A week had gone by, and she hadn't received any word from Mark or Cassian. Now, she wished she had taken their contact numbers.
She couldn't grasp why Cassian hadn't paid her a visit when he had promised her he would introduce her to her biological parents.
Was he toying with her?
No, he wasn't.
She was probably overthinking. He might be busy, probably on a business trip, and didn't have time to get back to her, or else why would he give her expensive shoes and a winter coat?
Cixi kept convincing herself not to feel anxious.
Each night, her curse forced her to confront the individuals who were being killed right before her eyes. In their final moments, she comforted them with a hug, soothing words, or, sometimes, songs, honouring their last wishes as they took their last breaths. And during those days, Cixi never once encountered the Grim Reaper, who had cursed her.
Two weeks had gone by since then, and Cixi's hope began to fade. She received no answer from the Reaper, nor any word about Cassian reached her ears.
She decided to move on and start searching for a job. However, she never found the courage to attend the college due to her fear of Silvia and her group.
Just as on many previous nights, she read Melisha a bedtime story. When the girl finally drifted into sleep, Cixi remained awake on her warm mattress, watching the clock on the wall.
When the clock struck ten, the familiar pull returned. Her soul slipped away from her body, hovering above the room. Below her lay Melisha's sleeping form… and her own unconscious body resting on the mattress.
The invisible force dragged her away to a different city in a blur.
Moments later, she found herself inside an abandoned building.
Gunshots echoed loudly through the empty halls. No sign of civilisation stood nearby. The whole premises looked deserted.
And to her shock, for the first time, she saw many Reapers floating around the building, waiting silently to collect the souls of the dead.
Another gunshot rang out. And Cixi turned to her left and found a Reaper standing nearby. The Reaper felt familiar. Her aura felt familiar. Cixi recognised her. It was the one Cixi had been looking for. The one who cursed her.
Before she could utter a word, a man staggered towards her when the bullet struck him in the chest. Blood spilled from his mouth, and he collapsed lifelessly onto the floor.
Another body fell moments later. And after observing the situation more closely, it looked like two rival gangs had begun a violent confrontation.
Cixi shut her eyes briefly, unwilling to watch more bloodshed.
Was one death not enough that she was pulled to witness the massacre?
She didn't want to endure a life filled with one nightmare after another. Witnessing so many gruesome murders, Cixi sometimes found herself afraid to step out of the apartment. This couldn't continue. She needed to speak with the Grim Reaper. There should be a way out of her cursed life.
Instead of focusing on the killing, she turned to the one who stood closer by. "Are you the one who cursed me?" she asked, wanting to be certain she was speaking to the right reaper.
But the Reaper ignored her and continued its task of gathering souls.
Cixi drifted silently beside it, waiting for an answer. When she received no response, Cixi tried again. "You cannot leave me hanging in the middle of nowhere without answering me." She exclaimed. "I have the right to know why I am witnessing dreadful events and how they are connected to my immortality."
The Reaper finally turned to face her, its eyes gleaming red under the hood. "Any other soul would be dancing and celebrating for receiving immortality without doing any penance," the Reaper said with clear disappointment. "Yet here you are, complaining about it!" The Reaper shook its head, and with the motion, the hood shifted slightly.
Today, Cixi was not just going to float around and accept no for an answer, especially when this particular Reaper looked down at her. "If you had to witness death every night, would you still celebrate immortality?" Cixi retorted, only to receive a silent, cold stare in return.
Seconds stretched, and only then did it dawn on Cixi that these beings dealt with death every moment of their existence, whether day or night.
So did that make her some sort of Human Grim Reaper?
She mentally slapped her head and pushed the thought aside. She had another important question to resolve. So she reframed her words. "You gave it to me as a curse, not a blessing. So how can you expect me to accept it? And it came with the worst consequences, for example, witnessing death every night — like this. Who wants that?"
"I see you have learned nothing, Cixi," the Reaper said calmly, turning its attention back toward the building below.
