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Forge of Shadows

Issac Zaid, a psychiatrist that has risen in popularity over the fact that, whoever enters his clinic, comes out feeling like 'all the negativity of their life was sucked away'. No one knows anything about this man, not even his closest friend, Soren Usoro, who has been trying to find out more about his friend by exchanging numbers with his one night stands but they always disappear the day after they were with him. It did not help that Issac is sometimes covered in bruises and injuries that looked too severe for him to have survived them or the fact that, under his eyepatch, is nothing but an almost empty socket and something glistening in the darkness. What could he be hiding? And why is he not dead from his sugar consumption yet? Five whole cakes a day is not a healthy diet! "Issac! Put that abomination down!" "Sorry, did you want some honey-dipped, chocolate-coated strawberry cheesecake with sprinkles, cherries and coconut shavings, Soren? You can have a bite. I am not sharing the whipped cream topping though." "I DON'T WANT IT!!!"

Winter_Iris · Fantasy
Not enough ratings
160 Chs

Merge Dimension

"You make it sound so bad." Issac pushed him away as his hair fell in front of his face, hiding the hole that is his eye with a hint of light in it.

"Right, you something, something negative emotions of people." Soren shrugged. "Is that why you chose to be a psychologist?"

"Perhaps." He said, looking up at his friend and holding his hand out, "Please return my property."

"Here you go." His friend tossed the eye patch to him and walked back to his seat, hands in his coat pocket. "Let me ask you this, before you go out to find a new partner. Why do you sleep around so often?"

"Do I need a reason to do that?" he asked, fastening the eye patch back over his eye. "I am not the only person with this kind of lifestyle."

"I know." His friend shrugged, picking up the cup and watching as the liquid swirled. "But you are the type to hate those kinds of things. You are even disgusted to touch people."

Issac looked at the gloves he is wearing and gritted his teeth before turning to his friend.

"So, because I hate physical contact, that means I should not be sleeping around?"

"How do you do it, is what I want to ask." Soren placed the cup down, still not looking up at him. "I have a patient that is not as OCDed as you are but he is close and you two are so similar but so different at the same time."

"You see me in him or something?" Issac took a big bite of the roll and swallowed before he continued. "Is that why you took his case?"

Soren's face fell for a second before a wary smile came on his face again, "There you go again. It is like you are able to read people's minds, Issac. It is so accurate it becomes scary."

"I was merely guessing," Issac said, taking a sip of the tea and looking away as quickly as he could.

Soren opened his mouth to say something else but a beeping coming from his pocket stopped him.

Issac looked at him as he took a device from his pocket and frowned looking at it.

"Work?" Issac asked, taking one last sip of the tea before putting it down.

"Yes," Soren said, shoving the device into his pocket. "I am needed for some emergency surgery. Please excuse me."

Soren stood up from his seat and began making his way to the door.

"To be a doctor that is called every second." Issac teased, walking him to the door. "How must it be like to be popular?"

"Awful." Soren sighed, stopping at the door. "But what to do? I am just that skilled."

"If your subordinates hear you say that …" Issac shook his head. "Get going now. Shoo."

He began to push the man out of the room and then closed the door behind him as quickly as he could.

Sighing, he ran his hands through his hair and stared, with blurred vision, at the dirty cups and plates on the table.

He walked to his table first and checked his schedule, free for the next three hours. I am full at the moment, so I will be fine for the next couple of days.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he pulled out the drawer and took out all the papers in there. On the bottom board, he tapped three times and the bottom drawer opened.

Pulling the wood away, he stared at the tablet lying snugly in the space.

Picking up the tablet, he placed everything back to the way they were before and turned it on.

Issac walked to the couch, opening another drawer and taking a lollipop from the jar. He held it in his fingers before sitting back down on the couch.

Typing in the password in the tablet, he opened the lollipop and popped it into his mouth as his tablet finally allowed him in.

He opened a file as the woman's face from earlier and every detail of her life appeared. He looked through them once again and shook his head, putting a red X on her profile.

