CH 6: Al, The Trafficker Of Siphon PT 1

Something about the chills in my finger tips reminded me of being in Siphon.

The resolve to accept things are ending.

Not everyone has the heart to accept it's over now.

I remember a moment before this…

  When gunfire was the only sound you'd hear in the woods.

  The deafening screams that filled the air each moment you know they were trying everything they could to find you.

And those screams belong to people who they had found while they hunted you for days.

  The scent of hair burning together with oil when they found me.

The way armed soldiers tortured a man over a fire.

How I remembered what it was like to be there when they scattered the limbs they had torn apart with an axe and the awful sound it made when I heard it fall against a tree.

I can't forget my life in that place.

' Remember to mark him.'

It felt it was happening again.

The vivid sensations or side effects of transfers.

After knowing what would happen when I die and transfer.

  I had grown numb to the habit that  when I woke up in another body, things would often repeat itself.

No matter who I woke up as or who I impersonated.

I would vividly remember the last moments I had.

A blessing or a curse. I always had this unbearable headache because of the gruesome killings I went through and how they started to played side by side infinitely in the corner of my vision.

Unlike how notifications appeared.

It felt more physical and for every-time I transferred. 

I remembered the final moments of my past lives, out of all of them.

The first was blurred and the only one I could not see with the others, but I knew I was a No Life who had spent each day no different than the other.

Like all the deaths I saw.

I believed everything that happened to me in life, is all that I deserve.

I lost friends because I was too different,  I attended the funeral of someone who unconditionally loved me.

While I watched the gruesome killings of myself.

The only thing that never left me was how I truly felt it  would have been far better if someone else lived instead of me.

I know that they would have lived a much more interesting life than I could ever experience myself—-

—— In Another Life.

  Words I would often recall hearing from the media, through songs, video games or even the bitter paragraphs written by anonymous users on /regret forums.

A phrase that could mean hope or immeasurable pain.

Those words were a bit closer to a bitter escape from reality for me.

  When you wake up each day strolling leisurely through life as if it weren't any different from the day before.

Refusing to grow or be better than the you yesterday.

Mindlessly doing nothing for so long.

Something inside you will fade.

What faded in me?

My desire to be something more than a No Life.

I lived a good and comfortable life and I did some bad things to others, but I chose to be A No Life as it was the exit to everything.

Most wanted to believe that I could do better, but I would often see the gruesome depictions of my body before I could think off my good future.

I closed myself from reality and stayed far away from everything.

Rather than wanting to live as someone with good qualities and aspirations.

I was shown the vivid imagery of myself leaning against something lifelessly.

No matter what I heard or read or taken the advice from people who knew about mental health.

Living wasn't an easy decision to live with.

Surviving was too much when you can't retain sanity and just like many lonely people I wanted love and kinship and friends too, but finding companions meant I had to live so hard for others.

I was a lazy piece of shit, so I never considered that option.

Living like others should never seemed enough for me.

It was always based on how others wanted you to live.

I hated change, but yearned for comfort.

"…" 

The ideal of myself rotting against the side walk or being brutally tortured somewhere isolated was far more easier to understand than it was to wake up one day doing something that just might help you live.

Being apart of a society.

My mind couldn't stand something as simple as that.

No— I did understand it, but I hated it. 

I loathed it.

So I escaped from life, from everything.

The things I saw in stories when something wrong happens to the protagonist, when they have nothing left and the deception where all it takes to resolve their darkness is friendship and kind words.

Something that can prevent someone falling from grace.

I never believed it and hated seeing such things.

It never happened for me.

When my sister died the only friends I had was pornography, video games and fan-fiction.

There was people, but no-one can make you feel happy but yourself.

Unlike friendship and kind words.

I drowned myself in every filth I could think off to replace that feeling of love, and being wanted.

The void that should be filled with good things.

  I drowned it to the brim, so I don't have to live… and it reached the point where I had forgotten what it was like to be a person.

To learn how to walk or how to even talk again.

All of it faded as I took the guilty pleasure of escaping to my inner world.

A dark place that made me feel… very warm.

I had a low self esteem when it came to life, but it was so easy to force myself to function even if I knew I had rotted the inside of my mind after her passing.

It was rotten before, but I saw how filthy I was after experiencing a moment of eternal bliss.

I had wished that life was much simple then.

In fact I had hoped for it.

I had hoped it was similar to the feeling of when you started playing a video game.

No matter what terrible things you encountered or seen.

You could always start from zero.

Leveling. Grinding. Answering the only best choices that leads to the best stages of a characters story route.

I hated being alive.

So instead of being a player for a game.

  I would just modify everything and skip all the story line, because It wasn't that important to me.

Why would I want to live as someone else.

If I had already died in my head.

Instead of being a player.

I chose to be a MOD instead.

I wanted to see all the moments and endings.

The good and the bad without having to struggle for it.

Why must I work so hard to reach it.

When the best thing I could do is alter life.

That's what I had hoped life to be….

Like a video game that doesn't take that much effort to live the way you wanted.

—But it never happened like how it does in video games.

People die and the choices you make are remembered, but the thing that separates life from a video game.

Is when your in a video game.

Everything ends when you stop playing.

In the real world, only you stop living in it and the world will continue without you.

[ You have slain ???: Level 900000000000000.]

[ Do you wish to reset your personality construct?]

[ You have reached the end of this life.]

[ Your character can't go on.]

[ To start over in another life: transfer into a new personality construct.]

[ Your current personality construct will be destroyed.]

[ Do you wish to transfer?]

[Yes] - [No]

—— For all I had lived through even if it weren't anything compared to others.

Not once had I ever considered the thought.

If I did B in another life maybe A would had never happened.

Instead of hoping I was better or did something more.

I don't regret or desire to play god and prevent the death of my sister like how others desire to restart time and bring someone they love back from the dead.

You learn very quickly how cruel life is and the only moments I got to see my sister were the times I wasn't living.

In my dreams she would be there waiting.

I believe any normal person would never seek to bring someone they love back to the world of the living.

So what are you going to do when they grow old?

Turn back time?

When they suffer from an incurable disease? Become a doctor that never exists in your era and cure them?

When they are brutally murdered unsuspectingly?

Go out and find those who did it and then bring her back from the death?

