Elliot's POV

"I am but a mere mortal controlled by things I cannot see."

—Elliot Starfall

The door slides open with that slow, theatrical groan that belongs in an old cowboy film—only here, the proportions are off. It's as tall as me, even a little taller, scraping at the air with that sense of forced civility while everyone behind me breathes in the heat of this den. A gust rushes past us, and I feel the temperature of the big room shift, the warmth sucked out.

Inside, flames flicker inside a tall stone hearth. Not normal fire—blue, icy at the center, shading to cobalt at the edges where the wind hits it as we enter. I fix my gaze at it, the unnatural light washing over the walls, throwing harsh shadows across the floor. My skin prickles at the warmth it radiates despite its cold color. It's refreshing, almost comforting, but only for a moment.

I take a step forward, trying to mimic a walk I remember from a time ago that feels like ages. Aston's walk. Precise, steady. It's a different time, different people, but I force myself to match his pace, match the slight roll of his shoulder, the measured arrogance he wore like a cloak. I try to become him, even as everything about me revolts at the thought.

Ahead, she waits. The woman with eyes cold as the flames, ice-blue and clear, unyielding. Her hair is blonde like mine, but lighter, smoother, better kept—an affectation of control she doesn't bother to hide. She wears tight black trousers over a snow-white blouse cinched neatly at the waist. She's in shape, lean and strong, every line of her body a calculated threat.

I keep walking. No one really watches me. That's the worst part. Two or three glance over, vaguely interested, before going back to their drinks. The rest ignore me completely, as if I'm nothing more than a breeze disturbing their stale, smoky air.

Why am I even here? I ask myself, but the question vanishes as I stop in front of her.

My mouth opens. For a split second I nearly say the words Aston used to get past her once. One Avelorian scotch with a straw and extra liquor. I can't even understand why I remember something so trivial.

I lampoon myself, forcing down the impulse, jaw tight as I glance back at Gene and Cham behind me. They're good at the act. Gene, especially, though it's good no one's paying us any attention. If they did, the wrong Blue might already have punched him, or vice versa.

It's hard enough for me to hold back. I hear a scream behind Gene to my right, but ignore it. My head is already turning, drawn by some gravity toward the backroom door. The one Aston used to get to the others, where I was incorporeal shortly after the hands dragged me into the void.

Beyond that door, the second stage is lit in lurid purples. Women are naked, dancing with mechanical, joyless motions. Marionettes with cut strings for souls. Their limbs move without grace, painted in bruises the color of night. Some are broken—bent in ways that make my stomach knot. Reds like me, but also a few Blues, though by far fewer. I see red lips, red nipples, red scars on pale skin.

Instead of Aston's code, I speak something different:

"Three mojitos in Zentria style."

Words slip out I shouldn't even know about, but they come anyway, familiar in a way I hate. The woman's expression doesn't soften, but her lips twitch, not a smile—just a shift. Resigned, maybe. She raises her palm in demand.

Sighing, I glance at Gene, whose teeth are clenched so hard I think they might crack.

"1 Cont and 2 Celi, right?" My voice fills the lively room with that feigned confidence I hate, like I'm someone who belongs here. She nods once, turning to the man at her side. He starts mixing the drinks without a word.

I sneer inwardly, somehow knowing the prices of various things I've never seen or heard about before. Four Celi for one mojito, anywhere with a currency system, it gives inflation... Stop it, Elliot. I curse inwardly, the fact that I think about such trivial things bothering me.

I guide Gene and Cham to a table near the flames. The closer we get, the more I feel the heat pressing against my face, making sweat trickle down my back, but all the other seats are either fully or half taken, not enough space for three.

I settle into the chair, exhaling shakily. A scream echoes again, but it fades before it even hits my ears.

Around us, other patrons drink like nothing matters. The flames crackle blue. It feels like a sauna, too hot for my disguise to last long.

I hear a snatch of conversation at the next table:

"These reds are lucky they're not registered in the blood system."

The speaker is fat, his gut spilling over the stained wood.

"The higher-ups are too dumb to get even a drop of these cockroaches," says his seemingly friend, leaner but bigger than me. "Just one drop and they'd be tracked for life."

"S!" the fat man hushes dramatically, pressing a thick finger to his blue lips. "They might hear you." He snickers as if knowing that Cham, Gene, and I, red-blooded in disguise under them, would eavesdrop on them.

