Chapter 434: Manipulation in time
The boy let out a sigh, "I see, so it’s my last moment with you as well."
"What other thing do you wish for before I take you?" the creature asked, looking down at the boy who talked and acted far beyond his age.
Reapers don’t grant wishes, but then again they don’t talk with the victims all together, nonetheless Astral went as far as to even grow attachment.
Rohan grew thoughtful at that question before his dark eyes lit slightly. "I wish to still have my heart inside me when I die. It’s my favorite thing, and I like feeling it. It always reminds me of how different I am from the others. Will I have it with me?" he asked, watching as the creature said,
"The dead don’t carry heartbeats, but I shall grant you the wish by preserving yours somewhere. When you miss it, you can always go there in the land of the dead to feel it."
Rohan’s dark eyes glowed with excitement at the thought of having his most treasured part preserved. "I will never forget our friendship, Astral. And just so you know, I like talking with you more than anything." They stared at each other, the boy with a faint lift of his mouth and the reaper with glowing eyes, each finding peace and solace in the other’s company.
They might be of different kinds, but feelings were what mattered more.
"Me too. I like talking with you."
Two days later, Astral watched as men came in and dragged the boy away. The creature followed them to witness the way its victim would die, since the boy wasn’t sick in any way. That was when Astral realized the boy was going to die by being ripped open and having his heart taken out.
"No, not my heart! Don’t take my heart!" the boy, who had once been willing to die because his mother wanted it, cried out. His heart was the only treasure he truly valued, the one thing that made him feel alive.
A soul had never wept before, but the boy’s soul did after his death. "They took my heart... they killed me... she made them take my heart."
Astral had already carried the boy’s soul across the river when it stopped the boat, unable to bear the sound of those grief-soaked sobs and the tears of the boy who had made him feel more alive than he ever had before, a friend.
"Will you promise to take care of Kuhn for me?"
The boy’s soul looked up from where he sat in the boat, wearing the blood-stained clothes he had died in, his chest opened.
"I want to go back. I want to make them pay for taking away my only treasure... the thing that makes me feel..." He groaned in anguish, burying his face in his palms at the weight of his loss, unable to form words at the betrayal of his mother, a woman he had been willing to give everything to, even his own life, only for her to rip him apart.
"I will make you go back if you promise to do as I say," Astral said calmly, and the young Rohan stopped crying to listen.
"I will give you back the heart essence I preserved for you to plant, and it will grow back. But make sure to protect Kuhn and keep my pet with you."
"What about you?" Rohan questioned, not understanding what the creature was up to.
Astral didn’t explain more as he sent the boy, along with his pet, back to the living world. As promised, he gave the boy the essence of the heart that had been destroyed to regrow. Astral went as far as giving the boy the power to live and survive without a heart by forcing his soul back into his dead body.
"Don’t die, and hold on to life. Farewell, my friend. We shall meet again someday."
Astral knew he had committed the greatest crime with what he did, and so he decided to take another step he knew would further destroy any chance of forgiveness. The creature wanted to live again and experience life itself.
Every reaper had a past life, and Astral longed to know what his had been like, even if it would only last for a few years before everything came crumbling down on him.
Astral immediately became wanted as the Elders sensed what he had done.
The creature fled into the Chamber of Time with the pass he had as a high-ranking reaper. The time keeper there, who hadn’t yet heard about Astral’s crime, didn’t stop the reaper from entering the chamber because he had a pass.
"The Clock of Life has the power to show reapers what their past lives were like, but many choose not to look, because it’s their miserable past lives that turned them into creatures of the dead, stripped of all feeling. The Clock of Life also holds the ability to change and manipulate time, but that is strictly against the rules and laws. It’s something you can watch but must never touch, Astral." His master had told him this long before he took the form of a reaper. But Astral no longer cared about consequences.
The Clock of Life now stood before him, glowing a deep red as its hands ticked slowly. Astral knew what he was about to do would make forgiveness impossible once he was caught, but this was the only way to taste life as a human again before being erased from existence.
Astral played back the hands of time to see what his past life had been like. He watched it unfold and despised every part of what he saw.
