When the Dawn Breaks [TBAU]

☆ Chapter 22 ☆

I'm alive! :0
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Once you've hit rock bottom, there's only one way left to go: up.

Out of all the metaphors that could've been applied to the situation, Impulse felt like that one fit the best. He used the phrase a lot actually, as a quick way to simply combat worries and anxieties. Right now, he was using it to hope. Right now, he was saying it to himself because of Zedaph.

Logically, he knew that simply hoping couldn't guarantee Zed's recovery. He knew that healing wasn't linear, and that things could get one thousand times worse tomorrow, or that rock bottom could simply be hit again.

But he refused to believe in the worst that could happen, because he'd done that before far too many times to be healthy. So for now, he resorted to hoping, and doing his best to actually make himself useful for once.

Word of Zedaph's state had spread through the village like wildfire, and it wasn't long before all the hermits were doing the same things as Impulse. Helping out whenever and wherever they could, and in their free time, worrying. Impulse didn't think there was a single hermit he hadn't seen lending a hand. It was almost as if some disaster had beset the town, which really showed just how much the hermits cared for each individual in their little community.

Yes, just another thing Impulse loved about Hermit Village. If it were an ideal world, he would never leave this place. He wished he had more time than he did.

Half of it was gone already.

Maybe, Impulse figured, the fact that he had barely six weeks left in the village was in fact why he was helping out so much. It was simple. If he was spending his last month and a half here, it needed to be perfect. He needed everyone to be okay, even if it was just for his own sanity.

Which in turn had made him feel miserable when he realized that Zedaph's illness had flown under everyone's radar. Of course he'd done his part though, and he'd even used a little healing magic to help out a day or so ago. But he still didn't feel great about the whole thing, even as Zed got better.

"Hey... can I talk to you about something?"

Impulse looked up from where he'd been sitting cross legged, staring into a cup of coffee. At the base of the lodge's stairs stood one Xisuma Void, shoulders hunched over, and hands fidgeting slowly.

"Yeah, of course," Impulse smiled, motioning for X to join him on the living room couch. Xisuma's stance got a little less tense, and he shuffled his way over, sitting down and sinking into the woolen green couch.

They sat silently for a minute or so, waiting as Xisuma gathered his words, the quiet only broken by the voidwalker's shuddery breaths. "You deserve to know about what happened to Zed last year." he finally breathed out, tension in his words.

"You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to," Impulse murmured, he could easily tell that the subject was hard to talk about, even if he didn't know much about it. Xisuma shook his head. "I need to get this out right now. I could probably use your input too, considering you weren't there like the others."

Impulse nodded, humming out a quiet "Okay." X sighed, looking down and picking at the seams on his gloves. Staring down at his coffee, Impulse waited. It was getting cold. He should probably drink it or something. He didn't.

The clock ticked over to the next minute.

"I have a brother."

Xisuma didn't look up from his hands as he spoke. "He lived here with the rest of us, and I'd never left his side. He was like my other half. Zedaph called him Exy... the two of them were close, always up to shenanigans together."