4 How to free a God (4)

We enter a rundown building. Raye slowly pushes the door and waits. He closes his eyes and listens to the noise. After a minute, he opens his eyes and walks into the building. I hesitate before following him in. Tomorrow, I am definitely running away from this city. He closes the door behind me. It's dark, but I can see. This abandoned building is the house of rodents and weeds. We go downstairs. The stairs can barely hold our weight. At the basement, I see three kids sitting against the wall. They become quiet when they see us.

"You are here, Kresi." The boy is around thirteen. He has a long face and a sharp gaze. His dark hair is tied into a ponytail. He pauses when he sees my expression. "I have been worried... Is your body healed?"

"Quinn, she can't remember a thing," Raye answers him instead of me. "Pebby, can you check her?"

"What?" The pink hair girl who has Raye's distinct features gasps in surprise. She is shorter than Quinn. Her age should be eleven at most. She looks into my eyes. Her eyes glow and flicker. She observes me from head to toe.

"There is nothing wrong with her physically, brother," She tells Raye. "I am unable to check on her soul. I heard that the holy fire can harm the soul."

"If her soul is hurt, Sharaya...." Quinn purses his lips. Pebby starts crying in a low voice. Who is Sharaya? I don't know how to soothe children. I have never been around kids before my rebirth in this body. I have spent my days alone inside my house. What should I do? Should I hug her? Does patting works?

"We will mourn for them properly, Pebby," The third boy in the room tells her in a sad voice. He must be Mirai. "We should free our God. He will take revenge for them. This world will pay for what they did."

"But... what about Gabriel?" Pebby rubs her hands nervously. "He will hate us if we do this."

"He thinks that we are dead. We don't know where he is now." Quinn smacks her head. "He knows that only Raye is alive because he was in the beggar city at that time. What is he doing now? He is the one who brought Aeline to us. She pretended to be a good person. Later, she poisoned us before she set everything on fire. If Kresi didn't appear that day, we would have died with the others. Kresi took away the poison of Dhath from our bodies. She got hit by Aeline's holy fire for us. She killed Aeline to save us."

What's going on here? Their talk doesn't sound normal to me. The four of us are dead to Gabriel. He doesn't know that we survived the fire. Aeline poisoned the kids and burned them. The original Kresi managed to save these three kids. She killed Aeline and got hurt by her fire in the process. She must have been badly hurt. She didn't say a thing to these kids because they would have been worried. After she went to rest in her spot, she must have died.

Original owner is barely thirteen. At this age, she is extraordinary. What should I do? I am not the real Kresi. If that girl could do this at the age of thirteen, she was meant for great things. I am an ordinary person. She was planning to free some God before she died. I used to be an atheist before I was reborn.

"Pebby, you stay here with Mirai," Raye tells her firmly. His tone preempts her next words. "You two are not of age yet. That place is risky. If we don't come back by daybreak, find the beggar king. He will send you to the middle realm. Lady Gianna will give you shelter. Even if it means losing freedom, don't leave her protection. She is the only one who can protect you from them."

"We thought the same when we went to the Belan woods." Mirai looks down at his feet. "She betrayed us."

"We will teach her a lesson," Raye promises him. "Remember that the harbinger is with us. Nobody can stop us from freeing our God. Once he is freed, nobody will hurt us again."

Mirai nods slowly. All of them looks at me with hope. I take a step back. Why are you looking at me like that? I have no idea how to free God. I should tell them the truth.

"Listen." I look at Rai seriously. "There is something that I need to say."

"There is no time now." Rai grabs my and Quinn arms. "Ready?"

"Yes."

"Wait!"

The room disappears around me. It dissolves into the air. We fall on the meadow under the starless sky. It's surrounded by the forest. Did we just teleport for real?

"You told us that it's here." Rai looks down. "As long as we can open the gate here, he can be freed."

"About that, I can't do magic." I rub the back of my neck. "Actually, I am not Kresi."

"What did you say?" Rai stares at me. "You are not you?"

"I think that she needs to see a good healer," Quinn comments quietly. "We have never seen anyone who survived after getting hit by the holy fire. Though Aeline wasn't the true wielder, she can still use it roughly against the harbinger. If it was the true wielder who used it against her, she would have died."

They won't believe me, would they? They think that I lost my memories because of Aeline's fire. This is a headache. I should not have come with these kids.

"I know." Rai sighs. "We can't go back, Kresi. You are the only one who can enter the forbidden realm. We can open the gate here. The key is also buried here. Once the gate is unlocked, you have to enter the forbidden realm and find him. After he is released, he will fix you."

That sounds easy. I just have to find a person and bring him out. "What does he look like?"

"How would I know?" Rai sounds irritated. "Kresi, only you can recognize him. You are his harbinger."

That's not helping at all.