Looking at his father, who had a worried expression all over his face.
"Dad, I have a question."
Michaels ears perked up hearing his son. His son was the type who never asked him questions out of the blue.
Considering that Michael was worried about his son.
"What is it, do you want more soup?"
Michael asked his sick son, but Alex only looked at his father. His eyes had begun to hurt, because he cried so much.
"No… it's about my… my nightmare. I dreamed about… being in a video game. Yes, a video game."
Being silent for a couple of seconds to think about what he should tell his father, Alex felt a hand caress his arm.
"And? You can talk freely to me, last thing I want is that you don't talk to me. Especially after what happend to your mother." Micheal said with a hint of sadness at the end.
Hearing his father talk about his mother, Alex could only feel guilty. Could he tell his father the truth? Could he tell him that he went to another place to kill a fictional creature? He decided against it.
'Sorry dad, but you wouldn't believe me, considering that I am sick.'
Now looking straight ahead instead of his father, Alex continued: "In the video game, I had the mission to kill a monster, or I would be killed. I attacked first and with a bit of struggle I killed the monster."
Alex exhaled for a moment before continuing "After killing it, the people who saw me do it ,told me I am a murderer."
He still look straight forward, small tears formed on his eyes again.
"So you were, forced to kill and were then called a murderer?"
"Something like that. The problem is that I don't know if it would've killed me. I attacked it first, so I don't know if he would've killed me." Alex answered his father, remembering what the Thomas in his dream said.
"But you said that it was a mission. I might not know much about video games, but if it is a mission there was probably a good reason."
Alex weakly looked at his father, his father looked serious.
"Alex, it said that you would've been killed, if you hadn't killed it." Taking a deep breath, Michael continued "Son, don't forget... you don't need a justification to live. Life is the most valuable thing someone can have; Even if they blame you don't forget you wanted to live. You didn't want to cause harm, you just wanted to live."
If Alex had any strength left, he would have shot up and hug his Father. Now smiling he closed his eyes.
"It seems that I've been helpful, good night." Micheal said giving his son a kiss on the forehead.
---
Alex opened his eyes, he was again in the cave, specifically in the goblins room. This time however he saw the goblin, alive.
He immediately went behind the next coloumn, watching the goblin, who was sleeping, with great caution.
While watching the goblin, Alex noticed that something or someone was coming closer to the goblin. Looking closer, his eyes widened.
He saw young teenager with straight black hair, dark eyes, pretty big eye bags and comfortable clothes. He saw himself walking to the goblin, he saw himself with a scared expression and trembling body.
His other self did exactly what he did; He crouched down grabbed the dagger, but he couldn't swing it down into the goblins chest, like he did.
Walking back, the goblin suddenly woke up, he was hiding. Alex watched himself trying to trick the goblin and try to tackle it, to no avail.
As he began to run, the location changed to the inside of the tunnel that connecting the two circular areas.
He heard someone on the left who was panting and running to his direction, coming closer. As he began to look at his left side, that someone ran through him.
Looking behind, he ran through himself or more that his past self ran through his present self. Noticing his other self, Alex saw that he had tripped.
After he tripped the goblin jumped through him onto his other self and turn him around, but the boy noticed something. Something that wasn't supposed to happen.
That something was that the goblin, instead of putting the dagger down, was still holding it.
Alex noticing it jumped forward, phasing through the goblin and himself, landing on his knees.
Looking down he could see his scared face, looking him into the eyes, scared eyes. Before he could react the he saw a dagger phase through his chest, landing a critical blow to the Alex on the ground.
He was shocked because the goblin acted differently then it did with him, he could only stare in silence watching himself breath in pain, Alex was stunned.
The Alex on the ground began to cry, blood coming out of his mouth.
He could only mumble one word in a shaky voice calling his father, "Dad...".
The real Alex could only watch in shock as his other self slowly drew his last breaths and call out to his father, before the goblin goes for the finishing blow.
Looking at his corpse, Alex began to feel sick and fear throughout his whole body.
Breaking the silence that was created by the goblins kill, Alex again heard a familiar voice.
"It happened like it should be."
Hearing his friend Thomas again, Alex who was still on the ground turned his head around.
"What?"
Alex could only look at his friend with an confused expression. His friend continued.
"The aggressor should've died, like here, but in reality you initiated the fight, over life and death, and survived killing a goblin which minded its own business."
Thomas looked at Alex as he told him the same thing he did before.
"You should've died, Alex."
'Son, don't forget... you don't need a justification to live.'; Remembering his father's words, Alex stood up. He looked at his friend with determined eyes.
"No!"