"Why are you turning away from me?" Cixi complained, fearing she wouldn't find a solution to free herself from this cursed life. "Why me?!" she almost shouted. "Why not someone else?"
The wind passed through the night, yet it did not touch either of them.
To ease Cixi's worried heart, the Reaper finally answered. "Because your name is Cixi."
Cixi blinked in confusion at first, then scowled as she repeated the sentence in her head.
Because of her name?
Did the Reaper dislike her name?
But she liked her name.
What was wrong with her name?!
Before she could throw another question, an invisible force pulled her away, and in an instant, she appeared on a terrace.
The sound of the gunshot had vanished, replaced by an eerie silence.
She looked toward the distant skyline where the bell tower rose above the city — the tallest tower in Demond City. She was back in her city.
She searched frantically for the Grim Reaper she was talking to before, and not only was her curser not there, but no other Reaper was present where she was.
Before she could make sense of what had just happened, she heard two gunshots ring out, and her soul was yanked violently to another side of the terrace, separated by a narrow staircase under a roof that led downwards.
A young man, probably about her age, lay lifeless on the ground, facing the sky, surrounded by a pool of his own blood.
The masked shooter fired his final shot at the head of the already dead young man and then laughed — a sinister laugh that sent chills all over her soul, imprinting itself in Cixi's mind.
Then something else caught her attention — a throaty laugh. She heard a throaty, familiar chuckle that almost made her soul freeze.
She carefully turned and, to her horror, not far from the young man's body, slumped against the wall in the corner, sat Cassian, drenched in blood.
Cassian, the person she had been waiting for for two weeks, was finally in front of her — but not in the way she had expected. He was soaked in blood, and someone had stabbed him with a sword from behind.
She gasped and floated toward him instinctively, like iron to a magnet. He was losing an alarming amount of blood, yet he was smiling. She tried to touch him. She tried to speak to him. But he could neither hear nor see her.
"Cassian!! Do something," She feared for his life. "Are you not the devil you arrogantly flaunt in front of me?" Cixi yelled desperately, hoping to provoke him into action. But seeing Cassian not moving or taking any action, she screamed in agony. Every night, this is how she felt — powerless — to stop the murderers from killing the innocent. Though Cassian was far from innocent himself, that didn't mean he deserved to die.
"Help! Someone help!" she cried desperately, and just like any night, no one heard her voice until the soul took its last few breaths.
Her eyes searched for a Grim Reaper nearby to ask for help, but she found none. Helplessly, she watched Cassian bleed, tears rolling down her face. "Cassian, please do something. You can't die. You promised me you would take me to my parents!" Her tearful scoldings only heightened her raw emotions, revealing the depth of her desperation. "If you break that promise, I swear I will haunt you in the afterlife," Cixi warned him. But he heard nothing.
"Make sure I am dead, Bastard," Cassian told the masked man standing before him with chilling calm, as though the situation bored him. "Because if I survive today, I will come for you, your family, and every member of your organisation and everyone you are connected to until no one is left to carry forward or remember the name of the family you came from."
Cixi stared at him in disbelief. Instead of trying to save himself, he was provoking the killer.
This man was completely insane.
Cassian slipped his blood-stained hand into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, placing it between his lips. With slow, steady movements, he flicked open his lighter and lit the cigarette, drawing a long breath of smoke as though he sat peacefully in a cafe rather than on a rooftop soaked in blood.
"Don't shoot him," Cixi pleaded while staring at the masked gunman, her voice breaking as desperation took hold of her. "You will be punished after death… learn from me. Hell is real, and it is waiting for you if you keep killing people like this... Just stop… please don't do this," she begged. "Don't kill Cassian. Please… I am begging you… don't kill him." She kept pleading, her words tumbling over each other in panic, yet her voice reached no one but the empty night.
The shooter pulled the trigger, and the bullet struck Cassian's chest next to the blade, forcing Cixi to drop to her knees beside him. She watched another wave of blood spread across his shirt.
"Are you also unlucky like me?" she whispered, pitiably staring at Cassian. "This is the second time someone tried to kill you… Or is it me who brings bad luck?"