It was a sunny morning, shining on a house that was a cheery yellow, not much different than the other house except for the extensive garden, fruit trees and bushes were everywhere, and raised vegetable planters to the right. A herb garden to the left. There wasn’t a lawn, it was more of a collection of potted plants. The backyard was a pool that was transformed into a vibrant pond. There were fish and frogs in the pond. Lily pads float and Moneywort, Java Moss, Echinodorus Amazonicus, and others on the water with other aquatic plants. It was a peaceful-looking house. Inside the house was very plain, it looked as if someone had just looked at a magazine and didn’t care to look deeper. The one room that differed was the bedroom that had a huge amount of wine bottles. Some were Empty and had vines growing out of them. Many were just empty and on the floor. There was a wall hutch for wine; it would fit a hundred bottles. It was almost full. The bed was simple, with green sheets and pillowcase, just one pillow. The bed was small like there was never the intention to share. Here was just a place to drink and sleep. It wasn’t lived in. There was no knickknacks. No pictures or photos. The kitchen was clean and full of devices for cooking. The pantry was full of fruit preservatives from his garden. If one was just visiting, which never happened, one would wonder what he did with all that food. He was not known for selling or handing out the jars.

Then there was the BBQ that cooks the meat, it smells like pork but is not. The meat was not the point but it was a waste and made it easier to get rid of the small bodies that were starting to pile up. The first few bodies were buried in the yard till he had no space left. The leftovers were great fertilizer.

He thought If he was eating their soul no point In wasting the meat, the meat lasted him a long time. There is some meat in the fridge now. There was a surprising lot of meat on the bone of a 5-year-old.

After a lot of social pressure, He lets Bob his neighbor borrow the grill and has to get rid of a body. That would bite him in the ass. He slipped up when getting rid of the body of Tomas though he didn’t know it yet. With an oversized backpack for hiking with bones inside to bury in the woods. It was not to be seen again But it was found, that someone had seen him.

The radio waves in the city had one message that was the top priority

“All units keep an eye out for our main suspect, Doctor Bolat O’Brien. The subject is on the move”

This was unknown to him as he was busy in his basement.

The basement air was stuffy and smelled like dried blood. His eyes were already adjusted to the extremely bright lights filling the room. He was Hunched over his desk, he scribbled notes madly into a notebook.

‘The nature of the soul. The soul was just a small thing but in this universe, it can grow with no upper limit. The weight of a soul is a small thing, so small that we forget that it is there. There is so much more we can do with our time.

In the souls of children, I found a way to change reality. In death, I found the soul. And the soul in its pure form was a sight to see. Children's souls are smaller, wild, and easier to control. In this world, souls grow and do not whither. Souls grow at different rates. This makes this hard to control the nature of a soul.

In this universe, there is an Unmatched upward movement of the soul, In studying the soul, There is a part missing went death occurs. A splitting of the soul. But with careful research, one can take the whole soul into one's body. Therefore keeping the soul whole after death. There is a small weight lost after death, that can not be accounted for. This is not the loss of air as some may think, this has been accounted for in past experiments, therefore the weight lost must be the soul leaving the body. This weight has been accounted for in weight gain in the one receiving the soul. There is a small side effect that has been noticed, marking similar tattoos appear when a soul has been reassigned to a host. When adding to this tattoo Strange effects may occur. The transferred soul can be activated and can still grow. This adds to the host in unexpected ways.

Another unexpected effect is discovered by consuming the body of the Originals' souls host, There are differing effects from a alive host to a deceased host. Body parts that have been removed from a live host do not contain any part of the soul. The bodies that have been removed from the whole soul are different than the partial soul and have a different taste. The experiment has not been concluded.

The rigor studies have shown that there is no difference in souls depending on race, sex, or orientation. The orientation has been hard to collect data on considering the subjects are young before showing interest in the opposite or same sex. Although those who have a preference There has been no difference noted.

Author note: I feel the power of the poor souls humming in my veins and the veil between the universe Grows thinner by the day. I feel the echo of my own soul throughout the other universe. These are my feelings and cannot be verified at this moment.’

Rising from the desk, he slinks over to one of the cages lining the wall and abruptly claps his hands loudly startling the boy awake that was inside. “It’s time to make your mother proud. This will be the culmination of your life,” he jeered at the boy.