If I were god.

I wouldn't change a thing.

I did all I could do and should have done more, I loved her, but I could never know how to live a life where she would be alive.

I was there when she—-

[ Do you desire to live in another life?]

People should be righteous and choose to live through the choices you have made all the way until the end.

[No]

[ Your decision will have consequences.]

[ All memories has faded.]

[You have died.]

I never had a desire to live.

There was something inside of me that changed.

The concept of death blurred when someone could cut open your chest and reach for your lungs and after the traumatic moments and the short patch of darkness in your memory.

You open your eyes and  remember that feeling.

The feeling of having your life taken from you, and you are still there.

When you live for long, things take on a repeat.

You become old and bored of seeing it happen and it does not change when you have the power to evade something common to all things living.

It's a weakness to be withdrawn from death.

You stop fearing and you become comfortable.

Comfortable makes you lazy and dumb in front of consequences.

You become foolish and attempt to do things of that nature.

I had an epiphany that In another life, I would be dead too.

  I would dream in my coffin like dead people do, with their eyes shut surrounded by nothing, but the air that smells like me, old musky and full of earth and I'd just dream of things.

Like I was living as a boy who flunk out of college working at a burger station, an assassin who does not like to kill people, a lawyer who is unwilling to make good and reasonable decisions in front of the law, and experience life through these different lenses of many different people.

I would hope to see the faces of people I care for, but know that if we did meet I would wake up soon after and our time together would end.

If transfers were similar to a dream, then dreams was like tomorrow.

Sometimes there won't be a tomorrow for all of us.

[ If every moment you can remember from your life was reborn again, in the form of phantom memories, projections, holographic imagery.]

[ Would you start over?]

I wouldn't know if I could ever come to the decision to start over.

Brain dance allowed a person to relive the experiences of someone else as if you were there yourself.

Trauma was just as vivid and I've seen many things as someone whose become disconnected from life.

  Things I wished I never saw.

Things I wished never occurred or knew.

  Like the faces of people you know and how one day you are dreaming sensations of them touching your face only to wake up minutes before you remember life took them away from you.

[…]

Compared to the purging of people when they are displaced from their homes and the fading expressions on their faces as they are violently tortured.

The killing of so many and your perception of their circumstance changes when you understand.

[That could have been you too.]

Just like how they were killed or died—

Whether you are involved or aren't, somewhere, someplace, somehow.

Someone will be subjected to cruelty and there is no such thing as a peaceful death.

All things perish wretchedly.

— and some of us will suffer in the future because of it.

[ You have transfered to a past life.]

It felt like I was in a moving train, but it was the smell that got to me first, a stench of smoke and something sweet that made you want to stop breathing.

Bliss.

It was mixing with the cold and I felt uncomfortably numb.

" What are you looking at?" 

I saw someone who appeared to be a soldier standing over a group of people, each one of them were sitting on their knees with their eyes looking down, but the youngest of the group: A young poor boy glared to the man with an assault rifle strapped onto his back.

It was the calligraphy on his arm band that made it easy to identify that he was a trafficker because of the symbol of a blank hand with a curse mark in the middle. 

The mark of Siphon.

  I wore the same uniform.

The white expressionless mask he wore coldly burnt my skin.

That one sensation was all it took for me to remember.

This was the first initiation mission before I became a trafficker in Siphon. 

A trafficker were people with very cheap morals, who did bad things for money.

We did terrible things. 

Things I wished didn't need to happen, because many people were killed because of it.

Many were killed because they recognized who we were.

Like instant fears humans had to spiders.

They either killed you or just ran away.

Regardless of what we option we faced.

They were people.

People made us money.

I learned very through numerous contract missions about the cost of living was for people who worked as a trafficker.

All you needed was weapon and the mindset to abduct others and sell them.

The average lifespan of a trafficker in Siphon depended on many variables, but survival was the most important.

Before I transferred.

Two weeks was the longest I knew someone to have reached, before they were found in a shed with their hands chopped off and their head found at the bottom of a well, next to many others at the bottom.

In my past life while I was on a contract many traffickers were found at the bottom of a well.

It was a message sent by those who were persecuted by Siphon.

I never wore a mask because of the message I found near the well.

It was far better to look like a person them than it was to be seen as a symbol of terror.

So I chose to never wear the mask given to us by our instructors.

To become a trafficker wasn't difficult, but It took a different state of mind to live with it all the way.

Not everyone has the heart to sell someone.

Moral sense was one of the enemies you would face when on a contract.

When you encounter someone old who can't move and you find they have lost parts of their memories or lost their mind.

When you find a child with so many diseases on their bodies and unable to walk on their own.

Selling someone wasn't as simple as just finding someone and taking them because they fit the standards of those willing to pay for them.

You were the one who made the decision and you have to live with that for every contract you take.

I avoided anyone who reminded me of my sister, but I knew of many who took contracts that involved people who were like her.

When you choose to be this thing.

This thing who takes people and sells them.

Your morals was sold the moment you accepted the contract.

You were a trafficker and not a human being and you learned very quickly that people will resort to anything it takes to kill you.

I've seen the deformed bodies of people who were shot because a trafficker survived an attack were a disable had a bomb hidden in their stomach.

Not all of them were filled with bombs, but those we did find.

The youngest that were always used in such attacks were children no younger than the age of 9.

Traffickers were people, but In this place… I've noticed humanity was always something that you can die from at any moment.

It wasn't a weakness, but bad things always happened when you were a trafficker and you acted on your kindness.

The raiders behind those attacks innovated many ways to use people just to see you die.

The trade off you were paid for being a trafficker was cheap and the effort and time it took before being killed was extremely exhausting to live with even when you did understand the dangers of the job.

You were driven to go on, because when a person was sold to a Black Merchant.

The average cost of a human life was $5000.

Because of the attacks that happened when you were on a contract.

It was a common strategy for there to be groups of traffickers working together to make the most money even if it were to split between others at the end of a trade.

It was much easier to work together than to do it your own, but that was a delusion for those who were new to it.

A strategy that only worked with much more experienced people.

Would never work with desperate people who put their feelings and emotions before their role.

A weakness I had seen in many people while I worked in Siphon.

I saw it in that person.

  I had this strong feeling something was off about him.

