Chapter 6

This ocean that I’m submerged in was where their massacre took place, just further below. In the dark depths where light can’t reach.

This ocean is their gravesite.

And they’re going to kill me in it to join them.

I can feel my limbs tremble. The water is filling my lungs as my eyes stare down at the impenetrable darkness that mocks my upcoming death.

I’ll be down there too. As a corpse.

I can’t let things end like this.

There has to be a way… I have to think.

“Burn the embers, burn them down… Don’t feel remorse… They killed us so we can’t let guilt bring us down... Burn the embers, burn them down… We’re the anodyne nymphs of the sea… let the one that did it be burned down…”

Burn the embers…

“Burn the embers, burn them down… Don’t feel remorse… They killed us so we can’t let guilt bring us down... Burn the embers, burn them down… We’re the anodyne nymphs of the sea… let the one that did it be burned down…”

Burn them down…

“Burn the embers, burn them down… Don’t feel remorse… They killed us so we can’t let guilt bring us down... Burn the embers, burn them down… We’re the anodyne nymphs of the sea… let the one that did it be burned down…”

They’re the nymphs of the sea…

“Burn the embers, burn them down… Don’t feel remorse… They killed us so we can’t let guilt bring us down... Burn the embers, burn them down… We’re the anodyne nymphs of the sea… let the one that did it be burned down…”

Let the one that did it be burned down…

“Burn the embers, burn them down… Don’t feel remorse… They killed us so we can’t let guilt bring us down... Burn the embers, burn them down… We’re the anodyne nymphs of the sea… let the one that did it be burned down…”

Burn… the one that did it… don’t feel remorse… burn them down…

Burn them down…

To be free… I have to burn the one that did it with the embers.

I have to use fire…

Fire…

Where can I get fire―

“Smoking is bad for your health.”

“It is.”

That’s right…

He didn’t use a lighter to light his cigar. He lit it without touching it.

If he’s able to light his cigars then―

“Speaking of those woods, how come you’re here. Don’t most people that enter are fated to die inside?”

“Most are, but me ― I don’t know why I’m here. I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember.”

“How did you get those cigars then?”

“I don’t know honestly. I always find them whenever I run out. New and untouched.”

“That is odd.”

“It is but I don’t question it.”

“It’s probably just a guardian angel watching over you.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Wait… So does that mean…

“The one that is responsible is dead.”

“I don’t know why I’m here. I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember.”

Asher can’t be the one responsible… he helped me… he’s a nice guy…

“You shouldn’t talk about what she should do when your life is ruined by your traitor’s havoc, isn’t that right, Asher?”

The nymphs were killed by a figure… That figure soon died afterward… and now Asher is on the beach where the massacre took place. What’s the connection?

There has to be a memory missing… This must be a mislead like in the woods with Seria. Has to be.

On cue, a scenario plays in my mind as I begin to lose consciousness.

Two nymphs, one wearing a black cloak that had a fire burning on the ends of it and the other wearing a ripped dress ― identical to an angel’s attire, stood in front of the looming figure with a grin on their chapped lips.

“Kill them and we’ll give you more souls to feast on.” The nymph with the cloak says, handing a small orb to it. “Do it in the ocean.”

They disappear and the figure begins to trek to the small village next to the ocean.

I watch the same terrifying scene play again and try to stay awake to find out what happened to the creature.

After watching the creature walk around the area with bloody claws, I see another looming creature emerge from the shadows. I can’t see it clearly due to my lack of strength to stay awake, but I can tell it was a different kind of creature ― something more intimidating and treacherous.

It walks up to the figure and without hesitation, the demon-like creature kills the other and licks its claws clean, grinning in fulfillment.

Concluding from what I saw in these memories, I think the victims misinterpreted who the real traitors were since the one who killed them filled them with rage from ` the night they died. They must not know Asher is the reincarnation of the one that killed them and only knows he was betrayed by his own kind.

The other creature must’ve been close to him. Judging the way his facial expression changed when the nymphs said he was betrayed by his traitor’s havoc, I can assume that they weren’t that close to being blood-related, but close enough to where he felt betrayed when he was killed in cold blood ― the same way he killed those nymphs in his past life. As that figure.

