Chapter 29: The Unknown

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: The Unknown

Thursday morning,

Felix walked the underground corridor toward Liora’s cell with his usual easy stride. He had no idea whether today would go any differently than the last two.

The guard opened the door, and Felix stepped inside. Liora sat on the edge of her bed, pink hair half-hiding her face, and the moment she saw him, her trembling stopped same as the last two visits.

He pulled out the chair and sat, and for a while neither of them said anything, Liora watching him with open caution.

Then he noticed it. She wasn’t falling asleep.

"Well," he said, smiling, "that’s new."

Her eyes flickered toward him. "Looks like you’re staying awake today," he added, and she gave a faint nod.

He studied her a moment, then realized something else, three sessions in the same room, and he’d never actually introduced himself. "By the way, I’m Felix."

"I know."

He blinked. "You know?"

"The guards..."

"Right." He laughed under his breath. "Fair enough. Still, I’d rather you hear it from me." He gave her an easy smile. "Felix Valerius. A-rank healer, professional monster hunter, occasional headache for the Association."

Something close to confusion crossed her face, the first real expression he’d gotten out of her.

"And apparently your newest therapist," he added.

She looked down. "I’m not..." Barely a whisper.

He waited. Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her sleeve. "I’m not safe."

"I figured."

Her head snapped up. "You don’t understand."

"Probably not."

"I hurt people."

"I know."

"I hurt the last person who came here."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "The doctor?"

A nod. "She tried to help me. And I hurt her." Her voice shook on the last word.

He said nothing, and she lowered her head. "So you should stay away from me."

There it was. Fear. She wasn’t warning him off because she wanted him gone. She was warning him because she was terrified of what might happen if he stayed anyway.

Felix leaned back in his chair, and then smirked.

She looked at him, confused.

"You think you can hurt me?"

She didn’t answer.

"Liora, even a peak S-rank would have a hard time putting me down right now." He let that sit a second. "And you think a B-rank can?"

The instant the words left his mouth, a faint pressure bled out from him: mana, pure and dense and completely refined, not a threat, just the smallest fraction of what he actually carried allowed to surface for a moment.

Liora froze, pupils contracting, breath going shallow, and for that one second the man sitting across from her didn’t feel like a healer at all. His mana felt clean in a way nothing she’d encountered before did, overwhelming without being violent about it.

He pulled it back immediately, and the pressure vanished. He caught her expression and his smile dropped. "Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you."

She lowered her eyes. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Look, Liora. You may have hurt people who couldn’t handle what you carry." She flinched. "But don’t mistake that for being able to hurt everyone, just because you’ve got something nobody’s figured out how to classify yet."

She stayed quiet.

"Heroes spend their whole careers dealing with things nobody understands," he went on. "Rifts, monsters, whole species we’ve never seen before we walked through a gate and found them waiting. Sometimes we go in expecting one thing and get something else entirely, no idea what its abilities are, no idea what its weaknesses are, sometimes not even sure what we’re actually looking at." He gestured loosely toward her. "That’s the job. So don’t be afraid of yourself just because you’re an unknown."

Her fingers trembled, and he noticed, but kept going, gentler now. "More importantly, don’t assume you’re capable of hurting *everyone* just because you’ve hurt someone before. You’re not the only dangerous thing in this world, Liora."

She didn’t know how to answer that. Nobody had ever talked to her this way. Everyone else fell into one of two categories: outright fear, or the careful, over-cautious handling reserved for something that might shatter if you said the wrong word.

Felix did neither. He just sat there, treating her like a person, like whatever lived inside her wasn’t automatically stronger than everything standing outside it.

She swallowed. "But, what if I hurt you?"

He shrugged. "Then I’ll deal with it."

Her eyes widened. "You don’t understand."

"I understand enough."

"No." Her voice rose slightly. "You don’t know what happens when it—" She stopped herself.

He didn’t push. He just waited, and when the words clearly weren’t coming, he let it go. "That’s fine. You don’t have to tell me everything today." Her expression eased slightly at that.

"But I’ll tell you one thing." He pointed at himself. "I’m not scared of something just because I don’t understand it yet."

A long silence passed before she said, very quietly, "You’re strange."

He grinned. "That’s what I’ve been told."

"So," he said, leaning back and glancing around the cell. "Since you’re actually awake today, what do you want to do?"

She hesitated, looking at the floor, then back at him. "I don’t know."

"That’s okay. We can start there."

And for the first time, Liora didn’t feel like she was sitting there waiting for someone to get hurt.

She just sat with him.

For now, that was enough.