The way he lingered near the people.

It almost seemed as if he wanted to antagonize them for what we had done to their village.

In the distance grey smoke reached the sky and I saw a village burning in the distance.

In Siphon, the absolute law is to kill anything that can kill you, but traffickers were nothing like the executioners.

  We were forced to find experiences by abduction and trade,

Executioners… were responsible for every bad thing and they were people who always lived in Siphon.

We were just outsiders.

I never understood why there were people who were willing to buy people, but I knew the people we sold were used in the attacks against raiders and enemies to Siphon.

The people we captured could have been a family member of someone who killed people who worked for Siphon before.

If someone knew that one of their own was on the battle field and forced to kill their family and friends their hatred would be tormented.

The blood history between Siphon and The Raiders was very strong, but I felt the reasons why it was becoming dangerous was because we were carrying out active attacks on Raider territory every day.

To capture someone they know and then use them on the front lines to capture more.

Only a monster so wicked would make people think of such a thing.

If all it took was for you to be given options of weapons and vehicles, the outfit and the tools needed to assist you, anyone just might consider being a trafficker.

— but when you were told you would be taken care off and you go out on the field.

You start to realize that everyone who is willing to kill you use the same weapons and the clothes they wear, just like the one you were given.

The only thing that separates you and them apart is the mask you were given to show them.

You belonged with Siphon.

The rules that we should kill captives was never stated so each trafficker operated by our individual moral and that aligned with making money.

But—  money was never there when I was a No Life.

Unlike the other traffickers who flew in from foreign nations for work.

I never understood why I was able to be work for a long time.

I didn't know where my money went or how much I had.

There was no atms or bank accounts, but there was settlements you would go to and receive your pay.

The only safe haven in Siphon where you can experience the pleasures of a normal person was when you were near a Merchant.

Money allowed you to live longer than most would be able too and it meant everything to those who worked for Siphon.

You could buy upgrades to your weapons or even rid of your old one and buy a modified version of it.

To buy new outfits or even go as far as buy armored vehicles to assist you on contracts.

Drugs, body modifications, pleasure dens and auctions.

To just be able to live one more day meant a lot to them.

To take care of their family meant everything to them to the point they were willing to go so far to do better as a trafficker and stay alive.

The worst thing they didn't know was at the end of it all.

No-one would ever be able to leave this place.

We will all be replaced whether we die on the field or killed after we run out of our use.

Those who came for family would never be able to see them ever again.

I  had learned some people did do it to take care of their family, but many were like them and most didn't know until the first day.

While many did not want to be killed when they found out what they would be doing for the rest of their time here.

  I thought about reasons and why I was chose this.

I didn't have a story like theirs.

I was raised in a place where people can survive, where the market prices of everything was considered cheap, but I still made a decision to be a trafficker instead of pursuing other goals that was available to me.

I had options.

Most of these people who joined had reason they came, like taking care of family, making enough money to support them, or they were all filled with so much hate or they had an intense desire to change their life.

If someone would ask me.

Why? The cheapest answer I would give is because I did it to protect my friend.

The real answer?

——I don't know.

Most people wanted you to give them a reason for them to understand why you would do something so terrible.

—— I didn't have a reason to give.

I didn't have any reason to avoid it when it happened.

All I know was.

I did try living, and I almost died and things did not get any different after.

So I stopped caring about what it would be like to be a good person and do good things.

The train we were on was called [Phantom route].

It was one of the major trade routes that was boarded by people within Siphon and it would go through mountains and rivers passes that were hidden far away from enemy intelligence.

The natural environment for Siphon was heavily protected by nature and always raining.

A natural enemy where death planes can't see you or set off the entire horizon into flames with their bombs.

I wasn't so afraid of death planes that fly past, because frequent attacks of Raiders and other factions happened more than the presence of them.

You become quite numb to things you'd know would happen.

There was a time where I had tried shooting at them with a sniper when I saw one and expected it to work.

In an ideal world I would had hoped such a thing could happen, but there was always a chance that something would go wrong.

Since the Phantom routes were all within Siphon and every inch of its territory was a burial site.

Traffickers did not have to think about a government or armed forces approaching you, everyday you just know someone will be killed and die.

—— There was no laws in Siphon, but Siphon had two absolute laws we understood.

Kill and be killed.

I watched the others who wore the same uniform, but my attention was drawn to the person who stayed far to close to the captives.

Ever since the dungeon I noticed how my senses was sharper.

The things I could hear, smell and see was different than I remembered.

The worst was when I started to notice how I could always hear the pace of my heart beat because of it.

" Would you mind if I hurt you?" I heard him whisper as he kneeled down and asked the boy.

Speaking to them so intimately as if they were someone very close to him, but I noticed his hand and how close it dug into the stomach of one of the people sitting in front of him.

An old man who kneeled before him was stabbed with a knife.

The moment the trafficker reached out to block his voice, I heard his lungs squeeze, because of the noise he made.

He was poked again and again for being loud enough for all of the traffickers to be alerted. 

That expression the boy showed as he saw it.

I noticed how he looked just like the man.

His expression reminded me of the moment when I made the decision to place my ears against my sisters chest, just to hear for a heart beat, because I never wanted to accept the doctor who told me she passed away.

[ You've identified an entity inexperienced with death.]

The worst part about losing someone isn't knowing they aren't by your side.

It's  living on without them as if you had been inflicted by a sickness that fades your memories.

What I learned in my life was that despite my tolerance to cruelty.

Others weren't the same.

The hate he showed the trafficker morphed when facing a loaded gun.

The trafficker held a heavy revolver against the boys head.

The other hand held a needle like knife that dug into the person laying on the floor near the boy side.

I was drawn to the sound of the captives slow heart beat thumping at the same rate as mine.

My sense were heightened enough to remember simillar symptoms a person would have gone through moments before they had passed away.

I walked over and kneeled down beside him.

I watched over the older man whose breathing was becoming deep and faint and I reached down to his chest to where I saw a short black hole that tore underneath his skin.

And blood gushed out of it each time his chest sank from breathing.

No-one was going to stop his bleeding.

Not a single person here was going to allow it to happen, because he was a person.

An people were to be sold, not to be taken care off, because helping them gives us nothing in return.

