Re : Life

"Die!" "Die!" "Die!"

"You monster!"

"Burn him to death!"

"You're a disgrace to your family, a disgrace to humanity!"

Hundreds of people uttered similar slogans, full of hatred, disgust and rage as they waited for the death of the person on the stage.

It was an execution. Woods piled up all around him, waiting for a small spark that will burn him to his death. His hands were tied and his eyes blindfolded, like a criminal.

'Am I... a sinner?'

'Am I... the reason.. why hundreds of thousands of people died?'

'It wasn't supposed to end like this.'

'This isn't what I wanted!'

'Is this how it's all going to end?!'

'Can I really do nothing to change the outcome...?'

'Father, mother, brother, I'm so sorry...'

'I'm sorry you had to lose everything.. because of me.'

'I miss you so much...'

Despair soon turned into regret, and regret into sadness and grief. A sense of resignation washed over Ale's whole body as he prayed, for the first time in his life.

He didn't even know to whom he was praying, but he still prayed, pleaded, and begged. He wasn't begging for life though; it was death he yearned for. And just like that, his life came to an end inside that burning, merciless fire.

Ale was born a noble, in a family full of love and care. As he grew up, he was surrounded by nothing but affection. The more he was cherished by his family, the gentler and more kindhearted he became.

But in the end, all that love and kindness turned into a poison that caused the death of his whole family, ultimately taking his life as well. After losing his family due to what he considered his own foolishness, the only thing Ale has been wishing for was death, for many years.

And now that his wish was actually getting fulfilled, he could finally look back on his life and come to terms with it. The long-suffering soul that finally managed to leave his body was broken and tattered. Not a single piece of it remained without bruising.

The demi-god that was supposed to be in charge of his soul, the one who had been looking over him throughout his whole life, approached the soul which had left the body and carefully grabbed it.

She was afraid, afraid that even with the smallest touch, it might shatter completely and scatter away. His was a soul so heavy with karma that it weighted more than the soul of the devil himself. Yet, it was still shining, although dimly, but with a very gentle golden aura. The purest color a soul could bear.

"Poor child.. bearing the karma of your whole world."

She sighed as she held the soul close to her heart. She wanted to heal him, mend the broken parts. But no matter how much she tried, it was simply impossible.

"Sister, why do you care for him so much?" Her brother asked, seeing a side of his sister that he had never seen before.

"Because I am his guardian angel... But it looks like I might be the most useless guardian out there. I couldn't be of any help to him."

She stared at the broken soul in front of her with gaze full of sadness and regret. It was a soul that was no longer salvageable.

She was a Demi God now. But even she used to be a human before. A human with a heart. But during the thousands of years that she spent talking care of countless human souls, the human greed and malice had turned her heart into stone.

It was the first time, in thousands of years, that she could feel her heart beat again. She was sad, and her heart felt like it would burst but she didn't hate it. The feeling of pain and sadness made her aware that she still had a heart.

She felt thankful. And so, she wanted to pay back the feeling of gratitude. Her will to do something for Ale grew even stronger. And she finally made a decision.

The only thing she, a demi-god could do in this situation. She decided to send back the broken pieces of Ale's soul to the past. 

'The soul carried memories, so if it manages to sync with the unwounded soul of the past, there is still hope for him.'

Even with a small chance of that happening, she was still ready to take the chance and pay the price. A blind light covered the area as she held those broken pieces close to her heart for the last time before saying goodbye.

Back to the past, back when Ale was still a teen.

The soul travelled against the flow of time and ended up in a timeline twenty years prior to the present. The soul found its owner, the Ale from the past and entered his body while he was sleeping.

That night, Ale had a long and terrible nightmare.

The next morning.

"Hah?!" the teen Ale woke up from his dream with a startle. He clutched his chest which felt extremely heavy for some reason. It was hard to breathe as he felt like someone was stepping on his lungs.

After staying like that and writhing in pain for a while, he finally managed to catch his breath and look ahead. As he remembered the reason he had to jump in his sleep, his mind slowly started to muddle once again.

"A dream…?" He mumbled with a blank expression as he kept getting flashbacks of painful and terrible memories of his future.

Knock knock.

Even before Ale could wrap his thoughts around what was happening and what these memories were that he kept getting flashbacks of, there was a knock on the door.

Followed by the knock, a man dressed in a black and white butler uniform entered the room.

"Good morning, young master-Oh! You're awake already."

He looked a little surprised as he stopped talking mid-sentence and changed his tone. It was an old man with sunken eyes, one glass above his right eye and grey hair.

"Norman.."

Ale called out to his name with a somewhat hoarse voice. He was still having a hard time breathing properly.

"Young master? Are you okay? You look a little pale."

The butler approached Ale and offered him a glass of water. As Ale took the water and gulped it down his throat, Norman removed one of his gloves and placed his hand on Ale's forehead, checking for fever.

"I'm okay.."

Ale said as he gently removed the hand from his forehead. He didn't have a fever; neither was he sick in anyway. There was nothing wrong with him except the memories from his dream last night.

"Although you don't have a fever, we should still call the doctor for a checkup just in case."

He sounded worried as he suggested doing a regular checkup. Ale didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but he knew it'd only get worse if he didn't accept Norman's suggestion right now.

"Only if you don't inform father and mother."

Ale made a deal instead. Norman happily accepted those terms and left the room to call for the family doctor.

When he was about to close the door, Ale suddenly remembered something and called out to him.

"Can you tell me the date? Today's date."

"Today? It's the Twelfth of October, year 1864."

Norman looked a little worried seeing Ale's weird behavior but answered, nonetheless. After that, Ale no longer spoke anything else, so he excused himself and hurriedly went to the family doctors' room to bring him to Ale.

"Twenty years...? What kind of dream-ack!"

Ale felt a throbbing headache as the memories from his dream resurfaced on his mind once again. Although they were just small flashbacks for now, he felt like his head was going to split into two if he kept thinking about them.

"It hurts..."

He mumbled as he curled up like a baby, trying to cope with the pain.

This was just the beginning.