Chương 4: ...The Ghost of you.
(Distinct voice 1): "A worthless scum like you shouldn't be allowed to exist!"
(Distinct voice 2): "I WILL KILL YOU!!!"
(Distinct voice 3): "You always knew I'm nothing more than a monster."
(Distinct voice 4): "Would you…"
***
"I have done many things that I'm not proud of and this is one of them…"
The sun was rising from the horizon, the light fell on the birds sleeping on the rooftops and woke them up. Unfortunately the sunlight didn't reach Scorch and Alissia's faces because the buildings around them were blocking it.
Scorch opened his eyes, realizing that a new day was upon them, he scratched his head and stretched his back, due to the uncomfortable ground he was sleeping on, then he woke up his sister.
Scorch: "Hey, sis… Alissia, wake up!"
Alissia: "(yawn) So it was just a bad dream?" - Alissia gently scratched her eyes.
Scorch: "What? What was your dream about?"
Alissia: "Nothing, it's not important…"
Scorch: "If you say so, c'mon let's go steal some more stuff, if we do well today we might be able to afford a room in the inn!"
Alissia: "Don't you think you are getting a bit too greedy?"
Scorch: "(sigh) I'm doing this because I want us to live in a nice place, with food on the table, in a place where we actually matter… I want to fulfill our dreams, but we can't do that if we are dead."
Alissia: "Fine, but we need to find a new way to make money, a job where we don't steal from people!"
Scorch: "I'm sure one day we will!"
The kids proceed to spend their entire day pickpocketing the nobles around the city. Scorch was happy, his pockets were full with stolen money and jewelry, he had a big smile on his face as they were walking towards the inn. However, Alissia was furious with her brother, his goal was to gather enough money to afford a room in the inn, but he stole way more money than he was supposed to.
Scorch: "150… 200… 250… we have 300R! We can even afford that room for two nights, if we want to!"
Alissia was too tired to yell at him again, so she decided to remain silent for the time being, but something in the back of her head was telling her that Scorch didn't have enough stealing for today.
As they were making their way through the market, Scorch noticed a beautiful young woman with a child. The child had long white hair, crimson red eyes, was wearing all white and around the same age as Scorch and Alissia. The woman however had long, black, wavy hair, not older than twenty, violet eyes, dressed in a black kimono with short sleeves, and had a bag full of coins strapped to her waist.
Scorch: "Hey, mind if you carry the money for me, I've been carrying them all day ya know?"
Alissia: "Sure…" - she said in annoyance.
Alissia kept walking ahead of him, she was so focused on her nightmare that she didn't even notice that Scorch wasn't walking behind her anymore, as if he just vanished. She turned around and saw her brother carrying a bag of cash, coming from the direction of that woman.
Alissia: "Are you kidding me!"
Scorch: "What?"
Alissia: "You took that money from that woman over there, didn't you?!"
Scorch: "So what? It's not like we didn't steal from other people today, taking from just one other person wouldn't make a difference."
Alissia: "She has a child with her!"
Scorch's expression changed, his eyes narrowed down and for a moment they looked as if they were reflecting the light coming from the setting sun in bright green. He placed his hands in his pockets and said in a deep cold voice.
Scorch: "Quit pretending to be my mother, you know better than everyone that you can never replace her."
He tried to move forward, but she grabbed him by the shoulder, while looking towards the ground she was on the edge of crying, but yet she spoke with a smile on her face.
Alissia: "But I'm your sister and… And I care about you. Where are you?"
Scorch: "What are you talking about?!"
Alissia: "He has always been someone I've looked up to, someone who always knew how to cheer me up. Like this one time when my father burned my favorite book, my brother stayed up all night and wrote the entire book from scratch because he knew how much I cried, and in the end… He made it even better! But these days I can barely recognize him, there's this dark cloud above his head and greed in his eyes. So I'm going to ask you again…" Alissia grit her teeth as hard as possible, she couldn't hold her tears anymore and just screamed from the top of her lungs "...WHERE IS MY BROTHER?!!! WHERE IS HE?!"
Alissia screamed her heart out, she didn't care that the whole city could hear her rage. The people around them were frozen, with a shock on his face Scorch looked at her tears, without saying a word, he just stared at her broken face. She then grabbed his hand and began dragging him to the alley they had spent the last night on.
Scorch: "...Where are we going?" - he said, while still in shock.
Alissia: "We are going back to that alley again! And tomorrow we are going to return everything we have stolen!"
"I've never seen her this angry before, at that moment I didn't know what to say, I was looking at her and I couldn't see my sister. Is this what the street does to you, or is it just us, who feel like this?"
Some time passed, the sun was already hiding behind the horizon and they made it to the alley, they turned around the corner and instead of only seeing the old pile of hay, they saw the same woman with black hair and violet eyes sitting on top of it, alone.
