The forest is abhorrently quiet, the wind itself has stopped and every animal and insect fled the moment the crash occurred. The further in the forest I am the more I can feel it, this feeling that crawls inside my skin and settles like some kind of parasite. I don't know if it's because of the Fractured Ones presence or the shattered soul. Nor am I aware of what I'm actually looking for, Clover wasn't much help. He couldn't even tell me what I was supposed to look for or what I should do when I find it.

It feels heavier to breathe and warmer the further in I get, but at the same time my teeth are almost chattering because of the cold.

"Hello?!" I call out and hope that whatever I'm looking for will come to me.

I hear someone wailing. She's not coming closer. It feels like I'm about to boil from the inside while the outside is turning to ice. A frosty gloss covers my hands. Whatever this is it can hurt the soul. Would I have been safe if I had a body, or would it have been just as bad?

I close my hand around the stone in my pocket. How can I convince the woman to let me take her soul if she's been shattered into multiple pieces? If that's even what shattered means. Clover hadn't said anything, just told me to search.

The pain is throbbing in rhythm over my skin. I support my body against a tree when I finally find her. She doesn't look human, not like the Russian man that died in the river. This woman – if I can even call her that, she doesn't look older than eighteen – looks like a monster. Her eyes are widened, and the mouth is open in a way that makes it look like her jaw has been dislocated. I force myself to stay by the tree when she slowly moves forward. She's hovering above the ground and the injuries that occurred in the crash is still left on her body. Whatever happened to her it scarred her soul.

Her anguished scream fills the entire forest, it makes my head pound and ache so aggressively I can barely stand up. The dark mouth is still open when she's done. Then she starts wailing. I hold a hand against the tree, unsure of what to do. But I have to do something.

"I'm here to help you," I say through the pain.

I'm burning up from the inside and I can barely breathe in this cold. The girl slowly turns her gaze and stares at me with an open mouth and widened eyes. A mocking laugh is heard. It doesn't come from the girl, it comes from above. I tear my gaze from her and look up at the tree.

The grey creature sitting on the branch has cracks all over its body, and the completely black eyes are large and round. It looks like a human child – ten or eleven years old. Dark hair hangs down its face and it wears a pair of brown, worn shorts.

"I would not look away," it says.

I look at the girl again, she has already moved to attack and is flying with an incredible speed towards me with her arm reached out. I don't have the time to move out of the way before her cold, yet burning hand is around my throat. She pushes me to the ground. Frost is growing around us when she lowers her head closer to mine. The creature in the tree is laughing and the hand is burning and choking me. All I can see is the dark gape and she screams. It feels like my head is about to explode.

I'm scared of what it means to die a second time when I only have my soul left, no human vessel to protect the innermost and most fragile part of me. I feel her hands around my throat, the cold and burning fingers and nails that pushes through my frail skin.

"Boring, boring," I hear the creature in the tree call out between the screams. "Don't all soul wanderers have a soul stone?"

I reach my hand into my pocket while I push the other against the girl's collarbones, it almost burns my hand stuck into her sizzling hot skin. I hold back a scream when I grab the soul stone. She moves her face closer and I can smell death. I push the stone as hard as I can against her cheek, it glows between my fingers and her skin. She screams again, this time it sounds more painful – like I hurt her. She moves away from me before she flees deeper into the woods.

I lay still on the ground and breathe deeply. I look up at the tree and the boy is still sitting on the branch dangling his grey legs.

"Would you look at that. You do have a soul stone."

"Shut up," I mutter and close my eyes tightly.

The injuries caused by the scorching hand and the nails that dug into my soul, are left.

"Still, that went well," the creature says, it sounds like it's closer than it was before.

I open my eyes. It stands in front of me and when it grins I notice that the mouth is filled with small, sharp teeth.

"To send out a new soul wanderer against a shattered soul, what are the guardians thinking?" it says and clicks its tongue three times.

"How would they know," I snap back, even if I know Clover literally told me to search for the monster, even though there wasn't anything human left in that soul.

I slowly sit up while my body is aching.

