21 [Extra] 2: Lost Souls In Arcadia (1)

Note: [This chapter is irrelevant to the story. You may choose to skip it and move onto the next chapter, if there is.]

[Well...this might be a little fun, though.]

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Lost Souls' Rendezvous: Alternative Universe Edition

Genres: ||Mystery-Thriller|| ||Dark Fantasy||

[WARNING: This chapter depicts violence and contains gruesome scenes that may cause discomfort to the readers. Proceed with caution.]

[Ps: The characters may have twisted personalities.]

***

Another day, another fight; this is how I live.

Marco opened his eyes to welcome another hellish day. He stared at the ceiling of his room while still lying on his bed under the sheets with his arms open wide.

'I don't even need an alarm clock to wake up,' he thought and heaved a sigh in frustration.

Early in the morning, and yet the house of the Harrisons was already pretty active. The heated argument has the very same topic that has been discussed several times already. It was all about Marco and his very existence in such a household.

"I told you, he's no good here Pete!"

"Oh Ellie, you know I can't do that, right? He's my son."

"Yeah, he's your son. Just yours! He's not my goddamn son Peter! And I don't want that bastard near my child…"

Marco hissed and abruptly sat upon his bed. He groaned in annoyance and roughly messed his hair, not wanting to hear anything more.

He endured two years of being mistreated, being badmouthed in front of his face, and being the so-called black sheep of the family. Deciding that he had enough of those, he hastily stuffed his clothes and other necessities inside a huge bag without much thought after taking a bath.

Marco reached the bottle of his saving above the closet. His nose scrunched when he saw that the cash was barely past the midpoint but still put it inside his magically spacious bag.

'Money would be the most essential thing that human needs.' A practical person like him believes in such.

He left his room in a hurry and was ready to leave the house when his younger sister Megan stopped him at the door.

"What are you up to now?" Megan asked with her arms crossed. She gave him a once-over look with a raised eyebrow and eventually grimaced. "Where the hell are you going with that stuffy cheap-looking bag?"

Marco grins, "Leaving this hell."

"Finally have the guts now, huh?" the young lass smirks back. There was a glint of mirth in her green irises. "Stay alive, I guess."

'Alive, huh.'

Marco laid down his eyes on the left side of his chest. There, he saw the small 'ALIVE' cursive white imprint on his loose black t-shirt. A corner of Marco's lips quirked up upon seeing that single word.

Megan patted Marco on the shoulder as her farewell before she passed by him and headed towards the overturned kitchen. Marco followed her with his eyes for a moment before finally heading out of the front door. He was taken aback when he saw his half younger brother.

Marco wasn't really close with his half-siblings, and it was awkward for him to interact with them, but for the first and probably last time, he reached out his hand and ruffled the blond kid's hair.

"Hey, Mavis," Marco gently called out. Mavis stared at him with bewildered eyes, but he just averted his gave to the boy's hair. "Did you play all this morning? Your hair's wet with your sweat."

The boy looked up at him, still confused with what was happening, but Marco ignored his gaze and continued his babblings like a good brother he never showed. "Get some rest and then go take a bath. You'll catch a cold if you stay with your sweat-soaked shirt."

"I'll be going now," Marco bid as he ruffled his young brother's hair for the last time.

"Where are you going? I'll wait for you to come back home," Mavis softly said.

Marco felt conflicted when he heard the kid's voice, but he didn't stop in his tracks and only waved his hand without turning back. He hopped on his motorbike and finally drove off, away from the place that had been strangling him. Before he could get further away, he heard his stepmother's yelp, filled with hatred, triumph, and pride.

"Get lost and never come back!" Ellie yelled on top of her lungs.

It made him smirk at some point.

'I bet she's utterly happy with me being gone in their lives.'

Marco glanced at the side mirror of his bike to have a final look at the family, where he knew he didn't belong. He saw them at the opening of their house watching him as he drove off. Ellie was laughing like crazy while Megan had a smirk plastered on her face.

'I won't regret breaking free from being incarcerated.'

With this conviction in mind, he saunters towards the path that leads to the unknown.

-

After driving for several hours, Marco finally stopped the engine of his motorbike. Just as he took his helmet off, the soft gush of wind made his pink-colored hair swirl through the air.

A smile was plastered on his face as he admired the beautiful scenery in front of him. The nearly setting sun is still shining brightly, accompanied by the different shades of colorful clouds in the sky. A flock of birds is flying above the glittering seawater, which makes the view more spectacular.

Marco didn't know where he was, but he certainly adore the place. The beauty he was seeing was enough to make him want to keep it if he could.

"This place is like a paradise. I wanna live here for eternity."

Once he was done admiring the place, he finally noticed that something was off.

"Why aren't there any people around?" Marco asked himself while looking around. He spent several minutes walking and searching for any trace of human life. After quite some time, not even a single soul passed by.

