The Love That Remains - Chapter 61

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*[FLASH BACK – 7 YEARS AGO]*

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A boy is standing in front of a house. A lazy cat is sitting on his shoulder. His face is half hidden. He is wearing black sunglasses and a red baseball cap. The door of the house is currently locked. A trail of black smoke escapes from his finger and enters into the door’s keyhole. With a click, the door is unlocked. The boy walks into the house as it belongs to him.

The living room is full of garbage and broken items. The windows are closed. It’s difficult to breathe in the house because of the smell. The boy moves the couch with great difficulty and finds a chained secret door. He waits for a moment. There is no sound. A whisker of smoke is released from his index finger again. This time, it snaps the chain in half.

He lifts up the door and sees a ladder going into the darkness below. He climbs down the ladder without any fear. The cat on his shoulder opens its mismatched eyes. The boy walks deeper into the dark hidden room. The hidden room smells like faeces, blood and urine. The boy covers his nose. Something cracks under his feet. Surprised, he chants a spell. A ball of purple fire with faint light appears in his hand. He sees piles of bones everywhere.

“You could have warned me.” Fang Aisa, who is dressed up as a boy, says to Rene Reis.

“Let’s get moving. We don’t have much time.” The cat’s voice is rather calm. “Find the kid.”

Fang Aisa walks on the piles of bones without any hesitation. In the last few months, she has seen the worse. Now, a secret basement with full of bones is not surprising to her anymore. This is the house of a man-eater who is away at the moment. Fang Aisa is not keen to meet him.

Fang Aisa has been trying to track the man-eater for months. He never stays in one place for long. He is a human organ trafficker who sells the organs that he doesn’t eat. It doesn’t take her long to find the unconscious boy on the pile of the bones. When she touches his face, she finds that he is cold and barely breathing.

“As I suspected, this boy is a fae.” The cat climbs off her shoulder. “Hurry, we have to return the child soon.”

“What about the man-eater human?” Fang Aisa asks him.

“Don’t worry. She will kill him,” Reis replies. “Why should we get our hands dirty? Kismet will do the deed. When she is angry, she takes it out on her pawns. He will meet his appropriate fate.”

Kismet is the other name of Fate. Fang Aisa purses her lips. Reis has been right so far. She picks up the boy who is light as a feather on her shoulder. She rushes out of the house. Before she leaves, she sets the house on fire. The bones burn in the fire along with the rest of the house.

They get out of the city as fast as possible. When the boy doesn’t wake up, Fang Aisa is worried.

“You have to drop him at the edge of the forest,” Reis tells her with his eyes closed. “His people will find him.”

“Are you sure?” Fang Aisa is uneasy. The boy has brown hair and pale skin. Currently, they are in Country D. “He is just a boy…”

“He is a Fae.” Reis flicks his tail. “A two hundred and fifty-year-old fae, but yes, he is still a child in Fae terms.”

“How did the man find him?”

“He must have wandered far and picked up by that man. Fae becomes weak when they are out of the forest. The metals make them weak. The man must have lured this child with something.”

“Fae lured by a human? How odd!” Fang Aisa can’t help but sigh.

“When a god-like Kismet is involved, anything is possible.”

“Why is she doing this? Can’t she do her job normally?” Fang Aisa has learned a thing or two about gods. Just like human beings, there are good gods and bad gods. They also have ranks. Gods like god of fortune or god of marriage are low ranked gods. Gods like god of fate or god of fire or god of water are mid-ranked gods. Then, there are high tier gods like Reis or Death or Power. Lastly, there is the supreme one. One who is all. All who is one. Supreme one is currently asleep or in limbo. No god heard him since the beginning of the world and creation.

“She is blind.” Reis’ voice is low. They reach the edge of the forest. Fang Aisa can see some shadows hiding behind the trees. She drops the boy on the ground and walks away. After walking some distance, she turns around and finds the boy gone.

“What do you mean?” Fang Aisa asks when they reach the road. “She is really blind?”

“She is,” Reis mutters. “I scratched her eyes because she was annoying. She could never see after that incident.”

“…” Fang Aisa shakes her head.

“After losing her eyes, she has lost her mind a bit. She has been corrupted.” The cat looks up at the sky with a lonely gaze. “She found some loopholes in the heavenly law and started manipulating the strings of fate for her gain. Now, she wants to clean the messy world to start the world anew.”

“Destroy the world because it is messy?” Fang Aisa has a complicated feeling in her heart. “Are you kidding me?”

“Power is addictive.” Reis jumps on her shoulder. “If the boy has been killed by that man, the Fae would have used this reason to go against the human world in the future. But now, a human has returned their child.”

“I am not human,” She mumbles in confusion.

“In their eyes, you are.” Reis sighs. “Since you have human blood in you.”

“Humans don’t think that I am human though…” Fang Aisa’s brows crease deeper. “These otherworldly creatures do not think of me as one of them either. Then, where do I belong?”

“Not my problem.” Reis closes his eyes and yawns lazily. “In the eyes of the gods, you are all the same. You are a living being who can even defeat a god if you want.”