Part of Them

Part 30

"Uh, I think the village she lived in was called Murward or something like that.Her name was Linda and her husband, John, was a guild master I think, but he must have died some time ago because he was most definitely human," I tried to explain.

"She had dirty blonde hair, pale blue eyes and a lot of wrinkles. Though I highly doubt that she still looks the same, let alone lives in the same area if she really was a witch."

"And why did she mark you with that curse in the first place?" he continued.

"Ah, well that's a complicated story. To make it short, she found out about me being a vampire and then sh*t went down," I summarized dryly. Remembering life back then was dreadful. I was ashamed of my stupidity.

"I'm assuming this was drawn with a common knife and nothing magical?" questioned Alerus.

"Yes," I assured him. I didn't know anything about the way you had to draw those marks in order for them to work correctly and I was hoping Rayi could hurry up a bit to tell me what exactly I've been cursed with and if it actually has an effect on me.

I haven't really noticed anything different on my body or in the way I think, but if it's a mental curse, there was a possibility that I wouldn't have noticed it anyways. It was like, for example, if you never told a schizophrenic person that what they're seeing or hearing doesn't actually exist, they would probably never know. That is, if they don't know that they're schizophrenic, otherwise they could maybe figure it out by themselves.

"Alright, I think we'll manage with that information," stated Rei, rubbing his hands together.

As Rei proceeded to make his way to the door, I wondered what he meant by that.

"What exactly are you going to manage?" I asked worriedly. After all, I didn't really want Linda to be tortured or something by my brothers. I wouldn't even wish that upon my worst enemy. Who knows what they could do?

"Don't worry your pretty little head about that, Alerus will be back in a couple hours to take care of you if we didn't manage to track her down until then," he said, smiling deviously. As he made his way to the door, followed by Alerus, he stopped dead in his tracks yet again. "And please behave and let Rayi do his work. Even though it might take a little longer than you think, because understanding curse marks that weren't drawn by oneself is very complicated, it's important that you stand still," he lectured me.

Rolling my eyes, I nodded. He could be so bossy sometimes.

Squinting his eyes and giving me one more warning gaze, he left through the door with Alerus in tow, who cast me a rather worried look as he went.

The door fell closed and the awkward silence.

Rayi wasn't the most communicative type and starting up any kind of conversation with him would be pointless. Standing still and staring out the window above the bed would be the best option for me then.

Throughout the examination my legs and back started to hurt from standing upright without something to lean on for such a long time, but I didn't dare interrupt him in whatever he was doing.

Sometimes I felt him trace across my back, as though to understand what he was seeing a bit better. Whether it actually helped or not, I did not know.

Here and there, displeased or annoyed grunting noises could be heard, which didn't really sit well with me.

"Huh, this doesn't make sense at all..." he mumbled at some point. "There's no way... no, they couldn't have..."

His mumbling was giving me the chills. Couldn't he mumble about something positive? Like "Oh yeah, this makes sense," or "Ah, this is such a simple curse,".

After what felt like hours, he finally seemed to have come to a conclusion and cleared his throat.

"Well, it seems like this isn't your average curse. The person who drew this mark only drew the base of it, something very simple. But throughout time, the base evolves and grows to become a more complicated curse mark," he said deeply in thought.

"So this mark is growing on its own and turning into a curse slowly? And what exactly does that mean?" I questioned rather calmly, even though my insides were churning.

"Uh, I guess this mark hasn't fully developed yet and therefore the curse hasn't activated itself yet," he explained, tracing the lines of my scar again. "This is a rather rare method that only few know about, mainly because it's quite useless. The curser only draws a base of a non-defined curse and hopes that it develops into some random real curse over time," he continued.

"Then, can you make out whether this curse that is supposed to be developing on my back is actually something to be afraid of or not? Like, is it really developing into a random curse? And if so, which curse?" I asked him in a slightly trembling voice. Nothing could compare to the anticipation I was feeling at this moment.

"Hmm, well from what I've gathered..." He started, and I held my breath. "It's a curse that only focuses on your feelings. It causes you to hate things that you used to like or things that you desire to enjoy. It puts the mind in a state of constant conflict."

I gulped, this was kind of exactly what was going on in my mind most of the time. I really wanted to enjoy living alone and in the wild like a rouge, but I always felt lonely and hated it. That's why I wandered near that village, Murward, where Linda and John lived.

But now, I deeply wanted to enjoy the affection my brothers were providing me, but I just couldn't. I wanted to be cared for, but I hated it at the same time.

But the curse hadn't activated itself yet, right? So why was I feeling like this already?

"But here comes the issue," Rayi continued explaining, "The curse mark shows sections that I do not understand. At the base for example, there is a section that looks a little like it's referring to the present, but this doesn't really make any sense to me... Developing curse marks usually don't develop that way, unless they're influenced by something."

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Aah sorry, I forgot to upload yesterday. Now you have to read through two chapters of this crap in one day