Author’s Notes: To compensate for being late with the 2nd chapter I’m posting the 3rd sooner. (… somewhat sooner)
Thanks for reading…
Oh and I’m going to put a character thoughts in ‘…’ to tell them apart from words.
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*sigh*
It’s a thing to sigh yourself and another thing to hear someone else to do that in the dead silence of the room.
*sigh*
And it’s even more disturbing to hear it non-stop for the past few hours.
*sigh*
*si-*
“Tch, first a chatty ghost, then a crazy ghost and now a depressed… no, depressing ghost…”
For the first time in those last hours the man turned to face the girl, looking at her with hopeless eyes, whose place was taken over by a pissed off face.
“When I said I wanted a successor, I definitely asked for a boy…”
“…?”
“Oh, well, you’ll have to do.”
It took several hours for him to make up his mind but he didn’t really have much of a choice except the one before him.
“Kid, from today on I’m going to use you.”
“…Huh??”
***
… Let’s go back in time a little …
After coming back to the cave the man-ghost found out that the child was a girl. He was angry and that’s putting it the nice way. However he wasn’t angry at her but at someone/thing else and sometime in the middle of his fury he had looked up and started throwing curses and complains in unknown directions.
“You freaking old men! You dropped me in this f***ed up place. You let me here for some thousands of years probably laughing your asses off. You… you made me a powerless thing, you weaklings who wouldn’t have been able to touch me at all if I had not let you.
How do you suppose I get out of here when you always take the good ones for yourselves.
…You know what?
Just look at me. This kid… I’m gonna make her the strongest alive.
I’m gonna reach you soon and then I hope you find a good hole to hide in. I wouldn’t want to kill you all too fast.”
He almost spat out every word. Neither ‘fury’ would be enough to describe his feelings in those moments. If he could touch things he would probably be breaking and throwing them everywhere. So in place of that he kept shouting at ‘‘god’’-knows-what.
After a very long time his anger cooled a bit and his shouts were replaced with continuous sighs for the next few hours and this brings us to the present situation.
“Huh??” The girl had looked at the crazy ghost for quite a bit of time… Now she had completely lost it. ‘Old men?’ She had no freaking idea what the man-ghost was talking about and at some point during his earlier monologue she had even thought he may have been talking to other ghosts but for whatever reason she had soon discarded that thought. She considered herself crazy enough with one and didn’t want to admit the possible presence of others.
For now let’s get back to business.
“Use?”
“Yes, I’m gonna use you to get out of here.”
She stood silent looking at him thought fully. She might have been quite smart for a six year old but her ability to think straight had got considerably slower this past few hours. It took several seconds for her to understand what the man was saying and when she got the meaning of use she said flatly:
“No, thank you.”
Yes, she added a sarcastic “thank you” to the “no”.
The man-ghost snapped (again…That ghost had apparent anger issues).
“You…!!” He pointed at her. “Don’t you owe me for saving you?”
“Hah…” She snorted at him. "If you were going to hold it against me then why bother, really?"
The man got even angrier. In reality his “use” was not meant to be offensive but one such as him who didn’t have much socializing skills, also didn’t know how to express himself nor was he able to control his emotions. No one would be able to guess he had lived for some thousands of years and roamed around as a ghost for several thousand more. He was more like a teenager who couldn’t hold his sudden bursts of emotion.
One thing led to another and somehow the situation became worse.
“You little brat! You weak little thing… weaklings don’t even deserve to be alive. I should have let you die in the forest. I bet death would welcome one like you with open arms. As for the living, they probably wouldn’t even care.”
For the first time since she had woken up, the girl remembered once again that night some time ago, the black creature that had killed all but her, she remembered death and shuddered.
Death. She was scared of “it”, its appearance that night, its smell, its silence. She started shivering again. Her eyes were looking at something that wasn’t there. Her mind was remembering the nightmare. She started crying, silently, so silently as not to let her location be known to “it”. Trying to hold herself up, trying to not break down, she was gripping one end of her clothes as tightly as she could, the soles of her fingers white as a result.
All this time the man was watching. When he had first saw her shudder a tiny bit of confusion had seeped through his anger. Then she had started crying and his anger completely dissipated.
It suddenly dawned on him that the one before him was a mere child. He had seen her angry, scared (terrified) but not crying like this. It wasn’t even the way a child should cry, those tears of complete helplessness, fear and…
The man started to panic and for the first time in who-knows-how-many-centuries he felt a little prick of guilt. For someone like “him” to feel guilt was unheard of but it apparently made that “him” do something even more unbelievable. (It is once again the fault of his lack of human relation and understanding)
“…sorry.”
What is better than a cold shower to snap you out of it? Well, now you know.
The girl blinked a few times. Her ears had caught the “sorry” and that was like a devastating blow of shock to her brain.
She turned to watch him, as wide-eyed as an owl and shocked to such an extent that her tears froze in her eyes.
