Cursed

"You're fast." (Axel)

Jasa stood silent. His flowing red scarf in the wind. His spiky white hair floating ominously to the sky. His baggy black jacket and slim-fit tight pants. He was a colorful character. Entirely different than the surrounding Adventurers in stuffy heavy suits of armor and robes. His presence was strong. He looked around at the staring eyes and surprised faces, he didn't blink or bat an eye. He was stiff and still. His eyes unmoving, unseeing. Blank.

His eyes were white, the solid color of pale nothingness, the color of someone unable to see, in a pitch-black world, in a pitch-black sky, in a faceless world, of only fealing, of only hearing, smelling.

Jasa was blind.

And Axel knew it. He knew it the second he saw him. The second he felt his fist against his palm. He knew it because he was the same as him. He felt the same pain, the feeling of not being able to see, of missing sight on one side, on both sides. The pitch-black sky, the faceless world. They were similar. But similarity wasn't enough to smother Axel's ticked off attitude.

So with his fist still curled up, he swung in an angry attack. He stepped forward, swinging his heavy fist at the blind man in front of him.

Everything was turned upside down.

Jasa was gone. His stiff image vanishing in an instant. Axel was thrown twenty feet into the sky. Jasa standing below him, his arms tucked nonchalantly in his jacket.

"Are you really an Adventurer?" (Jasa)

Flipping violently in the air, his legs upside down, his wrinkled ripped clothes fluttering in the shuddering wind.

Jasa walked the opposite direction of the Guild Building, the opposite way of Axel, he walked past the crowds.

"I don't have time to play with weaklings." (Jasa)

Flipping, turning. With all his strength he begun with his legs. Twisting, turning. Legs, to hips, to stomach, to chest, to shoulders, to arms, to head.

"I'm no weakling!" (Axel)

He landed with a thump, his legs straight, his body arched in an angry position, his feet implanted in the ground. He immediately looked up at the crowds confused and bewildered faces.

Jasa vanished in the wind.

Mel walked back outside the tall Guild Building.

"Hey! Axel, what are you doing?! Get in here!" (Mel)

"Huh?" (Axel)

Mel ran up and grabbed him by his hair throwing him to the ground and dragged him inside the building.

Once inside, everything had a warm feel. The extravagant architecture from floor to floor. The open spaces that went up and up, wood slathered in orange to brown. It felt like a library, but with no books, and lots of yelling and arguing. They walked through the center hall, the wooden chairs propped next to long wooden tables. Food and drinks scattered about. Arches that hung over tall windows that spanned up multiple stories. It was a tower, a wooden tower consisting of five floors.

Drunken adventures, beaten up goonies, people down and out on their luck. These types of people were consistent on the first floor. They called it harmony and chaos, a constant battle between order and murder.

"It feels bigger on the inside than the outside?" (Axel)

Mel sat down at a table far away from the crowds of lonely Adventures and drunks.

"Sit down. I'll tell you about this place before I sign you up. Look up there." (Mel)

She pointed to the sky.

"You see the five floors that go up higher and higher." (Mel)

Axel looked up to the sky. The floors that reached the heavens, the glass window that spun up in multiple colors.

"The higher you are in society, the higher the floor. The top is where the S-Ranks sit. And each floor has better jobs and better amenities." (Mel)

"What floor can you go to." (Axel)

"All except A-Rank and above." (Mel)

"A-Rank... A-Rank? What is an A-Rank?" (Axel)

"The strongest of the strongest Adventurers. But you know, if I didn't work for the High Priest I would-" (Mel)

Axel looked with indifference.

"What's that look supposed to mean?" (Mel)

"Kinda sounds a bit suspicious." (Axel)

"Axel just look around the room. These low-level F-Ranks. They're all looking at me. Because I look powerful." (Mel)

Axel looked around the room.

"No... They're actually looking at me." (Axel)

"Huh?" (Mel)

The constant stares by bewildered individuals. The disgust in their eyes. Axel touched his own eye, the empty spot on his face. He turned to the massive colorful window that dominated the scene. He turned his head against the sun, his reflection shined bright.

"My eye..." (Axel)

A black hole of nothingness.

"I want my eye back!" (Axel)

"Huh? Wha... What are you saying?" (Mel)

"I want my eye back!" (Axel)

"Did you just regain memories? Did someone steal it?" (Mel)

He shrugged.

"Don't know? It's just a feeling. I feel like I need to do something. All I know is that there are four monsters out there. I need to get back what they stole from me!" (Axel)

The two just sat in silence as the world raged on. As the people cheered, cried, danced, sang.

A lady in a short fuzzy skirt and a sleeveless top walked up to them. She held a piece of paper and a clipboard.

"Ms. Mellody. Here are the form papers. All you need is a signature here, here and the High Priests signature here." (Receptionist)

"It's fine. He doesn't need that signature. The High Priest is out right now so I'm signing in his stay. Is that ok?" (Mel)

"Umm, I guess that's ok. I'll have to check with my boss?" (Receptionist)

Axel and Mel signed the paper. Axel picked up the paper, he tried his best to read the writing but it was all foreign to him.

"What did you just make me sign?" (Axel)

"Oh yeah. I didn't tell you yet. Yeah, you're not becoming an Adventurer. You're actually gonna become the High Priests Right-Hand Lady's, Right-Hand Man." (Mel)

"What are you saying? I'm gonna be your assistant?" (Axel)

"Yeah that's the gist. But it's not as bad as you think. I'm just doing it so that I don't get in trouble. I wanna do my tests. And once I'm done we can split and go on our merry ways." (Mel)

Axel put his hand over his silver eye.

