“What’s happening!” The cries of my wife, her tears flowing to the floor as she tried to comfort our unconscious child.

  One second, Theo was just fine, ready to awaken and finally be able to participate in the family hunts as a full fledged member of the Hollowstep Hunters. and the next he’s screaming and convulsing. Golden mana, pouring out of every pore, a blinding show as i ran to Diana. Kael crying as he watched his brother become enveloped in a golden mist, His dearest brother who he was so excited to see gain magic.

  “Arthur” A sob broke through my wife’s voice “what’s happening to our son?” She wouldn’t stop trying to get to him, trying to grasp at the fog surrounding him. It took all of my strength to not join her, to have to hold her back as i searched through the haze of system notifications alerting me.

  FAMILY STATUS:

  THEO: UNDERGOING SOUL REPAIR, TUTORIAL IN PROGRESS, TUTORIAL ENHANCING!

  “What does this mean!” I couldn’t help but lament to the moderators, why would they take my precious son away from me, away from us. Kael tried desperately to get past me, stubborn as his mother to save his brother, tears flowing as he screamed, anguish layed bare before his grieving family. We all could see the notification, the “soul repair”. Kael had to watch his older brother be broken down by mana and put back together, his mother had to watch her son be racked by soul pain. And I… I couldn’t help any of them, I couldn’t help my son, my family, I could only watch as the mist took him away to the tutorial.

  The air was heavy once he disappeared, the silent sobs and the less silent wails of my family as Theo disappeared before our eyes, the only thing keeping us sane was the lack of death notification. I felt a tug on my shoulder, with the barest of grip and the tremble of despair. “Dad” The whimper of my youngest, Kael. “Is Theo gonna be ok?” And that’s when the floodgate opened. Tears fell from my eyes as i rushed to my family, the anguish of our loss, of Theos loss. “I… I don’t know son, But your brother is strong. One of our best hunters” Wrapping my boy in my arms, making sure he couldn’t see the face that betrayed my words, He couldn’t know. Kael can’t know his brother won’t be returned, No one ever returned from an enhanced tutorial.

  “But he’s not a hunter!” Kael screamed, his tiny fists pounding on my chest as tears stained my clothes, “He didn’t even get to- he never even-“ His breath hitched, shoving me away and storming by out of the room. His feet pounded against the wooden floor as he vanished into the halls.

  I wanted to chase after him, to comfort him and tell him everything would be better. But he didn’t have time to see his mother’s condition.

  She grasped at the air, the empty space where her son used to lie. the tears streaming down her face as she tried to bring him back. I could see the mana expenditure as she tried card after card, healing lights, beacons of light and sound. She even used the tracking card we looted from a mistcrawler just 2 days ago, the card she wanted to gift to Theo before his first Card Hunt. The results were all the same.

  “He’s gone…” The crack in her voice showed the misery she’d been trying to stave off. Our son so far gone we couldn’t even track him with a silver ranked card and the residual blood he left behind.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Arthur… Arhtue what are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know, Diana. I don’t know”

  ——————————————————————

  The weeks following Theos disappearance felt like a haze to me, Like the world had lost something crucial for us to live and not just survive.

  Kael still hasn’t given up, he still believes his brother is out there, somewhere we can find him and bring him back from. Every day he’d stay out in the yard, training with his wooden sword that Theo had made for him, he’d attack the post until his knuckles were bloody and splinters dug into his palms. Then he’d come back inside to ask Diana for a healing spell before he got right back to it.

  “He needs to stop.” I let the words flow out of my lips when he left the room, back to his training post.

  “I know Arthur, but we all can see Theos status, He’s still alive, and Kael knows it.” Her voice was somber, the thought of losing her other son weighing down on her, chasing the ghost of the house that still lingered in all of our memories.

  “I’m gonna go talk to him, He needs to stop before he loses whatever parts of him are still intact. If we let him spend his life chasing Theos memory then he will never have lived at all.”

  “Go then, tell our boy his big brother is dead!” she seemed to bite back, “Tell him, that his protector, his best friend is likely dying in the enhanced tutorial. Being killed over and over by monsters till he chooses to end the tutorial without completing it, till he chooses death!” Her voice was raising in anger and pitch before it seemed to settle as a quiet sob broke through the anger.

  “Go tell him, Arthur, go.” she said before she walked to Theo’s room and shut the door, the clicking of the lock and the small, quiet sobs the only indicator she was still there.

  Composing myself, and wiping the tears away, I marched out back to see kael yelling in frustration as he hit the dummy over and over again, blood soaked bandages wrapped around his hands.

  “Kael.” My voice was firm, my stance unmoving. “Enough.” He turned to me, sweat dripping down his brow, fists clenched at his sides. “No.”

  I sighed. “You need rest.”

  “I need to be stronger.” His voice was sharp, a blade honed on the grindstone of grief. “I need to be ready.”

  “For what?” I demanded. “For when we get the notification? For when your mother loses her little artist? When you lose your big brother?”

  Kael’s jaw tightened. “For when I find a way to bring him back.”

  The words should have made me proud—should have reassured me that he still had hope. Instead, they sent a chill down my spine.

  Because I saw the same madness in his eyes that I’d seen in my own reflection. The same desire, the same nagging thought that maybe we could still save him, he was our best survivor, the best at reconnaissance even though he’d never fought anything stronger than a trash ranked thornrat.

  I gritted my teeth. “Kael, listen to me—”

  “No, you listen!” He exploded, his voice raw with emotion. “You’re giving up! Just like everyone else! But I won’t! I won’t pretend he’s gone forever! I won’t sit here and do nothing while Theo is out there, somewhere, fighting alone!”

  That’s when i saw the truth, the reason none of us could stop Kael from training, he wasn’t angry, he wasn’t just mourning, deep down my son was terrified.

  Terrified that if he didn’t push forward, if he let himself stop—then maybe Theo really would be gone.

  I took a slow breath, forcing myself to steady. Then, carefully, I stepped closer and placed my hands on his shoulders.

  “Kael,” I said, softer this time. “I know how much you miss him. I do too.”

  His face twisted, his eyes lowering with an unspeakable pain.

  “But you’re not alone in this. We’re both hurting. Your mother is hurting. And if you push yourself to the brink-if you break yourself trying to chase something we don’t understand.” My voice caught. “Then I’ll lose you too.”

  His mouth opened, but no words came out, not a sound dared to.

  Slowly, I pulled him into a hug. At first, he was rigid, unmoving. But then his hands gripped the back of my tunic, and I felt his body heave.

  “I don’t want him to be gone,” he whispered, voice barely audible. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  I closed my eyes. “You’re not.”

  That night, for the first time in weeks, Kael didn’t train himself to exhaustion. He stayed inside, sitting quietly with his mother as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through his hair. And while none of us spoke of Theo—while the silence still weighed on us like an unspoken wound—there was something fragile in that moment.

  Something that felt almost like healing.