the time i was human (cookie run au) [2021 REWRITE]

interlude: fbi, open up

She was the first one to help him when he landed in an unfamiliar world, the first to discover his bloodied face and limp body, and the first to offer him a home when he had none.

When he was lost and confused, she took his hand and led him around, showing him her home. She brought him to blooming gardens, sparkly beaches, and bustling cities. She introduced him to new cuisine and how to cook savory foods, something he had never known of until he arrived. She gave him a new life when he was at his lowest, revealing a future that he never thought he would have known.

So consequently, she was the last person he wanted to reveal his true past to.

He knew she would ask eventually, given that he had been completely unaware of common human customs or even simple human biology upon first arrival. He was completely devastated after learning his missing eye cannot be replaced in this world and that pain lingers for more than a single second. She had been suspicious of his behavior then, but ultimately brushed it off and decided not to question it. He was afraid that she might push him away if he said anything, so he decided to go along and keep his mouth shut.

However, one day, the remaining red strands in his hair suddenly began to glow. When she had reached for his braid to inspect the anomaly, sparks shot out from where his hair made contact with her skin and left a dark mark on her fingers. She believed him when he frantically told her that he had no idea what happened, but ever since that day, she grew more wary.

Eventually, she managed to convince him to tell her the circumstances that brought him here. It's only fair, he thought, since she shared so much of her that he should also share a part of himself — to which he confessed it all: he was from another realm, a war criminal banished for his Dark crimes. Fortunately, she did not think differently of him after learning this information (or so she claims), promising that this changes nothing between them.

What he never realized was that after hearing about his past, she grew suspicious not of him — but the Dark forces he was involved with. After investigating deeper on her own, she uncovered secrets of this strange world he came from and reignited a goal her ancestors had been pursuing for centuries.

There was something rotten in this world — a sinister darkness plaguing Earth that had been long forgotten, or rather, unnoticed. The Bearer of Darkness, a being that had been unleashed in the past, was still around and gaining power with every moment. She must warn her people to take action before the Darkness has a chance to spread in the human realm again.

She left one day without notice, leaving him alone in her house with nothing but a note promising eventual return.

He waited for a year, but she had not returned since. And every so often, when his braid flickers with a ruby red glow, he can't help but to think of her and her harrowing absence.