Back when I was a kid I had no friends... Sitting on a tree avoiding the unwelcoming gazes of the kids I was scared of being hurt.
There I heard a voice "You're alone again Auto?" The shining bright ray of light which illuminated my world floated right beside me.
A girl whose face is covered by a hazy fog along with her hands and part of her waist.
She was my one and only friend, my imaginary friend, my Aira.
But only not that she's gone I understand her significance.
I stood up from the mountains of rotting corpses, they seemed to have died from the acid, no, if they're rotting it's probably been days.
My clothes were all torn up so I stole some clothes from the village chief's grand children, not like they have anything to worry now that they're fucking dead.
I decided to go to my shed to reclaim my items, it is my home after all. The ground was squishy, it probably rained or it's just the soil rotting from all the damage.
But I stepped on a ledge on my way to the shed and face planted myself on the mud, I stood myself back up but I could help but remember a scene from my memories. "Hey Auto you fell over let me help you." She reached out her hand to me, but like the phantasm that she is, the once "imaginary friend" I thought. Her hand was intangible so I just stumbled on the ground again.
But it was the thought that counts so I was still happy even with a bleeding nose. I stood my sorry ass up and took a long stare at my shed. It was all burnt down from the fire, that's my fault
For whatever reason I felt melancholic, the damp air was making it hard to breathe and I felt a looming sorrow wash over me. I decided to enter through the front door despite the need of entering through doors not being available since again the house is burned down.
As I opened the door, the door frame along with the doors itself just fell on the ground. Expected, but I know... I know deep down I'm just distracting myself... Distracting myself from the fact that this reminds me of how Aira used to greet me whenever I returned home.
"Hey Auto welcome home! Sadly I can't cook for you but I did try, they just keep floating though and I can't seem to keep them in place!" She never failed to make me smile with her antics, I felt at home with her after all I had no family to go back home to, no one to greet me and yet she's there, no relatives, no friends, but her.
Down from picking up my cauldron I still vividly remember hearing her say "Hey I can help you with that!" Into which I decline knowing that she was intangible and she'd just drop it on the floor. Now I realize she was basically family to me... I feel like a monster...
No... I am a monster... The shattered mirror says it all...
But memories began flooding me.
"Hey Auto!" "Hey Auto come here!"
Huh what? Okay!
"Auto if only I was real."
Yes if only you were real.
"I hate you Auto." Maybe you should die"
What? Is this what Aira really meant? Did she really say this...?
"You're a monster"
Yes... Maybe I am a monster after all.
"You're hideous and ugly."
You're right, you're always right I am ugly.
"I'll never see you as a monster Auto."
What...? Why does this feel familiar... It's not sad but it's also not happy, I feel guilty.
It was never your fault Aira... I under stand now... This is what you meant to say. You would never say anything me to me, I'm sorry for thinking of you as a bad person.
I am ugly, I am stupid. And I relied on you too much, I'm pathetic aren't I Aira?
Auto kneeled on the table and began whimpering softly, the whimpering turned into sobbing, the sobbing turned into crying, and the crying turned into grieving.
He shouted on the top of his lungs as the forest and mountains rumbled from his scream, filled with sorrow he remembers the one last farewell he said to her and the worst goodbye. A goodbye with a dagger to threaten her life.
He wiped his tears but and crawled over to a small box, there he decided to keep two strings, a blue string, and a red string. There string were especially valuable to him because.
"These are the first and only two tangible objects Aira ever held." Auto felt remorseful for himself holding the two strings, he decided to value it with his life.
he took a knife and cut himself on the wrist, poured the blood on the two strings and now the two strings are connected to his life. If these two strings were to be cut his life would be cut short.
"These now mean everything to me." He said to himself and stored it in the box for safe keeping and buried in the mud, ready to die in any moment.
He finished packing his stuff when he stared blankly to the horizon and suddenly a gun was pointed to his head.
"I suppose you're the village's murderer? I thought the guilty culprits would already run away by now and cover their tracks, but you're just being obvious as ever." A man with a sheriff hat and badge told him with a smug face.
"Can't you see I'm grieving here? Fuck off."
Potion disperse
Auto threw fire and poison potions momentarily disabling the sheriff, immediately he consumed a speed potion and body reinforcement in a quick second, followed up with a punch in the face and a tackle to the ground.
He pinned the sheriff down throwing 26 punches in 3 seconds leaving the sheriff's jaw crushed and his skull shattered.
But the sheriff's job was not over, he used the skill Sheriff's duel to keep himself conscious for a little more time, the sheriff shot 3 shots with his gun and caught Auto off guard, grazing his ear a little but not enough to make him flinch.
Without a second to waste Auto disarmed the man, dislocated his elbow and snapped his neck. Completely getting rid of him for good.
But the peace was not to be celebrated as the rest of the search party arrived at the scene to see a dead sheriff with a hanging jaw on the ground, with clear hesitation they drew their guns in fear.
Auto saw this and took his chance he used potion disperse and eliminated them with fire, he took out all 12 guards in quick succession and felt a danger approaching his head, a sniper was aiming right for him and with his quick reflexes he dodged it in time.
"That was a close one, I entered a flow state there for a sec." He said mid air and dispersed another set of potions, this time on a wide-scale area burning the entire section of the forest the sniper was in in just 2 fire potions.
The sniper was unable to run the 200 meters the fire covered and by 3 minutes was completely engulfed in flames, Auto didn't know if there were still snipers left and he still wasn't confident if the fire killed the sniper or not.
"This is making me feel paranoid, I guess I was lucky I had a speed potion on, I should probably keep the effect on for the remaining time just in case." He noted to himself.
After packing up some clothes he decided to finally embark on his adventure, leaving behind the very home he had lived in for a majority of his life.
"I'll miss this place... No I'll miss Aira... After all, she's the only part of this that I was happy to have."
With a dragon's flame potion he said his goodbyes to the village that never welcomed him, the towns erupted in flames cremating every single body there, you could think of it as a clean-up.
Auto decided not to look back, as the experiences he had weren't very pleasant.
"I guess it's goodbye now, now that I'm leaving my first goal is to find a purpose in life... I guess that will be hard won't it?" He chuckled sadly into the sunset ablaze.