Alessa or Alice

The vision had ended. I was still engulfed in my subconscious nightmarish well. The horrors of being betrayed and my family being massacred were still clinging to me.

I understood that this was one of my past lives and more so that it was related to someone I knew. I knew very well who it was but still wished it was someone else as if to run away from the truth.

Slowly, the darkness surrounding me started fading, and I regained consciousness.

I was lying on a bed inside the carriage that was moving. My whole body was drenched in sweat, but I could smell a sweet fragrance from someone beside me.

I turned my head to look at a beautiful lady with curvy eyelashes sleeping peacefully. She was my sister and my lover, Alice.

But the moment I looked at her, the thing I tried so hard to suppress inside took over. I saw Alessa's figure overlap with Alice's. The feeling of disgust and hatred welt up from within me. My hand went for her throat and started crushing it.

"You… Die!"

I growled, remembering the suffering faced by 'my family' and the bloody, strained smile of Ifrid in her final moments.

I wanted to kill Alessa at all costs and get revenge for her betrayal. And with the overwhelming mixture of feelings erupting from within me, the force from my hold increased.

Alessa's face turned purple from asphyxiation.

I was very close to getting my revenge when I heard a faint and choked voice.

"Little brother…"

The voice, which I knew very well and loved, brought me clarity. I quickly pulled my hands back.

There were reddish-purple marks of fingers marring the beauty of a slender neck. And the victim of my unwarranted assault was not Alessa, the one who betrayed me, but my dear sister Alice.

She looked at me with concern. Her face was slowly draining out of the purple colour. Her eyes were a little wet due to the strain, and she was gasping to regain her breath.

"Lucas…*huff* what … what happened to you? Did you… *huff* have any night…mare?"

I could not look at her gentle and caring eyes. And the feeling of guilt and abhorrence of harming her made me unable to stay close to her. Seeing the brutality I had enacted on my innocent sister, I rushed out of the carriage as fast as I could.

I jumped down the carriage and sprinted in a random direction. 

I brushed past Sister Yvette, who was approaching the carriage door. 

"Young master, you woke up. Do you need any--- thing…"

I didn't give her a second glance and ran deep into the woods. After a few minutes of sprinting continuously, I stopped near a small lake. I dived straight into its depth to reach the lakebed.

Away from Alice, finding myself surrounded in cool and clear water, I let go of the fury and hatred that I felt in my soul. I screamed out my lungs and let my body be overtaken by my emotions.

My body became scorching hot and my vision warped . Although I could feel the sensations throughout my body, I had lost control.

The black flames that were previously residing inside my soul erupted out of my body. They covered my whole body and started spreading through the lake.

Though I could not feel any heat coming from the black flames, they started to scorch the lake dry. The water present in the lake visibly decreased as the black flames 'burnt' the water. Instead of evaporating, the water was burnt without any trace.

The intensity of the black flames increased with my hatred and anger towards 'my enemies' who mercilessly trampled upon 'my family' and executed them through schemes and wrongful accusations.

By the time the lake 'burnt down' completely, my anger had subsided, and the black flames had receded into my soul. 

But then I remember the betrayal from 'my wife Alessa'. The disgust I felt towards her two-faced actions made my soul turn cold. I didn't feel anger anymore but just accepted her actions as a result of the fragility of human relationships.

'My wife' let go of our past several years of relationship and betrayed me. I felt that there was no need for any more emotions and to never fully trust anyone else.

I wanted to freeze all of my emotions. And as if responding to that desire, frigid coldness started emanating from within. I could sense the presence of an ice chunk surrounded by an inferno of black fame inside my soul.

The ice chunk was crystal clear, as if devoid of any impurities called emotion. I could feel the coldness of that ice chunk emanating from my body and spreading through the lake.

Even without water, the space enclosed within the lake froze, with me as the epicentre. Various ice shards were poking out the ground haphazardly. The ice formation didn't stop as layers upon layers superimposed on each other.

After some time, the coldness emitted from within me stopped. The whole lake was now like a battlefield of ice shards as if some divine being rained downed the ice spears on the ground.

I myself was enclosed within an ice crystal. I didn't feel cold and wanted to stay like that for a bit longer.

--------------------------------------------------

"Young master, you woke up. Do you need any--- thing…"

Yvette couldn't complete her question before Lucas disappeared into the thick woods.

She had heard Lucas's growl bursting with hatred. And wanted to check on him. And seeing him run desperately away without any second glance back made her feel anxious.

(Has young master done something untoward to young miss? No, no. I shouldn't make any judgment without checking myself…) 

Yvette entered the carriage to find a dumbstruck Alice massaging her neck in front of a mirror. The sudden entry of Yvette caught Alice off-guard.

She quickly hid her neck by covering her neck with a scarf. Even Yvette was not able to see the bruises on her neck.

But the abrupt actions of Alice were enough to raise suspicion that something had happened between the two siblings. Added to the out-of-place scarf on her dress, Yvette didn't need any more proof.

"Young miss, what---"

Yvette wanted to ask about the suspicious behaviours of the two siblings but was interrupted by Alice.

"Sister Yvette, it was a very exhausting fight, and I still feel sore even after sleeping this much. Do you have any food for regaining energy and killing lethargy?"

Finding that Alice was trying to change the flow of the upcoming conversation, Yvette took a soft approach.

"Young miss, it seems your fatigue is still present as your face is still pale. You may have exhausted your internal energy a little too much and have become weak enough to get sick. Let me check."

"Oh, okay… Ah!"

She craftily brought Alice's guard down through a soft manipulation. And while touching her forehead to check the temperature, Yvette sneakily took off the scarf from around Alice's neck.

Alice swiftly pulled back the scarf and wrapped it around her neck. But Yvette had already seen the purplish welts of fingers on Alice's neck.

"Young miss, did young master do that? Those bruises are quite severe…"

Alice flinched at the mention of the scars on her neck. She still didn't know why Lucas tried to strangle her to death. She clearly knew that if he had not stopped at that time, then she would have died within a few more seconds.

"He… He… He did not! He might have suffered from a nightmare. I am… I am sure."

Alice stuttered with her words. She didn't have any conviction behind her words, but she still wished they were true. She didn't know why Lucas tried to kill her and found her eyes become moist at the thought of him hating her to death.

"Okay, young miss. We should search for young master. Perhaps due to the nightmare, but he ran away from us."

Just as she finished her words, she felt a massive surge of energy in the direction Lucas sprinted off to. Even Alice felt the abnormal energy surge.

They looked at each other and nodded. Afterwards, they started sprinting in the direction from where the gush of energy originated.

"Let's go."