Volume I Chapter 14

"…"

"Van...!"

"Vanessa!"

"Snap out of it, Pearson!"

I opened my eyes and saw a male student shouting at me, from afar with a tired look in his face.

"Sorry…"

"It's fine, the heat gets like this for a while. Here, have a bottle." He handed me a cold bottle of water while we rest on our occupied spot in the vacant lot of the school. Today was one of the days where we would do our volunteer work for the school's program next week. "Even though it's incredibly hot, I wonder why is it that a large flock of crows are passing by…"

The sudden squawking seemed to confirm his words as I think about the time my mother and I got into a crossfire with a flock of blackened birds from another realm.

"Back! BACK, YOU LITTLE SHITS!" I screamed as I kept myself up to assist my weakened mother to trudge through a forest clearing. The birds were persistent, often pecking my head when I wasn't looking and god forbid how many scratches they had left lingering on both of my arms.

"Mom- how do we get out of here?!" I shook my mother with my non-dominant hand as I hear her panting get heavier by the minute. I didn't really know what was happening, nor why everything had to happen today. But if I just took a small window of time to look at her face, I would've realized that my mother wasn't the one who she seemed to be as before.

"Ah!!!" I cried in pain when I felt a heavy bite erupt from my left shoulder. I turned quickly to look from all of the chaos of the flocking black birds but when I saw a familiar face brought their blood dripping mouth close to mine, I felt intense fear and betrayal.

Why..?

I couldn't utter those words for I was truly astounded as to what sorcery would my mother think that biting her daughter would do us any good.

"See..! Don't talk willy nilly with the people who roam and dwell on the Bridge…" She muttered, her tone reaching several intervals higher like a maniac who had escaped prison in all accordance to her great plan. Focusing on my bleeding shoulder wasn't even possible when the pain and confusion in my heart throbbed harder. She looked like my mother-even sounded like her, yet she wasn't.

I shook her off quickly. The pain from my shoulder was so intense that I hurriedly drop to the ground with a thud between gritted teeth.

"Shit! M-mom.. What are you saying..? Hah. Haha. Don't joke with me at a time like this. Why would you bite me? Why… Why would you bite your daughter a-and say such fucking-?!"

"Oops… I forgot that I had a daughter for a moment, thanks for the reminder." Cutting off the panic and confusion in my words, I heard her say a trivial sentence like it wasn't even connected to her whole being. The flock of black birds seem to have reached an impasse as they stopped attacking yet kept on surrounding us in a circle.

"I must be dreaming! Fuck! That's seems to be it, isn't it?! My mother wouldn't suddenly go crazy on me. She wouldn't!" My body felt heavy like lead, everything seemed like a nightmare in this place and I didn't dare to think that everything that was happening right now is true. I hear laughter, the mocking kind. I hear it everywhere I look, and true enough it seemed that the birds were laughing at me, quite mockingly somehow.

"Oh honey. If only I were a great actor, then you would think of all of these as a dream… Sadly, it isn't. You're smart aren't you? Just like your bastardly idiot of a father." Tears welled up in my eyes as I see her walk towards me in a jolly manner. "N-no..! Stay away!" I tried to move desperately away from her hand like claws. Hearing her words, this time, I knew that she wasn't my mother anymore. The Rachel that I knew was someone who wouldn't let anyone bad mouth my father in the first place, so right now in front of me was a stranger. A stranger who took the appearance of my mother that was now having fun, torturing her supposed daughter.

I turned to find my old stick to fight back, and saw that it was just one arm away.

"Bitch! Where did you take my mother away?! Fuck! ANSWER ME!" "Ooh! I quite like it when you're feisty kid." I had grabbed the stick with my non-injured arm, and swung it quickly to her direction. Standing up felt like incredibly draining of my energy but I knew that if I kept laying on the ground, I'd sooner meet my end alone in this horrible place.

I saw her clap happily and it irked me to the point that I could feel the wood deeply embed to my hand. "Where the fuck is she!"

"I'll tell you where, only if you let me possess your body." Possessing my body? Does that mean that she possessed my mother the moment she was currently weakened? Seeing the questioning and cautious gaze in my eyes, she merrily laughed. "As I thought! You sure do take a lot from that bastard! Yes! Your mother is right here. In front of you! In the flesh!" With a face of contentment her expression had suddenly moved into a sorrowful state, and with tears streaming from her eyes she said, "Van, I'm sorry."

"Mother..?"

"And that's enough right?" Before my eyes was a quick switch into character. For a second I believed that my mother was really back right in front of me, like she had utterly defeated a stranger's control of her body. Focus on the words 'for a second'.

"I don't believe you. In fact, I shouldn't. Right?" I growled in anger, as the woman in front of me kept toying my feelings.

"Deary me, why are you guys always so smart? Pearsons and their ways of thinking tsk!" She stomped her foot like a kid, and it made me extremely alert that her mood would swing way more often than the people I knew in the surface. "Oh well, I've already bought enough time to inject my curse through you anyways." Time? I clenched my injured shoulder in defense from what she had lazily declared.

"What curse?.." I looked towards my weapon and saw its rugged state from the claws that I swatted away. Currently, it had turned into a makeshift yet crude spear. But its crude appearance made me feel bits of reliefs somehow.

