"Excuse me... Are you okay?" Armaan asked, stepping forward with concern in his voice.
Perched on a large, weathered rock was an old alien—probably a Zenka, judging by the pale skin and the pair of crystal-like horns that drooped wearily along his temples. The man looked fragile, barely holding himself upright, and beside him lay a shattered wooden cart, its contents—woven baskets, sealed jugs, and metallic fragments—scattered in the sand like a spilled memory.
Armaan's eyes narrowed slightly. He's hurt... and exhausted.
The old Zenka's throat was parched; even his attempts to speak seemed strained. Without hesitation, Armaan uncapped his water flask and handed it to him.
"Here," he said quietly.
The old man accepted the water with a trembling hand, nodding in silent gratitude before drinking slowly. After a few gulps, he let out a shaky sigh and spoke in a voice that was cracked but gentle.
"I was... carrying this cart up to that hill." He raised one arm, pointing at a rocky incline in the distance. At its peak, a small storehouse stood like a forgotten outpost, its blue banners fluttering weakly in the wind. "But the cart caught on a stone. I tripped, lost my footing... and now... well," he gave a defeated chuckle, "my leg's busted, the cart's broken, and the store's still up there... waiting."
There was a pause. The sound of the wind returned.
Armaan looked at the cart. The wheels were splintered beyond repair. One of the axle rods had snapped clean off. Even if they carried the goods by hand, it would take hours.
Behind him, Samar and Roumit exchanged glances. They were quiet, but alert—ready to step in.
Zykarith stood still, arms folded, watching with sharp eyes but offering no input. As always, she said nothing.
Strange, Armaan thought. She's normally blunt about helping or not...
He turned back to the old man and dropped to one knee beside him. "Let's see what we can do."
Armaan's eyes narrowed as he noticed a faint cut on the old man's leg—small, but steadily bleeding.
"Roumit," he said with a calm urgency, "can you take care of that wound? I'll check the cart and the supplies."
Roumit nodded and knelt beside the elder, unfastening a compact healing pouch from his belt.
"On it."
Armaan turned his gaze to the damaged cart. One of its wooden wheels had splintered against a sharp blackstone, the axle cracked in a clean diagonal split. Surrounding the wreck were several woven bags, now partly torn open from the impact.
He crouched to examine them. Some held tightly packed woven baskets and fabric rolls—dyed with deep mineral pigments, still catching glimmers of ambient radiation from the swirling black hole overhead. Another kind of bag contained sealed jugs and glass containers, many intact but a few chipped. The third type drew his attention—small pouches, heavier, filled with shimmering fragments of metal and semi-transparent stones. Even in the absence of sunlight, they gleamed faintly under the gravitational glow cast by the accretion disk far above.
Some items had rolled down the slope, shadows twisting behind them in the distorted light. Still, it wasn't beyond recovery.
Armaan stood and looked back toward the old man.
"We can help carry these uphill," he offered steadily. "You should rest, sir."
The old man blinked in surprise. He paused for a moment before letting out a hoarse chuckle.
"You boys look like you're in a hurry… You don't have to trouble yourselves for an old cart-puller like me."
Before Armaan could respond, Samar stepped in with his signature charm, his voice casual but reassuring.
"Don't worry, gramps," he said with a playful smirk. "We've got this. Just relax and let us handle it."
The old man looked between the boys, a slow smile forming as the pale cosmic light rippled faintly across his wrinkled face.
"You're… very kind boys. Thank you."
Roumit, carefully cleaning the wound, offered a small nod as he wrapped a bandage around the elder's leg.
"Please don't thank us," he said. "Helping our seniors… it's our duty."
Above them, the massive black hole spiraled silently, its radiant crown illuminating the realm in a ghostly, distorted glow. The three boys moved with quiet purpose, gathering the fallen items one by one—as if the very cosmos had paused to witness this moment of simple humanity amidst the warping tides of the Draconic Realm.
The eerie glow of the suspended micro-singularities in the sky cast warped shadows across the jagged slope, their light bending unnaturally as if reality itself was struggling to keep its shape. Armaan's eyes scanned the scattered goods around the toppled cart, his gaze calculating, focused.
"We'll start by gathering everything back into the bags," he said, his tone steady, natural authority slipping into every word. "Once that's done, we carry them up to the store. Sound good?"
Samar and Roumit, already beside him, nodded in perfect sync.
"Gotcha," they replied in unison, sharing a brief grin before springing into action.
They moved efficiently. Samar crouched beside the woven baskets and bundled mats, gently sliding them into their woven containers. Roumit focused on the sealed jugs, cradling each glass piece with delicate care before setting them safely into their respective sacks. Meanwhile, Armaan took charge of the heavier bags—stones and metals, his hands brushing against raw minerals that glimmered unnaturally under the black hole's distorted halo.
Everything was going smoothly.
Until—
"DON'T TOUCH THAT STONE!!"
The voice, gravelly and panicked, tore through the thick silence like a blade.
