The next day I was in a daze, I ended up sleeping all afternoon only waking up to have dinner and then going right back to sleep. The guest room in Sebastian’s house wasn’t as cold as the one at the hospital, but it was chilly enough for me and that allowed me to relax. Dolores had said yesterday I should take a bath but I didn’t want anything to touch Elena’s arms or her face, not even water.

I slowly woke up and sat down on the bed, my drowsiness was finally receding but I still didn’t want to stand up or do anything. I looked at Elena’s body, Elena was a very pale girl, sometimes I thought she was always sick or something, but even then, I found her really cute, naturally. Her body was slim and she was quite tall too. Could you believe that in the six months Caruncle spent in her body he didn’t dare to look a damn thing? It was always looking away from the mirrors, staring at the wall or the ceiling when taking a bath, he was so afraid, so ashamed, what a tool.

I closed and opened Elena’s hand repeatedly, feeling her fingers as they moved. I could remember how Caruncle felt in the basement, I could still feel the sensation.

There was so much noise coming from the hallway too, the maids kept chattering over and over, moving things around, why were there so many people in that house? It annoyed me, Caruncle and I had to endure so much shit, but now what was bothering me the most was that noise coming from outside the room. How had we ended up in such an annoying place?

I felt angry.

Caruncle thought about Lopez, stupid Lopez, and not just him, but his own family too. I thought that maybe we could leave and go far away, in a country where the snow actually fell and we could get the warm embrace of spring once the equinox started. It didn’t matter how, I could just leave if I wanted.

But, Caruncle was afraid, I could fill his fear drilling into my head. He didn’t want to go anywhere, he didn’t want to do anything, he was ready to jump into a tomb and sleep for the rest of his days. I didn’t want to just escape and make him go into a panic. The noises outside the room, they annoyed me so much, the blisters, the tiredness, the fact that it wasn’t even my home, Caruncle was sad as a broken toy and I was pissed off.

“Miss Elena, time for breakfast!” It was then when Dolores came up, I thought she had brought me breakfast to the room but she didn’t have anything in her hands, I raised Elena’s hands as if asking her what I had to do.

“Oh, you thought I was going to bring you breakfast? No no no! You will have to come to the dining room, miss! In this house, everyone eats along with everyone! Besides, it will help you get out of that bed!”

Oh no, I had found someone even more annoying than Mortimer.

In the dining room I decided to take some rest and let Caruncle handle matters on his own. He sat along with the other maids and servants of the house, there were at least 10 of us, Dolores included. He… Well, fine, she started eating on his own, and I tried thinking to distract myself from the underlying anger I was experiencing.

“She’s beautiful!” One of the maids said, she looked really young, she was probably 18 or younger.

But I needed to focus. I wasn’t going anywhere, do you know why? If you lived on a lonely island and your only company was a cat, even if it was the ugliest cat in existence, you would get attached to them, right? And if someone kicked and pissed and farted on your cat, you would get mad at them, right? Right? Well, I felt the same thing with the people who had hurted Caruncle, and I was pretty fucking pissed off.

“Doesn’t she talk?” Another maid asked, she had gray hair but otherwise her face looked young too and barely had any wrinkles.

“Oh no, she’s mute, sadly.” Dolores answered, Caruncle kept chewing at the dry bread while looking at the table as if she couldn’t hear them at all.

But where was I? Yes, I wanted everyone to pay, I looked back at my own fingers which now just looked like Elena’s fingers, all pale and lacking any sort of life. My fingers, while they looked different now, were still there, but Caruncle’s fingers… his fingers… I could still remember how they looked after all those years, I remembered the dark basement, I remembered the countless days where Caruncle kept crying until he lost his voice, he cried until his eyes hurted so much they felt like they were drilling into his skull, I remembered everything.

“She looks very shy too, miss?”

“Oh please, let her! She’s probably half asleep! Dolores just can’t wait for anybody so we can all start to eat.”

“Half asleep?”

“Well I don’t know! My father sometimes eats half asleep when my mom calls him for dinner.”

I remembered every single detail, and for that, everyone was going to pay twofold, no, tenfold, they were going to pay, every single last one of them, because nobody messed up with my cat, my pet, my lonely and lost, beloved wandering soul.

“She’s so so pretty, I don’t think I have seen anyone as pretty as her in my life.”

“Oh, now you are just teasing her!”

“No, it’s true!”

They were going to… pay. I was going to swear… What… What was I thinking about again?

“Look look, she’s blushing! Miss, we know you can hear us, so why won’t you look at us?”