That mindset was so deeply integrated in my memory that I remember the voice who said those words.

I  pressed my hand over the wound on his chest and any attempts to stop his bleeding by binding the wound with a cloth didn't seem like it was enough.

Blood gush through and I saw through the inside of the small hole and saw his organs.

Abduct and murder were my only experiences,  but he never let my hand go.

" Hold on…" I said, but hold on for what I couldn't do even attempt to control the extent of his blood even if I had covered it.

I didn't know how to help someone and I didn't have the powers I had from in the dungeon.

It wouldn't manifest.

Not a single light that could heal an arm showed or a manifestation of a sword that could fade a human body.

I couldn't feel anything here.

No matter how  I thought about it in my mind.

The illusion never came, but there was blood, his warm blood leaving his wounds and coloring his shirt.

I felt like I was just holding onto another life knowing they were already going to die.

Someone who has no experience at treating a wound, but imitating the things I've seen before, things done by other people without knowing the reasons why I was doing it.

All I did was to cover the wound and apply intense pressure and to stop the bleeding, because in my mind.

That was all that was needed to stop—— watching his chest heave as he took his last breaths.

The most awful thing was how he didn't notice his condition or what he was going through.

He smiled at me and would speak to me unaware of everything around him.

All I heard from his lips was the name of a person he would whisper in between his breaths when he looked at me.

Calling out his name in language I knew wasn't mine.

He didn't know that the hand he was holding onto didn't belong the one he was calling for so affectionately.

He was holding onto me very tightly, but even if he spoke with a different tongue.

I felt his caring intentions.

How he wanted me to listen to the trafficker who had stabbed him and if I just did enough, I wouldn't be treated as badly anymore.

All saying this in the same breath while coughing because of the blood.

I could not manifest any power. I had an assumption that the ability of [Conversation] from the Architect allowed me to understand what he was saying.

There was a moment where I wanted to stop him from speaking anymore and I felt him giving out, but he held on so strong through his sentence.

All he did was worship the traffickers in his tongue.

A devil worship where the one who spoke feared terrible things that happened if he spoke about anything but glory.

  He talked about being obedient to the traffickers, he stared straight forward, shaking uncontrollably with his eyes wide open and then his lips stopped moving.

None of the captives who knew him attempted to do anything to help him.

Not a single stepped forward to help me stop him from rattling and I believed they all shared the same as this man did.

It was almost as if he were speaking to them.

Obey the traffickers and you won't be harmed.

  Obedience was the only thing that would keep them from being harmed.

I remembered one of the hidden details only traffickers knew about.

  If someone attempted to harm a trafficker that was an indication that every other person who were held by them was to be rid off.

The blood between Siphon was so pitch black that even I noticed from my time in Siphon those people whose hearts and instincts were stained from the killings of so many people.

I knew why they feared us, but to hear it yourself was different.

We weren't anything like those people they feared.

The man didn't want to put the others in harms way.

He didn't want to see others die because of him.

"…" Knowing that made me remember about the time I was killed by someone he feared.

How I was punished for something I never did.

After everything I had done against my morals.

I was killed because something went against Siphon.

It didn't make any sense.

Why I was the one who had been executed when I did nothing wrong and yet—

Someone did the same thing and no-one does anything here.

I stared at the arm that wrapped softly into mine.

The blood, his arm, the feeling of cold in my finger tips.

All the memories of my life in Siphon crashed into a single moment and all I heard was the rapid pacing of my heart.

—— This isn't the Siphon I know.

A prejudice emotion filled my mind with twisted things.

Killing one showed a traffickers intention that they didn't really care about transferring them to a Merchant.

——An executioner would cut off his head for that.

If one day you were told you could make a lot of money by working for someone and you  they had to do was exist in that role.

—— They would be shown no mercy.

I knew what came to those who did not fulfill their roles.

My body remembers the sensation of everything they had done to me.

To kill captive within a group of traffickers was known to be one of the most taboo of things a fool could ever attempt as a trafficker.

Many would be killed over something so little.

Groups in Siphon were the most dangerous to be apart off.

There were laws in Siphon and then there was something called Moral Sense.

My moral sense told me to do nothing and do not get involved, but I saw two options that went against it.

The one where I witness each and everyone of them kill of the rest of the captives or the other where we aren't able to see a merchant and have to leave the train to find more villages to burn.

—— So what if we found more.

—— Even if we do find another.

—— What was going to stop him from killing one again.

I thought about it.

I really thought hard about it, but my intentions were empty and my mind was only focused on the blood of my hand and the image of the man who burned in the fire.

[ Dad?] 

[ Dad?]

I was able to see a notification of the modification system.

It was so pale that I could barely read the words from it, but it flickered very dimly in front of me.

The boy who I saw before was calling out to us in a different language.

The man in my arms stopped shaking and calmed down once he heard that voice.

I reached down to his chest and placed his arms to his side.

His eyes were open.

[ The worst fear for a father to experience is to be unable to protect their children, god wasn't present to see his love.]

[ You have gained experience.]

I shut them close.

The pace of his heart beat stopped a few seconds after he heard the voice.

I just stared for a long time.

To the wound that took his life.

" Is that thing dead already?"  I heard a voice call out from beside me.

The trafficker holding onto the need-like knife blade poked his chest, and again.

" Just to make sure." 

I couldn't see his face because of the mask, but from his eyes.

I saw he was happy.

I stood up and brushed the blood I felt over my hands against my shirt, but I could still feel the wet from the sleeves.

So I rolled them and saw the tattoos and marks over them.

There was a mark of a Black hand with a curse mark in the middle on my skin.

I knew I didn't like tattoos, but to the mark of Siphon on me.

I was reminded of the time.

I was killed and marked.

A mark, the thing I remembered was how it was seared into my skin.

Although my mind was shifting between the different areas of the run down cabin.

I noticed the apathy the traffickers showed.

I couldn't pull my eyes away from the person who was tormenting the boy over the body of his father.

The words he said.

The way he said them.

—— If I said those same words in front of that man.

—— Would he have killed me too?

Remember to mark him.

The only words I won't ever forget and I couldn't look away.

There was this dark and twisting feeling spreading inside of my head.

" I could be like your daddy." 

" All you have to do is listen to everything I say." 

