The way I intended it was that Emma only wanted to use a few drops to curb the whale population. She didn't intend to drive them to extinction.

Emma stared at Carl in horror. "Carl...what the hell have you done?"

Carl lowered the beaker slowly from his mouth. He felt surprisingly calm despite realizing his fatal mistake. It must have an effect of the poison. "Eh, fuck it," he shrugged. He proceeded to gulp down even more of the yellow-green poison.

"Carl, what in the actual fuck?!" Emma shouted as she tried and failed to grab the beaker away from Carl.

"Well, I figured if I'm going to die anyway, I might as well make it as quick as possible," Carl said as he ran over to the other side of the room. "Plus, this stuff is surprising tasty and I don't want to die thirsty."

"That's not what..." Emma tugged her hair in frustration. "Carl, that poison is not intended to kill humans, it is intended to kill whales for every drop that is ingested by a human!"

Carl stared back at her in confusion. "What the hell is that supposed to --" His words were cut off by the sound of a loud banging noise that shook the whole observatory. "What the..." He and Emma made their way over to a nearby window, only to freeze in shock at the sight outside.

There were thousands of dead whales floating in the ocean, stretching all the way to the horizon, a sea of mangled corpses and blood. The loud bang they had earlier was the sound of one of the whales washing ashore and hitting against one of the observatory walls. Carl stared at the literal bloodbath in front of him and finally muttered, "...How many do you think I killed?"

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you killed all of them," Emma replied, sick to her stomach at the idea that an entire species was now wiped from the Earth because of her actions. "In fact, considering how many carcasses there are, I'm sure of it."

"Huh". That was all Carl said for a few moments. Then, he raised the beaker to his lips. "No harm in finishing this then."

"Carl, stop fucking drinking it!"

The elf shrieked out in surprise as she and the stranger bumped into each other in the dark cave. At first, she thought about making a run for it, but then, she saw that the stranger seemed to be just as scared of her, if not more. Then, her eyes narrowed as she noticed his distinct lack of sharp ears and his strange heterochromatic eyes. "No way..."she whispered. "You're that human that went missing over ten years ago!"

"No, no, no," Arthur responded hastily, pulling his hood over his head as he quickly withdrew further into his cave. "You've got the wrong person."

"Yes, you are!" the elf insisted. "I can smell that you're not like any of the other races in this world." She looked around at the bleak, mossy cave and frowned. "So this is where you've been hiding all this time. It looks so depressing..."

"Look, I'm sorry, but I don't want to marry you," Arthur said abruptly. "And it's not you, it's me. I came here because I was so sick of everyone chasing me down to marry me for my "legendary" power as the Chosen One or whatever nonsense they said. So, I would really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone I was here."

The elf stared at him in confusion. "Oh...you don't know..."

Arthur's brow furrowed. "Know? What don't I know?"

"Ah...well, this is a little embarrassing, but it turns out that you're not actually the Chosen One," the elf said sheepishly. "Turns out the same truck that transported you here also hit a moose. The seers figured out that he was the real Chosen One a decade ago."

Arthur looked at her, completely flabbergasted. "You've got to be kidding me -- a fucking moose?!"

"The Antlered Champion, Densetsu no Herajika," the elf corrected me. "He was the one that saved the world from the emu demons years ago."

Arthur sank against a nearby wall in shock. "So...all of this time, I could have just left whenever I wanted..." A sudden revelation hit him. "I...I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I mean, I always hoped that everyone would stop trying to mob me for their attention, but now, I'm not sure what to do next...I guess I always assumed that I would just die in this cave."

The elf looked at him sympathetically. "Well, if you want, I could show you around. The world has greatly changed since you last saw it." She held out her hand. "My name's Lyra."