CHAPTER 5 - THE GUILT THAT IS MY POWER

  “The Divine Vision, she has one of the strongest Ganaav presently anyone could withstand, strongest in the complete organisation. How about we used the Leach Seal on her and she could used it to-”. He was interupted by a enraged Agatha, “Space manipulation? You understand the amount of lives that must be utilized for that”. Zarpis gave a wicked smile to that and continued, “We do have these worthless scum. The treason against humanity and the girl would also learn a lesson that she shouldn’t align with such a lot. But these talks aside, you see the credibility right?”, he urged to ponder over the idea to the commision.

  They were playing with lives, my life, the entire faction would be effectively dissolved and Zarpis would gain most of the control. His idea was simple and most probably effective but it was also extremely brutal. The Leach Seal was a type of Ganaav that was forbidden, it was extremely inhumane. Because it required ‘Life’ itself to be used which could be used in all sorts of blasphemous contraptions. Reversing time, killing people(ceased to exist), distorting memories, morbid reasoning, and gruesome murder were amongst it’s known uses but they required to drain life out of someone and a an extremely large Ganaav affinity was a must have. It still had a downside the already available life in the organism and the life absorbed was not a one to one ratio. It was low and most times random. I prayed that the commision would decline this offer, not only the 662 but 1 members of Kardindum would be killed, it would still require more lives to be taken to ensure a surplus rather than required quota.
   But ultimately, his plan was agreed upon. It was a 7-3 vote between the Jaeger-Kardindum struggle. A death warrant for all of them, they looked so dejected and mournful. They cried in each others’ bosoms. Agatha couldn’t believe, she must’ve thought than Felvin was some sort of grim reaper. She stared at him, as if hoping that she would get to see his sly smile and be satisfies that he was a bloddy asshole but rather he himself was cursing for Letcher’s death. At the end of the day, they were comrades. How could he wish their death? But why me, of all people be responsible for taking the toll of their lives upon me. I cried and cried, till my eyes felt dry. Till I collapsed of fatigue but this would neither help me or them.
  July 12^th 582. Or more infamously known as the Kardindum Massacre, the Leach Queen ritual took place on the third hour of the day. One by one; each and everyone were robbed of their lives, they hated Letcher’s existance that was being paid with their own lives. He breath in peace while they were snatched of their own. Not even bones left. Agatha was last. She was kept in a cell like everyone else. She looked at me and smiled and said, “Remember our goal, Godon Attrei”. Maybe it was her leadership orher will power. Hearing her accomplices’ screeching voices that pleaded for a peaceful death, she was cold. Her eyes barren. The once beautiful woman looked like flower withering away, “I am sorry, Agatha……But I’d try my best”. She neither nodded nor beckoned. She waited looking down in despair. Maybe it was last of her mental strength with which she initially spoke to me.
  “Shio eich kabrum pot”, suddenly the stone floor under her cracked as I enchanted the spell. Long strips of cloth like substance, written on which was something similar to hyroglyphics. It was stained black-red, or like dry blood at parts. It started creeping and wraping around her body, mummifying her alive. She screamed, yelped and started struggling against the immense pain. She collapsed and started yanking her body, she raised her back so high that after certain height it must’ve broke. The crackling sound so intense. I hurled myself into the corner, weeping in silence as she died. Excruciating bellows, ragged breath, her lungs might also being thoroughly shattered, after only about fifty seconds, her voice grew hoarse and weak. She lost the strength to even resist, and about another minute of panting; she was gone. My ordeal, over for now.

Or so I thought, between 582 and 588, I heard those morbid cries begging out for their lives about four thousand times. Never once I thought I’ve grown accustomed to them. Sometimes it seemed I was feeling their pain, but that always was a delusion. I devoured about hundred and seventy years of life. I suffered a great deal of emotional trauma and deemed unfit. Though this wasn’t military service that once you are certified as such you are not called. Erici had a purpose, to kill Thomas Letcher.
  I got in the same middle school as him, in the same year. The primary purpose was to study him, and so that I could know why to kill him and how dangerous his behaviour was. Morever, it was also a rehab for my PTSD. I enrolled under the alias Semolina Fayne. My appearance was also altered, this was specially designed solely for school. They dave me freedom but I was not myself, they gave me chance to make friends so I can establish a diversion, they gave me a new life only to steal someone elses. How cruel can they get?