Marco sighed out of frustration and gradually made up his mind, 'Okay, one last look around the area, and if there's still no one at sight, I'm heading out of here, even if this place is a masterpiece.'

He turned his head from left to right, getting hopeless by the second. "Ugh, there's really no- Hey! Is that a person?!"

Marco narrowed his eyes and stared at the bunch of trees on the east side of the cliff. He could hardly see the figure, but it seemed to be more than five feet tall, and it's moving, heading inside the woods.

'It really is a person.'

Marco was delighted. "Thank goodness I can finally ask for directions!"

Without having any second thoughts, Marco ran in the direction of the person that seemed to be his only ray of hope.

Marco abruptly stopped on his tracks when he came near the aperture of the dark forest.

'Wait. Is it real, or my mind's just playing tricks on me?'

His heartbeat pounded at in fast pace, like it was racing out of his chest.

The person he portrayed as his only hope entered the dim and thick woods. It seems to be a girl around five feet and a half tall. Her hair was slightly curled, waist-length light brown, and was braided from two sides on the upper while the rest were left loosely. She was wearing a clean white knee-length dress that made Marco spot her even if his vision was a bit blurry.

'Why is she heading inside the forest at this hour?'

'She's quite small and thin. How could she protect herself from who-knows-what awaits her inside?'

He couldn't help but start worrying about the person's safety. A sudden thought entered his mind, and all his worries came to a stop.

'What if all of this is not real and just the works of my mind?'

His desperation for a presence of a breathing person, to know what and where exactly he is, and to add up that he has a mere empty stomach, an exhausted body, and a drained mind from all things happening in just a day. It's possible that he really can't have any straightforward way of thinking now, and being stuck in a place that he doesn't have any idea of tensed him more.

'It can also be a fairy that protects this forest…' Marco couldn't help but also think of this possibility. He knows that it's childish and outrageous, but he will still consider it as one of many other prospects.

The bushes up ahead of him swayed to the rhythm of the wind and widened the opening of the path. As if enticing him to enter and follow the other person in a dimly lit and shady forest.

Marco gathered his courage and stepped inside the forest, brushing the tall bushes out of his way. It seemed as if he was entering a portal to another dimension as he passed through.

As Marco entered the woods, the atmosphere became much colder than before. The trees are casting their shadows over the ground, and the leaves are swaying with the whistling wind. Dry leaves were falling from the branches and swirling through the air before finally falling onto the ground.

Marco stood frozen right after he got through the thick vines. He was dumbfounded by the scene right before his very own eyes.

"Ich- what…" Marco trailed off, not able to let out his voice.

'What the freaking hell is she doing?!'

The girl was standing on a huge rock, right at the edge of the cliff. Her hair was swirling through the air as she stood there with her hands wide open as if she's embracing the cold wind. Her white knee-length dress was dancing with the wind's rhythm. Just one wrong move and she might fall on the crashing waves down below.

It was an ethereal scene, right before him. Marco didn't perceive much, he noticed that with each sway of the wind, it seemed like the girl was floating along with her flowing dress. Maybe, it was because of the warm sunlight, but the girl was glowing with vermillion, warm hues.

Marco was not that far from the girl's spot, and from his point of view, he could see a smile etched on her lips while her eyes were closed. It's as if she's happy.

Seeing a smile plastered on her face, Marco's heart wavered. He doesn't really know what to feel, and his mind is conflicted.

'Did she… did she go here to kill herself?'

'She couldn't possibly be thinking of jumping down the cliff now, is she?'

'This ain't the perfect time to be thinking this, and it doesn't sound right… But if I'm going to kill myself, I would also want it to be like this one, It's a perfect plot, after all. This scenery is worth dying for. '

'No one would even know I died until they saw my corpse.'

The cold autumn breeze blew that snapped Marco out of his trance. His train of thoughts hit the break as he felt a bucket of cold water pour on him.

"Wait… What the fuck was I thinking?!" Marco scolded himself.

The sudden voice in the quiet place was loud enough to break the silence. For some unknown reason, the flow of time seems to slowly die away.

Marco regained his focus and witnessed the astonishing sight of the girl, along with the setting sun slowly vanishing from the horizon. The view of the girl he had been staring at was slowly fading away, like a leaf ascending from a tree branch or that of a petal drifting down as the flower gets shattered by the wind.

It was dusk and everything at that moment seemed surreal.

It was a breathtaking sight to behold.

His once pounding heart skipped a beat, and his breathing became uneven. It was heavier, and he felt like he was being choked on the neck. His lungs were desiccated, empty of air. He was momentarily stunned.

Marco threw all logic away and ran towards her, reaching out his hand without hesitation, trying to grasp her vanishing figure.

Everything happened so fast for Marco, and the next thing he knew, he was already hugging her.

[To Be Continued.]

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