Michael Blackwood

Before long, we caught up with the caravan. Calvin saw us approaching, and made sure the carriages stopped moving, then ran towards us.

“Is everyone ok? Is that thing dead?” He asked.

The princess gave him a sharp nod, then said, “Michael is wounded, but everyone else is ok. We need to finish escorting these people to the village. There, Michael can get the healing he needs since Skylar has run out of energy.”

“I’m sorry, your majesty,” Skylar said. “I’d keep healing him if I could, but I feel exhausted.”

“No, don't apologize. It isn’t your fault. You’ve done enough for now. Just be glad that you did what you could.”

Levi helped walk me over to a carriage, and I got into the back of it, slumping against the side once I sat down. My breathing was heavy, and I felt like falling asleep. But I needed to do my best to stay awake and keep pressure on my wound long enough for a healer to help me. Before the caravan started moving again, I could hear someone speaking outside of the carriage I was in.

Before I could lean forward to hear what was being said, one of the people from the caravan lifted up the flap to the back of the carriage I was in, and climbed into the back, and made their way towards me. She was a pretty young woman, probably in her late teens to early twenties.

“I talked to her majesty, and told her that I too have the vitality thread. I’ll help to heal your wounds as best as I can before we arrive at the village,” she said, though she wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

“Thank you,” I replied, and held out my hand for her to shake. “My name is Michael.”

She hesitated, then met my eyes and shook my hand.

“Yes I know. I heard you were quite brave,” she said with a small smile. “I’m Mia.”

I chuckled at her words, then coughed up a little bit more blood.

“It’s nice to meet you Mia.”

She paled, and immediately started healing me.

“I’m so sorry Sir Michael. I should’ve started healing you immediately.”

I waved off her words.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I just appreciate your help. And please, just Michael. I’m not a knight or a hero.”

She didn’t say anything else, instead putting all her attention into healing me. Even though I’d seen Skylar heal injuries during training as well as my own injuries not too long ago, it was still amazing to watch my wounds completely vanish without even a scar to show that a wound had ever been present. I could tell that Mia was struggling while healing me, and realized that her harmonization couldn’t have been any higher than Skylar’s.

When she finally finished and the last of my injuries disappeared, Mia let out a huge sigh, and basically collapsed against the side of the carriage next to me.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

She looked at me and nodded.

“Yes. It’s just, healing severe wounds like the ones you had is very taxing on me and always leaves me extremely exhausted afterwards,” she said, then closed her eyes and breathed heavily. “When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor. I had hoped that I’d get the thread of vitality. I was so happy when I did. But then I realized that I was only an awakened class thread-weaver. Which meant at most, I could only ever be a nurse. But sitting here now, knowing that I healed your injuries, makes me think I might have a chance. Thank you Michael. When I get home, I’m going to apply for a position in the medical field.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me again. When she did, I could see that her eyes had a purplish hue to them.

“Thank you. Seriously.”

“You’re welcome Mia.”

She smiled at my words and looked down at her hands.

“What’s your world like?” She asked.

“Well, my world, Earth, it’s much different than this one. For one, there is no such thing as ‘Threads of Reality’ or ‘Thread-Weavers’. Also, it’s far more advanced than this world. Instead of horse drawn carriages, we have these things called ‘Vehicles’. They come in all different shapes and sizes. They typically run on what we call gasoline. Some even run on electricity. We also have devices called ‘Telephones’ which lets us communicate over short or long distances.”

Mia let out an “OH” and grabbed my shoulder.

“We have something like that too!”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes! It’s an artifact that has been imbued with small amounts of certain threads that allow people to communicate.”

“That’s… actually really cool to know.”

“I know! It’s amazing to know that even with how different our two worlds are, there are still similarities!”

When I looked at her, she had this big goofy grin on her face. It kind of reminded me of my mother. She noticed the change in my posture and asked, “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s just, your smile. It reminded me of how my mother used to smile. That’s all.”

“Have you not seen her in a while?”

“Yeah. About fifteen years now. She and my father passed away when I was still a child.”

Her face fell when she heard this.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Please don't be. Honestly, my mother was a kind woman and she’d be happy to know someone else reminded me of her,” I said, and gave Mia a smile.

“Your mother sounds like a kind woman.”

“She really was. Now, tell me a little bit more about your world. I only know the basics, so I’d love to learn more.”

Mia smiled again, except this time, it wasn’t as goofy as before. She started talking more and more about this world that I had accidentally found myself in. Except it was more about her village specifically, but I didn’t stop her. Especially because of how her eyes seemed to sparkle when speaking about it. The way people in the village she grew up in knew each other the same way you’d know close family members. How there was a big dinner once a month that every member of the village would attend. How she and her older sister would always go to pick flowers at the top of the hill just outside the village.

We continued going back and forth, each of us taking turns talking about our respective worlds. Whenever I was the one speaking, she seemed to hang on every word. It was as if she was picturing each and every little detail in her mind as I was speaking.

Thirteen minutes passed by with us continuing this before we heard commotion from outside the carriage. I got up, intending to poke my head out the back to see what was going on. Before I could however, the flap lifted up and Levi was standing there, his face contorted with emotion.

“Levi? What’s wrong?”

Levi hesitated before speaking.

“It’s the village.”

I saw Mia's head snap towards Levi when she heard what he had said.

“What about the village?” She asked, her voice filled with fright. It had turned out that the village we were escorting the caravan towards, was also Mia’s home. She had left home in order to go to one of the designated towers for awakening one's thread.

Levi’s eyes flicked to Mia for barely a second before flicking back towards me. He opened his mouth to respond, and then closed it again.

“What about the village?!” Mia asked again, her voice sharper this time. Levi flinched slightly, before lowering his gaze.

“An Aberration Zone spawned around it. The princess said that it spawned sometime after we had left to meet the caravan.”

Without saying a word, Mia jumped out of the back of the carriage and started running. I hopped out after her, and started running as well.

“Mia! Wait!”

She wouldn’t listen, so I had to try and catch up with her. I knew that she was still pretty tired from healing me, so I ended up tackling her as softly as possible.

“No! Let me go!” She screamed, and I could see that her cheeks were slightly wet.

“Mia, you have to calm down,” I said, while trying to gently restrain her so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

“Michael! Please… my family might have been outside the village when it happened. Please…” she begged.

“Fine, but I’m going with you.”

She nodded in response and I helped her off the ground. We both took off in a slight jog towards the village, and she was screaming her sister's name, as well as for her parents.

“Mom! Dad! Izzy! Where are you guys?!”

After yelling for them several times, she stopped and collapsed to her knees about six feet away from the edge of the aberration zone. She started crying even harder than before, and her words came out through choked sobs.

“N-no! P-please… why them?! Why?!”

I kneeled down next to her slowly, and pulled her into a hug. She dug her face into my shoulder, still crying.

“Mmmiiiiaaaa…”

She looked up at the aberration zone, then she looked back at me, and I realized that we both heard the voice.

“T-that was Izzy’s voice…”