"You talking about my eye, right? You want my eye?" (Axel)

"No, the power in your eye. And the empty one next to it. Both harmony and curse." (Mel)

"Curse?" (Axel)

"Curse." (Mel)

Curse.

---

An hour later.

Axel stood inside of Mel's home. A two-floor small city house. A plain and flat design with a kitchen on one side and a living room on the other. A set of stairs leading to the second floor sitting on the wall on the opposite side of the couch. Axel jumped to the couch.

Jars after jars. Mel walked to the kitchen. Jars filled with bugs, plants, fruits, rocks. Jars after jars. She grabbed one of the jars filled with leaves. She pulled out a single leaf and placed it firmly on the table.

"Axel get up here! I want you to see this." (Mel)

He cracked his neck and sat up from the comfy couch. His left eye stuck to the shining windows of the evening day.

"This is your place huh? Wheres the High Priest guy? Is he not around here?" (Axel)

"I told you already. He's out right now, but I want to show you this before you meet him so you get an understanding of things." (Mel)

"What is it?" (Axel)

Axel sluggishly walked up to the table. A small leaf sat alone on a wooden plate, the plate empty and fresh, clean to the touch. The leaf hovered ominously in the air.

"What is that? Are you doing this...?" (Axel)

He reached out to grab the leaf but Mel quickly snatched it away.

"Is that what you did last night? How you made me fall asleep and the floaty light thingy that you snapped into existence. How do you do that?" (Axel)

"In the olden time's Magician's called it magic. Nowadays we think of it as a more take and give. We call it Harmony." (Mel)

She placed the leaf back on the table, but she also placed a silver coin next to it.

"Harmony is the ability to pass your energy through special Conduits to create and affect things. Such abilities differ from person to person, and some may have more energy than others, and others may have less than normal, but everyone at least has some energy inside of them it doesn't matter who or where you came from. The only thing that sets people who can use Harmony and people who can't is being able to take that energy out and use it." (Mel)

She picked up the silver coin.

"That is why we use such things as Conduits." (Mel)

She flipped the coin in the air, letting it fall to the table, spinning like a top, slowly spinning and spinning, slower and slower, stopping. Heads.

"Conduits are physical items that hold physical or sentimental value. The stronger the value, the stronger the Harmony. Like this coin." (Mel)

She picked up the coin again.

"This coin was given to me by Harry's mother the day I turned seven. It was the first time someone gave me something so precious. And this will always hold the most value, but only for me and only me and no one else can use it. It's kinda like with your left eye." (Mel)

"What about my eye?" (Axel)

"When I first met you, I felt the power from that left eye and I could barely contain it. Honestly, I think it's the most powerful Conduit I have ever seen. And I want to uncover its mysteries, I want to find out everything about it and you. And to start that you have to learn how to control it." (Mel)

He touched his silver eye.

"My left eye... It's..." (Axel)

She picked up the small leaf. She gripped it tight in her hand.

"However there is another form of Harmony. Curse!" (Mel)

She released the leaf from her grasp, it's remains crumbled to dust, black and crisp to the touch.

"Instead of someone drawing the energy from inside themselves. Some draw the energy from the Conduit itself. And create forbidden energy able to create powerful Harmony stronger and more viscous than anything a normal human could make. But there is a toll. The Harmony created from curses go black and will never be able to be destroyed. Such it will remain forever and the once Conduit will be destroyed forever." (Mel)

Axel touched his right eye.

"Like with your right eye. That hole." (Mel)

"It's cursed." (Axel)

Cursed.

Harry walked into Mel's house. He held a basket of clothes stacked on top of each other.

"I'm back from my shopping trip. I got you some clothes, Axel." (Harry)

He dumped the basket onto the table, the clothes toppling over each other, the clothes melding into each other. They were all the same color. Black on black.

"What is this?" (Axel)

"So much black." (Mel)

Harry nervously stepped away from Axel.

"Well, I thought since you have black hair and all. Plus that hole..." (Harry)

He paused. He looked at the scarry tall man in front of him.

"I mean. I thought you would like it. The color black." (Harry)

Black robes. Black shirts. Black pants. Black coats, to black capes. Everything was black. Except for one thing.

"Ohh and I got you this one special piece." (Harry)

He picked out a single cloth. A black cloth covered in white stars. A cloth of the night sky, the never-ending hole in space, between reality and fiction.

"It's for you're... You're... The eye thing." (Harry)

Axel covered up his missing right eye. His black hair perfectly suited to the black cloth. His silver eye perfectly matching the silver stars. He shook his head back and forth, testing the dexterity, the durability, the comfiness.

"So how does it feel?" (Mel)

"Do you like it?" (Harry)

"I hate it!" (Axel)

---

Three days later.

Harry entered through the front door. His face grinning with excitement and fear. He walked into the living room. Axel laid on the couch asleep. Mel walked downstairs in her pajamas with a dripping toothbrush hanging from her mouth.

"Harry where have you been? Aren't you leaving today?" (Mel)

"I was down in the market, but I came back when I heard some news from the locals. It's big news!" (Harry)

Axel woke up. He leaned up from his lying position, his head tilted to the side, he saw Harry. He fell back asleep uncaring and unmotivated.

"What did you hear at the market? You find any deals? Any..." (Mel)

Mel walked down the stairs. She noticed pillows and blankets spread across the clean floor.

"I told you to stop throwing stuff around the room!" (Mel)

She smacked Axel across the face with a pillow.

Harry walked into the kitchen, placing the groceries on the counter.

"He just came back from his mission with the Holy Knights. I heard he's on his way here as we speak. The High Priest is back." (Harry)