A/N: I didn't make the last chapter short so that I could post faster. Rather, I'd written it and didn't think it would be fair to have that be all for a weekly update, so I posted it sooner. I was going for distressed, hence the shortness, but I will be trying to keep the chapters about 2k words.

Thank you all for reading and for reviewing!

…-…

Did you know that it's really quiet in Moonglade? It's peaceful. Sort of like there's no such thing as a demon.

I, um, I've been fishing. A lot.

You might think that it's a bad pastime when you don't want to think, but really it's pretty good. Because you can just concentrate on the fish in the water and learning when the tug of the line is just it catching on something versus an actual fish.

I throw most of them back. That's why the druids haven't said anything to me, I think. Or maybe they have and I just haven't listened.

Really, I just catch enough to cover the cost of my bed at the inn.

I think they'd let me stay for free, but screw it. I'm not gonna be useless. If I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna earn what I have.

In case you're wondering, I traded my daggers for some money and a fishing pole. They sold pretty well. I think they did, anyway. I got ninety gold? I don't really know if that's a lot, but fishing poles are dirt cheap. As are bags to keep fish in.

Greg's dead.

I don't want to talk about it.

Um, Neesera hung around me like a moth to flame after we found Greg. Not that we ever saw him. Nicolas wouldn't let us.

I guess maybe that's a small miracle. I still hear him when I sleep, so I'd probably be seeing him every time I close my eyes. I mean, I do. I see him glaring at me, holding that orb. But I guess that's better than whatever he looked like in his final moments.

Nicolas was the one who came to tell me that my brother was dead. Like it was some moral obligation. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure he was the one who broke my heart. I don't know.

It didn't take much to get Neesera to leave me alone after that, though. I was kind of surprised. I just said I needed to go for a walk. How simple is that?

I wandered around and it could have been days and I wouldn't have noticed. It was probably just an hour or so. But I came across two druids who were arguing about who had to go take a message back home because both wanted to stay and work on the stupid trees that Eric had blown up. I don't remember asking them about what was going on. I don't really remember much. There's a vague, blurry image of them handing me a note and then them having to rewrite some spell so that I could take a portal sort of thing to Moonglade.

I'm not really sure how long ago that was. You can't see the sky through the canopy overhead and even if I could, I haven't been counting the days. I'm not on a regular sleep schedule, either. I just go and pass out when I'm too tired to fish.

I don't know if anybody knows where I am, either. Maybe they think I was killed. Maybe they think I ran off to tell my secret demon overlords of my brother's fate, since apparently sharing blood with him makes me a suspect despite traveling worlds to save mine.

I don't…I don't really care what anyone thinks.

Earth's gonna be saved, so they don't need someone who can barely hold their daggers.

I know what you may be thinking. Enough of the pity party, Amy. Bad things have been happening to everybody.

Well, fuck you.

I can still hear him screaming in my head. I've taken to humming to drown it out. I'm pretty off key, but the druids don't say anything. They tried to talk to me once or twice when I first got here after I handed off the note, but I just ignored them.

Now they leave me alone. Except for the innkeeper who thanks me for the fish every day, like I'm gonna stop bringing them in if he skips a single nicety.

Sometimes I just wanna scream that I'm tired of people being nice. I'm tired of being coddled or treated like some fragile thing that has to be kept in the dark. I just…

If I hadn't found where they were keeping Greg, if I hadn't seen that he was there, I don't think they'd have ever told me they caught him. They might have told me he was dead, sure, but they would have left everything about how he died a mystery.

I'd say that I hope they got something useful out of it, but it doesn't matter.

I don't want to see Brath again. I don't care if it was in his nature, if he was forced into doing what he did, or what. He knew I loved my brother. He knew that I looked up to him.

If someone had to do what they did, it should have been a stranger. Someone who didn't know how much it would hurt me.

I know that Greg was a villain, I do. If it'd been anyone else with his track record and I'd heard them screaming, I would have been sick, but I wouldn't have tried to stop it. I would have seen it as necessary for saving my world. And even if they didn't get anything useful out of them, a little part of me would have thought it was retribution for what the bastard did.

But it wasn't anybody else. It was Greg.

It was the guy who, when I was twelve, stood up for me against a bully, even though he got his butt kicked. It was the guy who, when that didn't stop the bullying, stood up for me again and had a fake tooth to show for it.

It was the guy who would roll his eyes when I skyped him with questions about my algebra homework and ask me how I was going to survive the real world without him as he helped me solve it.

The guy who would hug me when we were home alone and I was scared by the thunder.

