with me lad, there's one thing that I need you to do while you're with me and that's speaking. I can't work with a sniper who can't tell me he see's something."

I hesitated, rubbed my throat and tried my best to talk to him.

"O- OK." I stuttered.

"Was it the stutter that made them do it?"

"N-no, they just not like me talking." My grammar was awful, but there was time to improve that. My accent was weird like Chinese-American-British people have. I couldn't describe how I sounded.

Another brief stream of words through McTavish's headset told me it was time to set up properly, I dragged a few of the tables over to the open window so that I could lie down and control my breathing a lot better. McTavish seemed impressed with my decisions. He placed a spotting scope on the window ledge and looked around for a minute.

"Let's practice something." He started as I racked the bolt of the sniper rifle.

I looked down the scope and scanned the tree line, there seemed to be a small target there. I adjusted the zoom of the scope so I could see it much more clearly.

"I have eyes on a small, clay pigeon size target in the treeline, confirm you have eyes on." He began.

"Confirmed, ready on your mark." I replied.

"Nice communication lad. 3. 2. 1. Mark."

I pulled the trigger, the scope was perfect and the bb hit the target in the bull's-eye. I chambered the next round.

"I think we'll work fine together, adjust your eyes, confirm you see a small 1 story hut."

I saw the hut and saw the target on the inside, I knew what he was trying to get me to do, so I waited.

"Eyes on, permition to fire on target inside."

"Permition granted. Fire on mark. Mark."

I pulled the trigger, the target fell over.

"Good lad. Right, they'll be deployed in about 2 minutes, you can fire at will when it comes down to it. However if you get hit, you're down for 60 seconds and we have to fire on the other team, hence why were in the middle."

I nodded in understanding, there was something that was on my mind.

"Can we move from room to room?" I asked.

"Aye, should we need to... Shit." He cursed himself.

"They can storm the building, and take us out of the game. Should have set up a trip wire or something." He explained.

"That makes it more fun, let's try and not get hit so that we have at least half of the force on our side." I smiled at him.

McTavish seemed to feel the opposite, he had training and going against it made him feel strange. There was a small part of me that made me feel sorry for him slightly. That was until the walkie on my belt began to fill the room with sound.

"Game start, sniper team, confirm ready."

McTavish pressed a button on his neck.

"Confirmed, tell us when you need us." He sighed.

I pulled back from the window and adjusted the tables so that the barrel wasn't sticking out of the window. Another thing I did was turn out all of the lights, I jumped to the other rooms and made sure that the lights were off and windows were open, so that the ground forces didn't know which window they were being shot from. There were a few buildings and trenches that ran along the field, providing a lot of cover for people. The 4th floor wasn't the best however it made it harder for people to locate us. I knew I was going to have fun.

"Game start, snipers inactive." The walkie screamed.

"Fuckin' hell lad, I can't stand waiting here." He sighed.

They had begun setting off quite a few smoke grenades.

"Fuck." I sighed as I tried my best to hold the crosshairs over someone who looked like a specialist of some kind, he began firing at the other team.

"That's fucked up! I didn't think they were allowed to do that!" McTavish cursed

My vision became blurry as smoke got thicker, it was going to be impossible to scope out certain people without some sort of thermal imaging camera. Which was a problem.

"Sniper team, active!" The walkie rang out.

Pop, I sent the first round through the smoke, hopefully hitting the machine gunner. There wasn't much I could do from where I was, that was down to the smoke, so I turned my attention to the woods again.

"Tell me when the smoke begins to clear up, I'm scoping the tree line." I ordered.

McTavish laughed as he picked up his EBR, he turned his attention to the tree line too.

"You know I'm the captain right?" He chuckled as he scanned the line.

"Sorry." I apologised as I began to see a few of the reds trying to flank or get a shot off at us.

I sent rounds down range, each of them hit where I was aiming, it wasn't a lost cause after all. Soon, my 25 rounds ran out. I fumbled through my vest for the magazines. I had managed to hit 25 people, they must have been pissed off.

