Chapter 107 - The Abandoned One : Part 0

The roots that were holding Axel slowly retreated back, dropping the dead boy's body to the ground. The cracks on his skin were too fragile, he looked like a broken porcelain toy that was thrown away.

Kiaran stood there with no tears in his eyes. He just stood and faced Axel's dead body.

He did not even care about the fight that was happening between Adreanna, Cain, and the two blindfolded men. He just stood there.

The glass slowly opened as the roots disappeared, showing Axel's dead body right in front of him. Kiaran felt his feet moving on themselves, taking a slow step towards the boy's body.

His bloody gloved hand brushed the hair from Axel's face, and he watched the face of the boy with empty eyes. Kiaran tried to smile again for Axel. There was something in his throat, locking all his breaths away.

"I'm sorry."

That was the word that he should've said earlier. Ah, Axel could not hear him anymore, could he?

He cautiously brought Axel's frail body up to his hands. He carefully hugged his dead little brother. He felt really cold, Kiaran would warm him up right now.

"Hey. You said to wait for you. Should I wait a little longer? Will you come back?" Kiaran tried to keep his smile while his eyes had gotten emptier than before.

Kiaran did not realize that he had been teleported back to where he was. He sat in the middle of the central park, not knowing his surroundings at all.

"I did not plan this. I never wanted you to actually-" A tear finally fell from his right eye that was quickly followed by another tear and another and another.

"Why did you leave me too? You told me to wait." Kiaran choked as he trembled, shaking the boy's cracking body, demanding an answer. "You told me to wait!"

When he realized that the boy in his hand would never answer him back, Kiaran stopped shaking his body and grasped Axel tight. The tears had rained down even more as he gasped, choked, gagged, and cried.

His hands began to shake violently alongside his body. He jerked his head up to the sky, looking at it with blurry eyes, and screamed.

He screamed so loud that he could not hear his own voice. His ear-piercing scream rang throughout the city. It was hysterical and sad. It was filled with despair and loss. Everyone who heard it would not dare to intervene.

Kiaran kept screaming until he choked on his own tears and stopped, dropping his tears down on Axel's cracking face.

✵✵✵✵✵✵

The vice president had just been rescued by the soldiers and managed to get out of the big hole with their help. She looked around in distress, searching for a certain boy that suddenly disappeared within her grasp.

She grabbed one of the soldiers' hands and looked at the man in the eyes. "The young man down there just disappeared-"

A hysterical scream suddenly caught the vice president's attention. The cry was so broken and sad that she ran around a little, trying to find the source of it. The soldier quickly followed her in a rush.

"Ma'am? What young man?" The soldier asked while watching the vice president's surprised and hollow eyes.

"...never mind." She weakly uttered, offering a weak smile at him.

The soldier followed her gaze and looked down at the mercenary's face without a mask, holding a boy in his hand while crying.

"I just found him." She continued, letting a tear down to morn the young man.

Valerian was the first one to approach the mercenary while the others aimed their weapons at the criminal. The blond cautiously walked up to him, staring at the dead body in Kiaran's arm with a slight regret and sorry.

"Mercenary-"

Valerian snapped his mouth shut when Kiaran lifted his head up to stare at him. The mercenary stared at his green eyes with hollow blue eyes. It was as if the ocean in his eyes had finally poured down, unstopping.

"I lost him." Kiaran brokenly uttered, catching the lieutenant off guards.

"I lost him." He repeated with a mad smile. It was as if he had really lost himself now.

"I lost him." His voice echoed again, and Kiaran laughed. The laugh was mocking and full of despair. It was such a pathetic sight for people to see.

"Hey, I lost my brother." Kiaran insanely stared at Valerian's wide pitying eyes. "What do I do now?" He asked the blond.

"I don't-" Kiaran quickly diverted his gaze to Axel again and let his head fall onto the boy's stomach. "I don't have a plan."

The lieutenant froze. The mercenary in front of him right now was different. There was no manipulation or trick. It was just a brother who had just lost his little brother. It was not like his usual self. It felt like someone had taken everything from him.

Valerian sighed and looked away from his sworn enemy. He bit his lips and quickly faced the soldiers with weapons aiming at the mercenary.

"No one touches the mercenary." He commanded fiercely, tilting his head up as he stood to cover Kiaran.

The soldiers hesitated. They still aimed their weapons at Kiaran, ready to shoot at any given moment.

"But sir, he needed to-"

"I said, no one touches him," Valerian growled, glaring at the man who tried to oppose him.

"No one can lay a single finger on him until he could bury the mute murderer." He repeated his order while shielding Kiaran away. "I am not taking any objection."

The soldiers still hesitated and aimed their weapons at the criminal. They doubted the lieutenant and still stubbornly tried to oppose him.

Then suddenly, a woman made her way to Valerian and stood beside him. She coldly stared at the soldiers with her head up. "As the vice president, I'm backing this young lieutenant here. Please refrain from intervening in the mute murderer's matter until he got buried properly."

The soldiers finally put down their weapons with leftover hesitation. Everyone just silently stared at the mercenary and let him mourn his dead brother in silence.

Meanwhile, on top of a building, two blindfolded men stood in front of the beaten up Adreanna and Cain, looking down at Kiaran from a building far away. They teleported from the central park to finish their fight and ended everything quietly.

Adreanna and Cain had passed out behind them, completely lost in their raging and mourning battle.

"There, in his dark corner, he went on withering and shrivelling till at last, he turned into a grasshopper, chirping for all eternity." The blindfolded man on the left recreated Tithonus's ending while staring at Axel's dead body.

"Change it into a broken boy, cracking for all eternity." His counterpart chimed in and formed a winning smirk.

"It can't be helped. I just really really love a sad ending."

✵✵✵✵✵✵

There were two different worlds with the exact same faces. One was human, and the other was a demon.

They were meant to be separated, never crossed with one another, living their own life with choices of their own.

Each world had its own story, tragedy, and calamity. Mirroring their own movement with each other and ironically separated by a mirror.

The exact replica, yet different stories they were living. Different conflicts, different choices, and different endings.

Both the boy named Axel Vergessene had met their endings. They were living different stories and different endings. They had closed their book and died in the same way yet different.

They were counterparts, after all.

You see, there was a vague thing and a lot of controversial thoughts about an end.

Some said that story ended where they lived happily ever after. Some said that it ended when the person had reached the purpose of his life.

But you forgot that an end was where there would be no story anymore. There would be no second chances after you reached it.

The thing was, death was not always an end—because the story had never started at all. The book was never opened in the first place. Surprising, wasn't it? Axel's book had never opened in the first place.

There were those who said that death was only the beginning.

This was his end of the beginning. The abandoned one's ending and the dead one's beginning.

This would be where his story begin.

The demon world had lost the youngest child of the Vergessene family. The family mourned. They kept mourning and mourning every day, every second. They would do anything to get him back.

Here's a little secret,

They finally got him back.

[End of Prologue]