Subsequently, my stomach turns, my tongue tasting sour fluid—vomit, which I gulp shortly after.

I look to the side. There's a woman there, red-blooded like me. She lies against the fat man's arm as if she doesn't even notice it anymore. No tears. Her eyes are empty oceans; all the fury and hope evaporated in a storm that's long since passed. Acceptance. She's, my age.

Further down, there's a child.

I run my tongue over my inner cheek, biting until I taste blood. My left sleeve is damp in my fist. My right sleeve hangs loose from my body, and my collar covers my brand, a permanent reminder of what I am to them.

Gene and Cham match me, their shirts carefully arranged to conceal their brand marks.

"Why?" Gene hisses, voice low and dangerous. I can see the veins in his neck bulging, sweat running in rivulets down his face.

I stare back at him until he stops, breathing heavily.

"Stop it," I murmur. "The makeup…"

His nostrils flare, but he clamps down on the rage.

We're sweating too much; the heat here will ruin our disguise in minutes. I can feel it, my forehead is slick, and I'm sure I'm starting to look suspicious.

My eyes wander, and a blue woman sets three drinks on our table. I don't thank her, I can't even look at her.

We sit in silence, trying to be invisible among the other clusters of customers, lost in their own private hells and fantasies.

Across the room, the real show continues.

I didn't see it last time, maybe Aston didn't look at it. Perhaps he ignored it like I did just moments ago, or maybe it wasn't running that day. But now I see it.

An old man dangles upside-down, roped by the ankles, spinning slowly, like a grotesque carnival prize. His body is sagging, his skin marked with burns, cuts, purple-black bruises that stand out like accusations in the blue light.

"S–stop it!" he screams, his voice cracking.

They don't stop.

One of them is holding a metal rod, pressing it to his chest. There's a hiss, the smell of burned flesh rolling across the room like rancid smoke.

My stomach clenches like so many times. No matter how much I see, my body won't get used to it, probably never will.

He could be my father's age. Bald, with only burned tufts of hair clinging to his scalp. His skin flakes off in rusty sheets, sienna giving way to raw meat, falling to the floor in damp scraps.

He'll die. Soon.

I bite harder on my cheek. Not just out of rage. My arm is screaming at me. The brand throbs in the heat, every heartbeat sending another spike of pain through me, as if it remembers what it is.

I can feel the sweat pouring down my spine. The voices around us get louder, rising in drunken revelry and cruelty.

I glance at my hands in panic. Are they still blue? Is the dye holding? I rub at my knuckles, fighting the urge to claw the color off.

I grab the drink and down it in a single, savage gulp.

Cold, then heat. The alcohol burns its way to my stomach, numbing me for a blessed second.

I drain my drink in one go, the bitter taste burning all the way down. Across from me, Gene's fingers tighten around his glass so hard I think it might shatter. For a second, I want it to break—his blood would smear across this piss-stained table, showing everyone just what he is. What we are.

But he holds back, the rim of the glass cracking with a dry snap before he eases up. I watch Cham. He doesn't drink, he just stares over the edge of his glass like he wants to disappear.

My right hand twitches—except it's not there. It flickers, that ghost limb, and I try to grab Cham's drink with it like an idiot. I remember. It's gone.

Gritting my teeth, I shift my body, awkward as a crippled dog, and reach with my left hand instead. I'm turned half away from Gene now, no eye on him. Vulnerable.

Cool ice kisses my palm as I finally grip the glass. I barely register it, because that's when Gene explodes out of his chair and slams his hands onto our table.

The whole room freezes, and his chair scrapes back with an awful shriek, a scream that slices through the stale smoke and muffled laughter. Every single eye is on us.

My heel twitches and I try to kick him under the table—get him to shut the fuck up—but I stop halfway, swallowing a mouthful of dry saliva.

God. How many of them are armed?

I sweep the bar with my eyes. Dim lamps, shadows, faces watching. How many of them are Skinwalkers?

The Greens. If they're here? We're already dead.

Why am I even here?

Because I must be, because I feel some twisted obligation to be here. My legs walked me in like they had a mind of their own.

It's just like with the blue-hanged man. I wasn't in control, or maybe I was, but I didn't want to admit it.

I'm about to whisper something—anything to calm Gene when he suddenly screams.

But it's a grotesque sound, morphing in the middle into something like laughter. Like lust.

He's faking it, moreover, the end of it. He truly is filled with anger and the lust to slaughter them all.

