—14th August 2026—

-A year has passed since I woke up and things have gone smoothly. Arismis gave 2-3 targets every day, but not every person I killed had powers and he explained it was normal since most of them had awakened too recently to be acquirable by someone else. Anyway, it didn’t matter since I still managed to kill a lot of criminals and obtain “a decent amount of powers” as he said, but from his expression, he probably expected more.-

Or that’s what he expects me to think. Since my awakening I felt weird about my past, every time I think about it I feel like it’s something distant from me, killing isn’t as funny as it was in my memories and all of my suspicions are amplified by those whispers. I heard them every single day and every time happened when I was talking to Arismis. I don’t understand what is happening but the only thing I’m sure about is that man did something to me before waking up and it went wrong for him. Unfortunately, I can’t confirm anything, but even if my assumption is right, the only “person” I could ask for help is Arismis and I would probably risk my life by doing that.

For now, let’s think of today, I’ll return to the USA and there I’ll have to kill my last targets, with that my training will be completed and he said this will be the hardest one for “different reasons”…I don’t have a good feeling about this.

———

I came out of a blue portal, and it brought me in front of a house and Arismis wasn’t with me this time because the targets were really close. I looked at the house and thought of the last thing he said to me

“Don’t kill them as you see them, you have to wait.”

‘Wait for what?’ I asked myself and then, not knowing what to do, I rang the doorbell.

I could hear some footsteps coming closer to the door and after hearing a brief “gasp” the door suddenly opened, a woman with short red hair and black eyes, if it wasn’t for the wrinkles on her face I wouldn’t have thought she was old. She wore light blue pyjamas and pink slippers. She was looking at me with tears in her eyes, but she didn’t seem sad.

“Y-Y-you are alive Sophia…” She quickly hugged me with all her strength, it was a warm hug and I could feel all the affection she was putting in.

‘What is happening…? Who is this Sophia-’ My memory flashed for a moment and remembered since I woke up for the first time in this new body, I never cared too much about its old owner, but now I guess I know her name. Also, feeling the woman’s hug made me feel something, something I never felt since I woke up.

‘Is this…affection? Why I’m feeling this? I don’t know this woman at all…Is the body still connected to that Sophia somewhat…?’

We stayed like that for a solid minute and then she detached, put one hand on my shoulders while the other was caressing my face and asked concerned 

“Are you feeling well honey? You still didn’t say anything and…why are your eyes purple?”

“E-Ehm…well…” Right, I forgot about the eyes. It was a side effect of using Arismis’ power too much. I said while trying to fake being sad.

“I don’t know what to say right now…I missed you too much Mom…” I hugged her again and she hugged me back with the same warmth and strength as before. 

‘Even if her aura is red…I’m feeling bad. She thinks I’m her daughter…but still, this warmth seems too good to be true.’ Sarah thought.

“Let’s go inside. I have to call your father, so he can go take your sister and when they’ll return you’ll be the greatest surprise to them.” She said with a smile while passing her fingers through my hair.

After saying that she quickly went inside to grab her phone, started faking an emergency so that the husband would come as quickly as possible and used some other excuses to make him go take their daughter from school. 

Meanwhile, I entered the house and looked around, the first thing I saw were stairways and at the right of the entrance there was a big room being both a living room, a lunch room and a kitchen. The walls were white and the furniture seemed new by how clean they were. While looking around I sat on the sofa, waiting for Sophia’s mother to finish talking on the phone and after a minute or two she arrived and sat close to me.

She wanted to know everything and I tried to gain some time to think of an excuse.

“It was seriously shocking and I would really like to rest a bit now, so let’s wait for my dad and my sister.” 

She nodded and looked me in the eyes, still worried a bit.

Half an hour passed later, and both Sophia’s dad and sister arrived. The man was slightly shorter than the wife, with a thick beard, brown hair, blue eyes and a big belly, which was still noticeable even with the tight jacket he was wearing; he also had some wrinkles and was probably around the same age as the wife, while the little girl at his side was a kid, with short red hair and blue eyes, with a white school uniform. As soon as they saw they both started crying and jumped on me to hug me. 

Shortly after they asked all sorts of questions like “Where have you been?” “Who kidnapped you?” “Are you ok?” “Are you hungry?” and more.

To quickly answer all those questions I explained I was kidnapped and was closed in an abandoned building in a near city, but I was able to free myself and escape when the culprit fell asleep, I stole some money from him and started working at a hotel where they also offered me a room. The kidnapper was never able to do whatever he wanted to do and that’s also why I didn’t return sooner, I was scared he would have followed me with the risk he would have hurt all of you as a revenge. Even if I was a bit vague, the question would have finished there but the little girl asked

“And those cool purple eyes?”

I didn’t know how to answer that one “Well…” I started scratching my neck lightly out of frustration. I didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t you know darling?” the mom intervened “This is the latest trend! Colourful contact lenses, aren’t they great?”

“Oooh!” The girl was admiring my eyes and then said “I want some too!”

The mother patted the little girl’s head “Maybe for your 18th birthday…”

“Yay!” she happily jumped on the mother and hugged her.

The father touched my shoulder and said “You should go to rest a bit. We kept your room as it was before you disappeared in the hope that you return.”

I smiled “Thank you. I’ll go then.”

I got up and the mother asked me sarcastically “Hope you still remember where your room is!”

“I could never forget that!” I said and headed upstairs. Obviously, I didn’t know. There was a long corridor with four doors and only one of them was closed, I opened that one and there was a bedroom, every part of it was pastel-coloured, mainly pastel blue, pink, white etc. I closed the door and lay on the bed which was way comfier than any other bed I slept on, also it was the first time in a year that I was relaxed.

‘I hope, this isn’t just another dream…’

My eyes were slowly closing and before falling asleep I had one last thought

‘I know I don’t deserve this, especially because this isn’t my body but…I still want to enjoy some days with this family…’