" And if you are a good little boy—"

" I promise I won't hurt you—-"

"…." 

" What you can't speak English?"

[ I will kill you!]

" I don't understand a single thing you said little shit." 

[ I will kill you! ]

"… then—— die—-" 

It all happened so slowly when I saw he aimed the gun and began to pull on the trigger.

How the captives turned their heads away and the young boy eyes widened in front of the weapon.

The traffickers on the side who just watched.

I was no different from them.

I watched people die and watch them be killed when I knew I could off helped them.

— Does it mean you have tolerate it?

— If a person killed another before your eyes.

= A person you wanted to help.

— Is it normal to just accept? And do nothing?

[ Sometimes—— When things never change all you could hope to do is alter and make changes to it even if that would mean things diverting to what you are originally know.]

[ Morals, circumstances, decision making, common sense all of those things doesn't exist to someone who lives so close to heaven.]

[ Things don't go according to the way you wanted, but it doesn't mean you should tolerate something bitter.]

[ Altering reality doesn't need to extend to being a god.]

[ It could be something as simple as adding a bit of sugar to a rich and bitter coffee.]

[ In this case.]

[ Making up for the lack of sweetness in life with a dish called cruelty.]

[ All you need is kill.]

[ You are trafficker.]

[ This is who you are.]

—— Remember to mark him.

Siphon.

—-What was Siphon?

A cruel place where humans hurt other humans.

—— What are you?

Someone who worked for them.

The sound of my heart beat raced as I thought about it.

If nothing else entered my mind.

It felt like I was going to be absorbed by something I couldn't describe.

Lust was the feeling I know you felt when you desired something pretty, but this thing wanted more.

It weakened me with a strong compulsion that wanted me to act on my instincts and like the man who was burned that day.

The uncomfortable feeling wanted me to be like the man who watched that person burn.

Cruelty.

Be cruel.

—or be like the one burning and disposed off.

Kill and be killed.

I was already marked by them.

I couldn't describe the feeling that was cutting away from me when I saw it on my hand.

But I know what I felt.

It was some kind of rage.

The kind that made me feel disconnected from feeling my body.

"…" 

Although I couldn't understand it or why I was feeling it now.

That life, that Al who was filled with anger for what happened to me.

I know I'm already dead and dead people should remain dead and buried in the ground.

I didn't need to be reminded or feel this to function.

I fucking hate ghosts.

Before I felt myself being swallowed up by it.

I spoke to the captives in their tongue as the [ Conversation] distorted my voice to make them understand me.

[ You will not be harmed by us.] 

I raised my hand to my chest.

[ I promise.]

That voice was enough to put the traffickers off.

I did not need to use the power of Conversation to speak in their tongue.

It was the voice that sounded like the man who died that swallowed their attention, but I pulled against my tongue and walked forward him.

I puled out the gun I felt against my side.

" Hey I will help you with them."  I asked.

" You want to help?" 

I pulled on the switch on the side of the gun and stared straight forward and answered.

" Let me start with the first one." I said. 

[ May you perish wretchedly.]

I was behind the trafficker and over his shoulder without even registering the gun I had aimed above his brows after I touched his shoulder, before he could even say a single word.

I fired, not once, or twice, I shot him to the amount I recalled feeling in memory when I saw the other traffickers and their stunted reaction to what I had done.

  I made a decision to go through past life experiences and show them the reality that comes with the job.

The things I saw.

They needed to understand what happens here in this shit hole of a place.

  I shot him  in the knee and he fell, but I didn't stop until the gun could no longer fire, because of my heightened senses.

I aimed for all the places that would not make him bleed out and I didn't miss a single bullet.

He turned to his side and I fired.

He made a sound, I fired and that was when I saw the knife he used and reached out for it.

The expression his eyes showed.

I knew I wasn't over the feeling yet.

—— Ever since I pulled the trigger.

All I wanted was to kill.

That powerful compulsion was the most thrilling feeling I had ever experienced in all my life.

That desire too.

[ Watch something die by your hands.]

That feeling made my heart pulse to the point.

I couldn't think or feel anything, but the sound of a knife pushing into flesh and my own rapid heart beating along when an intense euphoria of warmth covered over my skin.

The moment the thought embraced me.

' Al, I know you don't like this, but some of us just can't stand this place.'

' You're no different from us and that's why I don't get it.'

' Why doesn't any of this affect you?'

' You see this, Al.'

' Yes, It's a cigarette filled to the brim with bliss.'

'…'

' It's the only thing that shows me that there's a world out there that we should see.'

' I wish there was another life where I didn't bring us here.'

' We can't stop.'

' Al…'

' We won't stop.'

' Al. Stop it.'

' You rely on it.'

' You may close your eyes and dream of that world out there, but we are here.'

' We are here in this world. In this place. In these bodies.'

' After everything we have done. Do you believe anyone would accept us.'

' When this is all over and we get that money.'

' Tell me the world out there would let us live like we use too.'

'… I don't know.'

' We will follow our orders and after this contract we will leave.'

' That's what you told me.'

'…'

' Al… maybe one day. You should take bliss, because from here.'

' You're more fucked up compared to everyone I know.'

' This is the last time.'

' And we're going home.'

' Like always while you run everything.'

' I will be your cold hand.'

[ A memory has faded.]

I was overtaken by the memories, but my mind was already driven by something that made kindness pale in comparison and a bullet to the brain was the only miracle that would make me stop.

  I raised the knife beside his ear, but my hands moved on their own as it followed a memory.

Under the compulsion I know won't stop as long as the feelings still remains.

Like how the image of my head pushed something inside, I saw my fingers react in the same way with the knife and I couldn't turn away.

Glued onto the eyes that stared at me from behind the mask.

" Please don't…."

"…"

" No…."

" AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

—————

It all stopped when the mask covering his face was broken and any features he had on his face was only left with the wounds of holes and blood it showed me.

I saw captives.

I saw traffickers, but I saw fear from their body language when I stopped stabbing.

I saw myself covered with his blood and the rush in my head had not faded, but I noticed the numbness in my hands after a certain point.

The dagger or the knife I had used was still clean despite the amounts of times it touched and changed his skin.

My mind hadn't fully adjusted to what I had done.

It was like staring at something behind blurred lens.

