Reincarnated Into A Hell Hound - Chapter 148

I can hear the flow of water gently dripping outside, the wind softly whooshing and brushing leaves and the creaking wood, complemented by the sound of birds and small animals that make themselves known from time to time.

My eyelids have never been this heavy, and as I slowly manage to open them I have to wait for my vision to adjust to the light coming from outside, and the first image that reaches my eyes is that of a wooden ceiling with small crevices that let the light in over my head.

I sit, and the quick movement makes me close my eyes again and wait for my head to stop spinning and my stomach to stay in place.

I’m in a familiar room, with its wooden walls and double paper doors, and I’m certain of it when I walk out and find the living room, with its fire on an opening on the floor, and the corridors that lead to outside.

It cannot be, this place was destroyed by those shadow figures not too long ago!

And still here I’m, at our hidden place, and yet something seems… off about it, like it is not the place itself, but only an image of it, as it just resembles the place and I’m not truly there even though there is nothing out of place to give me such strange and strong impression.

But I comprehend that I’m far from understanding this place, wherever the hell this is, when I open the doors that lead to the outside… For what meets my eyes is not the lake with fishes and a path among the trees, but a full out overlooking landscape with a moving carpet of clouds down below covering the ground floor until where the eyes can reach as the building stands at the top of a mountain.

…Where am I? I frown as I overlook the place, finding a path on the side along the edge of this mountain, and as I glance once more towards the clouds below illuminated by the morning sun I make my way down and about the place.

Waterfalls are crisscrossing down from the peak of the mountains, some trees here and there crooking their branches and hugging the walls with their roots, and the wind brings the leaves from the floor up to add to the majestic scenery.

Yet as I walk I never go down enough to touch the clouds, nor to see what is down below, a beautiful yet isolated place this is as the only unnatural made part that I can see thus far is the building from where I came from, standing tall and overlooking the scenario.

I’ve never felt this calm, and yet this… empty, as if all my emotions were taken out by hand, a fake construction of serenity.

I pass by a river interweaving the grassy lands, seeing and recognizing the stone along its path as the river from my childhood, where I played as a young hound with my brother, and behind it stood the cave where we were born, not shallow or deep, but with a sense of lodging familiarity…

Even the smell is comforting, and adding the wet smell of the earth and the soothing sound of the river, it almost seems like paradise.

…Is that is? Is this heaven? Have I died? I should feel sad, anger, anything, and yet nothing but forced emptiness eats its way inside my heart.

No… that not right, something is not right.

As the sun shines up above it rays seem to guide my vision forward on the path, and as its blinding reflex fades I see a lone tree on top of a hill up front overlooking the cloud river down below, and as I approach, passing over other trees that have a familiar construction on top of them, made of wood and filled with plants, I can see a figure take form, a silhouette of a person under the cover of the red leaves.

I narrow my eyes but stop to watch from a safe distance when I reach the overlooking area as the person rests his hands on the white branch, the wind shushing the red leaves and his blond hair in a smooth motion.

…Leonel? Is that you? Are you dead as well? No… that’s not it…

I’m soon proven wrong when, giving a few more steps closer, I warn the person of my presence by stepping on a twig, who turns his face to the side and says in a soft voice:

“Hello Thilgon, did you sleep well?”

“Cain.” I say, a feeble of my anger managing to make its way towards my voice. “Why are you here? What have you done to me? Where are we?”

“So many questions, I guess even now I cannot control that temperament of yours…”

“…Control?” Then it downs me. “You did it, you managed to take control of me.”

“…Yes.” He says, but there is no satisfaction in his voice, no sarcasm, to happiness upon winning, just… stating facts.

“And now what?”

“… You die.”

“But how can I be of any service dead? You already in control, what is left to lose?”

“I don’t intend to just control you, plus it takes a lot more effort to keep such strong-minded creatures at bay. I have other plans for you.”

“Such as?”

“… I will absorb you. Everything you have, your memories, your feelings, your powers, forms, everything. We will become one, so you will live, in a way…”

“Why? Why would do that? Are you only after power, is that it? Why go this far too…” He shakes his head, never looking me in the eyes, or rather, not even turning around to face me as we talk.

“I tried to make you understand, I tried to convince you to join me without the need of…” He opens his arms then, palm upwards as if showing the place. “This. And yet the only part of you that did not change is your stubbornness.”

“Really? Is that your excuse to take my life?” He nods again to the sides, and that empty hole keeps sucking my emotions off, even though I’m still angry at the situation, at him, is almost as I’m too tired to even react.

“I think you at least owe me an explanation. What is this place?”

“…Your mind.” He starts pointing with his chins.” Up here is the good part of it, the memories, the ones that keep you afloat. Down there…” He says, turning his eyes down and making me walk towards the edge and manage to look down for the first time. “Is the repressed ones that you want to forget.”

Well, that much I quickly figure it out. On the contrary of up here down there is dark, midnight dark, some tall metal buildings creepily hovering in the darkness, yellow light coming from inside those empty places.

But the most eye-catching is that, beyond that, I can not tell the details of anything for the ground floor is completely ablaze, a red and orange flame covering all the ground and only being hidden by the thick clouds up above.

I see, so this is my mind…

“There is a way for you to see the truth, however.” Cain says, a glint of hope in his eyes that brings a frown to my face; such happiness for the possibility of not having to kill me, why does he intend to do it in the first place then if it hurts him so much? And why does he care to begin with?

“There is nothing to lose anymore�� I may as well show it to you, perhaps then you will understand, will… remember.”

“What are you talking about?” He looks over then, and I understand what I’m felling off about him in this mind place, is that, in this mental representation, his fake façade cannot reach, here his heart is wide open and bleeding for anyone to see.

“I will make you understand why am I doing this, why I must take revenge, why you must… if not you, then no one will understand, no one will… no one will truly join me.” He gets closer to me, but I do not see him walk, and as he puts both his hands on the side of my face, covering my cheeks, he says.

“Yes, you will understand… I’ll make you understand.”