A Dance With Death

|| Chapter 24 - Remoulded ||

                          

Of all the strange things I've seen recently, I can call this to be the strangest. The rest of the occurrences can be explained. But mind control? That's just insane. Or maybe I haven't learned enough about this world. However, the amount of knowledge I now have about the in-between, it's enough to tell me that controlling minds isn't child's play.

"So he asked us to figure what out?" Althea asks, leaning against the wall. She's trying to appear calm but I know she's freaking out. Ava stands beside her, not sure what we're talking about. Griffith had called Althea outside as soon as Joseph left, to tell her about what we witnessed. Ava came to listen too.

"Ava's case, obviously," Griffith replies.

"And may I point out that he used a human to tell us that," I add.

"You sure it wasn't Caius in Joseph's form?" Althea asks Griffith.

"I would've sensed him," Griffith says. "Joseph's just human."

"Of course Joseph is human," Ava speaks up. "What are you guys talking about?"

Right. She doesn't know anything about the monster who's causing the world to be in turmoil. She's not aware of the danger that her soul is in the hands of a very powerful being. It's important to keep her sane, but it's also important that she should know about the person -- or thing -- that has caused her trouble.

Althea sighs. "We cannot trust anyone at this moment."

"But Joseph is my friend. I've known him for so long. He's not what you think he is," Ava defends.

"We're not saying that he did this," Althea says. "Someone else did."

"That Kay guy you keep talking about?"

"Caius," I correct her. "His name is Caius."

"Who is he?" she asks Althea.

"A rogue reaper," Althea replies. "Doesn't want to play by the rules. He kills people because it's fun. He might be the one who stabbed you."

Ava looks baffled. She stares at Althea with disbelief. She stays quiet for a while, and just gapes at Althea. "Y-you know the person who tried to kill me?" She stammered. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"We didn't want to put stress on you," Althea answers. "Especially in this situation. I didn't want you to panic."

Ava steps back. "Is there a reason to panic?" She looks at all of us. We stay silent. "You said I'm going to be okay. Did you lie? Am I actually dying?"

"We didn't lie," Griffith says. "We were telling you the truth when we said that your body can be healed. In fact, it is really close to being healed . . ."

"But?" Ava says.

"The person that did this to you, Caius, he's kind of a tricky guy," Griffith explains. "We don't know what he's up to. You're not even supposed to be roaming around as a ghost. He's done something to you, something that we can't explain. We don't know what he's going to do next."

Ava listens to Griffith with her eyes wide-open. She's processing all that she's heard, that I can make out through her frown.

"It's okay I guess," she says with a low voice. "I'm not dumb enough that I didn't guess what was happening. I knew from the looks on your faces that something was wrong. I just didn't know whether I was in a position to ask or not."

I can see that Althea relaxes a bit. Even if she's a reaper, she cares a lot about humans. I can make that out because I don't see Griffith or Ektor being very considerate about how I feel.