The wrong door

There is one thing in me that has never grown. Vitality.

I tried sleep first. I went to the Sleeping Quarters and rested on purpose, and it did not move.

Tonight I tried the clinic. NexiFuse, a quiet building off Central. I walked in thinking there might be something there to train it. A machine, a treatment, anything. There was nothing to do but stand in the room.

So I finally went and found out how it works.

Vitality grows one way. You take hits in a fight, and you survive them. That is all. Every scar makes you a little harder to break.

I am not a fighter. I have never swung at anything but trees and rock.

So that is the answer, and it is a good one. The part of me that would grow from being hurt can stay small. I would rather keep it that way.

Everything else I have, I built. The axe, the planks, the soup. The friends.

None of them came from a fight. I think that is the kind of strong I want to be.