Acedia POV:

While she still wept on her knees, the door was suddenly kicked open.

From the gap came the two familiar children, Damien and Anna, covered in sweat and gasping for air.

It seemed that, when she disappeared, they came running as fast as they could.

Which was odd, seeing as the other Gold-masks were all able to use portals to teleport when necessary, but perhaps they didn’t want to rush into a room with two fighting Immortals inside.

For a second, they stood still just barely outside the doorway and inspected the room.

Nothing was broken, it seemed.

Then again, there are only a large bed, an empty dresser, a closet and a table with a chair and lamp present in the room.

Then, they locked their eyes on us.

Strangely enough, when they saw her kneeling on the floor, weeping into her hands, they weren’t surprised.

Only when they saw me feigning a disinterested expression, did a feint hint of surprise fill their eyes, before fading just as quickly.

Was I that bad at acting?

Damien rushed to Emily’s side and lay his arm around her neck, though the barely able to considering height differences.

Anna rushed in between me and Emily and stood there in a guarded stance, though with a clearly hesitating look in her eyes.

It was laughable, really.

A nine year old boy comforting a ten million year old Immortal and a nine year old girl protecting them from an Immortal as old as existence itself.

Unfortunately, I was in no mood to laugh.

“You can take her away. We’re done. For now, at least.”

I said, urging them to leave.

I want some alone time to think about what to do now, seeing as my escape from reality has been thoroughly destroyed.

No, to be honest, I just want some rest.

Although this wasn’t the first time something like this happened, it still is unbearably painful.

It feels like I’m about to break down in tears, just like her, and weep like a little baby.

I honestly feel god-awful and the only thing keeping me standing, is the presence of these three in my room.

Damien urged Emily to stand up, which took a while, and then dragged her off by the hand, looking like a child dragging his mother with her.

But, although Damien was gone, Anna remained.

“Don’t you want to go with your creator?”

I asked, discretely telling her to go with them.

“Mother is in good hands, unlike you.”

Sharp eyes.

Both of them.

“Ha-ha.” I let out a dry laugh. “you don’t have to worry about me. You don’t have to act as if you care, just like before. Just go comfort your mother, I’m doing fine.”

My weak, hoarse voice sounded incredibly unconvincing, but it was simply an offer for her to go away.

I know why she did what she did during our week together and I don’t blame her.

She doesn’t need to feel sorry for me and act like she cares about me.

But, clever as she is, she saw right through me.

“If you think I can leave a crying man alone, you don’t really know me.”

A comforting and radiant smile appeared on her face.

It was nearly enough to make me collapse right then and there, but I still held on.

“You don’t have to act like you care anymore and you don’t have to feel sorry for what you did. I understand and forgive you. So please, leave.”

I offered again, this time more directly ordering her to leave, although my voice lacked the authoritative tone to make her obey.

But, she simply kept smiling, while walking towards the chair next to the window.

She lifted it up and walked towards me, eventually placing it near the bed.

She sat down on it, crossed her legs and then pointed me to sit on the bed to my right.

Like a nine-year-old shrink.

I didn’t move an inch and remained silent.

She put her hand on her lap and looked me in the eye as she spoke.

“You know, when the news came that you arrived, she broke down in incredible fashion. Before you arrived, although she couldn’t be called kind, she was still a good person. She cared for us, smiled with us, laughed with us and, whenever we were in pain, felt with us. But when the news came, she went mad, almost in the same fashion as you.”

She said, first smiling while remembering the ‘good old times’, and then a sorrowful smile as she looked down.

“When we saw the sudden change, we thought ‘Whoever this guy is, he must be bad’. I mean, who wouldn’t think that after seeing their mother lose it like that? And when she spoke about what you did, how you killed her father, tormented her mother and tortured herself, we thought you evil incarnate.”

Exactly.

Even if it wasn’t their mother who said these things, everyone treated me like this.

It doesn’t matter if I did anything or not, everyone hated me equally.

That is why she doesn’t need to bother.

I’m used to it, so I forgive the both of them.

“When she made her plans and send us off, we were convinced that we were on the right side, but as soon as we arrived, something was off. You came to save us, even though you were evil. Mother explained this to us already, but still. But when you so easily and carelessly slaughtered those pre-programmed Gold-masks, our doubt was cast aside once more.”

Of course, seeing the people, even if they were like dolls, you grew up with being slaughtered, everyone would think that.

She shifted her downwards gaze onto my eyes once more with a serious gaze.

