On the final day of Nkremos, 2017, Kyte Errasuriz, the young boy who had saved Dolores's life when they were children, now had only one day left to live. At sixteen years old, Kyte fell ill, rendering him completely immobile, unable to function normally as a human being, stuck in a wheelchair for most of his teenage life.
Dolores, older now, had a red curly bob that met her shoulders, still retaining that razor-sharp glare of hers. Her arms were replaced with prosthetics, both clutching the handles of Kyte's wheelchair as she pushed him along through the stone path of a heavily wooded park. Kyte observed the scenery that surrounded them, eyes partially glazed over and sunken.
This was it, the final stretch. Kyte asked for them, for his last day to be spent looking out at the trees before being laid to rest in his own homestead. Every moment, however, was more dreadful than the last as the reality of their situation sank in more and more. Dolores was sick to her stomach, knowing that another person she cared for would most likely end up dead, like... some curse had stuck onto her body like molten wax, or hot oil, spreading and infecting everyone around her.
Kyte took a deep breath, his attention stuck on the trees which loomed above and around them, eyes paying close attention to the sinking branches as they hung limply against the weight of the leaves on them.
Dolores looked down at the decaying young man, a sullen expression on her face. "We'll have to head home soon.... You should be around your Mom and Andrea before the time comes." Dolores paused. "I know... if I were Cris... I would feel ill... sick to my stomach knowing I couldn't be there for when my child passed."
Kyte sighed. "Just a little longer? I still got some energy left in me."
"Yeah, but at this rate, it'll be night when we return, the earlier the better, plus, we've been out here for hours, Kyte."
He sighed again. "Yeah, yeah... alright."
Dolores nodded in affirmation, wheeling Kyte back down the path, heading home. "Sorry."
"Why are you apologizing? You're right? Plus, I'd rather die on my back than sit in this uncomfortable ass wheelchair."
"Awfully casual about this."
"I'm not." A beat. "I don't want to linger on the inevitable... I just want to dream a little while longer... Act like nothing is wrong. Can't have everything, can we?"
Dolores's voice shook before she spoke. "I don't want this to end this way... You don't deserve this."
"Like I don't know that?"
"It's not like I can help the fact that... it... It hurts so much seeing you like this. All that energy you had when we were kids, gone... Taken from you by... whatever this illness even is."
"I mostly just feel bad cause it's hard to help you with those prosthetics of yours now."
"You shouldn't be worrying about something like that."
"Yeah, but I worry regardless."
"You should worry about yourself. I can help myself, Kyte." She sighed, continuing to push him forward. "You're so calm about this..."
"I'm not."
"Yeah, but it looks like you are... normally I'm the calm one, aren't I?" She shook her head. "I..."
"You would be much calmer than I am right now."
"How are you feeling right now?"
Kyte looked out at the forest that surrounded them. "Scared..." He licked his lips. "Just... scared. It's why I don't want to go home. I feel like if I'm laid out on that bed, what's inevitable will finally happen." Kyte shrugged. "Eh, it's dumb."
"It isn't dumb."
"To me it is. I should be smarter than this."
"Smarter?" Dolores scoffed. "Maybe what determines who's smarter is if someone is aware that dreaming is a part of life. Hoping, lying to yourself. That's what it means to be human, y'know? So... as normal, you're dumber than me."
"Very encouraging, picking on the sick guy, are we?" Kyte rolled his eyes.
"Yep, I'm just a massive bully. Too bad you can't do anything about it, huh?" She motions to his gaunt body and shrugs playfully.
"I'm gonna get you one day!" Kyte chuckled, visibly a bit frustrated. He lightly slapped one ot her prosthetics before setting himself straight in his wheelchair. Kyte's expression dropped, eyes locking onto the nearby wilderness, specifically, a pair of foxes catching his attention. A red fox and a black fox ran by. "So... this is it..." He whispered. "Expected a more flashy end or something when I was a kid, but here I am... just... decaying. God, I'm... I'm like, twenty for God's sake."
"Kyte..."
"And it's that as well. That... look of pity from everyone--"
"We don't pity you, Kyte. We... we... we don't like seeing you like this, so theselooks that we have, it's because we hate seeing this kid that we loved and cherished end up... end like this... we feel the same way you do... It's just... we don't have to experience it, which makes me feel... feel ill. I feel ill... that... It shouldn't be y--"
"Shut up."
"What?"
"Shut up, you're gonna say some stupid shit, don't say anything more."
"I-I... Maybe... I..."
"No... this... It's just bad luck. I pulled the wrong straw in life, and here I am. Anyways, I saved you, I don't want you thinking that you can go and take my place, or some stupid shit like that."