A lot of older brothers are kind of jerks and I guess he was sometimes, but he never forbid me from going into his tree house or refused to come pick me up from a party that I realized I didn't want to be at.

I don't understand what happened to him. What made him turn toward the demons? Was it always there and I just didn't see it?

He used to say that he liked playing WoW because he liked the idea of saving something. Be it a world or a person. So…why?

Any chance I had at getting an answer is gone.

But…enough of that.

I think I just caught another fish. I'm getting pretty good at it.

It's hard to believe I was dreading this back when I saw that first window's images.

Honestly, what I feared most did happen. I did lose my world.

And I just don't feel like fighting anymore.

…

You believe me, don't you? You can watch me wander listlessly through life and accept that I'm a shell of a person and you can look into my eyes and see that I'm lost. That I had to let the only family I had left die.

That there's nothing left for me.

…

Good.

I tell myself how lonely I am every day so that anyone who sees me will believe it. I tell myself all those things and sometimes I even almost believe them myself. Nicolas can read a lie on the most skillfully deceptive person and he never trusted me, so I need to be borderline lost to my story. Maybe he'll always keep tabs on me. That's fine. He can watch me all he wants, but he's never going to find Greg.

After all, Nicolas knows that Greg isn't really dead, because he's the one who found the room empty.

The real reason he came in person to lie to me was to read my expression, because I'm an open book, remember? He wanted to make sure that I hadn't had anything to do with the escape and to make sure, if I was innocent, that I wouldn't go looking for Greg or get in anyone's way.

Well, I think I'm about as out of the way as I'm going to get.

The best lies are mixed with the truth, or so I've been told. And so here are my truths.

My world doesn't need me anymore, so I don't have to stay on the frontlines and goad heroes into saving the world. I can disappear and it won't ruin anyone's chances.

I don't know if I can face Brath again, because that would mean going back to my world. He can't come home because of the old gods. And even if he could, he's finally coming to a place where he has a chance to be good. I don't want to drag him back down the rabbit hole.

Though that might just be because I don't want to face the worst of my truths.

My brother is a damned sociopath. Like, a legit one. He had everyone fooled. He framed kids in high school he didn't like and he probably killed people before the Legion came. But he could read people like you wouldn't believe. He kept me close enough that I could vouch for him if he needed and then he turned around and wreaked havoc.

This hell on earth is his heaven.

It makes me sick. I'm related to that.

And I unleashed him back into the world.

But then, I had to get my answers. I had to know why he sent that email, why he would turn to the Legion. The email, it turns out, was for appearances sake. He didn't know how well the demons would fare against our nukes and technology and he didn't want to jump onto the losing side, so he rode the fence, sending out information in the beginning, even as he looked for ways to contact and join the monsters destroying our world.

Something about what he said before he disappeared in to the wrecked city…I almost think he was somehow the person who brought our world to the demons' attention.

I don't think his influence is really that powerful, but…I can't help but wonder what made them come to us. It couldn't have been him, could it?

Of all the things I've been torn up about doing throughout my travels, I never imagined saving my brother would be the worst thing I'd ever do.

I think I'd have to really, truly try to be evil to trump it, because I did know about the things he'd done when I helped him escape. I just didn't realize why he'd done them. I was so dumb. I was still telling myself that maybe he was just deep under cover. That he had to prove himself to the demons so that he could get into some inner circle and get information. A part of me wants to still believe that, but then…

The Greg I knew and grew up with doesn't really exist. It's like he's dead so it's easy to pretend. And I do feel numb, even if it's for my own actions in aiding an enemy than in the fact that he was supposedly killed.

So I don't exactly lie. I just tell myself the story the way I wish it had happened. The way Nicolas said it happened. And I let people read how numb I feel and translate it into that story, instead of telling them the truth.

Everyone's lost someone, so they project what they feel and they leave me to mourn.

Emotional projection. That's the last thing Greg taught me. People look for connections in others and if you can figure out which one they're looking for, a simple turn of the head or smile or downcast eyes can confirm their suspicions. Once you have their sympathy or empathy, you have them.

Eventually, someone's gonna come talk to me. Someone's going to either figure out that I did have something to do with freeing Greg, or they'll decide that I mourned long enough and try to shake me out of this awful place. In one scenario, I'm a traitor, in another, I keep lying.

I don't know which is worse.

Honestly, I need to be alone right now. Because a part of me wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I hadn't saved Greg, but another part of me can't live with the fact that I did.

Maybe Nicolas was right about me. Maybe he saw a darkness in me that even I hadn't found yet.

What's that saying….? Time will tell.