“And when you left us when we purposefully remembered the painful times, we thought you would finally show your true colours. Imagine our surprise when, in one of the village-like outposts mother created all over the continent, you went insane, just like mother, but on a much more horrifying scale. We were scared, horrified, seeing you like that. But, above all, our doubts came back again.”

Her face twisted in horror as she remembered what I did.

So the city I slaughtered was but an outpost?

Honestly, I feel relieved.

Slaughtering those half-living is much less painful than killing normal, emotional people.

Still, it leaves a bad taste.

“And in the following weeks, you tried so hard. You talked to us, laughed with us, played with us, told us stories and even taught us how to use Energy, even though we already knew. It was as if you truly loved us, even though it had been days since we met. You were trying so hard to please us, we couldn’t believe you were evil anymore. When Damien and I discussed this, we both came to the conclusion that it’s impossible for you to be evil. In fact, you and mother were similar and so, we decided that we would appeal to mom. But, we were to slow, and events proceeded as it did, unfortunately.”

The last line was said with a deep, guilty undertone.

“What are you trying to say?”

I said, emotion overwhelming and cracking my voice while I just barely prevented them from breaking out fully.

Those days...

Those days of happiness I thought was a lie, a plot to deceive the gullible me.

I sat down on the bed, my body shivering and nearing its limits.

She suddenly began smiling, as if she had expected it and hoped for this to happen.

That, combined with her wings and the conveniently sudden burst of light coming through the window, made the scene complete.

“We don’t hate you, you know?”

It wasn’t a great confession of adoration or love.

It wasn’t a promise for friendship or comradery.

In fact, it the words weren’t anything special if it were for anyone else but me.

For a normal person, there are a lot of people who don’t hate them.

Billions of them who don’t care about except as fellow living beings.

And, for many of them, they have more people that like them than hate them.

And even those who hate them, don’t truly want to kill him or burn him or torture him or whatever.

But for me, ‘not hate’ is so much more than what love is for other people.

For me, where people who see me and want me to die is the norm, for someone to say they ‘don’t hate’ me...

It was the same as when I finally started to believe my wife truly cared for me.

For god-knows how long, I wept like a newborn.

Emily POV:

Damien silently dragged me through many, many halls and past many, many doors, until we finally entered my favourite place: the dining room.

In this room I had the latest happy family shared between me and both my parents.

A simple dinner on a small table, unlike the feast we had on the day I went home with Acedia.

I was but a child and we were happily talking with each other, laughing with each other and generally feeling full of bliss.

The only times when I came here, is to remember these scenes more vividly than I could anywhere else.

And now, I was in here being dragged by the child I made from a deceased soul still lingering inside the body and a couple of bones, along with a whole bunch of Energy.

I am a horrible person.

I tried to purposefully forget and lie to myself that I wasn’t like this, that everything I did wasn’t sacrilege to life itself.

But Acedia brought down these walls I erected around me and now I could think clearly about everything I’d done.

All these horrors I committed came flooding into me, making my tears fall even faster and making me feel god-awful.

What people must think of me if they knew.

What the Gold-masks must think of me, if they had any feelings.

What my children think of me...

I brought them back from the dead and forced them to remain here by essentially torturing them every so often.

The colouring of their souls was the absolute proof of them.

But even though I tortured them like this, I could see that they loved me.

And I loved them back, but this doesn’t make it right.

Damien sat me down on a chair, but even then his eyes could barely come up to my waste.

“I’m sorry Damien! I’m sorry for what I did, but please! Please don’t leave me!”

I’m pathetic, begging him to leave while tears streamed down my cheeks.

I’m simply pathetic, but I can’t bear it if they leave me.

If they leave me, there is nothing left for me to life anymore and I’ll become just like Acedia: a tortured being endlessly seeking for an escape out of this horrible reality.

But as long as I have them, or even if it’s just Damien alone, I can manage.

The thought itself of depending on them while I’ve done nothing but harm them fills me with self-loathing.

As I was still crying in my hands, not daring to look at him, I suddenly felt his small hands prying them open.

I was met by an incredibly determined face, unbecoming for such a small child.

“Without you, Anna and I wouldn’t exist. You brought us to life, loved us and even when you harmed us, you did it to save us. You are our mother. We won’t leave you.”

At those last words, his mouth turned into a bright smile and his eyes looked at me filled with love, when, by all rights, he should hate me.

It is a love I didn’t deserve.

But I will earn it.

Whatever the cost, I will earn it....