"But it's true... I shouldn't have even made it out of that situation alive, Kyte. I..."
"And yet you're here. The fact that we saved you says enough, doesn't it? I don't wanna hear it, especially not today."
"No, no... you're right." Dolores sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"The more I think about it, the more that I... it just doesn't make sense."
"It ne--"
"Let me finish..."
Dolores nodded as she pushed Kyte up a hill in the woods before heading down the rightmost path, straight back home.
"The more I think about it..." He sighed before breaking out into a violent coughing fit.
Dolores took out a handkerchief, putting it over his mouth. He held it close as he coughed, separating it from his lips to reveal a black liquid on the cloth. Dolores folded it and threw it to the side. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm just..." Kyte took a breath. "This... the more I think about it, the more this feels like a test."
"A test?"
"Yeah, a test. It all happened so suddenly... my body became rotten, and decayed almost like I was stuck in some sort of... curse! Everything is a test in this world... It's just about who gets through it first."
"Like... some sort of divine judgement?"
"I don't know... I'm just... sayin' shit. I just have a gut feeling..." Kyte's voice shook. "I... I just have a gut feeling that... e-everything we've done and been through hasn't been meaningless... that me going through this actually means something." Kyte swallowed. "T-That... in the end it'll... I don't know... I feel like something has to happen though..."
"Like... a miracle? Kyte..." Dolores stopped, a sullen expression falling over her.
"We all wish for miracles, don't we? I... I'll wish for this one then..."
"I don't know, Kyte..."
"Giving up certainly isn't the solution, is it?"
Dolores continued to wheel him forward, eventually arriving back at their home. Kyte attempted to stand up just as they reached the steps to the estate, Dolores stopping him with a hand on his shoulder, body shaking violently as he attempted to push himself off from the chair. "What are you doing?"
Kyte flopped back down into the wheelchair, head in one of his hands. "I... I don't know..." He licked his lips. "I... I'm scared..."
Dolores couldn't respond, only staring helplessly at her best friend of the last half a decade of her life. "I... I don't want you to go..."
"Yeah... I don't want to die..." He paused. "I don't want to die..." His voice cracked, both of them just standing there now, unable to say anything to one another.
Almost thirty minutes had passed before Dolores pushed Kyte back into his home, wheeling him over to his room. Everything felt slow. Kyte's mother, Cris, approached, looking over the two. Dolores stopped, leading to Cris kneeling low and hugging her own son as tightly as she could. Andrea couldn't look, keeping her gaze fixed on a nearby photo of a better time, Kyte looking young and healthy, sitting close to the deadpan Dolores with a massive beaming smile on his face.
A moment occured, Kyte lifting himself off from the wheelchair and over to his bed. Dolores helped him, of course, but he swatted her away as he sank into the cushions. He swallowed, both Cris and Andrea not paying attention as they discussed silently with each other.
Dolores looked at Kyte questioningly, eyes flicking over to his hand and back to his face. Kyte took a breath. "I'm not dying here..." He whispered.
"What...?"
"I'm not dying here... I refuse..."
"W-What are you talking about, Kyte?"
He took another breath. "I'm going to live... I... I need to tell myself this. Push myself with this... this is a challenge, a hurdle that must be overcome... It... it hurts..." Kyte's eyes watered. "But... I have to... I have to do this... I-I can't leave you... my... my mom... Andrea... I-I can't bring myself to leave you all behind..."
"But... Kyte... earlier you--"
"This isn't about then, this is about now. Believe in me, please..."
Dolores blinked. "Okay... you're going to make it out, okay?"
"Yeah... I have to..." Kyte recoiled, holding his mouth as he vomited out onto the floor a viscous, thick, black ichor from his stomach. Cris grabbed a nearby pan, putting it under Kyte as he spat out what could only be seen as the remains of his own stomach.
"Get a towel!" Cris yelled to Dolores, who rushed out immediately.
Andrea crossed over to the bed, now looking Kyte in the eyes as he rolled over onto his back. "You okay? Hey!? You okay, kid?"
Kyte licked his lips and swallowed. He looked over to his step-mother, eyes glazed over before focusing his gaze. "Yeah... just... just feeling like shit."
Andrea chuckled. "Stick with us, okay, kid? You still got a few more hours..."
"I will... I'll stick with you all to the very end..."
Cris held onto one of Kyte's hands. "We'll be with you, honey... please..." Soon, only silent prayers left her mouth, messy blond hair spreading out across Kyte's bed like a spider web.
Dolores approached the door, watching from afar. Kyte's family gathered around him during the final hours of his life. After a minute, she crossed over to clean up the decay that had previously spewed out from Kyte's stomach.
