The faint drizzle of rain scorched through the dark night, illuminated with freezing air that engulfed the area, in a state of panic making it almost sterile for humans.
No sign of live beings in this area; likey because this is the third district, abandoned years ago due to the constant inversion of the Cursed.
The district is lined up with abandoned houses that are decades old, not fitting for humans.
Yet in this harsh old weather, Arthur was lying on the floor, in the shadow of the night. His hand was stripped to his side, nothing holding him down, just his barely arm glued to his side as if he was bound by some invisible force. He struggled to free them from whatever was holding him; but he couldn't, because it wasn't ordinary.
SNAP!!
His bone cracked, making him groan in pain.
Of course, he couldn't just break free from it with just sheer will and strength. The binding magic was the spell of an awakened.
He knew it, but he didn't just want to accept it.
He gasped, his breath coming in hushed air.
He looked…sick. His hair was matted with dry, grey dust, and his clothes were torn rags barely clinging to his battered frame. Blood streamed freely from his eyes, his pale face telling the constant abuse.
With an apathetic sigh, he thought: 'So this is the end, huh?' Finally accepting his plight as he couldn't escape it.
Because that was the truth; he wasn't powerful enough to break it—the spell.
Well, what led him here? He didn't know.
Just that he was in a regular comic shop buying a manga for his sister, Kylie. During his adventure, he felt someone following him in the shadows, though his instinct had screamed "RUN!!"
But he thought it was just normal since he wasn't the only one who loved manga. Well, that was until he was winded from the back, and the next second he was
blind, drugged, and then SWOOSH!!
Here. It all happened in a flash.
He didn't even know who had kidnapped him.
Meanwhile, on the other side, leaned against the wall of a building puffing a smoke into the cold air, stood a girl in a black hoodie, hand on her pocket, the other holding her slim stick, giving her a devilish posture. Her hair dyed in rainbow colours was visible beneath the hoodie, as her hoodie covered the rest from view, her eyes— also hidden beneath the hoodie coverage.
Arthur hadn't seen this strange girl the whole time, probably from his blind eye or overthinking. Well, after the last draw of the cigarettes, she flicked it to the ground, didn't even bother stepping on it, and puffed the smoke into the air.
Then she moved for the first time towards Arthur, who flinched at the sound of footsteps approaching him.
THUD! THUD! It sounded until it reached him, then it stopped.
'The kidnapper?' he wondered. He struggled to roll on his back so he could stare at the person, but as he struggled, he felt pain, so he stayed still.
Then she spoke, "I think you would have learned after the first try that you can't exactly move with that binding spell Arthur." Her voice was as smooth as silk.
Arthur's breath arched. "You know me?" he asked, but the girl just stared at him.
Perhaps that is the wrong question.
"Who are you?"
She smirked, but her response was short " It doesn't matter anymore, trash! since your fate is sealed."
Arthur pondered her words. Her response was short but he could only pick one clue.
"Trash!"
Only those who knew him call him that, Someone from the guilds, or his supposed colleagues or maybe his benefactor, just who could she be among them?
Before he could ask a question, the girl clenched her fist, a stream of pain surged through Arthur's body, jolting his sleeping body alive as it washed down his chest down to his legs, his head not speared, he groaned and cried.
Then she released it. The pain stopped, sweat trickled down his forehead as cold engulfed him again, replacing the pain.
The girl looked at him with a mixed expression. "I don't want to do this, Arthur, but it's best you don't ask anything beyond what I have told you. Expect you want me to squish your body so tight that you burst your inner organs and split everywhere," she threatened.
"Cough!!" Arthur trembled. He frantically nodded weakly; he wasn't going to ask questions, but something in him told him that she was someone he knew, and she didn't want him to find out or suspect by asking questions. That was why she tortured him before asking.
When she saw that he didn't plan to ask further questions, she took it upon herself to talk; "Soon the executioner will be here, and will decide your fate, till then. I want you to stay like that and don't move an inch even if a meteor was to fall, you shouldn't stir…"
Her silence completed her sentences.
"Understood?" she said.
Arthur nodded.
"Good," she spat. "Just stay, like a good old trash!"
Arthur nodded, but deep inside his thoughts were forming together: not how to escape because it was impossible but it was about the executioner she mentioned.
'So she isn't the one that is going to kill me, that means that she was sent by him or her, but what does the executioner want with me, why not kidnap me himself?' his thoughts rained, but he tends to forget that the strong pulls strings in this world.
Still, he kept all his thoughts to himself, steering clear of Grumpy (what he named her) and her threats.
After all, he didn't want his body to be found in pieces.
The girl on the other hand, who Arthur had secretly named Grumpy, checked her watch, seeing the time displeased her.
'If this keeps going, it's going to get dangerous,' she thought, looking over her shoulder at any threats, like the Cursed or dungeon opening anytime soon, since they tend to appear here more than in normal districts.
But there weren't any. So she relaxed and stood quietly for a few minutes, before deciding to kick Arthur, who was laying still on the ground.
"Do not sleep!" She yelled.
'But I am not, it's just the blood blocking my vision' Arthur screamed inwardly through his groan, not daring to talk.
