Chapter 1: It Wasn’t A Dream

I woke up the next morning feeling like somebody had cracked my skull open and tried to put it back by crushing it together. Looking around I found myself back in the orphanage that I had been living in for the last two years of my life.

After my dad died protecting me from the bandits, I hid in one of the stables till the next morning, crying my eyes out because I was all alone in the world. When morning came I made sure the bandits had left before going to the city where I could join an orphanage. A kid who is only ten years old can’t really survive on his own in this world. Since then, I have lived here and somehow managed to survive with what the orphanage could provide for me and what little I earned on the streets.

I worked at a blacksmith shop, well you can say I’m more of an apprentice to the owner of the shop. Back when I first came to the city and had only lived there for a month, I met the owner while looking for places that would hire me. The owner was buying food that day for dinner and saw me looking for a job. I don’t know what he saw in me but he offered to take me in as his apprentice.

I would be lying if I said I was happy, because that was probably the best thing that had happened to me within the few months after my dad had died, and everyone that I knew and grew up with. So, if you’re asking me if I was happy that would be a huge understatement.

The owner Markus Dur, is a nice guy who is probably somewhere in his mid-30s. I don’t know his exact age because whenever I have asked his age he would never give me an exact answer. He just keeps saying “I’m still young kiddo,” and just laughs it off. I don’t know why he does that, maybe it’s because he still isn’t married and thinks that he won’t find anyone anymore. So, the only way he keeps himself away from depression is by saying he is young. Who knows? I honestly don’t really care that much about relationships at this point to dwell on the thought to much. After all, I’m only twelve right now, and my goal is to get stronger no matter what it takes.

Markus has pretty good looks for a guy his age, and probably among most guys women would describe him as attractive or handsome. He has dark hazelnut hair with brown eyes and slightly tan skin, like he was under the sun for too long. Since he is a blacksmith, his body is just the right amount of muscle that goes well with his height of six feet. So, yet again I don’t understand what he is worrying about all the time. If he tried he could probably a get a date or two easily.

As my thoughts ran wild, pain struck my head as I was reminded of my insane headache. Its as if someone had just taken a nail and hammered it into my head. Now that I think about it why does my head hurt so bad? What happened last night?

I tried to think back to what happened last night to see flashes of memories of the previous night, before the memories started getting fuzzy and another wave of pain shot through my head. Apparently, some wolf-like beast tried to kill me last night and then I heard a voice in my head. After that everything got fuzzy and I can’t remember anything. Was it all a dream? Because I’m pretty sure that there was no way I could have killed that wolf by myself; and the voice, who was that? Maybe I dreamt all that, but then why do I have such a horrible headache?

“It wasn’t a dream kiddo,” said a deep yet playful voice. I instantly shot out of bed before almost falling back down in pain as my head felt like it was about to get crushed from the pain. “W-who are you?” I managed to moan out somehow. I swear this pain will be the end of me. “Don’t worry kid you won’t die, the pain should pass in a couple of hours, and I’m Ennius, Ennius Fito.”

I slowly got up in my bad after the pain got a little better and I could speak properly. “So, how can you speak in my head Ennius, and who are you?”

“Well, you could say I’m your predecessor. As to why I can talk to you, that’s related to your powers. I can’t move on to the next life until you can properly use your powers and go off on your own into the world.”

“So, basically you are the person who had the same powers as me before you died and now you have to watch over me and guide me or something until I am ready?” There was no response from Ennius for a while before he just replied with a simple “Yup, that basically summarizes the gist of it.”

“Do you know what happened with the wolf from last night?” I asked him, hoping that he had the answer to my question. “Yeah, you killed him. Well, technically I did, but I was using your body. So, you can say we both killed it.” I let myself process all the information before asking the next question. “How did we kill him?”

“Well after you awakened to your powers, I took over your body so that we could kill the wolf. That’s why you have such a huge headache right now. The process to take over someone else's body is basically to fight for the control of it with your mind. When the owner of the body gets their mind suppressed by the opposing force it damages the owner’s mind, but you don’t have to worry about it, your mind should heal up soon with some rest.”

So, basically I unlocked some sort of powers and managed to kill the wolf by letting my predecessor take over my body, which resulted in me having this headache. I guess having a headache for a bit isn’t as bad as dying. “How often can you take over my body? Will I still get a headache this bad every time? What kind of powers do I have?” I asked him question after question.