Those damned maids! They were distracting me! I could feel Caruncle’s emotions influencing me, making me lose my train of thought, Elena’s stomach was filled with butterflies, so many butterflies, Caruncle felt she was about to explode, Elena’s hands started to tremble, I could palpate the deep quivering that filled Caruncle’s heart when the maids said Elena’s body was beautiful. I couldn’t think in the slightest! She looked up towards them.

“Oh!” A lot of them gasped when she raised her eyes, she thought things were starting to get awkward so she smiled.

“Miss, you are so pretty!”

Scratch the butterflies, what she actually had in her stomach was an infernal pit of acid that was threatening to consume her entirely. I was so distracted but I still had to think about my life path and career choices. Caruncle lowered her head and kept eating. Okay so now, what was I going to do? I couldn’t speak, I didn’t have a home. The better choice was to escape rather than entertaining any foolish thoughts of hatred. I knew that giving Caruncle a new environment, a new place for him to be in would do him a lot of good, but now, the only person that I trusted was Sebastian…

“That’s not a woman.” One of the maids said, I felt Elena’s heart skip a beat. “That’s a damn angel!” The whole group laughed, she couldn’t even move anymore, she couldn’t move, she was too embarrassed. The whole breakfast went like this for a long while.

***

I’m going to skip ahead because there wasn't too much else to say, I just felt deeply frustrated about everything and the next few days I kept fantasizing about breaking Lopez's neck with my own hands. Several days where I just spent on bed weak and tired, and lots of ugly tears and frustration over our situation. Nobody needs to hear any of that. One thing I managed to be productive about was asking Sebastian to give me a report about each one of the people we knew back then, he obliged, no questions asked.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The carriage rumbled down the cobblestone streets, its wheels grinding over the uneven stones, I never got used to that sensation. The thick fog outside clung to the cracked buildings, their once-grand façades now crumbling under the weight of neglect. Gas lamps flickered weakly, casting long shadows over the narrow alleyways.

We stopped in front of an old building made of stone, marble? It looked almost like a church. After a few minutes, Sebastian got inside, seated across from me. We continued moving. I was gazing through the window at the city. The carriage passed by figures in the mist—silent, forgotten souls wrapped in tattered clothing, it was kinda sad really.

“Miss Elena,” Sebastian said, his voice was tired and sounded as if he had been running a lot. “This is the report you requested.”

I finally turned from the window, my eyes narrowing. I nodded at him. Sebastian opened the folder, the rustling of paper the only sound within the carriage as the streets outside loomed in silence. He glanced down at the documents and looked at me.

“Valentin Periwinkle,” he began, “has become a lawyer and political advisor. It. He has positioned himself as a force of influence, there are no reports of him leading any sort of revolution or movement in the last few years as you asked, and while he isn’t accepted completely since he was born Lucianan, he uses his Basilian ascendancy to get political influence? I think? I don’t get what the detective meant about that here, but that’s the gist of it.”

Elena’s lips curled into a faint smile as I thought about him, there was no warmth in it though, I can assure you.

Sebastian inclined his head. “His profession suits him, miss. He could be useful. His position in law grants him the power to push for reforms—such as the very anti-slavery law you seek!” Yeah, I had mentioned that to him, at the moment that was the only path I had to back Lopez into a corner, but the process would probably be agonizingly slow.

The carriage jolted as it passed over a particularly rough patch of stone, but my gaze remained fixed on Sebastian. He continued, flipping to the next page. “As for Percival... he is now a merchant and financial investor. He invests in all manner of ventures, including, I suspect, some that profit from the darker dealings of the world.” I rolled Elena’s eyes at what he said, my lips betrayed me though because they kept on smiling while the clown in front of me kept doing his unfunny faces.

The carriage passed by a crumbling monument, it seemed to be a soldier standing his ground, but who really was I had no idea, neither I remembered who he was.

“Zuriel,” Sebastian continued, “He remains an aristocrat and landowner.”

A sharp turn took the carriage down a narrower street, we were in that area of the city where most houses were built in adobe but these houses were always painted in an ugly brown I didn’t like, why not paint it other colors? It was all so dull looking.

I looked back at Sebastian since he had stopped reading. I got him staring at me all like an idiot. He then turned to the next page. “About Evelyn, she has become an artist, miss. What kind of artist? Well, all kinds it seems. She spends her days lost in her work—painting, sculpting, writing. She is well known, but I haven’t seen any of them so that’s homework to do for us, I guess, if you are interested.”

Sebastian nodded and moved to the final name. “Felicity hasn’t been up to that much? She has been living with the wealth of her family. She indulges in everything. Food, drink, luxury, but… I think her parents have been putting pressure on her since she hasn’t gotten married, most of the people here are private individuals and it is not as easy to gather information about her.”

