Crafted Origins

Chapter 25: SetoSorcery

(Seto's POV)

I kept my head down until I reached the back streets. The instant I felt my foot hit the cracked pavement, I took my hood off, standing up tall. This was where I had lived before the poster. This was where I was king.

The poster was what had drove me out of town. It was a wanted poster; the kind you think that you'd only see in old movies. I had never been caught, and I wanted to keep it that way. I had robbed a jeweler’s shop before leaving the town; and I had given the amulet to Adam before I left. It wouldn't have been worth much, anyways.

But now that I was back, I could meet up with some old acquaintances. There were no real friends in the thievery world. We all told each other fake names, too, so that we couldn't be caught if somebody turned out to be a traitor. I had given the name Seto, and people had called me it so much that I didn't even remember my real name anymore. Not that I cared.

I smiled to myself and headed right towards my gang's hideout. Like I said, we weren't exactly friends, but we got along well enough. I got to the hideout; it was an old, shabby-looking building, but it was held up just fine. The only thing wrong with it was a little paint peeling off. Without knocking, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“-missing for a while now,” I heard M say. I stopped. M rarely ever spoke, so if he was talking, something big must be going on.

“How can we be sure he hasn't been caught?” somebody else asked. I searched my brain for who it was; Cupquake, maybe? I furrowed my eyebrows. Who had been caught?

“Seto, arrested?” Bodil laughed; his freaky, high-pitched laugh that almost scared me to death. “Are you crazy? He probably just left us for some other group.”

I narrowed my eyes. They thought I had left them, left the one group that I had led. They didn't even sound upset, like they didn't care. Not that I really cared. There were NO friends on the streets.

“So what do we do?” M asked, redirecting the conversation back to where they had begun.

“We move on,” Lykos said. “Seto can handle himself just fine.”

I whipped around and stepped out of the house as quietly as possible before I heard anything more. True, I was never one for my reliability, but I had always come back. And now they were acting like I wasn't.

I started running through the town, my feet all but silent on the asphalt. I had always been proud of my ability to move silently. I didn’t even bother to look where I was going; I took the first turns that I saw, squeezing in between narrow alleyways and broad streets that I didn't even know existed. I opened my mouth, gasping for breath, but still silent. I stopped and looked around me, trying to figure out where I was.

None of the buildings were familiar.

I blinked and scanned again, this time more carefully. Was I... lost??? No, I wasn't. I was Seto. I knew every nook and cranny of this town, every hiding spot, every shop and black market. No way was I lost.

Then why didn't I have a clue where I was?

I took a few steps to the sidewalk, which was being ripped apart by weeds. A small shop stood in front of me. Curious, I squinted to see the tattered banner hanging above it; wherever I was, nobody had come here in a long, long time. It had weird symbols written all over it. I stared at it, trying to figure out what it said, but it made no more sense to me than chicken scratch.

I examined the shop. Curtains were pulled tightly over the windows, and the shop itself was barely one story high, the walls cracked and falling apart. The door was shut. I went up to it and pulled on the handle, but it seemed to be stuck.