deathbed companion

Noah started with one finger, sending his mana surging through the muscle fibers, and soon could lift it. He could still feel the headband trying to restrict him, but now he could push back. He did the same to his other fingers, soon gaining full control of his hand. The effort required was considerable, but this manner of controlling his mana was not dissimilar to how he could control his clone. Rather than something he would wear like a disguise, he simply had to think of his clone as something that existed within him, under his skin.

Our pasts burden us with guilt but bless us with knowledge, so that we can ensure that we and those around us don’t make the same mistakes, and help those who do make those mistakes learn and grow to be better people. Even if there is no way to truly repent for our crimes, to make up for what we’ve done, that doesn’t mean we should ever stop trying.

Maybe you and I do deserve to suffer for our wrongdoing. If that’s so, then it means that when things get painful, when things get difficult, we don’t have the luxury of quitting. We don’t get to end our lives to escape what we did. Whatever form the pain takes, we bear it, we endure it, we welcome it, all while we try to make this world a place where people like us, like how we used to be, have no place, and the people who would be hurt can instead live in peace. The next time you encounter an obstacle you cannot overcome, when you just want to curl up into a ball and quit on the world, remind yourself that you don’t deserve the peace of surrender. You have to keep working, to keep fighting, to keep suffering, until the day when you’ve fully repented.