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YET ANOTHER FUNERAL, YET another soul to claim.
This time, it was a funeral for a fallen angel that I didn’t know all that well. I was usually more careful and caring with the way I took souls from people that I didn’t know all that well since I didn’t know how their family would take it. I knew the pain that losing a loved one could cause - after all, I was the prince of Death - and so I tried to ease that pain as much as I could.
Unfortunately for this family, I was not in a good mood today and I wasn’t in the mood for taking care of people today. I just wanted to claim this stupid soul so I could go back home and lock myself away from everyone.
It didn’t help that Wyatt had given me a black eye the night before during our fight, so I was in a considerable amount of pain.
I was standing on the sidewalk, watching as the funeral procession went by. I was waiting for them to get to the cemetery before I took the soul and went on my merry way, but I was growing irritated by a young child that was standing beside me. Naturally, his parents were nowhere to be seen and he was being obnoxiously loud and chatty, but when the hearse with the casket walked by and he was still talking, I lost it.
I turned around and grabbed the kid and hoisted him up, forcing him to look me in the eye. I saw the look of sheer terror in his face, but I didn’t care. Actually, I loved seeing that look on his face.
I narrowed my eyes at him, allowing my horns and wings to show (though it wouldn’t be until later that I realized they were out long before that).
“Do you know what they say about people laughing when hearses go by?” I asked him.
I felt his shiver when he heard my voice, but I didn’t let that even begin to compel me to go easy on him. No. He would pay for this.
“You die,” I told him, “Do you know what happens when you die?”
The boy shook his head.
I pouted a little, “Really? They haven’t taught you about that in school?” I asked, putting him down, though I didn’t take my hands off of him.
Several people walked past and glanced our way, but no one tried to intervene. If they were smart, they wouldn’t dare to even think about trying to intervene. If they did, I would have no problem taking their souls, too. There was always more room for more souls.
The humans learned that the hard way.
When the boy didn’t respond, I smirked and decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, this kid deserved to have some kind of education before he experienced it first-hand.
In an instant, we were whisked away to a dreamscape of sorts where there was a dead body in front of us. It was a fresh one - relatively unscathed... for now. The boy continued to plead with me as I snapped my fingers, describing to him in detail as the body began to decay. He even tried to hide behind my leg, but I wasn’t nice enough to do that. I just dragged him back around by the collar of his shirt.
“Do you want this to be you?” I asked him as I put my hands on his shoulders and began to dig my nails into his skin.
“N-no, no,” he said rapidly, “Please, let me go.”
I almost didn’t let him go. I almost killed him right then and there when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. Within seconds, I teleported both of us back to the “real world” and let the boy go before turning to see my brothers all standing there.
The corruption was still taking over their bodies, but I could see in their eyes that they were still there - more so than they had been in the past several days. More than anything else, though, I saw the fear and desperation in their eyes.
“What is it?” I asked them.
“It’s Eddie...” Lachlan began, then looked over at his twin. I looked at Wyatt, too, who seemed to be unwilling to tell me what was wrong either.
“She’s gone,” Pierce said finally, “And we have every reason to believe that she went to the White City.”