“Do you know them?” Her voice cracked slightly, not even she knew why she felt so nervous.

“No. I don’t know them. But I did witness their death, or to be more accurate. I contributed to their suffering before death, as well as an accomplice to their murder.”

There was a short silence before her voice came out rather hoarsely. “What?”

Turning to look in her direction, the boy just smiled softly before the smile disappeared before he turned back to the collection of bones. He didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, it took him a moment.

“His name was something I forgot. For a while it was branded into my head and I honestly didn’t think I could forget it. No matter how hard I tried. I was originally of the thought that because I came from a world with billions, the specialness of a single life had waned in my mind. And yet it was only after I was given a reason to remember and a long period of time, did I finally realize I was right.”

With many questions, she didn’t want to go down a road that likely led to a place of comparable value to hell. Her experience with the mark by the door was still fresh in her mind. So she wanted to avoid any psychology of the thing in front of her. She was already of the belief he was on his own road that had so many twists and turns, it likely was a road that combined both sane and insane walks of life with a series of twists and turns that seemed solid. Only to step off and see the roads were floating in the air with no support, just waiting for someone unsuspecting to gamble on their stability and falling into oblivion.

In the end, all she asked was what happened. There wasn’t an immediate reply, she could tell he wasn’t just ignoring her. The mark in her arm was experiencing an upheaval, it was likely he was reliving the moment over and over again in his head. It wasn’t healthy, however she didn’t know how to help.

“I often found myself patrolling these halls. I couldn’t leave, and every once in a while people would show up. Before I found that stone with information in it; this was the place I spent the most time. In the beginning it was the second place where I held the greatest hope, only once this group showed up and started to use many people to protect them from the traps did I realize what was going on. No, I knew from the beginning, I could sense the mana in their collars and instinctual from the way they treated them I knew but pretended not to.”

She couldn’t help but reach out and touch her neck. Very quickly she was pulled from her thoughts as he continued, “Then I had an idea, it was oh so, how do I say it? Brilliant? Hahahaha, yeah… I suppressed the trap and was able to injure one of the slave owners.” With a dark smile on his face, he turned in her direction before he asked, “How do you think that ended?”

“Obviously they beat the slaves as they couldn’t see you. Therefore, it was the slaves' fault.”

“Bingo. I didn’t know what to do until this man died. Well, he didn’t immediately die. In the beginning he had a son, however that son was beaten to death by the slave owners. He died with so much anguish and anger, he refused to move on. It was then I learned something funny and sad, people are weak. The fleshly body was a cheap, flimsy container that held the soul, so what do you think happens when a critical injury is introduced to that container?”

“They die, obviously.” She said it almost immediately after he paused.

With a smile that wasn’t a smile, he said, “Yes and no. You see, this is just conjecture, but when the body is critically injured the soul starts to slip out. If I am correct, it is likely that even if a person is saved from this state, they would likely still die or enter into a coma for the rest of their lives. As the soul is a very tricky thing, I tested it on the last slave owner, but I still don’t know if it is right. On a side note, in such a situation surprisingly it is possible to make a connection with the spirit world, or in whatever manner I exist. The father didn’t thank me, but he also didn’t blame me. He very quickly left when the last one died.”

Without knowing what to say, the boy got up and bowed before leaving without turning back. She didn’t know what to do, so she bowed slightly to the corpse and followed silently behind. The more she thought about it, the more something was bugging her. Though it was hard to pinpoint what, in fact this entire journey to this laboratory and inside it seemed to be filled with holes. Though she figured this was because she wasn’t a part of the decision-making and just had to follow along.

But everything simply ended far too cleanly for her liking. She kept getting distracted as they were moving through the hall. Luckily for her, the boy was leading the way. Maybe knowing she was distracted, he would stop and make her pay attention each time there was a trap that hadn’t been triggered. Only once the trap was behind them did he start to move in front of her again. Shortly after, her mind would begin to wonder again.

She kept repeating what happened, but she found way too many holes in the entire journey from start to finish. Suddenly she felt a pinch in her chest as she remembered a smile, as if ringing in her ears she heard the voice that followed, “I still have some things I want to do here.”

With a frown she thought back to the boy’s story, “You see this is just conjecture but when the body is critically injured the soul starts to slip out… As the soul is a very tricky thing… in such a situation, surprisingly it is possible to make a connection with the spirit world, or in whatever manner I exist.” Suddenly, she stopped walking. It took a second, but the boy in front of her also stopped. Only he didn’t turn around.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“How did you communicate with the father?” Her voice was stable, even though her insides were a bit shaky, not even she knew why.

Without turning around, he replied, “Primitive language.” Without waiting for her to ask, “It is the language I named after the first people. It is the very biases of language itself. Language in the context it is used is irresponsibly misinterpreted. It is an agreed upon meaning that is usually heavily convoluted. Primitive language is pure, using the soul, it transfers your intent without any possible misconception or confusion.”

Finishing his piece, he took a step before he was forced to stop. There was a loud click that made itself known to both parties. As he took the last step and stopped, there was a crash as something of moderate size smashed into the ground. Looking down, she didn’t pick it up or reach for her neck. Without understanding why, she felt sadness. The silence lasted for a moment before it was broken.