But deeply that wasn't why Grumpy had kicked him. She didn't want to be the only one standing in the cold, why he laid there, in her perspective Arthur is more comfortable than she was. That's why she decided to make him feel the pain of standing.
Just then something shifted. It sent a warm shiver through the surrounding air as if something was coming. Grumpy looked at the space behind her, then the air itself slashed as a man appeared there, in a long coat. His back was hunched a little, but he was still muscular like he had been gyming for years. He had white hair that was parked in a samurai ponytail, a white beard that was neatly trimmed, and white eyes that felt lifeless.
He took a slow, rhythmic step towards Grumpy and Arthur.
The girl bowed immediately, recognizing the man. "Welcome, sir!"
The man, with a precise step, stopped, placed his hand on her shoulder affectionately, then smiled.
Arthur, who had also sensed his arrival, jerked his head to the side. Then, as if the man saw him do that, and in the current state he is, he laughed. A loud, hysterical laugh that seemed to vibrate through the darkness.
Then, in a loud, brass voice, he spoke: "I see my girl has done something remarkable to you," his tone content and proud.
"Girl?" Arthur twitched.
"Yeah, at least some of us have children to be proud of," he added.
Grumpy is his daughter; so that means that this man, this executioner knew him also!?
"So you practically know me, if I may say?" Arthur said, knowing that Grumpy wouldn't do anything to him now.
The Executioner beamed. "Yeah, I know you, more than you know yourself, since, let's say, when you were born?"
Arthur gritted his teeth. "Why now of all time do you plan to come after me" he had asked that question because he was smart enough to know that he would try to conceal his identity no matter how much he asked. "or are you also after my share? Sadly, to break it to you, I am poor." he added.
The executioner smiled. "I am not after your parents' money. I have tons; I came here for another thing more valuable than that."
Seems he is not like uncle mark, if he wanted money he would have attacked when his parents died. 'he is after something I have, something valuable but what is it.
"something you have, but didn't know, something greater" the executioner added.
"something greater?" Arthur asked, shocked. Even Grumpy looked stunned because he hadn't told her anything.
The executioner only smiled more, his plan only known to himself. "Yes, something great. Your parents tried to hide it from the world, but they couldn't."
'My parents knew?'
"Before they died? Yeah!" Executioner said, speaking as if he could hear Arthur's thoughts.
"I had to give you time" he continued "or perhaps time to grow, time to spend with your little sister. Well, until the year ago when you awakened, I knew it was time."
It was time for what? He wanted to blurt it out, but unfortunately, the poison that Grumpy gave him had started eating off his mana core and already at his heart, eating it at great speed, and since he was a weak awakened, it helped it faster. Soon he would drop still in a minute or maybe hours and die. His fate is truly sealed.
"Time?" He coughed. "Or you are some weak human afraid that because I awakened, I am going to be strong like my parents that you can't touch me, and you decided to turn your daughter to me, but when you saw I was weak, you decided to attack. In short, you were afraid." He added.
Grumpy stared at him in confusion. Her expression melted, she looked at her father to see if what Arthur is saying was the truth, but the executioner glared at her, prompting her to harden her gaze.
The executioner just laughed. "Yeah, you got it, I was afraid you would turn into great freaks like your parents, but you couldn't protect your legacy, your name and even right, I knew you were nothing like them" he admitted.
Grumpy looked at Arthur then back at the executioner.
'So he is correct' she thought looking at Arthur. Although he didn't know her identity, he had always been the most cheerful guy she had ever seen.
But it was already too late.
The executioner crunched down and ran his hand through Arthur's hair. " I have had enough on my plate already, so please now, be grateful, and die quietly." He said and stood up.
Arthur forced a laugh. "Yeah, tell your grumpy of a daughter to squish me to death quickly if that is going to put an end to your fantasy."
'Well, it isn't hard to play superior for a change.'
"No, she wouldn't do that, I wouldn't let her hand be stained with human blood; it is only for the Cursed." He said and brought out a silver gun. "Any last words, maybe, to Kylie?"
Arhur thought for a minute. He had many things to say, but it shouldn't be his last word; if he said anything, he would feel defeated. "Just get on with it, loser!"
The Executioner sighed. "Okay, you said it."
BANG!!
The bullet pierced the air and zoomed through Arthur's chest, leaving behind a hole that oozed out blood from his chest – green blood.
Arthur gasped. 'Finally,' he smiled. Thought flooding him as his soul slips away and part of it was the one his sister was in it.
Her smile.. her delicate hands.
Then with a smile on his face he said; Kylie, be healthy,' as he drew his last breath, then he lay still.
The executioner looked at the lifeless body lying in front of him, an expression that wasn't there before masked his gaze, it was also the first time Grumpy was seeing it on his face.
Respect.
"He died with a brave heart, even him being a weak awakened," he complimented
****
Unknown to the executioner and Grumpy, on one of the abandoned buildings stood a dark silhouette in a dark cloak, watching them the whole time, then as Arthur's body became stone still.
He smiled.
It was as if he had seen what he needed to see.
If the man in the dark cloak wanted to, he could have saved Arthur but he just stood there with no reason to.
He was just there to oversee.
A small smile graced his lips again.
Arthur's death would mark the beginning of everything. he thought.
"This is going to get interesting."
Then he dissolved into a dark shimmer.