Other than the feeling to pick up the knife, I saw beneath the wounds and the scars that was now his face.

His inability to protect himself and how it had shattered his mind into accepting being harm and tortured without any desire to retaliate no voice or expression to explain it.

His body showed it and I understood that this was something I should never be forgiven for.

—To make up for one captive place.

—You need one more person.

—As long as they heart moves and they can be made to follow orders

—They would be bought.

I didn't understand how far I went or which part I was wrong.

I just knew.

[ A cruel display of Siphon brutality.]

I could only stare as a body of flesh utterly deformed by bullets and knife wounds managed to sit up with his heart still beating.

— I was no different than them.

That was only thing I thought about when I saw it.

My experiences with death allowed me to know how long a person could possibly survive for based on their physical trauma and condition, but I was not in right frame of mind to be able to confirm.

I knew people were very fragile and tenacious, but I could see how much the mind was gone.

If what he had done before was for thrill and amusement, then this action went against humanity.

I deserved the worst death possible, but no-one would punish me here.

We were already fiends who profited from human bodies.

" He will be sold to them." It was unnatural tone that escaped my lips.

One that seemed so empty and feigned of moral.

Robotic and hollow.

Despite knowing how similar I was to the man who ordered my killing, I couldn't see as punishable by death.

I was a ghost who was still alive.

It felt like a fog was in the back of my mind bluing something that I know should have been there.

I saw the gun in my left hand and the knife in the other.

If it were an act of wanting to live. I showed no signs of resistances or an attempt to justify what I had done.

Remembering cruelty you've experienced was a curse.

I knew  the mind of a victim, because I've been there before.

This is an atrocity that won't ever be forgotten.

Remembering cruelty would be like an infectious disease that continues to remind you it exists for as long as you live and it would only get worse.

Even after what I had done to him.

I didn't feel wicked, evil any of those elements used to mock cruel people.

I felt nothing, but acceptance that one day my actions would catch up to me, but I know that day won't ever come.

I was already dead.

" Ah…. Ah…. Ah——"

I leaned against the gun when I heard his voice and as long my heart continued to beat.

I was still alive in front of them.

I could feel their eyes on me and it was also filled with their intentions of confusion and thoughts of to act.

I spoke out to them.

" Our role is to sell those who've been captured to Siphon."

" The merchants accept the living."

And I stood behind the man for them to see him completely.

The captives were listening to our conversation.

They had no freedom to move and ever since that man was killed.

They remained there from there beginning.

On their knees staring at the blood that was up to their heels.

The traffickers were on edge because of the blade that was used and now pointed to them all.

We weren't allies. We weren't friends. We weren't colleagues.

They know that.

" Those who interfere with Siphon contracts will be subjected to such cruelties."

" It does not matter if they are a captive, a trafficker or a human life."

" Siphon is god."

" You work for god…"

I brushed the blade onto the shirt of the trafficker under me.

" Anything you do and anything you say."

" Is a reflection of how you treat god."

I showed no remorse in my words despite us all being cut from the same sleeve.

We were all traffickers, but we had sold our time to the devil called Siphon.

My words did not match.

The pain I was feeling, but these people needed to remember.

Hate, cruelty, and malevolence was nothing in the face of Siphon.

I felt torn in between two different people who were ordering different options to the same body.

One wanted to stop sinking into a dark pit, but compulsion wanted me to drown and find the bottom.

I pulled away the straps off his shoulders that held onto his body armor and opened a piece of cloth and exposed his neck.

I was acting in the position as if I were a full fledge member of Siphon.

My actions, My words, My gaze was to imitate that figure who killed me before as escape for the guilt what I've done.

Two different thoughts of a single mind that could not fully accept their actions.

I turned the knife in the side of his throat, marking him by twisting the blade through out his skin using the edge.

He was so quiet, that even I knew if I were in his place. I could never be able to feel and not make a sound.

It scared me to think I could be touching a corpse who had their eyes still open, but I heard his faint heart beat.

It was thumping gently compared to mine, but the mask prevented them from seeing my expression.

I stared at them while cutting through.

I didn't need to see what I was doing everything had been experienced on my body and imprinted into a memory where even I could imitate it without knowing what I was doing.

It was seared into me by the edge of a burning blade instead of a hot iron with a mark.

So I knew every crevice and turn needed to forge the mark of Siphon.

I saw the symbol on their arm bands.

Although they could feel themselves being marked, the trafficker wasn't their anymore.

I knew how terrible it was for him.

  He had ears to hear every word I had spoken.

The man who was full of confidence and power reduced to this wretched form.

I felt my mind sinking to something that did not belong to me.

In an attempt save any morals I left to hold on too.

I carved his skin as if he were one of the things that lived in the pig pen, but I wielded the knife very gently where pain was far less than the pressure I had applied moments before.

After the mark was carved.

My hands were stained  by both the sweat and I held onto sheds of skin that were pulled out.

Underneath the silence I began to hear his muffled cries.

All of it just completely rushed in after I saw the notification.

[ You have fulfilled an executioners duty and remembered to mark them.]

[ Your cruelty has imprinted a horrible memory onto them.]

[ They will remember.]

They will remember?

There in the middle of  cabin the floor was two humans.

One who layed on the floor without a heart beat.

The other who sat on his knees without a mind.

One who died 40 minutes ago and the other who ran between a series of laughing and crying in the span of a moment.

His mind was gone. 

I know it would have been far better if he didn't feel it to register the pain and the only way I thought of how it would work was to show a side of my memories… that revolted me.

Before I was a trafficker.

I had known about the people who worked with Siphon without knowing it then.

Their brutalities and the way they carried themselves.

Most of the things I saw was beyond consequences.

Yet here I was in acting the same image I had remembered as a child, but I feel as if my memories was distorted because of the transfers.

I was never involved with them from the start.

This was the first mission I had went through and failed and all the captives were killed.

"…" It had been some time since the traffickers left.

After ordering the captives to move away from this place.

We had refused to see each other.

So I was left alone with the ex-trafficker who would now be sold to make up for the one who died.

[ Black Merchants are entities who are involved with the buying and selling of everything known to be bad. Although they are physical representation of illegal markets. Black Merchants are an dimensional interaction trading system designed by your Modification System.]