“Slow down kiddo, no need to rapid fire questions at me. There is no rush, yet. I can take over your body after your mind is completely healed, otherwise your mind will get permanently damaged and, well let's just say you’ll become stupid. So, to answer your next question; yes you will get a headache every time. As for the powers, to give you the short version, basically you can use the powers of the enemies that you have defeated by consuming their souls.” After hearing that last part I just sat there not knowing what to say.

“What happens to the souls I consume? Do they just disappear from existence?” If that was the case I don’t really want to use my powers. I would take away someone’s chance at another life; they wouldn’t be able to reincarnate anymore and have another chance at life. My thoughts were disrupted by Ennius’s voice.

“The souls don’t really disappear from existence. The process is more of a contract you could say, or a battle of will power. You can either come to an agreement with the soul of the being that you absorbed. This lets you use their powers to the fullest or you can gain control through will power and destroy the mind of the being that is left within the soul. This method, you can say basically kills the being for eternity and only leave an empty husk with just their powers. However with that method you can’t use the powers as efficiently, and if you lose, you lose your body.” So, I can come to an agreement with the being. That seems a bit unrealistic. Why would someone who I killed want to form a contract with me so that I could use their powers?

“Is there a benefit for the other party if they make the contract with me?” I asked because I clearly saw no benefit for the other party in this, other then not getting erased from existence. Even then, they had a chance to take my body from me if I wanted to fight for their powers.

“Other than gaining the ability to not die for eternity, the only other perk you can say they get is to be able to live through your senses. It isn’t much, but it’s the closest they can come to living if they agree to make a contract with you,” answered Ennius with a somewhat free-like attitude, as if this was getting boring to him. I guess I know most of the things that I need to know about what happened. Except just one more thing. “What happened to the soul of the wolf that died? Did you consume it?”

“Yes, the soul is inside you and he should be getting his consciousness back pretty soon, probably by the time your headache stops. You should prepare yourself because he will try to take over your body. I highly doubt he will sign a contract with you since he has the blood of an ancient beast, and creatures with ancient blood are quite proud. Chances of winning against him are slim, but if you do win; your future would be limitless.

You got pretty lucky kid, the Phantom Wolf that we killed was just a pup, so you have a chance of winning. However, if you win, there will be trouble in the upcoming future. The pup’s mother will most likely hunt you down. Try not to go outside of the city again until you manage to get the wolf’s power under control, that is if you win. Now that I think about it how did you manage to get into the city with the wolf chasing after you?” asked Ennius. I guess he gained consciousness when I was running away from the wolf or right before I was about to die. Now that I think about it how did he know where I lived? Oh well, I’ll ask him some other time.

“The wolf caught the guards off guard with his speed; killing them within seconds. Due to the sudden and swift attack, the guards had very little time to even think about setting off the alarm.” I answered as I recalled the memory of the wolf killing the guards in mere seconds. They died before they realized what was even happening. I wondered how their families reacted to their deaths. Now that I think about it, how come none of the alarms rang? I’m pretty sure the guards had been found by now. Maybe be I slept through it somehow. I guess I’ll have to dig around for information sometime later.

“I see, well you should get some sleep, you need your mind rested and ready to engage the soul of the Phantom Wolf or this will be the end of you.” With those words Ennius didn’t say anything afterwards. I thought about all the recent events and all the information I just learned before deciding sleep was the best thing I could probably do at this moment. I was about to lay back down on my bed and sleep, when my stomach rumbled. I guess I should eat first. With that I got up, put on my shoes and went to the kitchen to see if there was any food available.

Opening the door to my room with a loud creaking noise I walked down the hall feeling the pain shoot through my head with every step I took. I swear this will be the end of me if I don’t get some sleep soon, that is if I can fall asleep with such a headache in the first place.

The orphanage that I was staying in wasn’t fancy or anything, it was actually pretty old and worn out. The only reason I had a room was because I was one of the older kids, and even then I still had to share it with one of the other older kids. All the little kids; well, they all basically had to share one big room. There weren’t a lot of us in the orphanage so I guess it all worked out.