An hour passed, Kyte turning to his mothers and Dolores with a worn-out expression in his eyes, and then he spoke. "Could I... have... a moment to myself?"
Cris looked up at him. "B-"
Before she could get a word out, Andrea placed a hand on her shoulder. They both nodded at each other, Andrea hesitantly bringing Cris outside, and soon, Dolores was going to follow. Kyte stopped her with a word, too quiet to hear, but it made Dolores stop. She kneeled to his level.
The smell of decay left Kyte's lips before he spoke again. "Doll..." He cleared his throat, "I'm going to make it out from this... so... k-keep them out for now..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Like... like a phoenix rising from the ashes... I will rise... and I will live... okay? Just... give me a moment... let me rest... I..." His eyes flickered. "I... I need sleep... now..."
Dolores left the room.
Sometimes, miracles can happen. In a world so cruel and so unforgiving, where even those who fight succeed in life's trials against them, no matter how brutal it may be, can, without bias or impunity, be put down just as everyone else... even those with such great strength can be killed the next day in the most pathetic, unforgivable way possible. So is life... even in these times, where life can be in such a way a contradiction, as it is the bolstering of what is great and beautiful.
Miracles can happen. They are rare, they are given sparingly, as if it were by a higher force, choosing by hand in whom they wish to bless. Miracles, however, are not made by a higher power. The belief that a higher power bestows miracles onto the land is to dismiss the sanctity of life itself. The belief of a higher power providing us with our daily blessings is to dismiss the efforts humanity makes in surviving every day.
Miracles are rare, but they are manmade.
Today is such a miracle. In a world where the very lifeblood of one's spirit is Karma, it would not be unusual that miracles are manmade. Choose not to look at something larger and choose to look at those who made it possible.
A mother's prayers can only fall onto deaf ears, unless the ears are from the one performing the miracle itself. Kyte Errasuriz, as he had stated, performed a miracle that day. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kyte Errasuriz, at twenty years old, performed a miracle in his last moments of life.
In his dying moments, just as Dolores was going to speak to his mother and his stepmother, a miracle was performed. Kyte was not aware of it at the time, but in that moment of hypersensitivity, his body dying, his brain fired a last hurrah, which took the latent Karma in his system, spreading it finely across his entire nervous system until none was left in his core. This Karma expunged the disease and filth from his body, which had infected him for all of these years in one violent purge, like overactive white blood cells rushing through a human body.
Through every pore on his skin, a black, viscous ichor left him, pooling across the bed and filling the room with the vile, permeating smell of decay. His body, his brain, rejected the very notion of death, and what was destroyed was replaced. In the span of seconds, just as he reached death, he had performed the impossible, practically resetting his body with a substance he had previously not known of.
All humans inherently have the talent to wield the substance of Karma. It is embedded within their brains to be able to comprehend and wield it. That latent system within Kyte's brain activated in desperation, and by pure luck, and determination... Kyte was alive.
The smell hit them first, all of them rushing inside in a panic. The smell of death.
They covered their noses, Andrea even gagging, but Cris pushed through, eyes wide in panic. As she entered the room, all she saw was a young man covered in an unknown black substance, looking out with their yellow, wolf-like eyes to their family, just as surprised as they were.
They could only see a miracle set out before them.
A miracle like this only occurs once every two or three decades. A contracted miracle made with the mind. The most infamous of those who had performed this miracle in their lives was Faestus Mornimer, a man who had exchanged their ability to wield Karma for greater strengths, unable to manifest through their own will or ability.
The second, most infamous case, is that of Token Errasuriz, Kyte's father, the strongest man in the world, and the most powerful Dreamer.
Despite the filth that now caked Kyte's body, all his family could do in that moment was jump at him, wrapping him up within their embrace. Dolores did not join them, just staring...
She swallowed deeply, eyes watering, even then... somehow... she couldn't help but not worry. Somehow, after Kyte said that he wouldn't die, that he'd return, that he'd rise like a phoenix from this challenge, this trial... for some reason... she was completely convinced. She couldn't help but be convinced, because she believed him more than anyone else.
Dolores couldn't help but laugh. I'm such an idiot... but... I-I'm so happy... I'm so happy that I didn't lose anyone else... Tears rolled down her cheeks, her body leaning forward. "God... it stinks so bad in here..."
Kyte recoiled. "O-Oh! Oh my God, it is! J-J-- Get off! I need to shower!"
"My boy~!" Cris cried out. "You're alive! You did it!"
Andrea cried with her. "You idiot! I was so scared! God!"
"L-Let me go!" Kyte gagged.