Page 106 of A Soul to Steal

They should have the fine print of‘likely to be eaten within the week’at the bottom.

Among the pieces of pinned parchment were faces of wanted criminals. He only glanced over them until a name caught his attention.

He dropped the herb collector notice and ripped off the wanted criminal parchment with a Demonslayer emblem stamped into the very top of it.

His hands shook as he took in the name ‘Emerie’ at the top, and the somewhat familiar face – or rather, half of it. He covered his mouth with a shaking hand, his shock numbing him to the point where crumpling the parchment with his injured hand barely registered to him.

“No,” he whispered. “It can’t be true.”

But it was difficult to ignore this.

The woman drawn had Emerie’s nose, her lips, her freckles, and even her wavy hair. It’d come from the eastern sector, from Zagros Fortress, which rung a bell due to Aleron’s ramblings the day before.

Clutching the paper, he bolted back to the guards.

Just as he was about to grab one of their shoulders, before thinking better of possibly being accused of assaulting one of them, he hesitated.

“What year is it?” he choked out.

They spared each other a wary look through their helmets.

“You’re really odd, you know that?” the man scoffed. “How can you not know what year it is?”

“He did say he couldn’t remember how he got here,” the woman responded.

“What year is it?!” Gideon yelled. “Stop messing around and just answer the damn question.”

“It’s two thousand and twenty-three.” The man stepped forward. “Look, do we need to take you to a doctor? You don’t look so well, and if what you have is contagious, then...”

Whatever the man said after that became inaudible. It felt like someone had shoved cotton inside his ears, his head pounding and throbbing as if all the blood rushed to it.

Sweat dotted his hairline as nausea paled him.

He wasn’t lying.As he slapped a hand over his mouth to hold back the strangled, silent sob coming up his throat, someone grabbed his forearm. They led his stupefied body around like a horse, and his feet moved on their own as he followed.Aleron was telling the truth. It’s... it’s really been eight years.

Tears welled in his eyes, and he didn’t care to hold them back, nor who saw them staining his cheeks.

She really became a Demonslayer. She really lost half her face. What about our parents?His tears fell faster and faster, and he quietly shed them.Eight years. What happened to Beau, my dog, my friends? Are any of them alive, or am I the only one that...

Everything he’d ever feared happening, happened.

His knees gave out, and both soldiers had to carry his pitiful form to wherever their destination was. How could any human stand after learning all this? How could anyone cope with it?

I died. I was reallyeatenthat night.

Before long, he was seated inside a room that smelt heavily of medicine and cleaning alcohol. Someone grabbed his hand to check it, but his vision had blurred out as his thoughts took the focus. Their muffled questions were lost to the barrage of his own.

Did they all forget about me?Had the world just moved on as though he hadn’t existed?

It was likely due to the human brain not actually truly being able to deal with one’s own death, but a part of him thoughtthe world would just... stop. That when he finally left the world, everything, too, disappeared.

To come back now, after so long, he couldn’t fathom it.

How old am I then?He’d been twenty-three... did that mean he still was?She would be twenty-seven now.She wouldn’t be his little sister anymore, but his older sister.

Poor Emerie. The last thing she said to me was to get fucked.Right before he’d saved her life. He couldn’t imagine how that’d eaten her up inside all these years.Did she join the guild to get revenge for me?That shattered his heart.

Her life would have been wasted on his behalf. She would have had no chance for true happiness, to find love, to make a family. To join the guild would be to leave all of that behind.

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