CHAPTER 4
Three years had passed since the incident at the wall. Poul and Jay still had nightmares about that fateful day. Poul was the most affected; the guilt of having seen his wife die in front of him was a poison that consumed him, resurfacing in the most unexpected moments, whether they were sad or happy.
With a thirst for revenge, he trained his body, swordsmanship, and elemental power tirelessly. His focus was a single one: vengeance.
Meanwhile, the Nameless King was becoming more and more famous for destroying villages and cities of both giants and humans. Many tried to kill him, but none succeeded. He grew stronger and, at the same time, felt more and more aimless.
And so, another day began. Poul woke up, got ready, and went to wake up his son, who wasn't in the room. He went to the living room and there was Jay, reading a book.
'I ended up getting addicted to books; I never would have imagined that', Jay thought.
"Jay, I'll have to work a lot to buy new books for you!", Poul joked.
Jay just looked at his father and said, "Cool."
'What a scoundrel boy', Poul thought, heading to the kitchen. He cracked some eggs and fried them, scrambling them.
"Done, Jay, breakfast is on the table."
Jay went to the kitchen, ate, and then headed to the park. On the way, he suddenly began to have memories of his past life. He stopped, put his hand on his face, and wondered why those memories had resurfaced. He started walking again, deep in thought.
'Why did I come to this world? Was I reincarnated for a reason, or is this natural? What is my purpose and my destiny? It's been 3 years of peace; this is very strange. Something will probably happen; it's too quiet.'
These thoughts, which he had daily in his past life, came back strongly after his mother's death.
'Does this mean I'll never change? Is this a characteristic of mine that can never change? No, this is a remnant of my past life. Eight years is a lot, but I didn't even try to change. I hope that in this new life, I don't make the same mistakes.'
Lost in these thoughts, he didn't realize he had arrived at the park. He only noticed when he heard the scream of his best friend, Kyrai.
Poul went to work. Upon arriving at the army's training center (TC), he greeted his superiors and went to the training room, which he did every single day he went to the army TC. After training, he filled out some paperwork and went back to training, but this time, he focused on his elemental power. He realized that after these three years, his body was much more adapted than on the day he started training.
'I'm stronger than before; I can now protect my son from the evil of the world.'
Until he was called by one of his superiors. Upon entering the room, he saw several soldiers gathered.
"Well, I gathered you here to give you some news that will shake all of you," the captain said.
A soldier raised his hand.
"And what's the news, captain?"
"Well, we sighted a giant, but it's not just any giant; it's an elemental earth giant."
Everyone was scared by what they heard. Poul, on the other hand, was happy and, without realizing it, smiled somberly. He put his hand to his jaw and tried to hide his excitement.
"But how do you know that?", a soldier asked.
The captain sighed and stared at the soldier who asked the question.
"We know that because of the abnormal behavior of the forest giants. That's why, understood?"
Everyone nodded.
"Now that a battle will probably begin in the city, it's best to start evacuating the city." He observed the soldiers in the room for a while, and in that observation, he saw the somber smile of excitement that Poul had. He smiled softly.
'Looks like someone is excited for this battle, interesting.'
"Dismissed, I'll put you on a list of who will be on the front line or in the low block."
So, Poul went to cool off, drinking his water. He was worried about how his son would be treated, after all, he would be at the park with his best friend, Kyrai.
"Jay, let's eat at my house," Kyrai stated.
"What?!"
She raised her eyebrow.
"You don't want to go?", she asked, making a cute face.
Jay sighed and thought: his father would probably be at work, and he would have to make lunch. Upon remembering that he would have to make lunch, laziness came over him.
"I'm going, I'm definitely going," Jay said with a lot of enthusiasm.
'Thanks, Kyrai, you saved me.'
So, he went to Kyrai's house. Upon arriving at his friend's house, he was very well received. He had lunch peacefully, until he heard a loud bang and a pressure coming suddenly. Everyone was scared, especially Jay, who remembered the tragedy from three years ago.
He panicked instantly; after all, he didn't want his childhood friend's family to suffer what he suffered.
When he was about to tell everyone to leave that place, his friend's father got up from his chair and told everyone to go to the basement. So, everyone went, including Jay, who didn't have much choice.
Poul, who was assigned to watch around the wall with a partner, felt this pressure coming. Poul turned to the place where this pressure was coming from.