"I can feel it on a distance before it has even happened," it says proudly, like this is some sort of competition.

"You're lying."

"Me? Lie? I never lie," it says and grins with its sharp teeth.

I gently touch my throat; it's still hurts every time I touch it.

"That's not what I've heard," I say and get up from the ground.

"Then you've heard wrong."

I move further into the forest, where I saw the girl disappear.

"Where are you going?" it asks.

Every step I take send a painful shiver through my back.

"Are you looking for her again?"

I'm hoping it will stop following me if I ignore it. The forest is dark even though it's in the middle of the day and the feeling of the heat and cold intrudes once again. My legs feel heavy, like they're made of lead.

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"Because it went so well last time," the creature continues.

"And now I know how to handle it." I curse under my breath that I answered it.

"Thanks to me I might add, you wouldn't have had a soul left if I hadn't said anything."

I roll my eyes.

"You would have been ash in the wind," it says dramatically and I don't need to look behind me to know that its grinning.

The frost grows around my fingers again and inside of me it feels like I'm burning. She's close.

"What's your name? Soul wanderers have such silly names, like flowers or numbers or something. Shall I call myself sixteen, add another X for extra personality? Sixxteen. With two X."

I cannot stand it anymore; I turn around and glare at him. "Oh my god, is it impossible for you to shut up for two minutes?!"

The creature grins like it just won a game I didn't even want to participate in.

I tense up when I hear the familiar wailing.

"She's here," sings the creature. "Do you know what to do?"

The truth is I have no idea what to do with this soul. But the stone hurt her and if I hurt her once, I can hurt her again.

When I don't answer the creature grimaces and puts the cracked hands in the pockets of the torn shorts.

"Take out the stone right away, it will open when she's close. You can catch the soul if you come close enough with a stone that is fully open. Child's play."

I take out the stone from my pocket and it opens like Clover's had done at the Russian river.

"Why are you helping me?"

The creature shrugs. "Because it's entertaining? Besides we don't have any use of souls that have shattered. I'll pick up the parts that haven't been distorted later unless your friend already has taken them. Anyway, a lose shattered soul only do unnecessary damage in the human world. Better to deal with them."

It knows I'm not alone, which means it has spied on us before the accident. Why it decided to follow me instead of Clover I don't dare to ask, besides there's a chance I'll get an annoying answer back.

"How do I convince her to let me take her soul?" I ask now when it wants to be so strangely helpful.

The creature frowns and blinks with its large, black eyes. "You don't need to convince her. She'll be forced in."

"That's not what I've heard. Souls have to accept it."

The creature makes a grimace that's hard to read. "Regular souls, yes. A shattered soul has absolutely no use for either us or the guardians. So you can force them in since they're already so distorted and broken that it won't make any difference. And no, you can't save them," he says amused, "since you seem the type to think that."

I'm just about to ask what he means with that, but the stone opens completely.

"Time to hunt. Try to keep your soul intact."

The creature points at the stone and thereafter climbs up the tree with a flexibility that reminds me of a cat.

I take a deep breath and hold up the soul stone, the little soul-dust from Igor Volkov is moving around in a vortex between the halves. I can see her now, how she circles the trees beyond the meadow and observes me. When she touches the bark frost grows upon it and disappears when she moves away. I refuse to avert my gaze from the tormented soul. I had done that mistake once and I won't make it again. The pain around my throat reminds me of the scorching and cold hand, the fingers that forced themselves into my skin. I can't let it happen again, but I don't know how to lure her closer. I want to look up at the creature in the tree and ask what the hell I'm supposed to do. I'm aware I can't do that, not unless I want her hands on me again. But it would make her get closer, close enough that the stone can capture her soul.

It's risky and no doubt downright foolish – and it's the only thing I can do. I relax my body and calm my nerves. I quickly look up at the creature in the tree. It raises its eyebrows, then it grins with its sharp teeth. I don't know if it's grinning because it thinks I'm dumb enough to look away a second time or if it knows what I'm planning.