That's when a sudden idea had popped inside my head.

"Oh my, how pitiful of you to not know the inner workings and rules of the Bridge. It's basically the life and duty of the eldest of your bloodline, you know?" I gritted my teeth in anger, I already knew a lot of things that I don't fucking know since day one. But that doesn't mean that I would abandon the thought of knowing it when I get the chance too.

"I don't care if I don't know shit about this place. It would be all explained- No. You would explain it to me anyways." Provoking her with my words, I forcefully made myself to relax. Regaining an outer shell of confidence is needed to pry more information from this kind of person.

"And why would you think that I would tell you everything honey~?" The moment she said that, I knew that there was a high chance that I could escape here with my mother alive.

"Because if you don't, I'll be forced to do this!" I took a staggering stance of throwing the stick on my hand like a javelin on her direction. But just as I bluffingly threw the stick back, I turned around and ran through the flock of condensed birds at my back in a suicidal manner.

"Running away are we?.. Stop!" The birds quickly condensed into a wall with their talons, protruded in my direction. The road in front of me turned into a sea of blackness that contained several knives embedded in it. It looked terrifying as I kept plunging myself through the bridge of death, but somehow the talons never reached me and pinned me alive like an iron maiden.

"Hah!" I shouted as I ran through the thick woods, away from the mother-like impostor and turned to jump in a nearby cliff.

"Shit! Get her back here alive!"

"Jonathan! Get back here!" A man bellowed loudly as a small kid hurriedly ran to his father's aid. Long before the creation and destruction in a certain plot of land, there lived a father and his son in Gate Keep City. Being a town official, and a teacher's son, Jonathan had every means to live a good life. He lived in a farm that consists of large acres in land. His mealtimes consisted of a feast-like imitation for three times a day. He slept in a large bed that was considered quite a luxury, in the old years. He had every right, and leisure to study in his father's rule without going to school.

Yet even though he was well kept by his father's standing, Jonathan hated the every second of it.

"Father…"

"Come here you brat!" With a huff from the old man, Jonathan was grabbed rashly through the neck and forced to look at the devastation left in one of their old shacks near the woods. "Look! Look closely you dumb boy!"

Therein lied a mess of broken stuff, tossed here and there for convenience. It was quite dusty inside the cramped place, yet there was a smell of iron wafted in the air. The metallic smell of iron came from the middle of the room. There laid a big patched up canvas of different kinds of paper, and each part looked like it was doused by an inexplainable heavy liquid in different kinds of strokes.

"What did I tell you, huh?! Clean up your mess properly, you piece of shit!" With an end to his note, Jonathan's father kicked him inside the shack and angrily closed the door. The small boy toppled over the mess that was left inside the place and he hurriedly lifted the poured out bucket from his right. The bucket contained of a deep red murky liquid and the strange metallic smell is confirmed to have come from it. Jonathan had just dusted his hands from the side as he stood alone once again in the room when a small whimper from an animal came through.

An injured body of a kitten was seen hiding in a small crevice of the jumbled furniture.

"What are you doing in my house?" Jonathan said as he approached the small kitten who had its eyes closed. Hearing the boy's call, the kitten meowed further and slowly tried to move his body to back away.

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of a corpse like you."

"Hey Jonathan!" Someone greeted him with a smile as he walked slowly through the rough town's road. Everyone who saw the little boy treated him as someone who's incredibly kind and blessed. So, like a benevolent being, Jonathan would always return it all with a small smile and favor.

At noon, everyone knew that Jonathan would often slip outside of their farm to visit the town's orphanage. The kids in the orphanage weren't very liked by the town's people and it made the people look at Jonathan like he was a small saint. The reason for this hate behavior was that every little kid put in there was a thief and a murderer.

Why?

Well, the whole reason was that the town was clearly striving to become a great city from the recent war. The war from the neighboring country had driven everyone in an almost penniless state. Not only that, lots of abandoned wife and children were left from the effects of war.

Seeing the carnage left over the small town, Jonathan's father had decided to donate a small orphanage near the town's church, to house all the kids from poverty driven families. The wives would then serve on several official's houses- like Jonathan's father, to pay back the money used to support the children in the orphanage.

Such generous donation received many praises and at first it was thought that everything would finally go well. That is, not until the unexpected incident of the said kids stealing a small fortune from the official's house and setting it all on fire that had resulted to the death of Jonathan's mother. The events emanated a trial and punishment that all of the children's mothers involved in the incident would undergo slavery.

After serving justice by enslaving the women assigned by trial, there was a rumor that the whole thing was a farce made by Jonathan's father. It circulated greatly and aroused suspicions to be buried in the hearts of the people, but when the townsfolk saw the distressed look of Jonathan's family as well as the evidence presented to the people in public, they quickly turned to defend the accused from the accuser. It was quite a puzzle on how the rumor spreader was quickly singled out and forgotten by the townspeople, but all of it didn't matter when it was just a silly little rumor.

A few years passed and every townsfolk saw the developments and improvements that Jonathan's father had made in good faith. Jonathan had now been labeled as different from the other kids, as even though his mother had passed away and their house had once burned down, he was still nice to visit the kids residing on the hated orphanage.

That was why when there was news of the said kids disappearing from the orphanage for months, no one cared to take a look and investigated the matter.