"I want to relive in a better way," Astral muttered.
He then turned time back to the moment Isabelle was first conceived by her parents in 1670. Astral tampered with time and took the essence of Isabelle, bringing it back to 1734 where another Dawson had just gotten married. Griffin Dawson and his wife Louisiana Dawson.
"I want to live for just a while before I stop existing."
That was Astral’s plan: to experience life until his hiding place was discovered. Using his abilities, he prepared the essence inside him that made him the creature he was. Then the creature fell into the time passage and merged himself with the past essence from when Isabelle was first conceived, allowing him to live again in 1734.
And just like that, a baby that was never meant to exist formed in Louisiana Dawson’s womb. The newlywed couple never suspected that the child hadn’t been conceived on their first night together. They raised her as their own, until the day she came close to dying in a rogue attack. That was when the illusion of time cracked, just enough to reveal the truth: she was a dead person.
Louisiana Dawson saw an illusion created by the manipulation already made in time, showing that her daughter was killed. When Isabelle had died in the past, she had burned to the extent that her head fell off. Lady Louisiana had seen the illusion of her daughter’s head falling off.
When time is tampered with, there are always consequences. Once a crack begins to form, it can never truly mend, and if it grows wider, the truth begins to unravel piece by piece... just as it had with Astral.
Astral had not only broken laws, he had tampered with time itself. He had given Rohan the chance to live again and chosen to be born as a human to experience life for himself.
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"Now you have seen and remember your betrayal of our world, Astral?" the elder, who had taken the creature under his wings and given him a chance at life again, said. "Your tampering with time has not only ruined law and orders in our world, where souls could now go and come into the land of the living, but people who should die or live has lose order."
Before Astral had turned the Clock of Life, no soul could hold memories of their life for long after crossing over or try to find ways to go back. But after what Astral had done, many souls came here, and some found ways to go into the land of the living as wandering souls because they didn’t want to part with it. It was why there had been so much chaos in the land of the dead whenever the souls sensed anything that could give them life. Astral had brought this disorder.
"You ruined time for your selfishness, not caring what happens to people and souls."
Belle sat on the ground, rendered speechless and in utter disbelief at what she had just remembered. So that was it? So it was all her? She was Isabelle, Astral, and then Belle. They were all one person. She had gone on with her life without memories of the past; she hadn’t recalled or realized she was living a borrowed life that would one day end once she got caught. And to think she had wanted to remove Isabelle from her body, not knowing she was trying to remove herself...
Having the memories now, Belle finally understood the gravity of the situation, the weight of what she had done, and the consequences that came with it.
A reaper should never mess with or touch the Clock of Life, but she had touched it and turned it back. From what she had been taught as a reaper, that meant she had tampered with many people’s fates and lives, altering what should never have been touched. Cold chills ran down her spine as the full meaning of her actions sank in.
She had not just gone back to retrieve her essence from the past; she had brought herself back to life. She wasn’t supposed to live after already giving away her mortal form to become a reaper.
Belle felt her heart twist into a tight, painful knot. This was the end. She had been running from it all her life without even knowing what she was running from, and just like that, she had thrown herself right back into it. Was this how it was going to end for her? Was she finally going to face the consequences of a past action she couldn’t undo?
Not just that...
Belle’s body went weak, like boneless flesh. She had gone on and built a life for herself, created a family she loved more than death itself, a family that loved her just the same. She had a son and probably another child on the way, when she wasn’t even supposed to be a living person.
Rohan... She shut her eyes tightly and pressed her freed hand to her aching heart, her throat convulsing as she fought to swallow the heavy lump lodged there. How had things come to this?
She had once saved him when he should have been dead, and now, just like her, he would... No. She couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t.
Belle raised her head to the elder, forcing herself to keep her composure. "What did my crime cause to the people who lived when they shouldn’t?" she asked. No matter what happened, she had to protect her family. Subconsciously, her hand went to her stomach, where she knew more than anything that there was another child growing inside her.
The elder looked down at her. "What should have happened before you played with fate. Everyone who was supposed to die until you interfered with their fate will eventually perish, and one who shouldn’t have existed would never come to be."