Roumit froze, his hand hovering just inches from a radiant cyan crystal nestled in the dust. The sheer force of the yell startled him enough to make him stumble backward, hitting the ground hard.
The old man, leg still bandaged and barely healed, had somehow scrambled from his resting spot, dragging himself toward Roumit with a speed that defied his earlier frailty. His breath was ragged, his eyes wide as he reached the stone and knelt beside it.
"I... I'm sorry," he said between gasps, his voice softer now, "I didn't mean to scare you, lad... but please, don't touch this one. I'll bag it myself."
Samar stepped forward, concern laced in his voice. "Gramps, you didn't need to get up like that. Your leg—please, just rest. We'll be careful from now on."
But Armaan wasn't looking at the stone.
He wasn't looking at the old man either.
His eyes were fixed on Zykarith.
She stood a few steps away, arms crossed, emerald hair shimmering under the bent light of the sky—completely still. She hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken. Not once since the old man's arrival. And she made no move to help with the items.
Why is she just standing there...? Armaan wondered silently. And why would an injured man rush to protect a single stone like that?
He didn't say anything aloud.
Not yet.
Shaking off the unease, he turned back to the scattered goods and resumed packing the woven materials, hands steady, but mind alert.
Something was off. And Armaan knew it.
They had finally gathered all the scattered goods back into their bags. Armaan dusted off his hands, glancing between the neatly arranged bundles and the hill in the distance.
"Alright," he said, his voice slipping into that calm, decisive tone he always got when taking the lead. "We'll start with the lighter stuff. The woven goods go first. There are seventeen bags total—so I'll take seven, you two take five each."
Samar gave a lazy salute. "Roger."
Roumit nodded with his usual quiet composure. "Understood."
They each grabbed one of the large, tightly woven bags, hoisting them onto their shoulders. The texture of the coarse fibers dug into their palms, and even though these were the 'light' items, each bag still had weight enough to strain their arms.
The golden glow from the black hole's massive rings shimmered faintly across the plateau, casting elongated shadows that swayed as they began their trek toward the hill. The dry wind bit against their faces, carrying with it a faint, metallic tang from the stones underfoot.
None of them complained.
Their boots crunched against the cracked earth, and for a brief moment, the rhythmic sound of their footsteps was the only thing in the quiet, sunless world.
They climbed the hill in rounds.
The first trip was simple enough—seven steps, steady breaths, the faint scrape of coarse fiber against their shoulders. The woven goods were firm, familiar in their texture.
But on the second round, something felt… different. The bags hadn't changed, and yet—each step pressed harder into the earth, the straps bit deeper into their skin.
By the third round, Samar slowed slightly, his brow furrowed. "Hey… Armaan," he called over the dry hiss of the wind. "Some of these woven things are cracked—broken, even. We could take them out, lighten the load. No point carrying what's already useless."
Armaan didn't even pause. "No," he said flatly. "They can still be repaired. We'll bring everything."
Samar blinked. "Even if it slows us down?"
"They're his things," Armaan replied, shifting the weight on his shoulder. "Not ours to decide."
The fourth round came. Somehow, the straps now felt like they were made of wire instead of rope, pressing into bone. Samar said nothing more, but Roumit's gaze lingered on the bags longer than usual, as if counting the threads.
It was strange—how the air itself seemed heavier, how each trip left them just a little more breathless than the last, though the bags were always the same.
Somewhere behind them, the old man sat in stillness, watching. His expression unreadable, like he'd already seen the end of this road.
By the fifth round, the straps had left faint red marks along Armaan's collarbone. He didn't mention it, but Samar's sharp glance caught it anyway.
Roumit adjusted his own load, muttering under his breath, "Feels like these bags are gaining weight by the minute…"
"They aren't," Armaan replied without turning. "It's just fatigue."
"Or maybe," Samar interjected, "it's because we're carrying things that don't need to be carried." He nudged one of the bags with his foot as they set them down by the old man. The dull sound it made didn't speak of use—it was hollow, cracked. "Half these pieces are beyond repair. They'll take up space in the store and nothing more."
Armaan's answer was instant, though his tone carried a strange calm. "Then they'll take up space. That's not our choice to make."
"But if they're useless—"
"They aren't ours," Armaan said again. His voice didn't rise, but the finality in it was sharper than steel.
For a moment, no one spoke. The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of dry wood and dust from the hilltop store. The black hole's golden rings turned slowly above, their light sliding over the mountain's jagged crown.
The sixth round was harder still—not from the weight alone, but from the silence between them. Samar's expression had cooled into something unreadable. Roumit's steps grew slower, like he was considering every choice he made.
Was it kindness to carry everything? Or cruelty disguised as kindness—wasting time, risking more exhaustion, all for the sake of refusing to discard what couldn't be saved?
The question stayed unspoken, but it was there—in the stiffness of Samar's shoulders, in the way Roumit avoided looking at the bags.
When the last of the woven objects finally reached the peak of the hill, the old man nodded once. Not in thanks. Not in pity. Just… in acknowledgment.
"Good work," he said simply.
And somehow, the words felt heavier than the bags had ever been.