The Bearer (3)

You try to speak, but your voice arrives late—dragging itself through your throat like it just woke up from someone else’s nightmare.

“Yes… it’s been two weeks since I drank the concoction,”
you say.

A simple sentence. Harmless. But it leaves a coppery aftertaste—like rusted truth trying to be polite.
You don’t sound afraid.
You’ve trained the fear to sit quietly behind your ribs.

The Professor watches you. He does that well. Watches like a man who knows too much and still hopes he’s wrong.

“Anything critical?” he asks, not blinking.

Not concerned. Just… cataloging.

You think about the thing behind him.
The grin with no mouth.
The teeth that were more idea than shape.
The silence that pressed against your skull like a velvet brick.

You swallow. Lie, a little.

“No. Nothing... critical.”
A beat.
“Just headaches. Now and then.”

You pause, unsure if you’ve said too little or too much.
The kind of pain you’re trying to describe doesn’t translate. Not into words.
It’s not migraine. It’s presence.

Sharp flashes behind the eyes. Static in your dreams. A feeling like something is adjusting its weight inside your bones.

But none of that feels like it would help.

The Professor nods. Slowly. 

“You’ll feel echoes,” he says. “From what you drank. From what was watching.”

He closes the book in front of him. Dust breathes out into the room.

“Some minds reject it. Some… fracture. Others…”
His eyes meet yours.
“Adapt.”

You don’t answer. Not with words.

Because deep down, something has changed.
The world hasn’t shifted, you have.
Tilted. Slightly. Just enough to see the seam at the edge of things.
Just enough to feel the grin that’s no longer in the room—but still watching from behind the curtain of reality.

You nod again. Slower this time.
Then you ask it—quietly,

“Do all Bearers experience the same thing?”

The question hangs there. It doesn’t fall. It waits.

The Professor exhales. Not tired—resigned.

“No...”

He lets the word rot in the air for a moment before continuing.

“Some of them feel nothing. As if the thing inside them is sleeping, or polite.”
“Some grow tired. Heavy in the soul, like the world is dragging them backward through time.”
“Some die.”

A pause. Not for dramatic effect. For memory.

“And some... become worse than death.”

You feel something coil behind your spine at that. A shape without shape.
A concept your body almost understands.

But then he smiles—not kindly—just... factually.

“Don’t worry too much. A few headaches?” He gestures with two fingers, like plucking a cigarette from a pack. “That’s fortune. Fortune with a lowercase f.”
“As time passes, they’ll fade. Or you’ll stop noticing.”

"About the project we discussed..."
The Professor shifts gears. Cold and seamless.
"That might take a while."

Project?
What project?

Nothing comes. No flicker of memory. No whisper of context.
Just the hollow echo of something forgotten.
Shit.

"Yeah. That’s fine..." you lie.

A weak delivery. Not even worth an award.

“Let’s leave it at that for now. You may go.”
“I only wanted to check on your condition.”

You're about to speak, maybe thank him out of habit or fear, but—

“Oh, and—try not to stay out too late.”
“You read the morning reports, didn’t you?”

You freeze. The silence crawls into your ears. Thoughts scatter like rats in a cellar.
Did he do it? Did Areldine send that thing?

Curiosity kills more than cats. It kills you.

“I suspect it was the work of the Pact of the Fallen Flame,” he says, as if commenting on the weather.

You blink. Your face must be leaking confusion, because he fills in the gaps.

“A radical group. We don’t have much intel on them. But many Bearers are drawn to their ideals.”
“This time, the victim was from the Dreamveil Synod. A shadow branch under the Church of Dreamveil.”

Too much.
Too much too fast.
Your brain flinches, like it just got slapped with cold water and salt.

“Whatever it is, be careful.”
“The way the body was found... I’d say Bearers are being targeted.”

Your pulse skips.
“Bearer organs,” he adds, flatly, “are optimal for rituals and experimentation.”

Wait.
Wait.
Is that the project earlier? Are you the fucking project?

How stupid was the previous occupant of this body?

No.
No. Don’t jump to conclusions.

But the thought’s already planted.
And it’s growing roots.

That project… maybe he left a trace.
A note? A journal? Something buried in the drawers of that sad little inn room.
Yes. There has to be something.

Later, you attend a few lectures.

Sit through the motions. Numb. Watching shadows of diagrams crawl across chalkboards.
The day ticks on—slow, mechanical, like a rusted clock with a crooked pendulum.

There are no more lectures today—or at least, that’s what you’d like to believe.
You're ready to head back. Tear open the drawers. Dig through the private corners of a room you only half-remember.

But the world isn’t feeling generous.

“Ar!”

A voice—sharp, familiar, clings to your spine.
You turn.

She’s blonde. Blue-eyed. A few centimeters shorter than you.
And dangerously charming.
From the dredged-up memory pool of this borrowed body, her name floats up: Ophal Alphea.

