"Ласточка, you have to wake up."
A deep, soothing voice spoke. It sounded different yet so familiar…
I opened my eyes in a freight, I tried to move my body but it was completely numb, not only that, I was also completely bound to some kind of table…no…no some table, I was on an operating table.
"Hmm? Allen, you're already awake? I could've sworn I put enough sedative for you to be out for at least a few hours, I guess it doesn't matter. It's all the same."
My blood ran cold, my eyes widened as he turned towards me, his hand was holding a scalpel.
"Allen, I'm sure you'll taste splendid, you're aroma alone was enough to nearly get me to take a bite of you when you were a child, that soft supple skin, that innocent sweet look in your eyes, I almost lost my control right then and there. But no. I had to control myself. I mustn't let my own selfish desire ruin everything. I had to leave you to mature and ripen. So you could flower."
"Y-you, what do you mean?!" I couldn't believe my ears. The kind, caring old man in my memories who took in a little kid who no one wanted…this just couldn't be him. There was just no way.
He stepped.
His feet made a clicking sound that echoed in the dimly lit room. His smile widened with glee as he held his scalpel in hand.
Clip.
Clop.
Clip.
Clop.
The sound his black glossy dress shoes made as he stepped. And stepped. And stepped.
Closer
And closer
And closer.
"No! Stop! Don't come any closer!! Someone!! Help me!"
"Haha, screaming won't save you, you see. Everyone, everything, every single person in this hospital has been awaiting this day with baited breath, your pure yin spirit has practically been teasing me. The day we'd get to experience the taste of your soft, aromatic flesh. The taste of your blood. I wonder how tender your intestines will be, I wonder if your brains will spread just like butter."
As he came closer, I could feel the fight in me dwindle. I was tired.
Tired of everything…of being a burden. Of being a mistake. Of being useless.
"If he kills and eats me…I'll be useful, won't I?" I thought, closing my eyes and waiting for the cold press of the scalpel on my skin.
"Put your hands up!" Someone had busted down the door. My eyes shot open as I tried to see who had entered. It was the hobo guy!
"Shoot. The PIA are here. But…it's only one." I heard the director say.
"I will not repeat again. Drop the weapon and put your hands up!"
"What's one measly PIA officer gonna do? You're not even the leader! I know about you all! The only one who's actually competent is the President! I'll-" before the director could finish a large fist came straight for his face, throwing him backwards into the glass cabinet in back of him.
"Hey kid!" He said, looking at me, "can you move?"
"U-um no, he gave me something and I'm strapped to the table…"
"I'll cut you out. We have to be fast, this guy'll wake up any second now." He said, quickly cutting off my restraints and tossing me over his shoulder. Once again, I guess he expected me to protest or something but honestly I just didn't care. I was too tired and out of it to protest.
"So, you believe me now?"
"Abaaou wahg(about what)?"
"About you not being schizophrenic?"
"Wauh da do(what's that got to do with it)?"
"Those voices. They told you, didn't they?"
I paused my thoughts. Those thoughts, the whispers and voices, they kept telling me how good I smelled, how nice my skin was…how warm I felt.
"Wah yoeu kno(what do you know)."
"I'll tell you once your less out of it and more lucid. For now. We've got bigger problems. Kid. Hold on tight, it'll get bumpy."
I turned my head best I could and grabbed onto his shoulders as best I could once feeling slowly returned to my body. Infront of us were two people.
It was Lisa and Jamie but they looked different, like the director.
"shoot. Guess this whole hospital was a breeding ground. Gotta tell the President to stop giving me demon quelling missions." The guy didn't seem the least bit concerned, more annoyed than anything. He took out a lighter and a cigarette and lit it.
"Give us back the yin spirit." They both said in unison before lunging towards us. The man, who simply ducked out of the way before chopping both women on the back of their necks, effectively knocking them out. Soon, more people kept coming but they were all no match for the man even with their inhuman power. Then. A spin chilling sound echoed through the hallway behind us.
clap
Clap
Clap
"I'm impressed, officer. Perhaps I judged you a bit too quickly due to your lack of aura, mana, holy energy, or martial spirit." It was the director. His neck had grown thrice as long, stretching and contorting in ways that should not be physically possible, his arms and legs were the same. His long white hair had thinned out.
"Finally showing your true colors are you? Alright. Time to put a corpse back in the ground."
He shrugged me off and put me in the corner then Allen some kind of symbols around me in a circle.
"Ah! I see now, you're a runecarver!"
"Hmm, not quite, but I did learn from the best. That's only one of my many talents." The man boasted, confidence rolling off him like water in a waterfall.
"Well, let's see if you can keep that confidence! I've been alive for more than 110 years!"
I turned to the man only to see his unamused and slightly irritated face, he picked his ear and flicked the wax off in a nonchalant manner. I turned back to the thing that used to be the director only to see his serious and angry face contorted into a mix of confusion and anger.
"Huh? Oh! You were serious? Sorry, when I heard you'd only lived for 110 years I thought you were joking since you sounded so proud." The man laughed before squishing the cigarette bud under his feet, "well, enough talking. I'm tired of this farce."
"Y-YOU INSIGNIFICANT INSECT! I'LL KILL YOU!"
The directors arms grabbed at the man, of which just dodged them. It looked so easy, as if he were just taking a nice walk in the park.
"Woah there buster, I think you're the one who's looking more insect like" he said before slamming his elbow into the thing's stomach. It fell back with a pained screech.
"ARGH! NO! I WAS SO CLOSE! NO!"
"Now. Your under arrest for the murder of 29 young woman, the enchantment of 17 people and the attempted eating of an important ESP."
"No! You can't do this to me!" If screamed once the man clipped on handcuffs. They looked strange, as if carved with something, like the ones written around me but different.
"Save it for the lawyers," the man grabbed the thing and opened a bag, he threw the thing into the seemingly bottomless bag, and began walking, soon the people around started waking up.
"Where am I?" Jamie asked, looking around confused and disoriented.
"Jamie! You're ok!" I walked to her once she had woken up.
"Um sorry but, who are you?" She asked.
I was confused. "How could Jamie not know who I am?" Then. I remembered what the man had said before.
'Enchanted'
They were all enchanted. Everything they did for me wasn't them. They didn't do anything for me…they didn't remember me. None of them would.
"I-um…sorry you just…sorry it's nothing." I felt weird. I felt so much for this woman. She helped me, she talked to me, she brought me comfort. SHe was almost like an older sister to me, but…she didn't know me. Not the real her at least.
Soon, cop cars arrived and the hospital was wrapped with black and yellow caution tape.
I watched as the only place I knew as a true home for 6 years was searched and scouted for the bodies of 29 missing girls.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a gruff voice, a very familiar one "You shouldn't feel bad about it. It'll happen all the time."
"What was that anyway? You said you'd explain it to me when I'm more lucid. I am now! So explain!" I demanded, "And what are you anyways! Whos this President I've heard you mention and what were those things you Allen?!"
"Woah there kid, one question at a time."
"Fine. What happened back there in the hospital?"
"Karmic debt mutations happen when a person has a high aptitude for karmic debt accumulates a large amount of karmic debt either by being around an area with a large amount of debt or being the direct cause of it. In this case, this man was the direct cause of the karmic debt that accumulated here due to the many killings and bodies he dissected and used here."
"Who and what are you and your 'investigation unit'"
"First of all, we're a detective agency that specializes in bringing supernatural entities, those with beyond the reigns of humanities powers, and anything else that may be beyond human, to justice. Of course many of us are also beyond human."
"Then, what you meant by I'm not actually schizophrenic, you mean that I'm I'm…"
"You're an Esper, kid."