My heart hammers against my ribs, my skin itches, and my right shoulder throbs like it's about to split open. I clutch it, trying not to show my teeth—my red gums.

I drop my head, and my vision swims. Gene stretches, cracks his neck, and acts like nothing's wrong. The other blue-blooded turn their bored eyes away, but I still feel my heart pounding in my ears.

Cham doesn't even move; he just stares melancholy at his fingers on the table, eyes glazed, miles away.

He always thinks about his family... There's a voice now. Coarse and thick. "Who wants to go next?!"

Boots slam onto a bench next to an old man with a face as red as a squashed tomato. Over Cham's shoulder, I see it; The rope loosens, and the old man crumples to the ground, only leaving with one last breath—a groan full of salvation.

A man is there with a knife, and drives it into the corpse's eyes, scooping out the sockets with practiced casualness. Just like they did to Ren.

The pain hits me like a jagged blade twisted inside my guts. Not a clean stab. A slow, scraping torture that rips me apart. I try to keep my face neutral. Don't see red. Don't see red. I say to myself, closing my eyes.

But I can't.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Because when I open my eyes, I see a kid taking the place of the dead old man.

Half-naked. One sock on, underwear dirty and ripped, the other foot bare. He's crying while they tie the rope around his ankles.

"Old man and small child," someone says. He's next to another one with greasy brown hair, who yanks the kid's head up roughly.

That one has a face like an unfinished sculpture, eyes that can't focus, mouth gaping open. He tries to talk but just drools.

"Rape... only with two holes... Old man and child... one can be hanged... and played with... with knife and—"

He chokes on the words, spitting more than speaking. He reaches for the knife lodged in the old man's eye socket.

Some in the bar look bored, others lean in with sick anticipation.

"A hole is a hole!"

That one yells from the back. The voice is nasal, cracked, coming from a head with a receding hairline and a face that would make his own mother flinch.

Laughter erupts among the Blues.

My people? They're crying. I feel the blood boiling under my skin, flooding my veins until my whole body shakes.

Move. Do something.

But now I don't, my legs won't listen. I stand and don't even realize it at first, but my head twitches, my neck jerking from side to side like I'm fighting off ghosts.

My jaw locks so hard it cracks, and I see the back room.

The one where they took the blue-hanged man.

Suddenly, my moves, however, reluctantly not to the boy but to the bar, even though every part of me wants to carve that fat blue bastard open right here and now.

My vision bleeds red, and through it, I see Gene behind me.

He's watching me with those fanatical eyes, like he's witnessing a god emerging from my skin.

He sees Eos, not me.

He doesn't see Elliot.

And I keep moving.

Sweat trickles down my cheek. My head jerks again, scraping my neck raw.

The blue flames of the hearth burn in my peripheral vision, a chimney carrying the smoke out. Cold to look at, but I know they're hotter than hell itself.

My right side throbs, not just the phantom pain of my missing arm, but the ache of knowing that kid is getting punched now.

Once.

Twice.

He screams, and I look back. Gene is halfway out of his chair again.

I shake my head. Don't.

He freezes and understands. He knows what would happen if I snapped. It would be a slaughter.

Me, Gene, Cham.

We'd all end up with our heads on spikes, and sure, I'd take a few of those blues with me.

But that's a small comfort. Walking, I look over the room like I'm back in the school cafeteria.

Back when everything used to be normal.

When I was walking Ren out of the aula, hand in hand. No one threatened us, no monsters in blue coats waiting to butcher us for sport. Now?

A couple of dozen men, at least half with whores on their laps, a quarter or less of them being of blue blood, the rest of my people, red burning through their veins, anger and fury, which has yet to leave their bodies.

More watch from the second deck, they are shadows leaning over the rail.

It would be a bloodbath. I think again, imagining who of them would die first, and how many I could take down before being penetrated by bullets.

I don't thank my cowardly legs. I hate them for obeying.

But they carry me anyway, all the way to the bar. The bartender is there. Next to him, an icy-looking woman behind the counter. She's filling a massive beer mug, watching me with open curiosity.

Her eyes dart to my empty sleeve. I feel my teeth grinding, and my head still twisting slightly to the side like I'm half-broken. But it isn't too obvious, otherwise she would look at my face and not my missing arm.

I exhale through flared nostrils, sounding like a man detoxing after days of drugs.

"One Avelorian scotch. Straw. Extra liquor." The words spill out before I even think them.

