Chapter 13
A year has passed since we started living in our new home, I was 19 years old and Pera was now 17 years old. Life was good to us, and we had not needed to steal anything since we moved in. We even started renting out the third room to whoever needs it, we also started getting more visitors and friends coming by and staying for a couple days if they needed.
It was in this week that I started noticing something strange, about one fourth of our customers coming in had shadows that marked their deaths. But never had the shadow solidified, it was as if they were fated to die but the method has yet to be determined. I could not even see the reason why so many people were going to die despite the absurd number of people that I had seen marked. It felt as if I knew only half the story and the bad half of it, the ending with everyone dead and no one left to tell their stories.
I grew more concerned the more people came to our shop marked. Until one day I could deny it no longer and had to act.
We had just closed the shop one day, when I turned to Pera, I was about to talk to her when my expression changed and became serious.
"What happened?" She asked me in a voice that was both scared and determined, as it was for her to see me so serious and focused on something, especially her.
But I didn't answer her, I just continued staring until I could clearly see the shadow on her, and the fact that it was caused by the same thing that caused all the other shadows that I had seen this week.
So, I took her hand, led her to a couch and started explaining, "this past week I have been seeing the shadows on every fourth person that I have met, and today it appeared on you to, I can no longer ignore it."
Horrified she gasped, "you mean the shadow that marks one death, right?" When she saw me nod, she became afraid and continued, "so that means that a fourth of the people that we know could die?" gasping in horror and concern she asked, "what about you can you see your own shadow?"
I was shocked that this was what she was afraid of, not herself dying or the people around us, but my death scared her more the most. This caused a warm feeling in my heart to bubble so I boobed her nose catching her of guard and said, "don't worry about me worry about yourself first."
"But you will take care of me, you said that the shadow is not solidified yet, so it means you will save me… if it ever becomes solid it means you will have died… and I wouldn't want to live without you anyway so I don't care and am not afraid."
This caught me of guard and I once again realized what we meant to each other so I reassured her, "nothing will happen to us, but to know what we are dealing with I will have to find out what is causing all of these deaths. So I will go and meditate in my room on the shadows. But I wanted you to know what is happening and not be afraid if something leaks out of without noticing."
She hugged me and said a tiny voice, "just be safe and do not harm yourself, if you can't find a reason don't push yourself, we will face whatever it is together when we come to face it. OK?"
I agreed with her and went to my room, when I was about to close the door, Pera entered the room and refused to leave, so when I asked her why she was so adamant to be in the room with me her answer was simple, "we do this together or you don't do it at all." With that she stopped talking, and I knew that when she became like this nothing can sway her so I sighed and agreed to let her stay.
By that time, I was practically spending all my time joined with Murtok even in my sleep I was still joined with him and only broke the connection when my mind could take no more. Depending on what we were doing it took between a week and a month for me to be fatigued enough break the connection and a single day of rest is enough to get me back in top shape. So, my mental strength had skyrocketed that no known animal or human could match a fraction of it.
Thanks to my strong mental strength I was able to spread my senses all over the city, the outer area and even the underground cave of Vos, and I felt everything clearly as if I was standing beside everyone. My mental strength began to fray at the edges and I knew that I would not be able to keep it up for more than an hour so I dived right into the investigation.
At that moment my powers flared and covered the room in a darkness so absolute that any light that was inside the room turned around and ran in fear of what would happen inside. But I was just starting the darkness getting stronger and stronger the more in depth I delved into the shadow marks.
In this state I felt a shadow mark one everyone, no matter if they will die in a minute or in decades, I felt them all some strong some weak but I felt everyone's most probable death.
So, I first focused on the city, and I isolated all the people that have a common cause of death, and found out that I was right, a fourth of the people between the ages of fifteen and forty are fated to die. Then, I continued to the outer city, what I found horrified me 90 percent of them would die of the same cause of death as the people inside of the city. I could not imagine anything horrifying enough to cause this much death, but to understand what is about to happen I continued. I went to the underground cave and found out that a fouth of them will die the same as inside of the city.
Once I isolated everyone that could die in this catastrophe, I started delving more into the shadow to understand what is happening. When I moved my mind into the reason they would die I found something even more terror inducing, if they all die, no one would be spared.
If the people that I found marked died, then everyone else would dies, children, elders, mothers, fathers, kings, queens, nobles, commoners, beggars, and criminals everyone would die. No one, and I mean absolutely no one would be left alive.
Because it was far enough away and that the probability this happening was not that high, I saw some deaths but not all, not like the time with Vos's child being born.
But what I saw still left me shacking afraid to speak or look closer, but I did. Knowing what I knew at that moment I also knew that I had to do anything to help stop this massacre.
I saw all consuming devouring flames, eagerly swallowing houses and flesh alike turning everything it touched to ash, no plea or bargain enough to stop it, and nothing enough to satisfy its ever growing hunger.
I saw fields of bones, and seas of blood. In their midst men showered with blood wading through the bodies of their friends and family, weapons raised, eyes devoid of life, charging through the blood to reach their enemies.
I saw the souls of those that died and of those still alive wailing in horror and terror, begging to be allowed to cross over, begging to be accepted in the arms of the Keeper of the Dead, but cursed to watch as everything they once were and would have been crushed under a mountain of blood, bones, bodies, and broken weapons.
I saw their families back at home, crying over a letter delivered, and an absence, their anguish visible. I saw their families broken and hollow. I saw their families beaten and violated. I saw their families dead by the hands of an enemy as broken as they are.
I saw the survivors coming back to empty homes. I saw the survivors weeping on the gravestones, of their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. I saw the survivors taking their lives after having nothing left to live for.
I saw the relief of those that won, I saw their anguish and torment. I saw their cruelties but couldn't help but shed tears for them.
I saw it all. I saw the good and bad. I saw grown men and women crying tears of blood. I saw parents bleeding for their children. I saw children screaming of their parent's return.
I saw everything and I was them. I felt everything they felt and lived their final moments. I cried with them, I slaughtered with them, I violated with them, I was violated with them, I died with every single one of them. I forgot who I was, was I a child broken and trodden upon, crying for a mother murdered in front of my eyes waiting for death to release me? Was I a parent dying my hopes of keeping my family safe broken like my body? Or was I the person slaughtering with reckless abandon hoping to die like those who died beneath my blade, my soul shattered forgetting my human nature and becoming a creature of blood and iron?
Who am I? Am I dead? Am I alive? Am I a man, women, or child? Am I all of them? Am I a victim? Am I an assailant? I was all of them and none of them. I spent minutes, then hours, days, years, decades, centuries, and eons watching, living death in all of its forms. I became death itself, weeping as I reap. Weeping as I carry souls to the other side. Weeping as I watched not able to stop this mindless genocide. But I am death, I am impartial, what can I do when a child cries but claim his soul and reuniting him with his mother on the other side. I can not interfere but I feel, and weep for those I claim.
I saw death and destruction; I saw the biggest sin of man. I SAW WAR.
I escaped this hell when my mind broke and freed me of this life of death. My tears rolling down my cheeks not knowing when to stop. My head in Pera's chest, my hair brushed by a loving hand, reassurances flooding my ears, but my tears refused to stop falling and my mind broken refusing to mend itself in case it saw more atrocities. I continued crying my broken mind soothed by a loving hand until it relaxed enough to allow me to fall into the oblivion of unconsciousness and the sweet promise of an endless darkness.