Other then me and my roommate, there were two girls around our age that shared a room. The little kids all shared one big room, no matter what gender they were. They were still kids that don’t really think about the opposite sex, so the elders didn’t really bother splitting them up.

I walked down the hall taking a turn here and there before arriving at the cafeteria. “Hey At!” I groaned in pain from the shouting voice before turning to see who it was. It was one of the older girls from the orphanage that I hung out with quite often, but if you were to ask how close we were I’d say we were just friends.

The thing is, I don’t really want to get close to anyone here because I plan to leave after I save up enough money and all the goodbyes and farewells will just make it harder to leave. My original goal was to join an adventurer's guild, do some easy jobs to earn money and try to move up in society. However, with all the recent events more opportunities have opened up for me. Since I have powers now I can go to an academy for the gifted, but that still requires money. If I remember correctly those schools have an entrance fee of two gold coins and a yearly rent which depended on the school, but the cheapest was still probably around one gold.

With my current earnings I would be able to pay the entrance fee, but after that I would be completely broke. Plus, I still don’t know if I will live long enough to get to the academy because of the soul of that Phantom Wolf.

“At, you deaf or something?” I heard the voice again followed by another wave of pain. I snapped out of my thoughts and started walking towards Alice who was smirking at me from her seat. “Stop calling me At, I hate that nickname and you know it. Will calling me by my name kill you, and please quiet down, would you? I have a pretty bad headache right now, and you’re not helping it” I said with a hint of annoyance in my voice.

My full name is Atilius Fester, but apparently Alice thought that it made me sound like some old man or something and decided to call me At for short. It’s not that I really hate the nickname or anything, but it just feels like I will get closer to the people here if I let them call me by a nickname. Also, it was the name that my mom gave me, and it’s the only other thing apart from my life that I received from her. So, when people call me nicknames it feels like they are trying to take away one of the things that my mom had left for me.

“Well, isn’t someone grumpy today, eh?” I turned my head towards the other voice to see Alice’s friend Zoe sitting with the same expression on her face as Alice. I swear these two always have the same expressions and always do the same thing. It’s like they're twins or something, but the thing is they don’t look like each other at all and bothe of them arrived here at different times. Alice who had black hair and icy blue eyes came here when she was six, while Zoe had auburn hair and forest green eyes, and came here only a year before me. So, there was no chance they were related unless they got separated at birth which is basically a non-existent chance.

“I’m sure you would have the same attitude if you had the same headache as me right now. It feels like my head is going to split. So, would you do me a favor and quiet down?” I asked in a hushed voice and gave her a pleading look.

“Alright, alright we’ll try to not be as loud.” I smiled in thanks before going off to get some food. I walked towards the kitchen lady and asked her for food. Let me tell you something, the food here sucked. I have no clue what they made it out of but it looked horrible and barely tasted to what it looked like. Like one time, we had omlette for breakfast, well that's what I think it was.

It looked like some brown and yellowish pudding and tasted like rotten eggs and butter. At this point I didn’t really care what the food tasted like anymore, the only reason I ate it was to save money and get out of here faster.” Looking down at the plate of food that I received I let out a sigh. I swear the food just kept getting worse if that was even possible. It’s like the orphanage was trying to kill us from food poisoning to get us off their hands.”

Ignoring the weird creation on my plate that was supposed to be food I walked up to one of the far tables in the room and sat down. I normally don’t eat alone, but due to my headache I didn’t really want to get bothered by anyone at the moment. I took a bite of the food that was on my plate and tried not to barf. God, was the food terrible. I really need to get out of here before the food kills me. Somehow I managed to force the food down my throat and put down the fork, letting out a sigh of relief.

I got up and returned my plate to the kitchen before saying goodbye to Alice and Zoe and walking off towards my room. Entering my room I took off my shoes before getting into bed, which was made from rusty springs and a worn out mattress that squeaked with every move I made. Man, it’s like the world really wants me to die from a headache.

Trying to avoid any squeaking noises from my bed I lay as still as I could and tried not to make any moves. My mind was working in overtime, thinking about all the events that had happened and what is yet to come. It’s as if my mind was trying to figure out the best solution on how to survive the upcoming days. Laying there deep in my thoughts I felt myself getting sleepier and the pain fading into the background. Before long, darkness consumed me and I was left to my dreams.