The Master of Souls (Ahri x OC)

Chapter 7: Opening My Eyes (Edited)

(Edited Version)

"Wow," I said in awe as my eyeballs tried to get out of my sockets because of the beautiful sight.

Another kind of forest suddenly appeared out of nowhere. We were walking through the usual forest, then suddenly, we entered another one that I'd never seen before. This new forest we'd entered was really different from what I was used to.

Normal forest had normal trees, flowers, grass, and other normal plants.

But this new forest had trees that I'd never seen before that were more whimsical, flowers that were ten times more beautiful than an ordinary flower, other plants that looked as if they came from a different world, and majestic animals that looked as if they'd come straight out of a fairytale: like deer with colorful fur, birds that had unique feathers, and reptiles that were glowing under the shadows of the leaves.

The sight was beautiful. It made me feel as if those magical tales had entered reality.

"Finally," Ahri sighed. "We're on the normal side of Ionia!"

"N-normal side?" I asked Ahri in a confused voice because to me this wasn't a "normal" side. Since my birth, I thought that Ionia was just an ordinary place where only ordinary things lived, not a place where beautiful and magical wildlife inhabited.

"Yes, little one," Ahri answered cheerfully, "you were missing out a lot."

My face fell. All this time, I thought that these kinds of places only existed in stories. But, they existed in reality all along!

I felt as if I were fooled all my life.

'This is . . . depressing,' I thought.

"Yes," I said and sighed. "I was missing out a lot . . ."

"Well, cheer up, Jeffric," Ahri said, patting me on my head gently. "You only wasted a small part of your lifetime."

"Y-yeah," I said sadly. "For fifteen years . . ."

"What?" Ahri asked in a surprised voice. She stopped patting me on the head, staring down at me with a shocked look on her face.

"I'm fifteen years old," I said. "So, I guess I've wasted fifteen years of my lifetime."

Ahri kept staring at me. "Y-you're a fifteen-year-old boy?" she asked incredulously.

I nodded.

She kept on staring at me. "B-but your face look like you're about twelve years old," she said. "And even your height makes you look like a twelve-year-old."

Ahri was one or two heads taller than me, reminding me that I was on the short side.

I bowed my head slightly. "My parents didn't feed me much when I was little," I explained in a quiet voice.

She paused for a second. "I guess I shouldn't call you 'little one' because of your age," Ahri said. "But . . ."

"B-but what?"

She gave me a teasing smile. "You're a short human, so I guess you're technically a 'little one'."

I sighed. She was making fun of my height, like the others in the village that I used to live in. And Ahri's teasing smile suddenly triggered some memories of kids my age discriminating me for my height. Those painful things started to stab at my soul with imaginative knives.

Suddenly, my mind began to get out of control slowly, as if something inside my head were struggling to get out. And my emotion of pure hatred and anger that I'd hidden deep inside my soul started to tear a hole in it to get out.