Asher lied to me saying he didn’t know why he was there and why he couldn’t leave. He knew but didn’t want to be painted as a murderer again. He knew he was being confined on the beach to reminisce the time he was killed as punishment for his past crime in his past life. But since the souls of the victims didn’t know who he truly was, they didn’t target him or just couldn’t target him in general since his veins still flowed with the same powers he had in his past life ― the same kind he killed them with. Fire.

The nymphs were repelled by the fire and he was protected like a barrier since they were traumatized, causing them to be in the dark of his true identity.

So why does he get rewarded with cigars?

Is it like a sickening game to force him to use his power in front of the nymphs to mock their death?

And since he has been stuck there all his life, he didn’t have much choice but to use them to shorten his lifespan. It seems like can’t kill himself to escape the confinement.

This is a double homicide for both victims.

One has to watch the person that killed them use what they’re terrified of while the other has to use the power they most likely despise to slowly end their life.

“Not everyone wants to see the world, some want to become it. To fuse their soul with everything that makes the world beautiful. They want to become what life means to everyone else. I want to be that. Not just useful. I want to be everything the people appreciate. I want to make everyone smile. Even if it’s a strange dying wish, that’s what I want to become after I die. I wouldn’t recommend thinking this way to everyone but I lived with this since I was little. You might not understand but I answered your question that you probably wanted to ask anyway.”

All he wants is to be a part of the world… he wants to be free.

But does a person like him, someone who killed the innocent in his past life, deserve to observe the world as something beautiful?

Suddenly, the words I told Seria infiltrated my mind ― love doesn’t die.

Selfishness ends with consequences.

But love never dies so those consequences can be eradicated if the person that did the selfish actions repents genuinely.

People that wronged can do right…

Maybe he can become something beautiful once he dies.

He spent all of his life repenting after all.

Just like Seria, he was punished for a selfish act centuries ago and wants to move on from those gruesome memories by doing what he needs to do to be happy.

He needs to die.

But not by fire, by something else ― something less grisly.

I need to stay alive and help to fix everything.

I need to move.

But my limbs are numb.

They’re numb to the point that I can’t tell if my blood is flowing still.

My eyes refuse to open.

It’s like I’m dead but alive.

Painfully alive.

I can feel my lungs filled with water completely so why am I still alive?

Throb.

I feel my heart aching as it begins to slow.

Okay, so I am alive. I’m just paralyzed.

I need to find a way to move.

Then, as excruciating as it can be, I feel something exude from my forearm. It slithers up my bicep at a slow pace and stops on my face, near to my eyes. I feel it peel them open and slip inside, melting into my pupils.

Ten seconds went by until I feel my eyes begin to sting. My body involuntarily jolts from the shock that flows through my veins. The aching sensation of the pins and needles tells me that my limbs are waking up. My pulse is all over my body as it starts to come alive again.

The water that's filled in my lungs starts to drain out miraculously.

The feel of something growing on my arms alarms me as it spreads. Once it reaches my neck, the impulse to inhale is unavoidable, and cave in to breathe in the water that almost killed me. But when I breathe in, no water enters my lungs, instead, it strangely feels like I’m breathing air.

Am I still in the ocean?

My eyes snap open and my question is answered the moment my vision clears.

Yep, still in the ocean.

So how can I breathe right now?

I look down at my hands and see that my wounds have healed. My honey-brown skin is covered in luminous fish scales.

Where did these come from?

Well, there’s no time to admire these, I have to do what I need to do ― I need to go back to Asher.

I look up and see that the typhoon had changed its course to block my way out of the ocean.

Guess I’ll risk it and go straight into it. There’s no other way around it.

I swim up to the surface, enduring the harsh spiral of the typhoon that tries to knock me back down into the ocean. I force myself to enter inside of it and deja vu kicks in when I realize I’m doing the same thing I did when I first woke up in this world. I’m emerging from an ocean.

What does this mean?