They Called Me FIVE

LANCE

It's a long extremely hot lazy day. One of those days where time is slowing down painstakingly and every minute seems like hours. Ten hours passed, twenty days passed. Forty years zoomed out like a racing sleeping train.

Just joking, the day is just too hot I don't know what to do.

Magnus responded vaguely to my request in me learning his technique.

Vaguely or too hard to understand, I don't know.

He said "I'm okay with it. Teaching you some Ranker's fighting skills. Of course, that's the purpose why I'm here after all.. But I can sense the way I handle my Koha technique will never work on your blessing. You're death. I may not know how it works but its evident its not the same greedy beast I have that will slowly consume your body on the inside."

I look at him. His baby faced cheeks turn pinkish after Sam pinch it earlier. Just to check if its real. If Magnus is real. If he really turn into a child.

I get that Sam can be stubborn sometimes. I get that he needs solid evidence to believe something. Even if the fact is laid right in front of his eyes, he will dig deeper into himself, find more reason to convince himself to still believe the lie he was spoon fed on.

I gaze upwards. Watching three small birds racing across the sky. It's pretty. They're admirable. To be able to spread their wings and fly...

I just realize it now...Sam and I have lots of similarities. Maybe that's the reason why I push myself to break through the impossible and save his life.

I wonder if I can come back to the land of the dead. I wonder if what really is my relationship with that netherworld monster on the other side.

At my side, Seven wakes up.

We spent half of the day loitering under the tree. Seeing that Seven's awake, Magnus offered if we could come back to the basement and formed a plan to locate Jesper.

Ever since the Madel's inn incident, his navigator bracelet is acting up. He kept flinging it around like a hand cuff, almost slamming his elbows in the tree trunk if I didn't stop him beforehand.

Seven blinks her eyes against the shade. Then up to my face.

"Morning." I greeted.

My shoulders felt a bit stiff where she leans her head in. She's not heavy. It's just...a good four hours not moving, not twitching, barely breathing and never shifting aches my muscles and bones so much I'm like a decrepit old grandpa.

Her eyes widen at my face. Sunrays hit at the upper side of my hair. I evade the light. My scalp feels itchy.

I scratch my nails and realize something. So horrible I can't think of any reason why I couldn't see it before.

"Guys?" I called. Turning my attention to Sam and Magnus arguing about who comes in the world first. Plants or animals.

I can't make any sense out of their arguments.

"Did we ever take a bath?"

Sam and Magnus turned rigid. "No."

I smelled my ragged shirt. "Seven do I smell?" I whip around to face her.

She's staring at me. Face looking absent, eyes staring in dead space.

"Seven?"

"You don't smell." she whispered in my mind. "You smell like the sun, don't worry."

Sun? I sniff the hem of my shoulder shirt. She means heat right? Sweat? So I really did smell.

Sam and Magnus patted the ground in front of us.

"We really can't go back to the basement? I started to like it there." Sam said, sounding dismayed.

"We can't. I really don't know guys but that place feels dangerous. I raised the dead just to retrieve you two and there's a man in crooked glasses at the other side of the street. Smirking at my zombies."

Sam blinks. " Isn't that because he's shock he saw a foolish guy wearing skeleton bones as costume for halloween? It's still July. Too early."

I shake my head. "Too unlikely. My zombies are real voodoo made up of bones. I'm sure no one will mistake it as costume in broad daylight...others will see it as it is. Bones. Real human bones."

Beside me, Seven stirred. "What happened to One exactly?"

Magnus and I look at each other. Considering she's sound asleep last night when Sam convulsed like a possessed devil pawn, I recounted the events last night.

I watch Seven's reaction. The way her forehead frowns. I'm sure she has something in my mind. I conclude my story quickly and asks.

"What is it?"

"Number One's trace are spread on the basement. There's also his scent inside the blue house. This could be my guess but that crooked man you saw...he may be related to One. He may have forced One into doing things he's unwilling to do."

I lean closer. Seven inch away a little bit."By things you mean..."

"Using his blessings into wrong things. Bad things." Magnus finished.

"Remember his expression Lance? And when he said he can no longer reverts the time on Sam's body... It was as if he's scared of something. And that something happened when Sam convulsed in front of him. Triggering some kind of trauma...resulting his lost of control over his blessings."

I piece the new information together. Feeling like my heart will burst out of my chest. I scrambled on my feet and up in an instant.

"We need to go back." I said.

They all nod. I think back on the pathway we take to cross the forest. Im sure we are not far out from the blue house yard.

Without intending to, the shadows in my fingers came out. Sensing my anxiety. I look up. I can't control them. I must not.

They must want something. I shouldn't hold them back. I stretch my hand. The unbelievable happened.

A long shadow traced the ground and crawled in a zigzag to the distance. I gasp. Sam and Magnus snap their heads to the shadows forming a straight line. As if guiding me where to go.

"Lance what's this?" Magnus asked. He tried to touch the shadow with his finger but Seven pull him back.

"Touch it and you'll die."

"What?! How?"

Seven shrug. "Obviously, because he's dead. Don't tell me you forgot about that?"

"Of course not! I'm just curious where this shadows of him came from. If this is really death or not."

"What do you mean?"

He sigh. "Remember I told you about my Koha technique will never work on you? Because you don't have a greedy beast inside you?"

"I still don't see what you're trying to say." I said.

"Nah, maybe it was just me being mistaken. I just sense there's another force stirring inside you."

My face paled and stricken at the same time I did not even know it was possible to make my face muscles freeze like that.

Magnus pat my shoulder. "Forget what I said. Anyway, let's just focus on finding Jesper, we need to get me back to oribal size and check out the guy with a crooked glasses you saw."

And then he's already on his way. So small compared to the tall thick trees surrounding him. So thin with his flail arms and legs...but I can tell he's hiding strength so magnanimous and lethal he can break a tree trunk in half.

The greedy beast he's talking about... I wonder if he's referring to the technique he possess. Was there really a greedy beast stirring inside him?

"Five?" Seven caressed the side of my wrist. "Let's go."

"Huh? Ah, yeah..." I walk first. Seven trailed along. I kept my hands stretch out.

Only to realize I don't have to. I can hang my arm down and the shadows will stay in the ground. Behind me, it will retract to the soil after me and Seven passed it by.

"Seven? Can I ask you something?"

She nods. I raise my eyebrow at her. Recently I've noticed she rarely look at me in the eye. Especially when we're alone and I consult to her about something.

Although she look at Magnus and Sam's eyes when they talk... I wonder why its not the same with me...?

"When did you notice about the bones buried in the ground?"

"Last night." she sigh. I whip around.

"How? I mean...how come I didn't? I'm supposed to be death but I never sense the three hundred deaths reeking in the soil if you hadn't mention it."

The side of her lips curl, she lower her head.

"Hmm, it could be there's something in you Five. Something that's bothering you and weighing you down it made you incapable of sensing the things around you."

"What do you mean?"

She stops on her track. She points her fingers down.

"In this part of area what do you sense?" I look around.

We are beside a swamp. The trees are a bit scattered in this parts, the weeds had dominated the land and have grown so tall it hits and itch my stomach.

Her eyes are squinting at me. Telling me to go on. Sense it. 

I shake my head. 

"I sense nothing Seven."