Of course. Figures. The kind of girl this body used to orbit like a lovesick planet.
Pretty, clean shoes, that self-confident tilt of her head... She probably smelled like lavender and good decisions.

Damn it.
You had a shot with her, didn’t you? And you blew it.

Not that you were some smooth-talking Casanova in your old life either—
No. You went on dates with corpses, danced with liars.
Romance came in handcuffs and criminal profiles.

“Hey,” you reply—flat, automatic, the kind of greeting that slips out before your brain wakes up.

“Wanna have lunch together?” she says.
Her eyes dart sideways—just for a second. Like she’s trying to tell you something. Not with words, but with subtle code. A look. A signal.
You follow the trail.

Of course.
There they are—three or four boys her age, hovering nearby.
Lurking like hyenas on the edge of a kill.
Pretending not to watch.
Pretending not to care.

But they care. Oh, they really care.

She knows it.
You know it.
She’s dangerously charming, and she wears it like perfume.

Damn it.

“Of course,” you say.

No hesitation. Just smooth compliance—like this is normal. Like your pulse isn’t skipping a beat.

“Great,” she replies—too quickly.
And just like that, her hand snakes around your arm.

A practiced gesture.
Casual.
Intimate.
Dangerous.

She starts walking—no, pulling you toward the Academy gate. Once you're far enough from the gates—far enough that the crowd thins and the shadows grow thicker—

You stop.

"You can let go of my arm now," you murmur, low and measured.
"No one's tailing you."

She huffs. A little offended, a little playful.
"Oh, come on! Why the cold shoulder?"

As if this is a flirtation.

As if the twitch in her smile isn’t hiding something else.es with a sense of urgency disguised as charm.
Too fast. Too determined.

You’re not walking with her.
You’re being led.

And there we are.
It hits you then—she wasn’t just walking aimlessly.
She’d been leading you, gently but deliberately, right to the front of a restaurant.

A decent place. Not too grand, not too humble—just the sort to slip into unnoticed, yet carefully chosen.
From what little memory you’ve uncovered so far, this girl has a knack for finding good food spots.

“As a thank you,” she chirps, eyes bright with mischief,
“Lunch is on me!”

And the hours slip by.
You talk. You wait for the food.
You talk some more.

Before you know it, the sun has dipped low—its golden light already softening at the edges.
Damn.

This girl... she’s the kind who can’t sit still in silence without going mad.

As we stepped out of the restaurant, her expression shifted—just like that.
From sunshine to stormclouds.
She reached out, grasping my arm with a grip that trembled ever so slightly.

“…What now?” I asked.

“Walk me home.”

“What?”

“That case…”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
“It happened near where I live…”

I knew exactly which case she meant.
The silence stretched, heavy.

Fuck.

You're caught in that cursed space—where saying no would bruise more than just her feelings. It'd scrape at your pride. As a man. And as an ex-detective.

Yeah. You tell yourself it’s fine. Just walk her home. That’s all.

It won’t cost you anything.

…Right?

It’s on Peter Street.

By the time your steps finally drag you there, the sky's already dipped into that deepening shade of blue—not quite night, but close enough to hear the silence begin to settle. It's a long walk from the restaurant, and you’re still not sure why she picked a place so far from campus.

“Next time,” you murmur, voice low, “it might be wiser to find a building closer to the university.”

You stop in front of her apartment. The street is… dead quiet. Not the kind of quiet you like. Too hollow. Too clean. No hum of passing wheels, no chatter of vendors or students. 

“…I’ll consider it,” she says.

“Yeah, you better,” I mutter, already turning on my heels to leave.

“Thank you… and good night,” she says behind me, her voice laced with that soft, troublesome smile. When I glance back, she’s waving—just a simple motion, framed against the quiet gloom of her street.

I nod once. Then walk away.

Somehow, the street felt oddly familiar beneath my feet.
Did the owner of this body often walk her home? Or maybe… more than that?

But before I could dig deeper, a thick fog rolled in—abrupt and unnatural. I froze. It wasn’t the chill that gripped me… it was the wrongness.

Shit.

A gnawing instinct twisted in my gut. My pace quickened. Then faster. Then I was running.
Was I compromised? Could they sense me? How? I’m still green—I shouldn’t be a target.

Unless…
Unless someone already marked me.

Then it struck.

A sharp, searing pain—this time far worse than before. Like a spike being driven through my skull.

And with it, a flood.
Memories that weren’t mine, yet now undeniably mine.

It was months ago—before I took over this body.
He—Arima—had met a woman. A nun, dressed in the ceremonial white and blue of the Church. They met in a quiet chapel here, in this very city.

She had offered him counsel. Her voice gentle, her eyes unreadable. At the end of the talk, she handed him a brooch: a star with eight sharp points, carved with sacred spirals and winding etchings that pulsed with some forgotten logic of the divine.

"I hope you keep this close. One day, it may decide your fate."

Her words, clear as crystal, echoed through my skull.

I stumbled—snatched back into the present as the fog thickened.

A chill ran down my spine.

Fuck.