She freezes, her eyebrows knit.

"What?" She heard me. She knows she heard me. But she doesn't understand.

My heart stops beating, but my mouth keeps going.

"We forgot something important," I say. My voice sounds calm, almost polite. "Could I just take it with me again?"

My eyes don't waver from her eyes until she licks her lips slowly.

Blue lips.

As if the last bit of warmth has drained out of them.

"Fair enough," she says, turning her body away from me. Instinct drags me after her, my shoulder lurching like a fish over a stormy sea. Pain blooms through the stump where my arm should be, raw as a fresh wound, hammering in time with my frantic pulse. I want to stop, to clutch it and scream in agony, but I can't. My legs move without my permission, my body locked off from my own will, a vessel I barely inhabit. I am not myself. I sweat. I breathe. I walk. I am alive, but I feel more corpse than man.

There's the coppery tang of blood on my tongue, cloying and sweet like cheap candy, iron and sugar and memory. The burned flesh in the air makes me think absurdly of childhood grills with Ren in summer, the way we'd laugh even as flames roared and blackened the meat. My stomach clenches at that memory, its warmth now a mockery in this place.

I stand there in the darkened room, behind her, watching as she retreats and leaves me alone, no flame created by paper enlightening the room, unlike at the entrance of Aston. The only light is from scattered candles, wavering orange, casting grotesque shadows on cracked walls. Their flames shudder as if they fear the dark more than I do.

Somewhere beyond these walls, I hear the boy screaming. His voice is high and ragged, cracking with fear. But he isn't the only one. There are other voices—older, younger, male, female—wailing in overlapping misery like a choir of the damned.

And I hate myself.

I hate that I don't go to help. That I can't. That even if I tried, my legs wouldn't carry me, or if they did, I'd just fall to my knees, bleeding from the stump of my arm. My hand curls and flexes uselessly in memory of a limb that isn't there.

Instead, I wander, my feet shuffling across the cracked floor, my hand ghosting over splintered tables and chairs, feeling their ruined textures. Shelves—regals, memories of Ren gurgle up, he used to say regals instead of shelves. I would slow down, take a moment for myself, if only rarely; however, my legs move on their own, my hands going through dust and leathered books. My heartbeat is so loud it drowns out the screams.

Then I see it.

A paper between books.

At first, it's just a smudge in the dim light, meaningless. But the candles burn brighter, the orange deepening to furious red. Shadows shrink. And I see what sits on that paper. My eyes widen.

It's a finger. Desiccated. Mummified. Bony and thin as truth itself.

My first instinct should be horror. Revulsion. Flight. To think that I look at something so trivial, while a boy screams in agony right next to me. I should turn, should fight, I should rescue the boy and get away.

But I don't.

I'm not myself. I am long lost.

I feel like a passenger in my skull, watching as my body bends to pick up the finger, as if I were in Aston's body, but with the difference that I am now inside my own body. My real body. My hand trembles. My lips part. Holding the mummified index finger inside my own and putting it reluctantly against my lips. I don't chew. I swallow it whole, the bone scraping my throat, lodging for an instant before sliding into my stomach with a nauseating thud.

I stand there in silence, my mouth dry, sweat soaking my collar.

"How long?"

Her voice drifts to me from the doorway, distant even though she's just outside. Maybe it's the angle, or the way her back is turned, but it feels like there are miles between us.

"How long?" She asks again.

But the words are fading even as they leave her tongue.

The candles burn higher, the flames rolling into spheres of molten red. My eyes go dark at the edges. My vision swims, no longer red but black, thick as tar. My body is no longer mine.

I feel disconnected like a blade separating soul from flesh.

Again.

I'm trapped in the void I'd barely escaped before.

…

The void devours me. My soul screams, but there is no sound.

This time, the blackness doesn't last as long. Colors, impossible to name, surge into view. My vision turns to madness. I stand on a vast plain, the ground painted in hues that should not exist. Light burns from every direction, but I don't shield my eyes. I can't.

I'm not in control.

When was I ever?

I'm the core of something else, something I hate. But the skin around me is horribly familiar. It is I. Or was.

I walk.

Bare feet splash into thick, metallic water. I don't look down. I don't dare.

Instead, I embrace the light, let it burn away thought. It's blood. Not my own. I'd expect it to be red, to match my weak, human-like blood. But it isn't.

