• This is the second book of The Collected series •
"Those who bring pain are here to save, and those who bring hope will bring death. A great evil rests on the horizon, eating away at each setting sun. Nothing is as it seems while you beg for salva...
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Purpose. It was the thing every soul searched for, and after feeling lost for so many days, it was nice to have purpose.
I had changed since I was taken from earth. That much was certain. There I had been soft, and weak, but I had also been kind and happy. Some would say the change was good, that the evil that I found myself becoming was the only thing that had kept me alive in this hell. I couldn't help but feel that it wasn't like that.
The voice in my head said awful things, and I did them. I did them willingly without reluctance or mercy. I killed and I didn't feel bad about it. I tallied them like trophies.
A past me would be so disappointed. Disgusted with what I'd allowed myself to become. The corruption that I'd allowed seep into my very blood. The power I held, to inflict pain and suffering, was if a reflection of what my soul had turned into?
Did I really care?
I did.
Sometimes.
A bit.
I cared.
Your thoughts are distracting.
"Stop listening to them then." I said, mid fight with a Collector. It was a small one, but faster than most. It had a weapon too, which I hadn't brought, my hands were all I needed.
It avoided my hands. Keeping me back with its long spear.
This is not the time to think.
"Fighting requires lots of thought yo stay alive."
You are not thinking of fighting.
"True." I snapped the spear, feeling my body shift slightly as I lunged, pressing the Collector up against the wall. They let out a blood curtailing scream as my skin met theirs. One hand around their neck, the other on their arm.
I didn't cut into my arm that was littered with scars. Maybe it was stupid. But I dreamed of the day when I could move past all of this. When I could find the boy I once was. The kind of boy that saved a strange and potentially dangerous creature.
It felt like a win. To move past the need to make down the lives I took. To dream that these would be the last ones.
A screech sounded from behind and I turned to see the walls folding in on themselves. Andrea stood before them, arms stretched out, body tense in concentration. She did it periodically, closing the path behind us so they we not be sandwiched between two groups of Collectors. Ahead, that was the only thing we had to worry about.
It had started off empty. As if the whole Collecting Point had been abandoned. Eventually, though, we were moving inward to more populated areas.
There was no doubt the Collectors now knew we were there. Wave after wave fell upon us, more than what should've been patrolling in an attack.