“We are here.” Without waiting for her, he moved and walked to the ajar set of doors. Without saying anything, she moved behind him. Once inside the room, she didn’t bother looking around. It wasn’t yet time to leave, so they needed to wait. It was eerily quiet. She couldn’t stop her memories from the beginning to the end. She was more frantic and thought more of the woman and child than she did herself.

For some reason, she wasn’t too worried about herself. She had done a few things, so being in a prison cell was something she wasn’t surprised to find herself in. Though the reason why was beyond her. From the first meeting she was scared, annoyed and a bit helpless. She wasn’t scared for herself until she made it to the laboratory, and she realized it wasn’t a hoax. Deep inside, she really did believe they would find nothing.

Inside and out, the way John had treated her was fairly good. She was responsible for herself, while he repeatedly told her not to be a hero. His goal became more clear when they entered, only before that they were just searching the forest. Anytime they found themselves in any type of danger or possible dangerous situation from a beast or other people, he always told her to just run. Even inside he grabbed her arm and never let it go even knowing there was a good chance his arm would be taken. There was also no hesitation in his eyes…

With these confusing thoughts, she couldn’t help but get tired. Even if she was in a much better state, she was still exhausted. As if adding to her troubles, she couldn’t help but dream of the old man and the gentle voice that would constantly call her sister. When she woke up, she saw the boy studying the wall. He only glanced at her before looking away. Wiping her eyes, she took out the water and the last half biscuit she had left. Both were from John.

“As you know, I am an orphan…”

“Didn’t ask.”

“One reason or another, I was adopted as a baby. Even still, I keep having a repetitive dream about the old man and my brother…”

“So you have an inferiority complex to the brother that is of blood relation to your adopted father.” His tone was rather dismissing.

She replied in a quiet voice, “No.”

Glancing at her from the side, he scoffed, “I was born as an orphan, you seem to harp on it a lot. Which is dumb, it is more practical to focus on things you can actually change. Unlike you, I was never adopted, but I can tell you inferiority complex to blood relatives isn’t uncommon at all. In fact, while in the system, it is even common amongst orphan siblings.”

“In my family, there is only me and the old man.”

Slightly startled, he glanced at her again. “Dead? You’re inferior to a dead sibling?” After a second of thought, he interrupted himself, “I guess that is probably common too.” He seemed to have an act of acting dismissive to things he found trivial.

“The brother in this scenario was never real.”

“Oh.”

Looking up surprisingly, she thought he was going to make fun of her. Feeling her gaze, he turned away from the wall, “I… I am a bad example. But in fact, it was a very common occurrence to hear weeping in the middle of the night. Especially at an orphanage. Nothing to feel strange about. Though I must say it might be weird as you're an adult. But I don’t have any experience with that, so I don’t really know.”

Hearing his voice, she for the first time after speaking stopped looking at the ground. There was something wrong. She had gotten used to interpreting his words with his emotions. It seemed either he was doing it on purpose or she was getting used to the way they communicated. Because, she was starting to imagine a voice, different from before. This voice was unique in the fact that it wasn’t her own. It wasn’t generic or a voice she could recognize. As if the voice belonged to him, it made it easier to carry out a conversation with him. But she wasn’t sure how to interpret his words just now.

Before the conversation could go anywhere else, there was an echoing boom. Standing up with excitement, the boy looked over and watched. Soon familiar runes opened as a black space inside was seen with a glowing white outline that was still oddly beautiful. Soon after the portal appeared, the boy studied it for a moment before disappearing into her body. She was slightly startled, as she was still not used to a person turning into fog before disappearing on contact with her body.

Still, she was excited, so she didn’t pause for long before walking through the portal. As soon as they appeared on the other side, there was the sight of the tree and the sun. It was so warm, she couldn’t help but want to lay down and bask in it. Interrupting their sweet, sweet reunion was the sound of the portal. Opening her eyes, she saw the portal quickly disappearing. At first, it didn’t really bother her, but very quickly she saw the boy staring at the space it once existed in.

The portal was meant to stay open, she quickly moved through it, so it seemed like something happened, however she didn’t understand enough to know what. His words very quickly came out, “It’s gone.”

Seeing her expression, he repeated a more thorough explanation, “I mean it's actually gone. It felt similar to the binding of our souls. Even though my body and yours are two physical objects, it feels like my body is printed to a piece of your soul that is connected to your arm. When we were inside, I felt a similar imprint from the portal. Once we left, I could feel that the entrance was connected to something underground. It is likely that the entire laboratory was imprinted on a piece of dirt or something underground. But the entrance is completely gone. Or I can’t feel it from outside, and the way it disappeared didn’t seem natural.”

He made it sound strange. Looking at the tree, even during the day, it was very beautiful, but the strange meaning behind his words made her think of the silhouette under the tree. Becoming more comfortable with the nonsense he spat out, she spat out her own inner thoughts, “Reminds me of the night before we entered. I thought I saw a silhouette under the tree. This place seems to fit very well with the word strange.”