The carriage slowed as it reached a square, the fog thickening until the buildings far away became little more than silhouettes in the distance. I took a deep breath. Sebastian closed the folder, his face impassive. “Do you personally know any of these people?” I didn’t nod, shake my head, or answer in any way, I just turned my gaze back to the city, to the broken streets. What was odd to me was that nothing else had really happened since I left, Caruncle had been the piece of the puzzle towards independence, sure, but he was still, just one piece of the puzzle! What the hell had happened? Everyone had become lazy, and now, the world Caruncle and I both knew had stopped existing! Poof!

The carriage rolled forward again, deeper into the heart of the city, its wheels a quiet, irregular rhythm against the stone roads. The stones, man, seriously, they annoyed me more than you would think, they were like jigged weird shapes that ruined what would otherwise be a very steady trip. I grabbed the folder from Sebastian’s hands and read the reports myself.

I thought that if I didn’t organize myself and go step by step I was going to lose my mind, I said I would focus on Lopez first. What could I even do, though? I knew a lot of things about that world, Caruncle remembered too what he had learned at the library, but not much. 17 years had been since he was there at all, was it 17 years? No, 19, well no matter, my memory wasn’t even as good as I remembered either.

“Caruncle, this is fucked, we are fucked.” I could barely remember things about Caruncle’s own life, the further I went it time, the more dizzy my memories seemed to get, that was just depressing.

I wasn’t well versed in possession or anything of the sort, what seemed to feel like at the time is that Caruncle thought that my actions were his, and also he seemed to be half asleep somehow when I was at the front? Maybe after I learned more about how it worked I could write a Possession 101. Long story short though, leaving the country was a no go, if Caruncle was too much of a chicken, fine, if he was so afraid of repeating his previous folly with Lila, we could stay, but I definitely was going to do something about that mopiness of his. I was going to focus on Lopez first, Lopez, Lopez, dear Lopez. What could I even do? What had it been of Lopez before Caruncle came to this world? Lopez had been sentenced to death since people considered him a barbarian, the circle of mystics had been killed too, but I didn’t remember why. Most of our intel in the world was turning more and more obsolete because Caruncle hadn’t done his job and the effort it would take us to go from our point A to the original point B would be ridiculous.

When they first met , Caruncle had asked Sebastian himself to gather some arsenic and mercury so he could kill him back when they first met. How was that going to work? I had no idea how, maybe he wanted to put it on his tea or something, but no, that wasn’t going to cut it for me. I thought to myself we had to work smarter, not harder. Looking at the folder, it seemed that everyone had been doing quite well since they sold Caruncle, pretty well, in fact. I felt a knot on my stomach forming as I read the entries.

I didn't even want them to talk to me or even coexist with me when I knew what they really were. Lopez and Caruncle’s family were part of a group of power-hungry bastards that liked to force ownership between humans when the only thing they needed to own a person's soul was money from an ill-gotten job. The more I read their entries in the folder I had in my hands, the angrier I got. I hoped I would never have the misfortune of having to deal with any of them or their power dynamics, to beg for a glass of water or to not be treated like a fucking animal. I hoped I would never have the misfortune of having to base myself worth in following the ideals of empty beings like them who hide themselves in the mask of pragmatism and the rules of power. I hoped to never find myself with the illusion again that there was such a thing as a place to belong.

They were an example of the worst things of mankind, they would let themselves go by the chain in a desperate attempt to give some meaning to their sad miserable existence. They made me sick. I decided I would never hold myself back again because even if we forced ourselves every single day of the year to pass unnoticed like Caruncle did, they wouldn’t forgive us for the one day we made them feel uncomfortable, like that wretched day when Caruncle confessed to them his own feelings. They villainized him because he inconvenienced them. They all knew they were pathetic, god damn pathetic.

They were no better than Satan or Jazmin herself. They just pretended that they were better because they followed their stupid ass bureaucratic rules and talked between themselves so they could shake their own hands in secret and jerk themselves off. They were not the government, they were not part of anything, they were just a bunch of stupid losers who looked for the most backwards as fuck reason to destroy someone that they don’t like in a way that soothes their stupid ass morals to make them feel as if they did a good thing. They knew that fucking well. This was not, and it would never be, about the good of the family. What did they think Caruncle was going to do? To run around naked in the street? To spread the spooky sex change disease? To bring something that they deeply felt inside and didn't want to accept? For all the days Caruncle cried, they didn’t give a fuck, I didn’t want to hear one single line coming out of their fucking whore mouths.

They were going to pay.

“Miss Elena, are you alright? You have been frowning quite a lot for some time now.”

I covered my face and thought to myself. “Leave me alone, you absolute goon.”