“What a pitiful child.”

My vision returned to what it was prior to the visions after the demon took his hand from Melissa’s head.

I didn’t know exactly how long had passed, but during the time where I was looking through Melissa’s memories, it felt as if years had passed by…of course, I knew that it was only my imagination.

Thud—!

During the time that my vision returned, Melissa fell to the ground on both knees. Her complexion looked rather pale as what seemed to be tears flowed down the sides of her eyes.

I couldn’t blame her.

Relieving what she was desperately trying to hide and forget, and knowing that the closest people she knew were also watching her deepest secrets…

‘Shit.’

I could tell exactly what she was feeling.

Lowering his body, the demon stood at eye level with her.

Patting her head, he gently spoke to her.

“Your life is truly hard. You wanted to make your father proud throughout your entire childhood, but no matter what you did, he never satisfied you.”

“Even when you excelled in a different field, he ignored you and only cared about your achievements in the combat field…yet, you had no talent for it, but you knew this…”

“Of course, you knew this. You’re a smart child after all, am I right?”

Melissa’s body trembled as the demon’s gentle words echoed throughout. Slowly, she started to nod her head.

‘Don’t respond to him!’

I shouted inside of my head as I tried to move, and open my mouth, but it all proved to be fruitless.

I couldn’t activate any of my skills, nor feel my mana.

I was desperate.

Melissa may not be aware at the moment, but the demon was definitely using some sort of skill at the moment. A skill that would severely weaken her mind the more she listened to him or spoke to him.

“Even though you trained for twelve hours every day, to the point of exhaustion, as a way to finally show your father the results of your achievements, he completely disregarded your achievements and treated you like trash…all because you couldn’t take the first spot.”

Extending his hand, the demon patted Melissa on the back.

“When your father dismissed you after you placed second, that was the turning point of your life, wasn’t it? You stopped caring about him, or about anyone else’s opinion, right? You felt free when you stopped caring, right? …and why do you treat everyone so harshly? Is it because you don’t trust anyone but yourself?”

With each question that the demon asked, the paler Melissa’s complexion became, and it wasn’t long before her eyes started to lose some clarity.

‘Oh no.’

I instantly became alarmed when I saw this.

This pattern…

It was the same pattern that resulted in the creation of contractees. After thoroughly exposing the secrets and breaking their minds, demons used this exact scenario to convince their victims to sign a contract with them.

‘Not good.’

Despite my best efforts, nothing changed and I remained in the same spot, shouting inside of my mind as I tried to struggle even harder.

“You look like someone prideful at a first glance, but in a way, that’s just yourself trying to distance others from you so that you don’t get hurt again, right? It’s a pitiful life, the one that you live in.”

The demon’s eyes flashed with pity as he continued to pat Melissa on the back. Over time, her complexion worsened, and it wasn’t long before her eyes became hollow and she lost her expression.

‘Shit.’

I inwardly cursed inside of my mind when I saw this.

“How about you just gi—Oops.”

Halfway through his sentence, the demon finally took notice of Melissa’s condition and the smile on his face widened.

“It looks like I overdid things a little bit. I’m not supposed to break you just yet. His majesty might get mad at me if I do that.”

Standing up and no longer paying any attention to Melissa, the demon calmly patted his clothes.

Then, once he confirmed that there was no dust on his clothes, he turned to glance at Melissa one last time.

“While I feel that your father’s methods are harsh, he wasn’t exactly wrong about you being talentless. It’s a pity that I’m tempted to make you sign a contract with me, but you’re simply untalented from my likes, plus…”

The demon’s head suddenly turned and it was then that my eyes met with his.

“After looking through your memories, I’ve come to find quite a nice gem over here. One that I am very interested in making a contract with.”

Calmly taking a couple of steps toward me, the demon soon reached where I was standing and stopped right before me.

Calmly analyzing my body, I was able to catch a glimpse of a strange twinkle in his eyes. While he analyzed my body with his eyes, I felt the back of my skin crawl.

“You’re quite young, yet you seem to be extremely strong for someone your age. Not bad, not bad.”