???: "Well it looks like the two troublemakers decided to come home…" - she spoke in a laid-back, calm voice with little to no emotion behind her words.
Alissia: "You are that woman from the market!"
???: "Please, call me Charlotte. And I believe you have something for me…"
The woman snapped her fingers and the money bag levitated back towards her hand in an instant.
Scorch: "You- You are a mage!"
Charlotte: "And you are that little brat that stole my money. But to be honest I was quite impressed by your speed, I couldn't even see you coming. You have talent, kid, use it for something good and just for that reason only I'm not going to kill you." She slowly turned against the wall "But… (snap)!"
Scorch felt an immeasurable pain in his left leg, he fell on the ground, screaming from the agony, Charlotte dislocated his leg with just one snap of her fingers.
Charlotte: "...A dog that misbehaves must be punished, so that It won't be so ignorant next time it meets his superiors."
Charlotte kicked him in the face with her boots and blood from his mouth splattered on them. Scorch looked absolutely lifeless as the blood spread across his face.
Charlotte: "Looks like I got some blood on my shoes, you think you can clean them up for me?"
Scorch: "..."
Charlotte: "Hey I'm talking to you!" - she kicked him in the face one more time.
Alissia: "Leave Scorch alone!"
Charlotte: "So your name is Scorch? Interesting name, I will definitely remember it…"
Alissia pulled a knife out of her shoe, which she kept hidden ever since they left Kenji's house, she was about to stab Charlotte in the neck with it, but in that moment a giant celestial butterfly appeared and blocked her attack.
Alissia grunted with annoyance, Charlotte turned towards her and so did the butterfly, it had two beautiful wings colored in black and purple and six legs as sharp as knives.
Charlotte: "Coming at me with so much aggression, it doesn't really fit a young lady such as yourself to behave like this…"
Alissia: "SHUT UP!"
Charlotte: "How amusing…"
The butterfly extended and launched its legs towards Alissia, but she swiftly avoided five of them by jumping from right to left every time they were about to hit her and on the sixth strike she jumped in the air, as the leg of the butterfly was stuck in the ground, she used it as a bridge to sprint towards Charlotte and slice her through the chest with her knife.
Alissia: "I did it!" - or so she thought.
The slice wasn't deep enough to deal any real damage since she didn't have proper training and only used the knife to defend herself once before against her father.
As Alissia was vulnerable in the air, Charlotte used that opportunity to stab her through the chest with the legs of her butterfly.
Charlotte: "I wasn't going to kill you… but since you attacked me I had no other option but to defend myself. I'm sure the cops wouldn't care about two homeless kids. A worthless scum like you shouldn't be allowed to exist!"
Scorch watched from the ground as the life of his sister was slowly fading away, the blood dropped on the ground and Charlotte smiled in the distance.
"This… can't be… happening! This is a dream! No, she can't be dead, this isn't real! My leg hurts so much and I'm losing a lot of blood… but I still need to protect her, I have to get up! Get up! GET UP!"
Just for a single moment Scorch felt like he was in an entirely different place, a place that didn't feel real, a place where he was swimming in an ocean full of blood and the sun was dead.
"GET UP!!! I SAID GET UP!!!"
Scorch's whole body began to smoke, his leg was still dislocated, but he put it back into place with his bare hands, he slowly raised from the ground without using his arms and looked at Charlotte with his bloodthirsty eyes, as the blood kept dripping down from his mouth and forehead.
Charlotte: "You still have the strength to walk, this is impossible?!"
Charlotte suddenly felt a huge emptiness in her chest, she looked towards Scorch only to find him holding her heart in his bloodied hand, with a terrifying grin which spread from ear to ear.
Charlotte: "How could this happen? Who is he? WHAT is he?!" - she slowly fell on the ground as her breath escaped her damaged lungs.
Scorch: "A worthless scum like you shouldn't be allowed to exist…"
His eyes returned back to the green color they had before, he was finally able to take a deep breath, knowing it was all over.
Scorch: "ALISSIA!"
He placed her head on his lap while holding her hand, she looked at his eyes and said quietly.
Alissia: "Did you win?"
Scorch: "I did…" - his eyes filled with tears. "Please… PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!"
Alissia: "Listen, brother… In this life you are going to face a lot of enemies, some of them may not show themselves to you, some may try to kill you and some may try to lie to you, and I can't stand watching you suffer like this, but whenever you face a problem like this I need you to smile! Smile because you have that which I already lost, smile because you are able to breathe, smile because you are able to see the flowers, the trees, the sun and the moon! Don't worry about me, my job here is done, I'm nothing more than a button that starts this never ending chain of events, but I know that you will be able to change this twisted world, I have seen it…" - her breath faded away.
Scorch: "Alissia… Alissia? ALISSIAAAAAAAA!!!!"
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