'This pressure is coming from the east!'
He looked to the east; his partner fell to the ground, terrified, his body trembling. He turned his head to Poul.
"We're going to die."
Poul was looking at a mountain of earth forming, with several giant bodies. On top of that mountain, there was a giant who looked at everyone below him as if they were inferior.
That mountain was coming with everything to destroy the wall. He looked at the gunners, who looked at Poul and then at the artillery.
"Go, shoot you bastards!"
They loaded the artillery, aimed at the mountain, which was already close to the wall. Poul covered his ears. When they shot, a mouth suddenly appeared on the mountain that swallowed the shots. Poul took a deep breath, stretched his arm, and launched a strong gust of ice that froze the mountain along with a little of the giant, but, as a consequence, his arm was almost completely frozen.
Poul kneels, out of breath, with a slight burning sensation in his almost completely frozen arm.
'Did I do it? Did I save the city?'
He looks at the city, happy for having saved the lives of several people. Until he hears something breaking. He looks up and sees what it was: a giant approximately 7 meters tall jumping from the top of the mountain.
Poul jumps to the side and falls, rolling. Even out of breath, he tries to make another gust of ice, but the giant, upon landing, makes a stone wall appear on both sides. Poul released a weak gust of ice, which barely froze the wall. The ice freezes the rest of his arm, he gets even more out of breath, lying on the ground, with heavy breathing.
The giant undoes the two walls. He looks at Poul and doesn't see any kind of threat coming from him, so he just ignores him and jumps into the city.
"No... no", he said, out of breath. "Jay... I need... to go... save... my... son."
The giant enters the city. Upon entering, he looks to the sides, so he doesn't receive a surprise attack. He destroys some houses, but he doesn't find any living being—the evacuation had already started when the pressure that the giant transmitted came. He hears something approaching, and he heads toward what he heard, when he feels something piercing his leg. He falls to the ground, being dragged, knocking down several houses and injuring some civilians.
He gets up, gritting his teeth. The hole in his leg closed quickly. In his hand, a spear appeared. The artillery, at that time, was already ready to shoot again. The captain of that division looked at his men with a cold look. He yelled:
"Shoot!"
At that same moment, the giant launched his spear, which collided with the shots. This ended up causing an explosion, which scared the citizens who were slowly losing their homes even more.
Jay, in the basement with Kyrai, was scared by what was happening. He looked at his friend's father, who had a serious expression and was attentive to any noise, until they heard an explosion and, after a while, the door of the house being broken down. They heard the invaders talking:
"Search the whole house to find the residents! Do you understand?", the leader asked.
Everyone nodded, thus beginning to search the house.
You could tell it was a large group of people, by the amount of footsteps that were being taken at the same time. Kyrai's father stayed close to the basement door, in case they found the basement, which was a little well hidden. Until they heard another very loud noise again, coming from the city center.
Jay was worried about his father; he wanted to get out of there soon and see him, but he couldn't do that, after all, his friend's house was being invaded and maybe there was a giant outside. His only option was to help his friend's father with something. So, he went to ask him where he could help.
Poul was all this time recovering his breath and recovering. His arm still burned. The burning had increased a little, and this time, he could lift it. He took a deep breath, looked at the chaos the city he tried to protect was in, and again felt the taste of failure, gritting his teeth with hatred for himself.
"Poul, use this power. Besides gusts, it can do more than that," a mysterious male voice arose. Poul felt that he had heard it before.
Upon hearing this tip, he thought of wings. So, ice wings appeared on his back. He ran and jumped from the wall and flew toward the giant. Poul also thought of an ice sword while flying toward the elemental earth giant.
The artillery was almost out of ammunition. The giant destroyed some of them and had only been injured in the surprise attack. He headed toward the artillery that shot at him, but he dodged all the shots. He didn't want to use his power to destroy the rest of the artillery, but he didn't have that option. So he just raised his finger, the soldiers didn't understand what he wanted to do. They started to feel the ground shake and, at the same moment, several pointy towers appeared, piercing the artillery and the soldiers.
The captain turned to the giant and was scared by what he saw.
'This is absurd! With just a raise of his finger, he destroyed practically my squad. This is a monster.'
The squad captain thought. He drew his sword, facing the giant.