"Reloading." I spoke.

As this happened, a hail of bb's began to fly through the window, just missing the top of my head, so I rolled off of the tables, leaving my rifle on the bipod to avoid being hit. Then I heard voices in the building.

"GO, GO, GO!"

"Change rooms." I whispered as I collected my rifle.

McTavish and I snuck out of the room to the stairwell, I pulled out the MAC and went first, not sure if McTavish was still following, either way, I made it to the roof first to which I was treated to a hail storm of BBs that barley missed me, I hit the deck and took cover. My head ducking down.

"Blue have taken the building, Blue control sniper team effective immediately." The radio ordered.

I pulled out the radio, there was nothing I could do in the position I was in.

"I NEED SERIOUS COVERING FIRE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!" I yelled into the walkie as I tried to relocate again. However red had began to cover the building again.

I stationed myself on the 6th floor with the MAC in one hand and the rifle in the other. Blue was in a lot of trouble so I decided to help them, I soon realised what the hail of bb's was, the field had a flak cannon, sending bb's into every window I'd opened.

"Fire on the 88! Fire on the 88!" I ordered.

"Roger!" It was Lara's voice, I didn't know if she knew it was me, but nevertheless she managed to get enough forces together to give me the fire support I needed.

I had enough time to send another round towards the flak team, it wasn't long before the both of them had been taken out. With that, I created enough of a outpost to allow me to provide decent fire support for the advancing blue team. However, a few red had snuck up the fire escape to get to the 6th floor. Leaving the rifle at the window, I rolled backwards to the doorframe and waited for the reds with the MAC. However it wasn't red that came up the stairs, it was Nate and Sully.

"Need some help kid?" Sully laughed.

"Not from up here we don't, you need to distract the fire so that the lad can get a decent shot off." McTavish ordered.

Nate and Sully moved to another position to give another kind of cover fire, McTavish turned to me.

"Friends of yours?" He asked.

I nodded and went back to trying to take out more and more specialists, I soon realised that most of them were gone, which meant there was another threat, I pulled the rifle from the window and scanned the treeline with my normal eyes.

"What's up?" He asked.

There was a glint from the treeline, making me duck into the wall, with the other problems we had this just made my job much more difficult.

"It's turning into a sniper dual." I chuckled.

"Shite, you'd better hit the deck and move to another room, try and stay away from the windows. I'll give you some advise over that radio of yours." he ordered.

"Roger." I began to do as he had ordered.

Lara's P.O.V

Nate and Sully had pushed too far forward, leaving me behind in the trench. I almost wanted to make J speak again, as another launch of bbs hit my trench, I reached my breaking point. I needed J to speak.

"J, I know you can talk. I need help, you need to cover me as I move to the building. How copy?" I spoke.

There wasn't any answer from J.

"Negative lad, do not give away your position." The scot replied for me.

The red had decided to make a push towards the trench, to which bbs began to hit each and everyone of them, an interval between each of them. It must have been J, he ignored orders from the captain to protect me.

I saw J on top of the roof, he let off a shot into the woods to which a bush got up and walked away, a hand in the air. As he turned his head, I saw his eyes. They glowed blue again, bringing me towards him.

"Lara you can move, I cover you now." J's speech wasn't the best but it got the job done.

I ignored most of the fire, the trench brought me close enough to the building without me having to do anything else, He covered me from the roof like a guardian angel, as I entered the building, he used the radio again.

"Relocating, cover." J spoke through the walkie.

I pushed up the building to where J was with the Captain. They laughed together, once I got to J I gave him the biggest hug I could manage. Grateful that he would now speak to us.

"You were right, he's a damn good sniper. I might have to steal him for the task force!" He chuckled.

"Don't even think about it." I laughed too as J rested for a minute.

Suddenly he grimaced in pain and rubbed his neck, it was a good thing the injector was on a timer.

"What is the objective here anyway?" J asked.

"Territory control, we have the building. Now we can push forward with your support and take more land." I explained to him.