The terrified boy pleaded “What does that even mean?” The man slaps the cage and yells “You’re not gonna be around much longer, but you’re going to help my greater goal. That’s what it means. This is your last day. Enjoy your time in that cage because after I get back you will have no more time.” he found that the more stressed the children were the easier the soul came out and the taster the meat was. It was a game to him now, if he could terrify the child and break their wills. A broken soul was easier to harvest. The man banged on the cage three more times, laughing at the scared child, he had stopped caring what their names were. All that he cared about was whether were they healthy and happy before he took them. That made for the best souls and the juiciest meat.

The Pleas for freedom were Ignore. The loud cries for mercy were soon to follow but he was deaf to it all. In the beginning, the very first one, A girl named Veronica Who was only three, had hurt him some much that he had gagged her. She had suffocated because her nose was full of snot that she couldn't breathe with the gag. Where was his first experiment; the failure that it was. He had invested in soundproofing and then hardened his heart. The cries of a lost dog troubled him more, but not by much. Veronica was his first human guest but not the first soul that he had eaten. As many scientists have, he started with rats and just moved on up. At first, he said he had a snake and that was why he needed so many rats. Over the years they kept better track of where the animals were going and signed The paperwork and one can’t just be disappearing with dogs week after week. By that time he was ready to move on, to humans, and children were easier to control.

The man heads upstairs leaving the boy caged, hiding in the entrance to the basement. And throws his lab coat over his scrubs, grabs his car keys from the leaf-shaped bowl, and heads to work. The drive to work was slow in his yellow car, he didn’t want people looking into him for a silly reason like a speeding ticket. He had the cover to keep up.

Upon his arrival at the hospital, he puts on a fake smile and greets the nurses. The nurses all happily exclaim “Good Morning Dr. O’Brien.” as he walks into the Pediatrics wing at Saint Evelyn Hospital. The white walls had pictures on the walls that were to put young minds at ease personally he found them creepy and hated the night shift because of them.

“Oh, please you all can call me Bolat, Oh Nancy, did you do something with your hair? It’s lovely” Bolat O’Brien’s smile was sweet but if you look closely it did not meet his eyes. He had a nice smile with good teeth, it was just hard the radiate kindness from your eyes. His job was to put people at ease just as much as treating their illnesses.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Oh you, it’s just a small haircut, thank you for noticing” Nancy Brown blushed and waved her hand. She always had a small flame for the doctor. Her red hair was slightly shorter in a bob. Her brown eyes were hidden behind thick glasses. She admired O’Brien, he never seemed to have a bad day. He was so good with the children she was surprised that he was single. One day she wanted to be Mrs O’Brien but he was just not picking up on her hints.

“What's on the schedule today?” O'Brien asked in a chipper voice. After years of work body after body, it all was going to be complete today. He was going to see him. It was invigorating, he hadn’t seen Him in years. All of this work was not going to be for nothing.

“Ms Nack has called about Tilly again, the appointment is in 15 minutes, and the nose bleeds are getting worse,” Nurse Brown said looking at her clipboard. He didn’t care but it was part of his cover and he needed to keep it up.

Being a pediatrician helped him get victims. The work was challenging and he did a good job but what he wanted to access to the flies. The children of Saint Evelyn Pediatrics ward were in danger, he tried to be random in his selection of the patients of other doctors and some of his own to remove suspicion from himself. It would look weird if all were to hit everyone but him.

There were starting rumors of a curse of Evelyn. People were starting to avoid the hospital. He would have to move on but his research was almost complete. So close he could taste it. It tasted like children.

Dr. Bolat O'Brien didn’t care who he hurt. They were just in his way, Of his main goal of what he thought was getting his soul back. In truth, his soul was right where it was supposed to be right in his chest. It was an ugly thing, twisted and infected like a diseased toe, hard to ignore but he did, he did believe that he should feel guilty. He did not care for the pain of others, they didn’t matter to him. This was only the start, he was going to do great things. He was going to do what many never even dreamed was possible, it made him giddy.

He was a very clean man, he did not like to be dirty. With plain Brown eyes and hair, he wasn’t much to look at. He had a very mousy look to him, some would say that he would look better with glasses but he didn’t need them. He was a tall and slim man, and under his clothing were tattoos that made no sense, they seemed to be math equations along with ancient languages not sticking to one language or another and his only scars were on his heart, metaphorically speaking. There Were bad things that had happened unfortunately they were of his own making.

The death of his twin was ‘his fault’ not that he would tell it like that to anyone. A freak accident he would say, not that it was true. Childhood incompetence was more truthful. Children are stupid, that’s why they trusted him so much. It was easy to be non-threatening and playful, even when his taste for meat was growing. He was stupid once but that was then and this was now.