'Even if I don't have a chance to win, I can hold him here for a while, until reinforcements arrive and the civilians get out of here.'
He was looking at the giant when he saw a flying being that looked like a human. He became more visible every second. That's when he recognized him: it was soldier Hyou Poul; he was falling close to the giant.
Poul was looking at the giant's arm, holding his ice sword. His captain understood that he was supposed to distract the giant. At that moment, the giant felt Poul's presence and turned, delivering a punch with his hand covered in earth. Poul didn't care about that; he dodged the punch, even in the air, and drove his ice sword into the side of the giant's hand. He went down, cutting the side of the giant's arm.
When he got close to the shoulder, he let go. Upon letting go, he looked at his left shoulder and saw the giant's hand getting closer and closer. In his situation, there was no way he could dodge, so he received the earth elemental giant's punch. He flew toward the wall and felt his whole body sore. He couldn't feel his left arm. Poul couldn't feel his legs anymore.
The giant runs toward Poul to finish off the biggest threat. He created an earth sword and ran. Then, he jumped, making a cut in the wall. In the small moment the cut was about to reach Poul, the sword was frozen along with his arm. He moved away and spit blood.
He realized that the arm that was cut laterally had ice that prevented it from regenerating the cut that was made. He kneels, looking at Poul, who was seeing the giant's situation. He smiled with joy upon seeing that the giant was bleeding a lot.
Poul looked at his left arm and wanted it to come back. Even weak, a weak ice came out, heading toward his arm. The ice stuck to his arm and went back to Poul's body, and so he began to regenerate his whole body that was injured internally and externally.
So, the ice that had consumed his arm expanded to half of his chest. The burning increased along with the numbness of his arm. Poul got up with a smile while observing the giant with his arm frozen along with his sword and having to cover his wound, unable to regenerate. This situation of the giant made Poul very happy.
Poul started walking in the direction of the giant, while several ice spikes started to appear around him. The giant did the same to protect himself. The giant was terrified. He was seeing his defeat and death for the first time in his life. His pride had been trampled by Poul, who was in front of him.
The spikes flew toward each other; they collided, making a smoke where he couldn't see the giant. While Poul calmly walked through the dust smoke, his murderous intent grew more and more. When he got close to the giant, he felt the murderous intent coming from Poul and got more and more scared.
When Poul saw the giant's foot, an ice stake soon emerged from the ground that pierced his foot. Soon came the giant's cry of pain. With that cry, Poul created ice on top of the noise and several ice spikes. To defend himself from that, the giant created a wall.
Suddenly, Poul appears swinging his ice sword, with a bloodthirsty look and a somber smile. He drove his sword into the giant's neck and then ripped it. Blood ran, his hands were dirty with blood; after all, this was the first giant he killed.
Meanwhile, Jay and his friend's father were ready to eliminate the invaders. When the basement door opened, his friend's father flew at the invader, grabbing him by the neck and starting to strangle him. When he started to strangle the invader, he realized it was a soldier, and this made him squeeze even harder. Jay ran toward the soldier being strangled. He took a knife from his pocket, which he used to drive it into his head, killing him. Jay looked at his hands dirty with blood.
'I killed a person! No, but it was necessary. If I didn't do that, we would lose time unnecessarily', Jay thought after killing a person. He removed the knife from the soldier's head.
His childhood friend's father searched the soldier, until he found what he wanted, which was a sword.
"Boy, I know you're blaming yourself for having killed a person, even being a child, but it was necessary to do that. Otherwise, we would lose time unnecessarily, do you understand? And I'm sorry for making you do that."
He finishes by hugging the poor boy, who, without realizing it, started to cry.
'Huh, I'm crying?! Am I crying because I killed this person? Does this make me a monster?'
Tears ran down slowly.
'Yes, this makes me a monster.'
A slight somber smile appeared on his face.
"Jay, can you guide Kyrai and Mary while I silence the others, okay?"
"Luis, after doing that, can I go back to help you?"
Luis looked at Jay with a strange look and then nodded.
Luis, sneakily, killed the soldiers and took all the bodies to the basement, then threw fire to not leave any evidence. Then, he cleaned himself and went to meet his family.
Jay soon went to meet his father, who was in a medical tent being treated—even after regenerating with ice, he still had some after-effects. Jay approached his father, who was lying on a gurney. His son hugged him.
"I'm glad you're alive."