I stared outside to the familiar sky as the train was taking us to Siphon territory to where they would be bought by a Black merchant who would make them into killers.

— All of this for fucking money.

I understand what kind of monster I was even if I couldn't feel it without something confirming it.

Somehow, Somewhere, Some day there would be someone who go on to commit far more terrible things than what I have done, but this could never be forgiven.

I was a fucking fiend.

I felt time was slower in this life.

In the dungeon things moved to quickly and I died faster because of it.

So I never got to experience much or be involved with anything important there.

This was the first time I had ever felt I had done something that seem to stay for good.

[ They will remember.]

We had passed multiple fields and towns that were submerged in the after maths of wars, there were many buildings destroyed by explosions, empty vehicles that have long been burnt and small dark shadows laying on the floor.

The blackened sky of Siphon was better without the sun.

If it were so bright you'd be able to see things much more clearly as you past them on the Phantom Route.

  Although it was far away from where we were now.

I remember a village.

We had no food everything was gone long ago, I still remember what I saw in a shed that day and when you are overwhelmed by hunger and haven't consumed any water for days.

Your mind deteriorate along with morals and you find difficult decisions can be crossed so easily.

I know my morals were dead because I would often think of dying and have no sense of regards for my own body, but the mind took a bit longer for the body to catch up with it.

"…"

This person I was or had become it was a time in my life where I can't forget what those days was like underneath the blackened sky of Siphon.

Like people have the memory of being with the people they love surrounded by kindness and family.

I too had memories that can't be shared with the living and the dead.

As the train roared, I saw the fields and beyond it a burial site and the forests I was killed in. 

I made someone who won't live on his own anymore and I might have killed him, but he chose to runaway to corner of his head.

  I burned years of my life indulging in manga, anime and webtoons and somehow I  had became this.

  It would be far better if I were to end up in a dungeon and be killed than to live and do anymore.

I knew about the future of the Siphon I experienced.

None of the traffickers now knew of the things that involved captives.

They just believed they only needed to kidnap a person then deliver.

I knew too much.

They would turn him into a killer, but they won't give him a weapon.

They would leave his hands and feet since they can be used to dig into skin after some modifications to the bones in each finger.

They would attach poison beneath his lever and slowly let it spread as it turns his saliva to spread diseases to anything he bites.

Their bones will be hollowed out and replaced by dead marrows of an animal found from sunk a river of an oil spill.

Even if I made him lose his mind a kind person would end his life and toss him of the train if they knew.

Instead of letting him live on being harmed by someone else.

This was my way of being kind, by breaking his mind and rendering him to the point where he could not be used by others.

So when he becomes disposable in attacks made on Siphon.

He would die immediately, unlike the rest who would live in pain and be hunted down by their own as if they are monsters.

If I was a good person.

The only way was to be the one to end his life before we reached a merchant.

I tortured, I marked and I broke his mind.

I was prepared to face my consequences even if the cheap price was to be killed or imprisoned, but this was something I couldn't die with.

While the captives were separated from us. 

I did not put the effort in disposing of the other on the floor.

I left him there, but the trafficker didn't seem to see notice the thing he was leaning against or feeling with his thumbs was a nose.

Showing the actions of a curious child, but having the appearance of torture shown over each corner of his visible discolored skin.

[ Do you regret?]

I can't answer if I did.

The sensation was numbing.

I sent him to a place where he watched from a corner and believed everything I had done was happening to someone else but him.

A separate place some go to, because they can't escape harm.

"…" 

[ Your mind has altered your memories, the possibility of the trafficker being separated from their body after being tortured is true.]

[ You've already experienced something similar before.]

The moment I picked up that knife.

I didn't want to spend my life living in this moment.

No matter how terrible of the things  I had done.

I didn't have the mindset to live with it, to live with the fact that no matter what I did.

It wouldn't affect me.

So I can die.

I'm sure if he had noticed it or never suspected me as being on his side.

The possibility for him to notice I was going to kill him would have happened.

I was just there first before he could retaliate and protect himself.

It felt like I was rationalizing my actions, by using him,  but I made a decision to leave.

I had no reason to be working in Siphon.

I had no interest or energy to keep up with it's wicked ways.

The moment I don't pay attention.

I end up dead.

That kind of life wasn't the best experience and I don't feel motivated to be in it again.

I was never able to leave.

After all that thought I turned and made a decision.

" I will die, but I won't explain how that would happen."

" Let me tell you about what you would go through after it happens."

" Your body will be bough and be used like an animal."

" You will die."

" You would die the most humane death you can think off, because you won't be killed by people like me."

" You will be killed by the people who hate us." 

" They will show mercy because they would believe you to be one of them."

" I can promise it can be a swift and comfortable experience that only takes a few moments of consciousness before you go."

" But I know you've become use to feeling pain. So a bullet will feel like a prick against the skin."

I pulled out a  golden coin from my pocket.

  The head of a golden crow chewing on a bamboo stick and the opposite a snake that devoured its own tail.

Although I was speaking to myself. 

I was thinking I was have a soothing confession about death.

" On this coin."

" Although I can just leave things as it is."

" I still have a sense of conscience for my actions."

"  The moment I flipped this coin it will decide how you will experience the rest of the moments of your life."

I brought the coin between my fingers and moved it around my fingers.

" Heads will mean mercy."

I pulled out the gun and pointed to him cocking back the trigger I pointed to his face and spoke.

" Tails will be hollow."

I turned the coin and with a flick of my thumb I watched the coin fall and land onto the floor with the face of the snake that devoured its tail floating over blood.

I pulled the gun down and watched as he picked up the coin and running his fingers over it.

While he showed interest in the coin. 

He couldn't see it.

  I cut out both of his eyes.

After some time I mustered the effort and pulled onto the captive whose body had been laying on the floor.

He was rather heavy, but I pulled him from both of the collars of his shirt.

Then I opened the cabin door.

It was large enough to be used to fill up cargo and often these kind of doors were used for crates and pallets.

So I was large enough to place two of them side by side.

  The rush of cold wind burnt my skin.

When the cold rushed through the wet sleeves of my skin.

I saw the trafficker jump up and dash across the other side.

The open wounds he had all over his body was recent.

I had to turn away when he made an awful scream.

