I don't think the knot in my stomach could grow any bigger. Ryan had her arm on my shoulder but I was barely aware of it. My whole body felt numb and bitter.

"Felix?" I asked, my voice cracking from the strain, the betrayal was obvious in my tone.

The black substance continued to fall off him in chucks. I saw Felix shudder and twitch, the black rash on his neck grew a little closer to his face. It was spreading, he was dying.

"Craig?" Felix asked. "I hate that name."

It was her. She was controlling him. I didn't know how but I didn't like it.

"Peri?" I asked.

He was almost lifeless on my shoulder. "I've never... I've just never seen anything... "

"I know buddy but I really need your help right now." I begged.

"We can take them." Sky grunted, then repeated it louder. "We can take them!"

"Do you really think so?" Eryan asked uncertainly.

"I know so! You have to believe it." Sky followed that up with a low growl and I noticed she was attaching blades to the ends of her garrote. Kosmos, she was frightening.

"Alright!" Eryan agreed somewhat excitedly, she started to pull out her bow but then Sky stopped her.

"No, no, no. You don't have the grace or accuracy to be skillful with a bow. Take all that strength and put it into one of these." Sky, to everyone's surprise unclipped an ax from her belt.

Eryan blinked. "Okay."

Aurora, despite the situation, seemed bothered with the fact this prepubescent little whirl-wind seemed to be carrying more weapons than all of us combined. "This is insane."

"Nah don't worry babe, I'll protect you." Jason flashed a smiled as her.

"Ew." She grimaced.

"You keep Felix distracted, see if you can do anything about the muck on him. We'll have your back bro." Ryan promised me.

"Ready?" Sky seemed eager. "One. Two. Three!"

She bolted off, swinging her wire around with such gusto I was shaken to the core. Carra timed her reappearance perfectly as Sky's garrote wrapped around one woman and the leopard pounced, let out a piercing roar, and took her to the ground. Something told me that in a parallel universe where things were a little less dramatic (but not really) a musical tune that everyone was subliminally aware would play at this moment, and a few people would laugh.

As soon as it was abundantly clear we were not going to surrender the rest of the woman fixed their stances and marched forward. There were quite a few of them compared to my friends, and we would be able to hold them off for long, but all I needed was a few minutes to do...whatever I was going to do.

I turned back towards Felix and took out the small knife I still had with me.  The sound of it leaving my belt drew Felix's eyes and he laughed.

"You don't even have a real weapon? Do you know how pathetic that is?"

I bit my lip. It's not him. This wasn't really Felix.

I took a step forward and Matri growled. His eyes were like slits, like they were when he was sick. I realized he might actually attack me if I came to close. I needed to get Matri away from him if I was going to do anything. Peri seemed to realize this the same time I did and swooped at the wolf's face. The was the perfect time for a distraction so as soon as Matri barked in confusion I jumped at Felix to pin him down. The was a dip that we both ended up rolling down for a few feet. We both him the bottom eventually, soaking wet from the snow and a little scratched up. I was the only one shivering.

Felix stood up with the grace of a drunk elephant and point a black finger at me in accusation. "Smart move, but it won't save you. I can out power you, right here, right now. You can't do anything against this."

He held out his arm. I gathered together my strength and tried to grab him by the shoulders. He grunted form the sudden forced and his slick, dripping had clasped onto my arm.  I gasped as the black goo stung my skin, but I didn't let go. I tried to summon the gut feeling that came with my powers. It had worked on Matri, and it was worth a shot.

"Not...nice...is it?" He gasped between breaths as we started to wrestle. "It burns...doesn't it?"

"Felix please, I know you're in there." I begged, Kosmos, the sinking feeling I got and the sting of his arm was not helping. "I need you to work with me buddy."

"I'm as good as dead." He pushed my off and I fell back into the snow.

"No you're-"

"I am! You don't get it Craig! I hated that village. I don't to 'inherit the great honor that is my birthright' or whatever crap lines my mom keep forcing me into. Nothing has ever been my choice!"

I stopped, as he breathed roughly in and out. I wonder if the black slime had gotten into his lungs. He looked wild, eyes unfocused and glazed over with some sort a mind fog. Now that I think of it, he always had that kind of look on his face. Only now it was more...intense.

"I did one thing by my own choice and this is what it got me." He held out his arm. "Kosmos, it hurts."

"I can fix-"

"I don't want you too." He growled, shoulders stiffening. "Look, if this proves anything, it's that I really am the screwup my mom and everyone else always told me I was. Drop it. I deserve this."

I stood up. "No you don't."

He seemed to relax a bit, it only revealed the stiff look on his face. He was in pain, I had to try and get my hands on him without getting touched by the slime.

"Kosmos! You were always stubborn. You can't even let me do this without grief." I thought I saw tears forming in the corner of his eyes.

"Well that's because I still want you around stupid. I promised your mom." I smiled at him, I think I was getting through to him.

His knees started to shack. More slime dripped from his hand at an alarming rate, It melted through the snow and there was so much being flung around I could see dirt in patches at Felix's feet. He seemed to be loosing his balance.

"Neve doesn't care." He sounded so sure.

I scoffed, and took a step closer. "Of course she does. We all care about you."

"Then why did she dump me on you, huh? The only thing she cared about was my Dad and he's gone." Felix grabbed onto a tree for support.