Three years had passed since the incident at the wall. Poul and Jay still had nightmares about that fateful day. Poul was the most affected; the guilt of having seen his wife die in front of him was a poison that consumed him, resurfacing in the most unexpected moments, whether they were sad or happy.
With a thirst for revenge, he trained his body, swordsmanship, and elemental power tirelessly. His focus was a single one: vengeance.
Meanwhile, the Nameless King was becoming more and more famous for destroying villages and cities of both giants and humans. Many tried to kill him, but none succeeded. He grew stronger and, at the same time, felt more and more aimless.
And so, another day began. Poul woke up, got ready, and went to wake up his son, who wasn't in the room. He went to the living room and there was Jay, reading a book.
'I ended up getting addicted to books; I never would have imagined that', Jay thought.
"Jay, I'll have to work a lot to buy new books for you!", Poul joked.
Jay just looked at his father and said, "Cool."
'What a scoundrel boy', Poul thought, heading to the kitchen. He cracked some eggs and fried them, scrambling them.
"Done, Jay, breakfast is on the table."
Jay went to the kitchen, ate, and then headed to the park. On the way, he suddenly began to have memories of his past life. He stopped, put his hand on his face, and wondered why those memories had resurfaced. He started walking again, deep in thought.
'Why did I come to this world? Was I reincarnated for a reason, or is this natural? What is my purpose and my destiny? It's been 3 years of peace; this is very strange. Something will probably happen; it's too quiet.'
These thoughts, which he had daily in his past life, came back strongly after his mother's death.
'Does this mean I'll never change? Is this a characteristic of mine that can never change? No, this is a remnant of my past life. Eight years is a lot, but I didn't even try to change. I hope that in this new life, I don't make the same mistakes.'
Lost in these thoughts, he didn't realize he had arrived at the park. He only noticed when he heard the scream of his best friend, Kyrai.
Poul went to work. Upon arriving at the army's training center (TC), he greeted his superiors and went to the training room, which he did every single day he went to the army TC. After training, he filled out some paperwork and went back to training, but this time, he focused on his elemental power. He realized that after these three years, his body was much more adapted than on the day he started training.
'I'm stronger than before; I can now protect my son from the evil of the world.'
Until he was called by one of his superiors. Upon entering the room, he saw several soldiers gathered.
"Well, I gathered you here to give you some news that will shake all of you," the captain said.
A soldier raised his hand.
"And what's the news, captain?"
"Well, we sighted a giant, but it's not just any giant; it's an elemental earth giant."
Everyone was scared by what they heard. Poul, on the other hand, was happy and, without realizing it, smiled somberly. He put his hand to his jaw and tried to hide his excitement.
"But how do you know that?", a soldier asked.
The captain sighed and stared at the soldier who asked the question.
"We know that because of the abnormal behavior of the forest giants. That's why, understood?"
Everyone nodded.
"Now that a battle will probably begin in the city, it's best to start evacuating the city." He observed the soldiers in the room for a while, and in that observation, he saw the somber smile of excitement that Poul had. He smiled softly.
'Looks like someone is excited for this battle, interesting.'
"Dismissed, I'll put you on a list of who will be on the front line or in the low block."
So, Poul went to cool off, drinking his water. He was worried about how his son would be treated, after all, he would be at the park with his best friend, Kyrai.
"Jay, let's eat at my house," Kyrai stated.
"What?!"
She raised her eyebrow.
"You don't want to go?", she asked, making a cute face.
Jay sighed and thought: his father would probably be at work, and he would have to make lunch. Upon remembering that he would have to make lunch, laziness came over him.
"I'm going, I'm definitely going," Jay said with a lot of enthusiasm.
'Thanks, Kyrai, you saved me.'
So, he went to Kyrai's house. Upon arriving at his friend's house, he was very well received. He had lunch peacefully, until he heard a loud bang and a pressure coming suddenly. Everyone was scared, especially Jay, who remembered the tragedy from three years ago.
He panicked instantly; after all, he didn't want his childhood friend's family to suffer what he suffered.
When he was about to tell everyone to leave that place, his friend's father got up from his chair and told everyone to go to the basement. So, everyone went, including Jay, who didn't have much choice.
Poul, who was assigned to watch around the wall with a partner, felt this pressure coming. Poul turned to the place where this pressure was coming from.