"Still not it." He murmured to himself, hand resting on his head as he leans his head back. "She is not the one."

He turned back to the tablet and went back to see the lists of people he wrote down about. Almost all had a red 'X' over them.

"Only one left." He murmured again, tapping on the next person's profile. A little blond boy's profile appeared in front of him and he groaned reading his profile.

*Name: Clause Tuffin.

Age: Ten.

Hobbies: Woodcarving and sculpture making.

Parents: Jeria Tuffin*

He frowned when he saw the name of the boy's father before putting the table down again as he rested his head back on the couch.

This can't be right. It can't be a kid. He thought. He was not even alive then.

A voice suddenly appeared in his head, "Do whatever it takes to find this! Whatever it takes!"

Issac felt his blood boil as soon as he heard this voice and bit his lollipop into a thousand little pieces while trying to contain his anger.

"Why don't you do whatever it takes?" He sneered, chewing the pieces of the candy until they are gone and spat the stick to the trash bin beside him. "Can you do that?"

"Oh wait." He pulled out the eye patch and shoved his hands into the eye hole, pulling, what looked like, a clear gemstone out and stared at it while blood dripped from his eye. "I forgot, you aren't here anymore."

"Talking to yourself again?" A voice appeared behind the man as the man turned to look at the woman walking into the room through the window. "Typical, Issac."

"It is a pleasure to see you again, Zadie." He said, staring at the woman in her all-black attire with a sniper rifle strapped to her back, two tokarev 1930 pistols strapped to her leg and arm respectively.

A bag sling over her shoulder as she stared the man down. Her raven hair tied up in a tight bun with not a hair sticking out as she looked around the room then at the dirty plates with disgust written all over her face.

"People who don't know you will think you are an obsessive clean freak." She said flopping to the other couch. "But you are not as much as they think you are."

"It will depend on my priorities." He said, still holding the gem in his hands. "Right now, I can ignore that because something else is on my mind."

"Like the fact that you are not wearing glasses at the moment?" She pointed to the man's face. "How did you even know that it was me if you could not see me?"

"You have a very unique voice." He said, shoving the gem back into his eye. "What are you here for anyway?"

"I took care of her." She said, pulling herself up and gave him a silver necklace, a small orange pendant shaped like a crystal ball with spots of red on it.

Issac took the necklace and looked at it, frowning as he observed the spots of red before putting it in his pocket.

"You are a little fast, don't you think so?" He asked, standing up.

"I have to be." She said, throwing her hand over her face while resting her head back on the armrest of the couch. "If I am not then you will be in danger."

"Well, you did your job for now." He said, putting on a coat from his seat behind the desk, after putting the tablet back first. "Look after this office for me?"

"Your job is way too laid back." She mumbled, slowly falling asleep with her guns still strapped to her. "But it feels nice here. I can see why the people like to just hang out with you, no wonder you have so many customers for a clinic that opened only last year."

"I think you are too uptight." He said, pulling out a spare blanket from another cabinet and covered her with it. "I will be back soon."

"Still looking?" She asked, hardly awake.

"Isn't that the entire reason why I am still alive?" He shrugged, hand on the door as he felt something grip his throat and his drumming heart.

Looking back at the woman, he narrowed his eyes and typed in a number on the key code beside the door.

Satisfied, though the lingering sense of dread filled him, he walked out of his clinic and into the streets that seemed strangely empty.

This is usually the busiest place in the city but for it to be empty like this. Issac pulled out his phone and typed *9568* into it.

"Welcome." A message on the phone appeared. "How may I be of service to you?"

"Scan the area." He said and the phone released a wave naked to the normal human eye, but, as you can already tell, Issac is not entirely normal.

A map of the city appeared on the phone followed by red dots all around the map. Especially headed to where Issac is standing.

"There should not be this many." He mumbled, quickly dodging behind an alleyway as a creature, walking in two legs and leaving a trail of boiling tar as it walked past, barely missing him.

Another one followed it and then another and then another while Issac kept his breath as steady as he possibly could the more they increased.

What is going on today?