The more he looked, the more he seemed to be satisfied with me.

Taking his eyes away from me, he then turned his head and his eyes lingered on Liam’s and Kevin’s bodies for a bit.

“These other two seem to also be quite the talent. It’s quite hard to choose between the three of you…so, how about we continue our little game?”

Turning his head to once again face my direction, the smile on his face became even more sinister and his hand raised toward my head.

‘No!’

Staring at the enlargening shadow cast by the hand slowly approaching hand, from the corner of my eyes I stared at the others who were else looking at me.

My heart started to beat faster as deep anxiety started to permeate my body.

‘Not my memories!’

I started to panic when I realized that the others would also see my memories.

‘I can’t let that happen!’

Anything but that!

The thought of all the things I had been trying to hide being revealed to them terrified me to the core.

Imagining how they would react to what I did in the past and everything that happened to me made my skin crawl. Especially after they would find out the truth about my life at the Lock, and how I viewed them in the past.

But I was helpless at the moment.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t resist the demon’s hand as it soon reached out for my head and grasped it tightly.

“Sleep tight.”

Everything when dark after that.

***

‘Is it happening again?’

As Kevin walked past a paved driveway toward an area surrounded by iron gates and fences, he passed a small wooden chapel.

Just like before, with Melissa, he could not control his body as it slowly headed toward the back of the chapel.

‘…Are these Ren’s memories?’

Recalling what had happened before, and how the last memory he had was the demon grasping Ren’s head, Kevin could make out what was going on at the moment. He felt a burning rage rush from deep within him as he thought of what the demon was doing.

‘Bastard.’

Kevin’s anger grew as he remembered Melissa’s state a few seconds ago.

Remembering her helpless and broken state…Kevin felt his emotions run wild. He called it a game, but this felt like no game to Kevin at all.

‘Eh?’

In the midst of his rage, Kevin suddenly found his mind turning blank as his body moved past the chapel and he was able to catch a glimpse of what lay behind it.

Cars lining the road, a black hearse, pallbearers carrying what seemed to be three different caskets, mourners seated in chairs or standing in a clump, a religious leader praying or reading passages of scripture, fresh flower arrangements, and several people dressed in black standing with their heads lowered.

‘A graveyard?’

The sight left Kevin in a state of confusion, as the body continued to move forward.

Approaching the graveyard, Ren’s movements were rather slow and unhurried. He seemed to be rather relaxed at the moment, as though the scene in the distance had nothing to do with him.

He was acting drastically different from the people in the distance who were mourning and crying.

‘They look somewhat familiar…’

Kevin couldn’t quite make out the features of the individuals in the distance, but as he paid attention to them, he felt that they were quite familiar to him. Rather, extremely familiar…

Unfortunately, he was unable to get a proper look at them as Ren’s body moved toward where three carved headstones stood.

‘…What’s going on?’

It was at that moment that Kevin suddenly felt a heartwrenching pain engulf his entire being as Ren’s feet came to a sudden stop and he grasped his chest with his hand. Soon his body started to tremble uncontrollably.

“N..not now.”

Ren’s voice echoed out as he took a step forward.

“Haaa…”

Each step that Ren took felt as though a piece of his entire heart was being ripped into pieces. It was suffocating.

The closer he got to the headstones, the harder it became for him to walk.

“Haaa…Haaa…”

As his breathing got harder, so did his vision, which became increasingly misty.

Staring at the tombstones in the distance, Kevin found that Ren’s whole body was trembling.

He was becoming increasingly unable to bear the pain inside of his heart with each step he took as he had to force himself to stop several times…

‘…What is this pain?’

Feeling the pain that Ren was going through, Kevin didn’t know how to react. The pain hurt more than anything he had ever felt in his life.

Kevin felt an undefinable type of pain drain away at everything he knew as Ren’s trembling body stopped in front of the headstones.

Right as he stopped in front of the headstones, Ren’s body knelt on the ground and Kevin was finally able to see what was written on them. His heart stopped soon after.

‘H…how…?

Imprinted on the gravestones were three names.

Samantha Dover Donald Dover Nola Dover