My Muse || READER X RAY || The Promised Neverland

⭐ My Muse || Chapter 102

We continued our long trek to the shelter, still not coming across any significant dangers. Don grabbed my shoulder, pointing at a few trails of smoke rising in the distance. "Is that a town?" I shrugged, Gillian and I climbing a tree for a better vantage point. It was a small demon village. The tiny straw houses were sitting comfortable in a thick cobblestone wall, a large temple or shrine a little farther away. "It's not on the path," I called, jumping down. "Let's keep going." 

"B06-32." I said, stepping onto the familiar desert sand. My heart churned, the empty wasteland we once called home coming into full view. Distantly, a metal hatch was left wide open, the six of us stumbling to it quickly. "Home..." Nigel whispered, a tear running down his face. I frowned, touching my belt. The pistol was still there. "I'm going down." I said, stepping on the first rung of the ladder. Just a week or two ago, this place was bright, noisy, happy and loud. Furniture was knocked over, rubble, dust, stone shards, and shrapnel littered the ground. Lamps were shattered, broken lightbulbs laying on the floor. The wooden bedroom doors were slammed open, every security camera screen either broken, knocked over, or screeching in a painful static. "No... No bodies..." Gillian whispered, kneeling over the floor. She picked something up, her right hand trembling. Nigel gasped. "A syringe?" Emma glanced at me. "Not just a syringe." Gilliand handed it to Gilda, who screwed it open, sniffing what was left of the injection. "Chloroform." She mumbled, throwing it onto the floor. "There's a handkerchief here, " Don said, picking up a white cloth. "Wait, no, there's two." Emma kicked another needle. "There's four syringes in total." I counted them on my fingers. "Six. Six drugs. Six boys. Ray, Zack, Oliver, Pepe, Lucas, and Yuugo." "So where are they?" Gillian asked, walking towards the library. The door was the only one intact. She shoved it open, gasping. The room was... almost pristine. Perfectly clean, tidy, no knocked over tables, chairs, or shelves. I didn't know what to think. There wasn't a drop of blood spilled in the shelter. Not a body left, not a trace of violence. Except for the explosion that broke the hatch. Emma sat at a table, grabbing a mysterious plain black book. She wiped the cover with her sleeve, blinking away the dust. The book... It wasn't black. It was burnt. The soot and ash fell off easily, the journal itself unharmed. "It's... Minerva's..." She muttered, swinging it open. The five of us gathered around her, reading over her shoulder. "January 28th, 2031..." I said aloud. This diary... It was more than two decades old! "Father has died. The day I dreaded. For that bastard old man to give away his cursed enterprise to me." Was this... before he met my mother? We sat there for hours, taking turns reading the pages. Some entries were very short, as if James Ratri was busy doing something else. Others were pages long, detailing certain events that made him the happiest man in the world. Many of them were about my mother. "This is almost as if it were a teenage drama. My snooping little brother found my diary, exposed my secrets to the world, and now I've been forsaken. They will kill me, my wife, and my child. It's an unbearable thought. But in the case this baby survives, they are the true heir to the Ratri Clan and all its assets. My will is attached. This is an execution I accept."

Emma turned the final page. The leather end of the back cover stared back at us. "It- It's not here..." Don muttered. "No, it's been stolen..." Gilda said, touching the ripped spine. "Look- Everyone, look for a piece of paper! It was ripped out!" Everything started to click. I reached into my pocket, remembering the folded paper I had stolen from the armory. My finger trembled, undoing the messy, crumpled creases. The left side of the lined paper was neatly ripped. 

"I, William Minerva, am of sound mind and body whilst writing my final testimony and will regarding the distribution my assets and ventures. This'll be short. I leave everything to..."