'This pressure is coming from the east!'
He looked to the east; his partner fell to the ground, terrified, his body trembling. He turned his head to Poul.
"We're going to die."
Poul was looking at a mountain of earth forming, with several giant bodies. On top of that mountain, there was a giant who looked at everyone below him as if they were inferior.
That mountain was coming with everything to destroy the wall. He looked at the gunners, who looked at Poul and then at the artillery.
"Go, shoot you bastards!"
They loaded the artillery, aimed at the mountain, which was already close to the wall. Poul covered his ears. When they shot, a mouth suddenly appeared on the mountain that swallowed the shots. Poul took a deep breath, stretched his arm, and launched a strong gust of ice that froze the mountain along with a little of the giant, but, as a consequence, his arm was almost completely frozen.
Poul kneels, out of breath, with a slight burning sensation in his almost completely frozen arm.
'Did I do it? Did I save the city?'
He looks at the city, happy for having saved the lives of several people. Until he hears something breaking. He looks up and sees what it was: a giant approximately 7 meters tall jumping from the top of the mountain.
Poul jumps to the side and falls, rolling. Even out of breath, he tries to make another gust of ice, but the giant, upon landing, makes a stone wall appear on both sides. Poul released a weak gust of ice, which barely froze the wall. The ice freezes the rest of his arm, he gets even more out of breath, lying on the ground, with heavy breathing.
The giant undoes the two walls. He looks at Poul and doesn't see any kind of threat coming from him, so he just ignores him and jumps into the city.
"No... no", he said, out of breath. "Jay... I need... to go... save... my... son."
The giant enters the city. Upon entering, he looks to the sides, so he doesn't receive a surprise attack. He destroys some houses, but he doesn't find any living being—the evacuation had already started when the pressure that the giant transmitted came. He hears something approaching, and he heads toward what he heard, when he feels something piercing his leg. He falls to the ground, being dragged, knocking down several houses and injuring some civilians.
He gets up, gritting his teeth. The hole in his leg closed quickly. In his hand, a spear appeared. The artillery, at that time, was already ready to shoot again. The captain of that division looked at his men with a cold look. He yelled:
"Shoot!"
At that same moment, the giant launched his spear, which collided with the shots. This ended up causing an explosion, which scared the citizens who were slowly losing their homes even more.
Jay, in the basement with Kyrai, was scared by what was happening. He looked at his friend's father, who had a serious expression and was attentive to any noise, until they heard an explosion and, after a while, the door of the house being broken down. They heard the invaders talking:
"Search the whole house to find the residents! Do you understand?", the leader asked.
Everyone nodded, thus beginning to search the house.
You could tell it was a large group of people, by the amount of footsteps that were being taken at the same time. Kyrai's father stayed close to the basement door, in case they found the basement, which was a little well hidden. Until they heard another very loud noise again, coming from the city center.
Jay was worried about his father; he wanted to get out of there soon and see him, but he couldn't do that, after all, his friend's house was being invaded and maybe there was a giant outside. His only option was to help his friend's father with something. So, he went to ask him where he could help.
Poul was all this time recovering his breath and recovering. His arm still burned. The burning had increased a little, and this time, he could lift it. He took a deep breath, looked at the chaos the city he tried to protect was in, and again felt the taste of failure, gritting his teeth with hatred for himself.
"Poul, use this power. Besides gusts, it can do more than that," a mysterious male voice arose. Poul felt that he had heard it before.
Upon hearing this tip, he thought of wings. So, ice wings appeared on his back. He ran and jumped from the wall and flew toward the giant. Poul also thought of an ice sword while flying toward the elemental earth giant.
The artillery was almost out of ammunition. The giant destroyed some of them and had only been injured in the surprise attack. He headed toward the artillery that shot at him, but he dodged all the shots. He didn't want to use his power to destroy the rest of the artillery, but he didn't have that option. So he just raised his finger, the soldiers didn't understand what he wanted to do. They started to feel the ground shake and, at the same moment, several pointy towers appeared, piercing the artillery and the soldiers.
The captain turned to the giant and was scared by what he saw.
'This is absurd! With just a raise of his finger, he destroyed practically my squad. This is a monster.'
The squad captain thought. He drew his sword, facing the giant.
'Even if I don't have a chance to win, I can hold him here for a while, until reinforcements arrive and the civilians get out of here.'