Thomas Letcher was a ‘normal’ person. He wasn’t conspicuous, his behaviour fairly good, and he tried to get a girlfriend and failed miserably due to maybe his unconventional ways. It was so contradictory to what I was informed about, that it amused me; to think I’d be naïve enough to believe them after killing a small town worth of people. I had never studied anything other than Ganaav before the time so fortunately I had super low grades. Letcher was an OK student, there was not much to say in the daily reports. In a way, they were to wary of him. Six months later I found out that I wasn’t the only one that was spying on him. There was some shapeshifter called Winsonburry that had watched him since the kid’s birth effectively.
  A fate chosen the moment he opened his eyes, something I could relate too. I was to despise him but I started hating Zarpis and Baldmin for their decision instead. Agatha was right, he was not a threat. He was as harmless as a chicken. Why believe in oral accounts that more or less maybe myths and if if they weren’t then there were also accounts that the first pair was brutal even before they forged the Marnagnle. He had a single friend, Elizabeth Grannert. Later I learned she was one of his benefactors and a desciple of the Oracle, Sol Raznav. I stayed cautious of her all times to not let go my identity. She was cunning and brilliant, Thomas cherished her in a way although it was not too obvious. Life was simple and good those days, I really didn’t want the grand farewell to come but-
  “This Sunday, you’re going perform the job”. A single phone call with an unknown number shattered the pleasant visage. It was only another picture I could never enter in. Another tragedy, why had the person I watched over, had to be destroyed? A kind of weird connection was formed between him and me, albeit unidirectional. Ironically, the people that were trying to save his life, they’d be indirectly used to end his life.

He was alive! After all those preparations he was. But why? Why was he? He must have gone to the restaurant with Jack and Emma but then why? So many lives wasted, another two destroyed. A date! He was on one with that girl. She no the Oracle knew that but does that mean this was a wrong move altogether…..NO DON’T TELL ME NOW THAT THIS WAS A WRONG CHOICE. IT CANT BE…….FENVINNNNNNN……You could have made sure, your reckless plan, their vainful deaths. I was vehemently put through all that admoniable and grotesque executions.
  The boy broke down, what storm destroyed his world all of a sudden.He cried asking family, friends, strangers, police but no matter what their presence itself was erased from the bill of that restaurant to the memories of his grandparents. He couldn’t believe. Grannert herself moved out of town to the Capital for her first big gig. It was a farewell date it seems but he had forgot that he was flabbergasted, shattered. He didn’t speak nor did he ate. As if his mouth was shut off from the world.
  I had done that. I crushed and shred him apart. How could I even breath with such a heinous crime. He was no saint but neither was he a devil; if he does become one now it would be all on me would it not?
  How does feel to ruin another life? A jeer called me, I searched for the mouth behind it. No one found. Does it not satisfy you yet? It was a girl, yes a girl’s voice. It mocked me, hit me, crushed my already shattered self. It jeeredat me and engulfed my limbs with numbness. You are pathetic, weak, powerless and so you destroy others so that you are alive. No. No no no no no no no no no no nononononononononononono, I am not. I wept for them, I mourned when. They told me their memories, they begged for a peaceful end but I could not, I cannot. Is that true? You could have declined. Maybe suicide, only you were compatible. They would be alive. How could I have done that? No, I……. then you tell me the right choice. Don’t you want to see him smiling and laughing again. That numbskull. But, he is- Is he really, did you even see him hurting someone?No you didn’t. They also know that and yet….
 Maybe she was the one who led me to it. No at the end, it was my decision. To save the Marnagnle and bend the fate. That….will be my retribution.