So his victims were 5 years old and younger; he knew they lived and would steal a child when he needed a new soul. His basement looked like a dog kennel for children. One would expect it to be dark and dingy but it wasn’t. It wasn’t kid-friendly either and it was bright and sterile. It looked like any other science lab but no lab rats, just children. He didn’t care to share his finding which is why he didn’t even try to make the experiments in a proper lab. He didn’t care about the feelings of others. He didn’t care if his findings could change the world. In many ways, it was going too.

Stealing the children wasn’t hard, young parents talked on and on about the new nursery and the like. It wasn’t hard at all. A little medicine knocked them right out. He knew their weight and allergies so drugging them was easy and most of them trusted him already. It was harder to take candy from them.

He did have one thing that he loved and that was his garden, but even his garden fruit tree, berry bushes, vegetables herbs, and the like, were used for his evil going on. It fed his captured children. It was cheaper than the store and had fewer questions.

He went on like this for years, but it was only a matter of time before they put 2 and 2 together to find that he was the link to all of these children. The final nail in the coffin was little Bobby Johnson and Thomas Pritchard. Bobby Johnson well, His family was well off and had many cameras that O'Brien didn’t see. And the bones in the woods, that the nature photographers saw him dump. At his home when he was a work. The officers were at his door, the bodies of the children buried in his yard feeding his plants. The books in his labs chilled all who read them to the bone. The grate on the floor was stained with blood. The only thing was that O'Brien wasn’t home that day.

Bolat O’Brien was gloating it was almost done. Then he heard the nurses talking.

“Oh that poor woman, her son, and now this?” one voice said

“I didn’t know if I would be any better!” the other said.

“I hope she pulls through, though I can see why she wouldn’t want to,” she whispered and O’Brien didn’t hear, It would have warned him that the authorities were coming closer “if my daughter was found like that!”

“Hello, ladies! What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember Ms. Pritchard?”

“That name does ring a bell. What about Ms. Pritchard?” he did remember her son, he had taken him just 4 months ago, but honesty was not the game he was playing.

“She in a coma, poor thing!” One nurse said he had forgotten her name.

“It has to be because of her son!” Nurse Brown said

“Oh, the poor dear, didn’t the police ask around here about it?” O’Brien said.

“Yeah, they were looking everywhere! There have been a lot of kids going missing in recent years.” Nurse Smith said.

“Did she have an accident?” O’Brien was curious

“No, they say it was self-inflicted,” Nurse Brown said

“And you all shouldn’t be gossiping about it!” said the Head Nurse, Rose Lewandowski, most called her Nurse Rose. “Run along and do your jobs.” She was an older woman, close to retirement but was not one to slow down. She still ruled the Nurse's station and was one of the few people that O’Brien respected.

When O’Brien found out that the mother of the kid he took was in the hospital in critical condition. It was, weirdly satisfying, the ruin that he left behind him. The catastrophic effect that he had on the world, ‘all of these sins are on my brother's soul. If I can find now my soul all have a clean slate. It’s a two-for-one, one he founds Skirfir. His only twin. Two he will have his soul back and Skirfir can have his soul back, It may be a little dingy up a bit, things had to get messy.’ O'Brien was

The day when on like normal, He saw patients he subscribed medicine he soothed bumps and bruises. He gave notes to children so they could skip class Because of a bad cold or the like. All he did that he thought about the child in his basement. he thought about the mother on life support Well She, she really a mother anymore she has no more children. That thought delighted him, Usually after he killed the patient. The parents don't really talk to him If they do it was about their other children He did see the weight in their eyes. So he did wonder why she waited so long. Her son had been missing for four months, why was she breaking now?

He was in the Cafeteria, Smiling at a red-headed woman who was obviously in distress, She was barely eating and was whispering and yelling into her phone. He was obviously unnerving her. Usually, he tried to avoid that. He was supposed to be the friendly pediatrician that everyone loved, That way they wouldn't ever suspect him. But it was so much fun seeing how mad she was getting.

Then he heard something that made his blood go cold, As he trained himself the smile didn't leave his face But panic entered his eyes. She was somehow related to her mother… And they had found the body. That didn't mean That they had connected it to him though He thought with relief. It was just a coincidence, There was no way They could connect it to him. He wore gloves, he was very careful.

But the thought remained… was he alone out there? Were the woods as empty as he thought?

The panic was starting to creep into his heart he needed to get out of there it wouldn't be too much of a problem to take his break early he could drive his car and just relax. Nothing bad was gonna happen He had already planned for so many things. He just needed to stay the course! He was almost there, It would all be worth it in the end.