Content warning - Mention (Does NOT go into detail about said act ONLY mentions) of child sexual assault and/or molestation. Again viewer discretion is advised. 

“Use your brain Rein… if she really was sent by the director the fact that we left the premises at night and bought in a random girl would’ve been enough to take us to wherever that being said… Tell us how you know who we are, that is the only way you will gain 100% of our trust otherwise…” A bright red flame surrounded me. 

‘The signature fire magic of house Isadore…’ No more words needed to be spoken, anyone could tell that one of us would have to meet their end if the answer was not satisfactory.

“I saw it… I have the power to see glimpses of the future, in a particular vision I saw the two of you reuniting with your family and consequently who you were. I understand that it would be hard to believe but I truly am not working with the director.” It isn’t entirely a lie and I highly doubt anyone would believe it even if I told them the whole truth.

“Even your excuses don’t make sense, you told us when we first met that you had no idea who you were let alone where we were, also the fact that you came here with someone we all know is on the director's side makes me even more suspicious of you.” Reuben pointed out obvious holes in my story, so then we ought to patch the hole before water starts flowing out.

“It’s out of my control, I can’t choose when or what future to see. I only saw it after I left this room in the morning, by the lake. That's when my powers awakened stronger, also by the person the director knows, do you mean Mr John?” 

“Yes Mr John, who else? He’s the most vile man ever.”

“Hey Rein, let's maybe not talk about that right now.”

“Why? She probably already knows.” I looked between the two and shook my head from side to side indicating that I had no idea what they were talking about.

“It’s fine, it doesn’t really matter anyway…”

“Mr John used to sexually assault the kids here.” my eyes widened at the sudden news and Reuben smacked his own forehead with the palm of his hands.

“What? What about you two? Are you two okay?” I asked in a hurry, still in shock.

“What? Did you not just see what Reuben can do? We’d have roasted him before he could touch us. Anyways all the kids who were violated by him are now all gone.”

“Gone? Did he..?” I motioned with my thumb from one side of my neck to the other.

“No, honestly I don’t really know what happened to them, we were 5 when it stopped. Miss Dandy likes to say they were adopted but they all disappeared overnight. I knew it was suspicious but what can we really do?” Said Reuben with his shoulders slouching ever so slightly in disappointment.

“Either way that’s why you're even more suspicious since you’ve teamed up with a dirty fucker like that.” This was a lot of information to process in one sitting but the most important question was,

‘What happened to those poor kids, those kids turned to these adults to protect them not knowing the adults are the rotten monsters.’

“Just to clarify that dirty monster has long been dead… It was probably his karma that took his life but I can guarantee his death was one so painful even the devil would flinch at the sight of his corpse.” I spoke, letting out a slight huff.

“Dead? What? When did you have the time to kill him, you were with us the whole evening.” asked Reuben.

“No, he was dead well before you guys even found me, remember how I told you I was in a carriage accident? Well, he was the carriage man.”

“Then who did you walk in with? Was that a ghost or something? Oh my God, don’t tell me you used a monster” 

“It’s a Chimera I created based on the carriage man's face and body or what was left of it. I'm glad it looked similar enough to fool even the director, I thought that he had to have known the director somehow if he was able to drive the carriage into this forest, to begin with.”

“A Chimera? Just who are you? I remember a magic book I read in the director's office once, it said even an archmage found it hard to create Chimera’s” said Reuben with curious eyes.

“To be honest, I met a few fairies in the forest. My first Chimera creation was awkward but they helped me make it act and look more like a human. I guess fairies are stronger than a human archmage then.”

“Fairies? Aren’t all fairies a monster? They didn’t try to eat you? Are you sure it was a fairy? Wait let me check your heartbeat, how do we know you're not a fairy in disguise?” Rein seemed highly alarmed at the mention of fairies while Reuben looked at me as if he had found a fascinating specimen.

“Pfft, I'm sorry okay here you can check my heartbeat,” I said in between chuckles and gave them my wrists, both Reuben and Rein took each wrist and closed their eyes, magicians could check any living thing's heartbeat by closing their eyes and enveloping the subject in their mana. 

A cloud of red enveloped each wrist and it felt as if a very hot slime was being poured into the veins and rushed to circle around my heart, tightening and searching for its beating. ‘Weird it feels so weird… It almost feels icky… Ugh, I still hate this feeling.

’ This feeling reminded me of a certain person, no a certain monster.’

- - -

“So… what now? I still don’t see how we can be of any help to you. Plus you said you’ve lumped us in this plan, I hope you know we're not the type to simply let you use us without knowing what we're being used for.” Rein broke the silence that followed.

“My plan is simple, we find out why this orphanage is in operation and why you two are here as well as where the children are being taken to, I think we all know that the children aren't being adopted. Also, I’ll introduce you two to my Chimera once its current form leaves and it changes into something else.”

‘Yawn’ “I guess you can be trusted, I mean if you were lying Reuben would’ve killed you already… Haaah please let’s go to bed, we haven’t been sleeping properly since last night. Let’s talk about this some more tomorrow or something.”

“Rein’s right, let’s talk more about this tomorrow.”

“Do you two not want to know who you are? Don’t people usually want to hear that first?”

“Whatever, even if we hear it today or tomorrow, we won’t be able to do anything about it.” Rein’s relaxed state made me stare into the abyss and blink a few times.

‘How can a person go from rage to this so quickly? Is this why the enemy was so frightened by those two? Is this really it? Nothing else? They’re not going to question me further? Wtf?’ 

It was true that today was an exhausting day for kids but I know damn well these two are like the devil reincarnate, maybe something happened here to change them into such twisted teenagers? ‘Forget it… I’ll find out soon anyway, for now, I really do need some much-needed rest.’

With that, I drifted into a slumber…

- - -

“Reuben, you sure she wasn’t lying right?”

“Yh, she wasn’t lying…”

“Are you okay with being a part of her plan that we don’t know anything about? What about our plan?”

“Yh, she’s fun. I like her, and I told you that I have a good feeling about her. I think I can also guess the jist of her plan either way it’ll help us leave just like before.”

“Did you really trust her? I mean about her seeing the future, knowing who we are or that people are really desperately searching for us…”

“Let me ask you a question, did you not see her eyes when she mentioned people were desperately searching for us unlike her? It was the look of someone in pain with no wound for the pain to seep from. Like the look you had 4 years ago, why is it that only us two and this girl can’t remember life before this forest?”

“... whatever”

“Let’s go to sleep too… we really should get some rest tonight”

- - -

A dark and damp cell, no, a dirty damp hell.

“Vee, please help….”

“Vee, It hurts…”

“Vee, Vee, Vee…”

‘Stop it… please… I want to go home, I want to see Mommy and Daddy… please…”