Tired, are you? Life’s been had on you, hasn’t it? Nothing seems to go your way, and the whole universe seems to be in your opposition. I know how you feel, I know how you bleed, I know that pain tucked deep within your heart. You’ve suffered so much, and yet you’ve kept going. Not because you wanted to, but rather from the lack of a better path. One step in front of the other, that’s life, and that’s how it always will be. But you’re strong, you’re resilient–you will do what’s necessary to keep moving even if it means that you have to pick at your own scars...
Such a novel mind, but you’re no hero. You are but a common man, the forgotten and burdened all the same. Nobody shall offer you a shoulder to cry on, nobody will help you if you don’t help yourself first and also have something to offer in return. So rise, rise to your feet and walk once again, for doubts’s not a hurdle but a monster in your own head.
"Where am I?" Morgan asked himself, covered in foliage and the gore from his shot-off hand. His eyes upcast, he stared into the faint light that trickled in from above, and to his surprise, the moment he lowered his gaze, he found himself leaning against a tree trunk with a woman snoring beside him.
"Who are you?" He asked, but upon looking closer, he remembered her faintly.
The same woman who’d shot his hand off was sleeping next to him like it was no big deal. Stretching his hand towards her, he tried to wake her up. However, the sudden appearance of a tentacle-like iron arm protruding from under her clothes warned him to stay away.
’What in the world...’ Withdrawing his hand, he watched as Mono muttered something in her sleep. But as her words made no sense to him, he stared blankly at her as she slowly awoke from her dreams.
Rubbing her eyes and yawning casually, the queen of Elenaris smashed her lips and gave him the exact blank stare that he was giving her. As her mind slowly caught up to the moment, however, she covered her mouth for another yawn and then asked.
"I found you unconscious and...I think we’re lost in these woods," having walked for hours with the man’s unconscious body thrown across her arms, Mono had tired herself to the point where staying awake was too much stress for her heart. And so with Aperion keeping watch, she had set Morgan against the trunk, patched his hands back with a torn piece of her shoulder’s strap and went to sleep without a care in the world. Scared for her life? She’d died twice already to fear death at this point.
"You..." Eyeing her up and down, Morgan instinctively reached for his revolver, and surprisingly enough, it was in his holster strap. "What?"
Squinting his eyes, he brought the weapon in front of his face and checked if it had been tampered with, but there was no sign of Mono having messed with it at all. Glancing between his weapon and the girl, he wondered if she wanted to die or was plain ol’stupid to leave a man like him with a weapon.
"You ain’t scared that I would shoot you, girl?" His eyes lingered on her unflinching face, and for a moment, a certain gleaming in her eyes reminded him of his own little girl. However, brushing that thought off, he directed the barrel to Mono’s face and asked. "Answer me..."
"Kinda, I guess you can kill me." Chewing on the inside of her mouth, Mono took a deep breath and kept staring back at him. "But I overheard that you’re an otherworlder, and I wanted to know more about you."
Titling her head sideways with a smile, she placed a hand on top of the revolver and gently moved it down.
"Believe it or not, you’re not the first one of your kind here."
"There were eleven more, but I killed the remaining ones before I escaped!" Morgan shot back, assuming that the people brought from Gaia with her were the ones that she was talking about.
"No, there were definitely a lot more of them, and I suspect someone from my family–maybe even both sides of my family were the same. From another world far from here, would explain why my mind works so differently from those I’ve trained throughout the years, would also explain how I managed to surpass my master as well as my apprentice in her specialty in just a handful of days."
Slowly picking herself off the ground, Mono offered Morgan a hand.
"They say that we have more potential than anyone else born on this soil." Holding her hand still, she gestured for him to take her hand. "So, of course, I wanna know more about what kind of world my family left behind. So how about it? My folks back at camp are holding your one-way ticket back home, no strings attached; you just have to tell me everything about you and your world. And I’ll try to convince them not to kill you on sight."
Though the gremlin still whispered into his ears, for some odd reason, Morgan felt calm. His mind was clear, perhaps because he saw a flicker of his daughter in this strangely optimistic girl. But what he failed to realize was that he was talking to another mad person; the only difference between them? One had forgiven themselves for their crimes to lead a better life, while he still struggled to accept that he had to kill his own daughter after what the bandits had done to her.
"Whatever you say, Madeline." He conceded, not entirely thrilled to talk about his past, but that one-way ticket to Gaia was far too good an offer to give up.
"Madeline? That’s not my name," Mono replied with a raised eyebrow.
"It means little girl in...uh, French or German or whichever one of them English countries I’m not too sure."
"French, German and English, what are they?" For once, not knowing something, a curious smile crept up Mono’s face. She wanted to know more, she wanted to know everything, but of course, in the end, they did not have enough time.
The clock was ticking, and the army had already begun its march. She had to bring the killer to Raven soon, or else what would’ve been the point of chasing after this man?