It's gold. I have not seen a color like this. I only know of three in person, but I must admit that this blood, if one still can call it that, looks more valuable than any other.

Liquid wealth, shimmering with promise. But all are the same, if not being red in color, one is my enemy, the enemy who killed my brother, my family.

I wade deeper, my body naked and gleaming with this false luxury, coated in someone else's death. All around me, corpses float, their skin broken, their mouths agape in silent horror. This body—I—no this body feels hatred. An anger so deep that even if I were not inside his body, I would be able to see it in his eyes from miles away.

Something stirs ahead of me. A silhouette in the blood, the golden blood.

A woman she's lying there. Surrounded by her dead.

Her face is eyeless, empty sockets staring into me, seeing everything. I know her. I hate her. I pity her. Maybe she's every victim I couldn't save. Maybe she's Ren. Maybe she's me.

The sun above burns icy. A pale light that freezes my bones even as it sears my skin.

"Sebastian!"

The voice is raw, howling.

I turn.

My mouth twists into a smile I don't control. I taste bile.

He's running at me, a man of gold, literally—his skin, hair, eyes all shades of gilded malice. Like a statue come to life, roaring in fury.

My smile widens until it splits something inside me. I begin to laugh.

"Apollo," I say, the name of the golden man sprinting at me with a speed unimaginable to the thought of any mortal being, but somehow, I—this body reacts.

My eyes squeeze shut with the force of it, and the world tears apart.

I'm falling.

My chest feels like it's been cored out with a rusty hook. The air dries to dust in my lungs, and I'm dragged away—no, pulled—by a force that doesn't care if I break. I want to scream for Ren, for myself, for mercy.

But there's none to be had. And then—I'm back. The room. The shelf. The paper where the mummified index finger lay in between the books.

The finger I swallowed is gone, but its taste lingers, foul and oily in my mouth. The candles gutter, their flames exploding outward in one last act of defiance before they die, plunging everything into absolute darkness. I open my eyes. They hurt as badly as my ruined shoulder, and subsequently, I vomit.

The splash is wet and solid, hitting my boots and the floor with a sickening slap. The smell is worse than anything—sweet rot and bile. I try to spit it out, but something wriggles.

Maggots. One, two, squirming on my tongue, my inner cheeks, and on the ground.

I gag and claw at my mouth with my sleeve, only to remember too late that my right arm is gone. My shoulder bumps uselessly against my upper chest, fabric folding over emptiness.

My breathing is ragged, wheezing. I can feel my body again. It's mine, and it's disgusting.

My legs buckle. My chin smashes into the table's edge to my left. My face lands in the puddle of my vomit. I taste it, try to moan, but only retch harder.

I fight to rise. With only one arm, it's nearly impossible. My right would have been my strong side. It's gone. Just like Ren. Watering eyes build up, but I crowd them out. There is no place for grief.

I finally manage it, staggering upright. My body sways. Sweat blinds me, and a shadow looms on the wall, huge and moving.

"I guess I had too many drinks…" I mutter, my voice cracking. The lie tastes worse than the vomit, but it's all I have.

I keep my gaze low. I don't want her to see my eyes, to see the terror or the truth or the tears threatening to spill for my brother, for myself.

She watches.

Then, finally, she turns away.

Her silhouette is long and graceful against the wall, made monstrous by the flickering shadows.

"You can stay," she says, voice cold, in a matter-of-fact tone. "But if you want to leave, nobody's going to stop the three of you."

As she retreats into the dwindling light, I lower my head, listening to the boy's fading screams. The boy. The thought bites deep. I don't run. I move quickly, forcing my ruined body to keep pace.

Cham and Gene sit in the corner near the blue flames, sweat soaking through their clothes, shadows dancing on their gaunt faces. I see them and feel the heat of urgency in my chest. We need to go. We can't fight all of them. Not even a quarter. Not like this, not with me in this pathetic wreck of a body. I shouldn't have come here at all.

My eyes drift to the evening's attraction. The old man lies dead on the floor, his neck twisted at an impossible angle, two fat flies lazily circling his slack-jawed head. But the boy is gone. Even so, the screaming hasn't stopped.

"Where is the boy?" I ask. My voice emerges wrong, not the cold blues tone I aim for. The woman behind the counter doesn't bother to turn fully. Her hair falls over one icy eye, her expression dull as tarnished silver. She glances at me sideways.

"He was bought by a single customer, and not by the whole party. Paid a fair price."