He pulled out his MAC and aimed at the door before rolling away from it, he gestured to his arm and mouthed 'red'.

I covered the door for him as he moved back into the far wall, he need to be captured, when the person came up however, it turned out to be the marshal.

"Snipers, you're inactive for 3 minutes. Regroup and reload." He explained as he moved past the door.

J sat down, now bored. Or worried about what happens during the inactive time.

"Don't worry lad, this won't take long at all." McTavish reassured J.

"I think this is actually for the injection, I told the marshals that J needed the injections about this time so it must be for him to get used to it." I thought aloud.

"Right, well. Tell us when you're ready lad."

J began to reload some of the empty magazines, then more fire hit the building, he rolled his eyes and moved over to the window and kept to the floor so he couldn't be hit.

"I might need some cover." He smiled.

After 3 minutes had passed, the music began to come on through the speakers that littered the building and the grounds. A bit of Celtic metal brought J some motivation to get back in the zone. He cracked his neck then turned to McTavish.

"New orders?" He asked.

"Cover fire from the second floor." He explained.

J smiled and gathered his gear before he crouched up again.

"Lara, you need to go first. Cover." J ordered.

I moved into the corridor and made sure it was clear.

"Move." I ordered.

Without any indication to do so, J stacked up behind me, followed by McTavish. We stayed like this until we got to the second floor where J moved tables and opened windows. He ended up lying down on the table with the rifle outside of the window. When he was comfortable, he began to scope out the reds.

"I have eyes on, fire at will?" He asked.

"Aye, Lara, you're with me. We have to cover the ground floor."

J's P.O.V

Hours later, the game had finished. The reds had been crushed by the blue in the first round, in the second I had to fire on my friends. Which was fun seeing as Nate had charged straight into the building to which he got peppered with BBs. All in all, the blue won, which was more than a victory for me because it let me see everyone happy together, a few of the blues even carried me in the air in celebration. When we'd finished up at the field, Lara drove us back home whilst Nate and I sat in the back. He looked at me with uneasy eyes.

"So... You can speak?" he asked.

"Yes, although I'm not that good at it." I explained kindly.

"But your English is supurb, why not speak?" he pushed further.

"I once had my ribs stomped on for coughing, I didn't make any sound before."

"You were scared of us?" Nate looked afraid.

"No, not you. When my parents were alive, he always knew if I made a noise, I was afraid of him." I explained.

Nate shimmied over to the side of the van I was sat on and hugged me, confused I hugged him back. I soon found that there was a tear going down his face. I didn't bother asking why he began crying, I wiped the tear from his face and comforted him as we drove home. That night, Nate woke me up at about 11pm, he was rummaging through his bag for something. He turned and looked at me, he had been crying again.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I can't stop thinking about what you said, why would he do something like that?" he sniffed.

"Because there are people in the world who aren't very nice. There's nothing for you to be sad about." I tried cheering him up as I got out of bed, to which Nae pushed me up against a wall.

"I'm sad because I care about you!" He cried, his fists opening up, letting go of my shirt.

"It didn't happen to you, I don't understand why it makes you sad. That's all." I stayed calm.

"That doesn't matter! You're my friend, I can't just forget things that happen to you." he cried still, nearly collapsing.

I caught him before he hurt himself, I sat him on the bed to make sure that he couldn't get hurt because of me.

"It doesn't happen anymore, you don't need to be afraid for me." I explained as best I could.

"You can't just ignore the past." Nate sighed as I managed to calm him down enough.

"You can. I'm the one who will have to fight the demons, do you see? Without the hate I have for that man, you can't destroy him. Only I can kill him Nate, once that day comes I will be able to sleep peacefully, you shouldn't need to do it for me. This is my battle Nate, don't dream of me being killed. Dream of me killing him. Then as you do that, you wont have to see me in pain."

Nate looked up at me and smiled.

"Thank you J, I'm serious. Thank you."

The night passed peacefully after that, after all, the next day was something that no-one could have predicted.