She screams and flies towards me in the same incredible, inhuman speed and her hand is around my neck within seconds. I'm pushed to the ground and the stone falls from my hand and ends up somewhere in the meadow. I can't see it, but there is a blue shine between the green grass. I push one hand against the girl's scalding throat, the other I reach towards the blue light.

I dig my nails into the frozen dirt and with desperate motions I try to get closer, but the tight grip around my throat keeps me in place. She leans closer and screams. It feels like my entire body is shaking, like something gets deep inside of me and destroys me from the inside and the most fragile part of me.

I see grey legs with black, thick cracks. A hand that picks something up from the meadow and she screams again, high enough that it feels like the world will shatter. The hand around my throat turns to soul-dust, she stares at me with the widened eyes of sorrow and wrath before her face also turns to blue, gleaming dust. Then she's no more, and I lay still in the meadow with a burning and frozen throat. I breathe in the air of death, cold and heat. There is a layer of frost over me. My chest is burning like everything inside of me have turned to ice.

"A Disappointment," says the creature.

He crouches down next to me and isn't grinning this time. In his hand he's holding my stone and for a moment I'm wondering if he'll steal it to devour the soul-dust inside. But he doesn't, he lays it beside me and gets up.

"Well then, you're welcome for the second time," he says before he leaves.

The stone is closed with a weak shine coming from it. My throat is burning but I'm alive, not in the same way that I once was – but I exist.

I grab the stone. I can't feel it anymore. No cold nor heat, except on my throat. There I can still feel the frozen, burning hand.

I stare at the trees and the sky. I don't know how long I've laid here. I don't have the energy to get up and look for Clover. The ice and frost around the trees and meadow have disappeared. The feeling on my throat is still there, there are no other sign that she has been here.

"Orchid," a familiar voice calls out.

Clover. I can't bear to stand up. I raise a hand to show him that I hear him and that I still exist.

He stands in front of me and looks down at my throat with a frowned expression. Apparently, it doesn't just feel awful – it seems like it also is visible.

"How bad is it?" I ask and points at my throat.

"It's not going to be there forever," is all he says, like it would explain how it looks like. "Why didn't you run?"

Did he really ask me that, after what he said? I glare at him but can't bear to sit up.

"You told me to search," I remind him.

"I meant the other souls. A shattered soul is even hard for me to deal with."

"You should have been more careful to explain it then," I snap.

I sit up. It's aching from the inside, but on the outside, I feel nothing at all – except on my throat.

It looks like Clover tries to find something to say, he shakes his head and crouches down.

"You're right, I should have. I'm sorry." It sounds like he means it. "I was stressed. In hundred years I've only run into two shattered souls before... and I... How did you survive?"

The question makes a shiver run up my back.

"Sixxteen," I answer and grimace of pain, "A small little thing with cracked skin."

Clover stands up. "I didn't think the Fractured Ones had names... or that they helped others."

"What do I know? He basically made fun of our names and said that his name was Sixteen."

Clover makes a grossed-out groan and folds his arms over his chest, yet there is a noticeable worry in his dark eyes. I decide not to ask what it means, and frankly I don't care. My throat is burning violently, and I'd rather leave the forest.

I slowly stand up and try not to fall apart when it feels like my legs are as fragile as glass.

"Did you find the other souls?" I ask and he takes out his stone, without thinking I give him mine.

"Yes, but one of them refused no matter what I said to him."

It has to be the dad to the shattered soul, he would look for her for an eternity and never do any progress.

A part of the soul-dust is transferred to my stone and when it's done he gives it back to me. I can't see the little grey creature anywhere. I imagine that he'll be in the same tree as I first saw him, but when we're on our way back its branches are empty.

Clover's gaze wanders down to my throat. I would like to see how it looks like.

"We have a contract left. I can take you back to the Eleven if you can't handle anything else. I'll contact you later when Blomst has time, she'll need to see that."

I'm too exhausted to answer him with words so I nod at his suggestion, and hope that that's enough.

He brings forth the orange stone and the gate folds out in the middle of the forest. "I'll take you right away to your room."

I'm thankful that I don't have to force myself to continue with the contracts that are left, I've had enough of death for today.