That answer scalds me, but I swallow it. I turn away, my gaze sweeping over Gene, lingering on the tense set of Cham's shoulders. Gene knows this look in my eyes. It's the mirror of his own. Fury. Madness. The bloody inheritance neither of us asked for. He rises immediately. Cham follows seconds later, slower, reluctant, but loyal.

We leave without another word. Outside, the golden fog of moonlight swallows us. The houses grow taller, sharper, as if they lean in to listen. The streets seem to narrow with every step, and I feel watched. Not in the simple way of curious onlookers, but as if some vast hand controls my strings, turning me into a marionette forced to dance in someone else's cruel little play.

…

Ravens scatter from the rooftops as our boots hammer the cobbles, echoing in these constricted alleys. Cham is the slowest, his breathing ragged, but Gene holds back too, staying just behind me despite how easily he could sprint ahead. I hate the weakness in my legs in my whole body. My entire body feels infected with fever, sluggish, and hot. Running with only one arm feels grotesque. My balance is ruined, every step tipping me slightly to the right.

But it doesn't take long, only half a minute at most, and we see the blue ahead of us, the one who took the boy. He's fat—his stomach looks like it's fighting to break free of his belt, sweat darkening his shirt. We slow, waiting for the right moment, stalking him through the murky light.

Then he drags the boy into an alley. The boy whimpers as the man forces him down, fingers raking through greasy, receding hair.

"We're gonna have some fun, boyo," he says with a grin, showing teeth like cracked porcelain.

That grin doesn't last. Gene crashes into him from the side, smashing the fat man's skull against the bricks. There's a wet crack. No hesitation—Gene kicks him in the face so hard his nose implodes.

I stay at the mouth of the alley, watching for witnesses. My stump pulses with pain in time with my racing heart. I taste blood, though it's not mine, the memory of it filling my mouth. Sweetness and copper. I can feel the blue's blood. Hear it. It calls to me, pulsing wet and bright from his shattered nose, the side of his split scalp. I want it.

I want it so badly.

But I force myself to keep looking out, teeth grinding.

Gene doesn't stop. He smashes the blue against the wall again and again. The bricks tremble. Cham holds the half-naked boy, whispering something, helping him stay on his feet. But Gene fights like a demon unleashed. There's no strategy, no finesse—just raw, animal violence.

And we all know. Even the raven perched on a gutter above us knows.

The blue is dead.

It takes Gene over thirty heartbeats to realize it. Even then, he doesn't stop immediately. His fists keep rising and falling, pounding the man's face into a pulp the color and consistency of mashed blueberries. Blood oozes from between his fingers, thick and glistening, almost beautiful. My vision swims red. My own eyes glow. So do Cham's.

I want to drink it.

But I don't.

I watch Gene's brow furrow, watch his breath rasp like a broken bellows. His mouth is twisted in something like a grin, but I know that expression. I've seen it on my face. It's not joy. It's the death of joy. It's the grin of someone who's lost everything.

Ren's face burns in my memory, pale and bloodied, eyes staring through me.

I let my madness recede, forcing the glow in my eyes to dull back to a mild blue—a lie, a disguise over the rage snarling in my guts.

We leave the corpse where it fell, cooling in the gutter, shadows swallowing what's left of it. I step up to Gene and pat his shoulder. He flinches but doesn't shrug me off. I glance past him at the boy in Cham's arms. He's crying, soft and broken. Cham holds him carefully, murmuring quiet comforts in a voice gone hoarse.

One heartbeat. One breath. One step forward.

Then I hear it. That croaking voice. Something only I can hear.

"Golden Reaper."

I whip my head around. The others keep moving, oblivious. My pulse spikes.

"Golden Reaper!"

This time it's a scream in my skull. Then—silence. I stand frozen, thinking about the visions. About the way I've found myself inside other people, forced to see through their eyes, walk paths I'd never choose. Forced to say things I didn't know. Thinking about things that weren't mine.

Who am I? Why did I eat that finger? What was that place I saw, awash in impossible colors and blood like molten gold?

Sebastian. Me? Golden Reaper. Me? Why was I Aston and not dead after the attack of the green-blooded? What did I do to deserve this?

My arm throbs like a living thing. I flex the stump uselessly, watching Cham and Gene lead the boy ahead of me. My steps fall in behind them automatically, like a ghost tethered to the living, unseen and unacknowledged.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.