Although his bloody footsteps imprinted my mind after I turned watching the scene of nature and life from a far. 

I pulled the captive over the edge of the door and watched he leaned on his side.

If we both fell off the train I wondered what might happen.

Burials were common among people who lived.

That concept was never an option for all of us.

The moment we passed a small tunnel.

I let go and pushed him off the edge with my boots and caught a glimpse of the moment he hit into the bushes below.

In a sense I felt like something was shifting inside of my head when I walked back and saw the bloody foot prints on the floor.

I wondered about what would happen if the crow had showed.

I had an idea in my head how I would kill him.

A bullet to the heart, but without bullets from my gun.

I would have turned his life around with the one that was always next to his side on the floor.

I turned away, but I noticed the captives who were attracted by the sound and the boy  that stared out the cabin door where the blood trails led too.

  He caught me looking, then rushed to shut it close when a person called out his name.

[ What happened?]

[ Someone opened the door and it's burning his wounds!]

The young boy who saw his father die.

Showed concern when the captives were trying to help the man.

Whether it be the rage or the sadness that comes when someone you love passes away or a deep understanding that the person who did it is now in the same position as you, but far worse.

He looked conflicted, but he was young enough to not be like us.

They surrounded the man and we watched as the man laughed, holding onto a coin, he could not see.

—— I left after tossing the assault rifle out and removing anything that could be used, but I took the heavy revolver with me and moved over to the next cabin.

——

I had an idea of what was to come.

It was lingering in my mind, thoughts of things ending.

I processed through the numerous methods available to me, actions I could take in ending my life, but all of my ideas would focus on the heavy revolver I carried.

A bullet to the head. A bullet to the heart. It had to be 3 shots.

It had to be a instant black out.

The pain had to be sharp, heavy and quick.

So when I transfer.

It would be like a blur I can't remember feeling.

I could vividly remember the lay out for the double dungeon. Although my experiences there was always cut short.

Often I would realize my knowledge for the original story seemed to have faded each time I transfer.

The memory of that place wasn't so important for someone who doesn't make it past the Architects Trials.

The future meant so little to me, but I know I will be there soon.

I looked back to every situation I had encountered instead of thinking about the captives who were locked in the cabin.

Ever since the coin.

I had this unnatural discomfort to go somewhere far away and the only thing I could think off was to transfer one more time.

After leaving the cabin. It got to my that in this moment it had been almost 8 months since my sister past away and I had left my original life behind and joined Siphon.

At this time many things had changed and was different than how I remembered.

None of the captives lived and I left the group, because it was far better to be on my own than to be surrounded by people who did things I would kill someone for in a heart beat.

It wasn't the decision of the trafficker that led me into hunting people on my own.

It just accumulated to the point where I'd rather be on my own, than to be surrounded by other people.

Although I managed to link up with someone I knew.

It was the apathy and disconnection from others that made me realize why I had always been a No Life.

I wasn't patient or worse interested in people.

  I learned from isolation for so many years.

  You didn't need to be a social chameleon to survive.

In fact you didn't need anyone to live, to breathe, to feel, but when you realize these things.

You start to become a dangerous person.

Who sees every moving thing as a threat to your invisible territory.

That feeling was hard to understand, but it never hurt me.

I opened a door to the next cabin.

I saw the luxury traffickers were, the money that came from selling people and how they all sat comfortably in the main interior of the train.

Everything here was lavish and comfortable for someone of noble stature. 

  This part of the cabin was renovated by a trafficker who owned a major district of Siphon and every seat, floor and table had some kind of jewelry or expensive decorations.

One of the traffickers had his feet resting over a large statue of a panther made of out of gold and ruby crystals.

The person who built the Phantom routes.

This  was just a piece of comfort he wanted to share for people who worked in his profession.

I saw how some of them didn't want to look at me. I could feel their hostility.

  We all had our faces covered, but I took off my mask when I headed deeper into the next cabin.

I left the interior and went to another cabin far in the back.

Somewhere I could be alone without eyes to see. No-one had a reason to come here.

It was the coldest part of the train and if you stood out here long enough.

No-one would be surprised if you died.

Since the wall had a graffiti that spelled out.

Worlds End pointing toward a part of the train that had the cabin door exploded of it's hinged.

  Unlike the other cabins this one was open to the harsh and freezing winds and the outside and without any protection from the constant traveling.

Many captives who couldn't bare to jump of the train were found in cased in ice here.

Thats when I actually felt the chills in my finger tips and my face was freezing to bitter cold.

I pulled the side of the blade I had taken from the trafficker up to see my face and I looked 15 years younger than I thought I felt.

I looked just like my sister, but the expression I saw would never belong on her face.

She was a good person.

I watched as the cold blurred the my reflection.

[ Your actions will have consequences.]

The consequence I would face is staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

[ Solo Leveling transfer link has been established.]

"…"

I was exhausted.

I've committed grave acts that went past moral boundaries again, but just as I think upon the atrocity that feeling would fade, but the memory would remain.

The captives would be sold.

  The traffickers would go on to find more of them with the awareness that even they aren't any different from them.

All I've done was relive everything I knew through torture.

How I had copied everything they did to me onto someone else.

I've killed, but never thought of making others suffer

Torture and cruelty.

It was like an addiction, but your mind only focused on one thing.

To bring as much harm and suffering without care for if they die.

Not knowing what they can take.

You explore that uncertainty through curiosity and imagery of pain.

That feeling hadn't stopped.

I felt it in my chest burning.

The temptation that desired to see more.

So… I listened and took a short deep breath.

I know we would all die in Siphon and in life.

Whether it be under a blackened sky or an orange one, or blue what ever color hovers over when you face the sun.

In this life you come and you go, but I wanted to believe no-one had to suffer in pain.

I didn't want to be a fiend who worked for Siphon.

I'd lose my mind while I am involved with them.

So I reached for my gun that I couldn't feel.

[ This action will have consequences.]

"…' 

Every action I had made in life was paid in death.

Consequences…

—— I felt like I was immune to all crimes… I'm already dead.

If you can describe the last sound you'd hear from a gun when you die…

I would call it nothing and I stared until my eyes closed slowly.

-  YOU HAVE BEEN KILLED.

[ You have gained a Black Soul.]