A spider's heart and soul

The price of living

You wake up to a prickling sensation on the back of your neck. You didn't like the feeling in your gut and quickly throw the blankets off your body, you had slept in your clothes so that you could leave quickly if need be. You could never be to careful when you got discovered just hours earlier. You deactivate your safe room and casually walk the streets heading into town. After so many years of hiding you learned many things, but if you had to use one sentence to wrap up your learned experiences it was 'when in doubt, run away.' You were getting a bad feeling in the hotel, the people following you might be tracking your nen. If this was the case it explains how they found the hotel quickly. Well, if they found the hotel.

You once again are reminded of your second favorite phrase since being on the run 'you can never be too careful'. Taking odd turns here and there you make sure to stay on light and crowded streets before ducking into an alley. You walk straight to the dead end and pull a brick out from the side buildings wall. Inside was a small package containing a special little trinket. The bracelet itself was nothing special, a child could have made a nicer looking one. However, the twine strung with discolored beads of various shapes and sizes had a nen ability infused with it. It allowed the wearer to copy the appearance, voice, even the aura and nen of it's wearers most recent victim. You don't really remember the faces of your kills anymore, but as long as they had no nen you were good with it. 

Once the bracelet is slipped on you feel intense pain all over your body, as if everything was growing and rearranging in a span of seconds. Once the pain ends you pull off your head wrap and leave the alley. As you pass a nearby store window you take in your new features while pretending to fix your hair. You were a young boy, no older than 19. He had no nen and no real muscle on him making your clothes baggy. Looking at the face you are briefly reminded of the body you found near your door a few weeks back. The skinny hollow looking boy tried to break into your apartment and was killed by your nen. It wasn't the first time a naive person broke into your place of stay to rob you and it certainly wouldn't be the last either. 

You would need to hurry to the next city soon. The bracelet can only be used for 24 hours before you start to wither away. Something about impersonating the dead being a crime against life. Probably something it's maker heavily believed in since nen is heavily influenced like that. You can only use it once every couple of months too, it sucks away your energy and you feel completely drained once you take it off, you probably wouldn't even last the 24 hour limit if you used it to often. Walking east, you slowly make your way to the outskirts of the town and soon the only thing left to show civilization was the unmaintained road at your feet and an occasional car.

You left the hotel suddenly and only got a few hours of sleep at best, it was still night out when you left as well. As you watch the sun start to peek over the horizon and the city your were in no longer in sight, you decide it was time to take the bracelet off. Your exhaustion was reaching it's limits and a nap in a tree seemed a good a place as any to regain your strength. making sure your bandages were tightly wrapped and secure before leaning into the tree you found, you wonder what your goals were now. At first it was to get away from your parents, find your soulmate, and be normal. Then it was survival, escaping your soulmate, and making your parents turn in their graves. Your parents would probably spit up blood over everything you had done by now. You survived. You almost escaped, now that goal was impossible. So what about now. You didn't care for materialistic things, being on the run constantly took any part of you that desired a cozy life and shoved it out of your body. You didn't care for people or connections either, that died the day you killed your parents and the picture of your ideal soulmate. To live free? What's the point of freedom if the shadow of capture always waited to grab you whenever you let your guard down.

Then it hit you. Your goal. Your dream. You had forgotten it. At one point you realized you had lost them and you wanted them back. The price for your life on the run, for the lessens that kept you safe, was your feelings of safety, comfort, and warmth. You long forgot what happiness felt like. You watch people on the street with brilliant smiles all the time, even the people you fence goods for smile with joy as they get their profit. What makes people smile like that?

You wanted to feel 'happy' again.