To think that that high (higher than heavens?) and mighty and most prideful man-ghost had said sorry.
That was a shock but she didn’t know him well enough to be shaken only from that.
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“…”
It was the first time for her, the first time someone had said sorry. She wasn’t a being others cared for and she knew that she was more like a thing to them so at some point she had started to think something like an apology was only an empty word said for appearances and never to someone like her. However now she felt it different.
Looking at him, he was in a somehow panicky state. To make sure she heard him right the girl finally talked.
“…What did you say?”
Now it was his turn to get shocked at himself. It was embarrassing enough to say it once. He would first die than say it again. (wait, he was already dead)
“…”
“…”
“Anyway… Let me rephrase it. I… need you to help me get out of here.”
Yet another shock. Who was that? Now she was eyeing the man suspiciously.
“You, what did you do to the man-ghost??”
“Huh?”
…
After considerable minutes… Things somehow calmed down.
“Like I said I want you to help me get out of here and out of this state. In exchange I’ll make you into the strongest human alive.”
The girl listened to him intently. He was serious and that was reason enough for her to listen. His high and mighty attitude was nowhere to be seen (well, not exactly).
“Why would I want to get stronger?” She averted her eyes from him and instead looked at some corner of the cave. It’s not that she didn’t want to become stronger but…
“And how would you do that?” She added this in a lower voice than a whisper so the man wouldn’t hear it.
“The way you are you can’t even step out of this cave let alone get out of the forest. You have no choice but to become stronger. Even though I am like this I used to be the most powerful when I was alive.”
He had apparently heard her whisper but she shot him an untrusting or more like dream-on look.
“You’re a ghost, you know.”
*pop* (If you’re wondering what this is, it’s the ghost. He apparently “popped” a vein)
This kid sure knew how to make him angry. He really was almost anti-social and wouldn’t really bother with people but even for him this was too much. However he tried hard to hold it in (even though he wanted to punch her at least once :p )
“Those trees now recognize you presence so no matter how quiet you are they will hunt your energy. There are, however, two ways to get past those trees.” He went on with the explanation as to not actually try to punch her.
The fact that there were two ways to get out of the forest got her hopes up. She didn’t want to stay in that little cave for the rest of her life and become crazy for real. (One way or another she had deducted that she still wasn’t.) That hope was good for as long as it lasted which is a until the end of the man-ghost few sentences.
“The trees can only get your energy if you are in contact with the land where their roots spread or if you touch them directly. Meaning if you float/fly through without touching any they won’t be able to touch you.”
“Wait wait, what? Fly? And what about this cave, how come they cannot ‘enter’ here?”
“Well, it’s a cave. You can’t expect their roots to grow on rocks, right?”
“…Yeah… Since you can get through by flying how come there are no birds?”
“Because there’s a roof of ‘steel’, of course.”
She blinked as she remembered the conversation of some days ago. This forest could be considered impossible to impenetrate from above.
“And even if they entered they would have to stop flying at some time to rest and that’s their end. This forest is quite wide after all.”
The girl considered the idea again… Flying… Nope. Impossible.
"I think I remember bumping into a lot of trees when coming here. Couldn't you warn me earlier?"
"I did."
Silence.
“Anyway...What’s the second way?”
“You beat the guardian of the forest and are recognized by all as the strongest of the forest. They won’t dare to touch you like that.”
She froze, then turned at him and watched wide-eyed (again).
“Huh?’’ (Yes, she said that again too.)
“What’s the name of this forest?”
“Verna.”
“Yes, because Verna lives here. I don’t expect you to actually beat that guy. I have no idea if you’ll be able to anyway. Let’s get back to the main point. Either way you want to choose is unavailable for you now… because you are weak.”
Ah… that stung a little (but it was true).
“So you know what is that you must do first.”
She nodded. For whatever reason, every word of his came in with a wave of confidence.
“First, I will get stronger than anyone.”
No matter how you looked at it this may have seemed like a groundless wish with no real goal or meaning behind it but in reality this Sylvien was like its predecessor, a world where strength meant everything.
Now there were smiles on their faces, proud smiles, happy smiles. (yes, he isn’t angry anymore and she also is calmer)
***
“Oh yeah I never asked you, what’s you name kid?”
Silence.
“You think one like me has something like that. I was lucky if they remembered my number. (not cell phone ‘s)”
Silence.
The man looked at her somewhat thoughtfully. His thoughts were soon interrupted.
“What’s yours?”
After looking at her for a while the man finally answered.
“I won’t tell you that looking like this. That would be my greatest shame.” This time too he had that serious expression on his face.
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And that is how their names will be man-ghost and kid for a while. This is definitely not because I’m lazy. I have some ideas for the girl (none for the ghost -_- yet) but I will reveal her name in another (hopefully cooler) way as for the man I’ll see and do.