: Meeting (Ryker)

I was wandering through the pine forest. This was what I had been doing for quite many years. I find peace here. Away from the useless chatter of the village. The search for solitude was embedded in my deepest depths. It's not that I hated people, it was just that I didn't kind of fit in people's ways of life. So I searched for silence where no one could advise me to not do something, or persuade me to do something. Though I did not have a family, I never considered myself alone here. The flutters of the living leaves, the crackling of the fallen ones, the sweet notes of the breeze were always here with me and will always be.

I rested under one of the many pines, tall and lively. Unlike my other visits to the forest this one was not all that pointless. I was here for a reason today . I was here to meet a friend, or who was once a friend. His name was-Aven. The last time I had seen him was when we were thirteen. I can still remember him from the dusted album of my memories. He was tall and slender then, with a curved-beaked nose and thin eyes. His colour was pale then, supported by his unnaturally snow-white hair. His figure could easily be mistaken with any kind of ghost from your childhood stories. But to me, he was the only living person then, most people are just puppets of their wishes and fears. He was lively, cheerful and courageous, and the most important of all, he was caring, to me, to anyone. A complete opposite of me who was timid, silent and submissive. And yet it is this difference of ours that brought us close. We fought, we argued but were never separated. After all, the two faces of a coin will always coexist. Even his parents considered me as their second child. Everything was so beautiful until that winter.....

I got up. Perhaps to escape the thoughts of my future memories. I started walking again yet I could not prevent my mind from thinking about Aven. I had noticed Aven's thoughts from his few letters that I received in these seven years. He had changed quite a lot, and like everyone else he is also a mere puppet now, tied to the threads of his own desires and beliefs. Maybe, no man could escape this fate. Not even me.

"Do you still come here in search of solitude?" A rather familiar voice asked. Even if I couldn't turn around I would still know who he was. Though there was a slight change in the deepness of the voice it still hadn't changed much. It was Aven.

I turned around to meet his familiar face but, to my surprise his face wasn't visible. He was sitting at a pine branch, his face covered under a white mask which only provided opening for his thin eyes. He was wearing a black robe from which his feet were dangling in midair.

I wish I could see his face for once. His thirteen year old face was starting to fade away now. Just have a glimpse of it to renew my memories of him. "Do you have to wear that even while meeting me?" I asked, preventing the pain in my voice from reaching him. And maybe it didn't.

"I asked first. So I should be the first to get the answer too.." He declared. I didn't have an answer nor did I want to give one.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you?" He said while jumping off the branch and landing on the dead leaves below.

"But you did, a lot maybe." I replied with a bitter smile.

"Yeah, I guess so...life tends to change people, you know." He said while walking towards me in a dreamy manner. I clenched my fists. I was angry, not on Aven. I could never be angry with Aven even if he killed me I would still be smiling at him. It was the world I was angry about. The world that took away the Aven I once knew, the Aven I once loved. I was angry at myself for letting this happen.

He removed his white mask, revealing his familiar stunningly handsome face but there was one thing that didn't quite fit in my memories. There was a scar on his face. It began from above his right eyebrow, all the way down his right eye. But thankfully, his right was still fine. Those green eyes still had that glitter in them.

" Are you happy now?" He asked with a smile but that was not his smile.

This smile belonged to someone I never knew, someone who pretended to be happy, but from inside he was dying.

"You don't have to do this, Aven, please. We can still go back to living a normal life. Please come back to me.." I pleaded.

He laughed at this- a loud, sarcastic laugh.

"Living a Normal life. You mean living like thieves and rats. Running and hiding. Living in fear that we might be caught and then be subjected to the crimes we never committed. And then be imprisoned or, perhaps better, be executed....If that's a normal life, fuck it!!" He announced.

"Soul Manipulators like us can never live a normal life, Ryker. We are like snakes in a house. No one wants us. We are like a curse to the Elves. Don't you remember how they treated my parents after they knew that they were Soul Manipulators. How my parents were shot for a murder they never committed. We can't live like this Ryker. It is better to die than to live the way our kind does..." He added, his voice trembling a bit. I knew his pain. I had witnessed it through my own eyes. That was the winter when our world shattered. When his parents were shot, when Aven chose the path of violence and revenge.