He was looking at the giant when he saw a flying being that looked like a human. He became more visible every second. That's when he recognized him: it was soldier Hyou Poul; he was falling close to the giant.
Poul was looking at the giant's arm, holding his ice sword. His captain understood that he was supposed to distract the giant. At that moment, the giant felt Poul's presence and turned, delivering a punch with his hand covered in earth. Poul didn't care about that; he dodged the punch, even in the air, and drove his ice sword into the side of the giant's hand. He went down, cutting the side of the giant's arm.
When he got close to the shoulder, he let go. Upon letting go, he looked at his left shoulder and saw the giant's hand getting closer and closer. In his situation, there was no way he could dodge, so he received the earth elemental giant's punch. He flew toward the wall and felt his whole body sore. He couldn't feel his left arm. Poul couldn't feel his legs anymore.
The giant runs toward Poul to finish off the biggest threat. He created an earth sword and ran. Then, he jumped, making a cut in the wall. In the small moment the cut was about to reach Poul, the sword was frozen along with his arm. He moved away and spit blood.
He realized that the arm that was cut laterally had ice that prevented it from regenerating the cut that was made. He kneels, looking at Poul, who was seeing the giant's situation. He smiled with joy upon seeing that the giant was bleeding a lot.
Poul looked at his left arm and wanted it to come back. Even weak, a weak ice came out, heading toward his arm. The ice stuck to his arm and went back to Poul's body, and so he began to regenerate his whole body that was injured internally and externally.
So, the ice that had consumed his arm expanded to half of his chest. The burning increased along with the numbness of his arm. Poul got up with a smile while observing the giant with his arm frozen along with his sword and having to cover his wound, unable to regenerate. This situation of the giant made Poul very happy.
Poul started walking in the direction of the giant, while several ice spikes started to appear around him. The giant did the same to protect himself. The giant was terrified. He was seeing his defeat and death for the first time in his life. His pride had been trampled by Poul, who was in front of him.
The spikes flew toward each other; they collided, making a smoke where he couldn't see the giant. While Poul calmly walked through the dust smoke, his murderous intent grew more and more. When he got close to the giant, he felt the murderous intent coming from Poul and got more and more scared.
When Poul saw the giant's foot, an ice stake soon emerged from the ground that pierced his foot. Soon came the giant's cry of pain. With that cry, Poul created ice on top of the noise and several ice spikes. To defend himself from that, the giant created a wall.
Suddenly, Poul appears swinging his ice sword, with a bloodthirsty look and a somber smile. He drove his sword into the giant's neck and then ripped it. Blood ran, his hands were dirty with blood; after all, this was the first giant he killed.
Meanwhile, Jay and his friend's father were ready to eliminate the invaders. When the basement door opened, his friend's father flew at the invader, grabbing him by the neck and starting to strangle him. When he started to strangle the invader, he realized it was a soldier, and this made him squeeze even harder. Jay ran toward the soldier being strangled. He took a knife from his pocket, which he used to drive it into his head, killing him. Jay looked at his hands dirty with blood.
'I killed a person! No, but it was necessary. If I didn't do that, we would lose time unnecessarily', Jay thought after killing a person. He removed the knife from the soldier's head.
His childhood friend's father searched the soldier, until he found what he wanted, which was a sword.
"Boy, I know you're blaming yourself for having killed a person, even being a child, but it was necessary to do that. Otherwise, we would lose time unnecessarily, do you understand? And I'm sorry for making you do that."
He finishes by hugging the poor boy, who, without realizing it, started to cry.
'Huh, I'm crying?! Am I crying because I killed this person? Does this make me a monster?'
Tears ran down slowly.
'Yes, this makes me a monster.'
A slight somber smile appeared on his face.
"Jay, can you guide Kyrai and Mary while I silence the others, okay?"
"Luis, after doing that, can I go back to help you?"
Luis looked at Jay with a strange look and then nodded.
Luis, sneakily, killed the soldiers and took all the bodies to the basement, then threw fire to not leave any evidence. Then, he cleaned himself and went to meet his family.
Jay soon went to meet his father, who was in a medical tent being treated—even after regenerating with ice, he still had some after-effects. Jay approached his father, who was lying on a gurney. His son hugged him.
"I'm glad you're alive."