"Screw the guy." I held out my hand for him to hold onto if he needed. "I'm telling the truth, Neve's torn up to bits about you, okay?" It get's even better than that if you'll just listen to me."

He shrunk down against the bad of the trunk. Felix's bright blue eyes were rimmed by red, bloodshot eyelids and damp lashes. I had his attention.

"I somehow managed to drag five other amazing and wonderful people with me. All of were looking for you. All of us care. One of them is my sister, and she's been waiting a really long time to get to meet you, and if I were you I wouldn't keep her waiting."

I reached out and took his hand. He flinched, and started to cry.  "Craig?"

That's it. That sounded like Felix. That was the voice of my best friend in the whole wide world.

"I'm here." I assured, crouching down next to him.

"Kosmos, I waited so long."

"I know, we come here as fast as we could." I explained, holding out my palms.

"Everything hurts Craig." He grimaced, the knuckles of his hand that was curled around the tree were white, the black one hung at his side.

"I know, I'm going to try and fix it okay?"

He nodded. "Okay, please hurry."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The focused on the feeling that I was this close. It overwhelmed me, filled every pour and cavity in my body. I placed my now-glowing hands on Felix's shoulders.

He cried out in agony, and all of a sudden my vision blurred. I couldn't see his face any longer, but instead, someone else's a woman's. It focused slightly and I recognized the woman as Neve. She was scowling.

"You're always late." You could feel the edge in her voice.

"Sorry." I looked down and realized I was looking down at Felix's body, from Felix's point of view, his legs were covered in mud.

"And you're filthy. Kosmos, I can't believe you're the one I have to pass Chieftainship too. You're a disgrace to our whole family line."

An overwhelming anger and rage filled me and it blurred out again. Then it focused and suddenly I was looking at Felix again, clutching my arm, the blackness welled up on his neck as he screamed and pushed me off of him.

I crashed into the snow, rocks and branches poking to my back. I groaned, glancing around for Felix. He suddenly loomed over me, I curled up behind my arms and legs and watched as the slime growled past his jawline, staying between the three scars and contrasting them vividly. Half of his face was consumed by the darkness. His right eye, encased all around by the dripping slime, started to  grow dull.

"How dare you touch me! With your mere mortal hands and your dim, pathetic light!" He screamed as loudly as humanly possible into my ear.

Did I make it worse? Something told me otherwise. Something told me that what I had just done frightened whoever was doing this to him. My hand prints were still glowing bright as ever, so I scanned every nice and fond childhood memory I had with Felix in it and let it a yell as I tackled him to the ground again.

He started writhing under me, but I held tight. His black arm slapped against my arm and I felt the burning sensation return, it was worse this time, and tears welled in the corner of my eyes, but I gritted my teeth and held firm. Felix started to go limp again and my vision blurred once more.

"Hey Felix look!"

Then all of a sudden I was staring up at my own face, when I was about six years old and my hair was still a tousled mess the same color as a raven's wing. I was a holding a frog.

"Gross." Felix replied, but jokingly as he reached out to touch it. "Better let go before it pees on you."

I yelled and dropped the frog, it landed with a slap back into the creek and floated passive aggressively downstream. I looked back at Felix, obviously very startled.

"Frog's do that? Why didn't you tell me?"

I felt Felix's laugh grow and burst out, as he nearly wobbled backwards into the water. I joined in until we eventually stared splashing water at each other and roughhousing. That day was so much fun, until it blurred again and then we were back in my house.

We were sitting on my bed and I was crying because the first of my pale spots had started to appear and I didn't understand what it was back then. We were about eleven years old.

"Hey come on man, you're mom already said you're not dying." Felix explained.

Kosmos, I remembered this day. I wondered how it would effect dream Felix if I cried, because I am a huge sap.

Young me looked up at him. "I don't like it. It makes my skin look ugly."

Felix shook his head. "No it doesn't! You look cool. Nobody else in the village looks like that. Girls will dig it."

I watched as young me's face twisted up and momentary confusion and I was suddenly filled with embarrassment. That's right, I had my first boy crush at the time. Kosmos, was I always this obvious? Felix obviously noticed.

"Or boys, if you want." Felix quickly added, picking up on that.

The younger me glanced at him and smiled, and young Felix felt really glad that he's been able to do that. All I could think about was that little weasel, he had known way before he told me.

Then I was back in the present, my shaking hands were pressed against Felix's chest as he lay unmoving in the snow. I look down at his arm.

The black slime had retreated all the way to his hand and currently lay dormant at his wrist.

I...I did it.

A wave of nausea rolled over me and I turned to vomit into the snow. The blurriness was back but this time, I think it was due to my overexhaustion of my powers. I clutched a hand to my forehead as black spots danced before my eyes.

"Craig?" Felix's eyes fluttered open.

"I'm here." I wheezed, nearly falling over.

There's no way I could stand let alone walk now. I would probably pass out. Kosmos, I felt like I had just been hit with a Scobi bus. Felix let out a sob, and I tried to focus on him.

"I'm sorry!" He cried out, clicking into himself. "I'm so sorry!"

"No...no stop. What are you sorry for? It's over I..." The world went black for a moment. "I saved you."

I heard an ear-piecing shriek, it sounded like it came from a bird.

Felix let out another heart wrenching sob, and that's when I noticed Matri's still form staring at us from the ridge we had tumbled down. His cold blue eyes were staring, unfocused and glassy.

I felt my whole body freeze over with terror as I realized he held Peri's unmoving form between his jaws.