"How is that life different from what you are living now?" I questioned.

"Because I am not trying to be someone I am not. This is the real me!!" He said. He was standing in front of me now. His eyes directly glaring at me.

"But..this is not you." I said helplessly. He gave me his bitter smile again.

"What makes you think that you know at all? You really haven't changed at all, Ryker..You are still that fearful, timid kid who always believed that running away was the best option. You know what people like you are called. Cowards!!" He almost spat on me in hate.

I could only stare at him, blankly because what he had said now hit me like a huge wave of despair. Is this what I was? A Coward? Who always ran away? Maybe....maybe I was one. This is the reason that I had let this happen. This is the reason why our world crumbled. This is the reason why I had let Aven become an assassin. All because I was a Coward.

I wanted to tell him that it was not the truth. I wanted to just hug him and never let him go. I wanted to tell him that I loved him and will continue to, till the end of time. But I couldn't and you know why....because I was a Coward!! I felt a lump in my throat, a heavy rock placed over my heart, something squeezing me.

Aven gave me a pitiful sigh and put on his white mask again. He turned his back on me and started walking away from me. No!! I can't let this end here not, not like this.

[Soul Manipulation: Blood Style - Blood threads!!]

I opened my fingers and let the blood from them escape in thin yet strong threads. The threads were shot like arrows, wrapping themselves around branches or stems and finally to my target- Aven. The threads tied themselves around his arms and legs, preventing him from moving. This technique wasn't that of a deadly move in battle but it could be enough to immobilise your enemy and, in my case, my love.

"I can't let you leave like this...even if I have to use force to prevent you from going back, I will." I declared.

"You think you can stop me with this!!" He declared without even turning.

[Soul Manipulation: Skeletal Style - Spikes!!]

And just like that all my blood threads were sliced within seconds by those Spiney blades that emerged from his body.

But I didn't have time to waste.

[Soul Manipulation: Blood Style - Acid ball]

I created a ball of blood from the veins I had ruptured in my ankle and threw it towards the sky. Usually, an Acid Ball should be shot towards your enemy directly to cause maximum damage but, then again, I wasn't fighting an enemy here.

[Soul Manipulation: Skeletal Style - Cartilage Cover]

A thick membrane of soft bones enveloped Aven's visible body, preventing him from any kind of contact with the skin-burning acid. "Shit! He has a technique to counteract all my move." I whispered as I bit my tongue in frustration. I think I need to use my last move.

[Soul Manipulation: Blood Style - Blood rush!!]

A sudden surge of power engulfed my senses. This technique lets me level up my metabolic stamina to imagined heights by doubling my blood circulation. My strength and speed gets a boost for a certain amount of time. I hope this time is enough to stop Aven.

I ran with lightning speed in a circle to hit Aven's head from behind. Getting him unconscious for the time being....

I ran and ran closing in the distance between us to four metres....two metres....one metre.

[Soul Manipulation: Skeletal Style - Bone blades!!]

Aven turned in a second, no, a split-second. His deadly green eyes met mine for those moments. A sharp bone-sword grew from Aven's right hand, cutting on the edge of my abdomen from the right side. Blood fizzed out of my abdomen like a shaken drink from a bottle. The speed of the escaping blood was doubled due to the Blood Rush. I came to my knees, my body feeling weaker. But I wouldn't die. Aven knew this. Blood Style users like me can never die from a blood loss like this but it can surely exhaust me, especially after using Blood rush. Even this ability felt like a curse now.

I should have been agonising with pain now but instead, I was smiling. Smiling like an idiot when everything I had left with me was slipping away like sand. This fight reminded me of the small fights we used to conduct in this same forest as teens to test our powers. And just like then I still lost. Maybe, few things remain the same after all. I looked up at Aven. Through the peeks, the expressionless mask offered, I could see tears in Aven's eyes. Shit !! I really hated his tears.

"This is the only way, Ryker. To be free..." He said pretending to be unaffected. But he was still too naive to hide his emotions from me. He jumped back to one of the branches of the pines and left the place leaping on those trees.

And I was left alone here, with fluttering of leaves, sweet notes of the breeze and a weeping heart.<span data-mce-type="bookmark" id="mce_marker">​</span>