"…"
Near the ruins hidden in the dense forest, far from town, were Ansel and Ashley. The smell of the damped soil failed to penetrate Ansel's dulled senses, forcing him to stay on guard as he silently watched the girl work. Each time their shovels chipped at the ground below, the discomfort in Ashley's posture worsened. Ansel could easily understand why, but he still could not fathom why she was enduring it so much.
She was strange; she had no survival instinct. Ansel had shown her many signs that she should flee, but each time she was about to break from fear, she would harden her imagery resolve. Maybe it would have been better just to tell her he was going to kill her, but it was too late. Any kind of mercy would fall on deaf ears, as she was stubborn about staying.
("She's a weird one, isn't she?") A voice rang out in Ansel's head. The voice, sharp and cutting yet strangely comforting, was one he both despised and valued.
"Indeed, she is." Ansel said out loud while nodding. Ashely stopped digging the small grave and looked at him. The fear she once harbored towards him was no longer visible. There was determination in her eyes. It was clear to Ansel that Ashley had some kind of objective in staying. Perhaps she was seeing something to the end?
Whatever her motive, Ansel was not going to leave either until he got the answers he wanted. While his senses were dulled from the heavy stench of deer meat and the corpse that stood beside him, he could not peacefully figure out the mystery of the girl before him. The girl tugged at the back of his mind with a sense of familiarity as he stared into her brown eyes.
"What now, you creep?" Ashley said harshly as she felt Ansel's staring was becoming weirder by the minute.
"Oh, it's nothing." Ansel tried to reach into his pocket to grab a cigarette. He pulled out an empty box and let out a heavy sigh. Without the cigarettes, he could not focus. "I just find that your weirdness is strange…not in a cute way, but a disturbing way."
Ansel could feel the veins on his neck grow slightly as she pulsed throughout his body. Using his OA for a petty purpose was a mistake on his part, and now he's paying the price for it. But as he looked at the girl, he knew he needed to use it once more. Hopefully, the information will justify the cost.
"Why would you even say that?" Ashley seemed a tab bit offended by his statement, but she tried it. "If anyone is weird or disturbing, it's you. How can you stand that close to a corpse with such a calm expression?"
("That's ironic.") Ansel nodded to the voice in his head. Compared to her twin brother, she was handling being close to this corpse pretty well, rather too well.
Ansel's investigation into Cypress has revealed that the twins had some experience with death close-up and personal. He was expecting her to behave like Ash, whose trauma got triggered by the sight of the body Ansel had purposely left for him to see in order to weed out the spy. On the other hand, Ashley showed no signs of even being scared of the body apart from when he used his OA on her for a simple trick.
"You know, you nag a lot for such a pretty face. I can see why you are still single. It's truly a sad sight to behold." Ansel let out a sigh as he shrugged his shoulders.
Ansel stabbed the shovel he was holding into the ground and walked over to the unrecognizable corpse. He dug through the corpse like a thief and pulled out a small box. The box had a recognizable brand that told Ansel that the victim had money.
"Poor guy…" Ansel pocketed the box, scooped up the remains of the body, and moved it toward the hole they dug.
"Why are you doing this?" Ashley said with irritation as she reflected on the words that Ansel spoke. "It is not for the job of the police to do something about this? Why are you burying the man's body?"
Ansel felt the veins on his body grow once again. Her question was laced with anger, forcing Ansel to glare at her. He tried to keep his expression friendly and calm, but eventually, that mask would break.
Ansel's body ached in pain. Her question was making him focus. His instincts were once again forcing their way out. The thirst for fresh blood caused his arms to twitch as they slowly reached into his jacket. His senses were slowly returning, but it was too late. The smell of the blood on the girl's hands and the knife were the only things that he could properly think about. In addition to that, her aggression toward burying the body seemed off, along with her stubbornness to leave.
All of these thoughts pinned her to being the killer in Ansel's head. While he knew it was unbiased, he did not have any other way of proving her innocence other than using his artifact to probe her memories, which he should have done the first time. But in his current state, it was risky. His mental state was rocky at best, and having his inner demon fight for control was making it worse. He did not want to believe she was the killer. Her personality was too…naïve. He refused to believe that there was a chance in hell that Ashley had the balls to kill a person.
"It's called respect," Ansel said, hiding his pain. "And the police ain't gonna bother with this poor soul's corpse, anyway. Not because I believe they don't want to, but because they could not even understand the first thing about this case. We hunters are treated as fixers and protected from international policies that would normally interfere with investigations. Whatever we investigate outside the city normally flies under their radar."
"Why is that?"
"Because they are scared. The country blames itself for not helping negate the effects of that dreadful day. They know that, well really, only the government knows that we go around cleaning up the mess from the great storm, as it's called. We use their guilt as leverage for us, as should it be revealed that they abandoned the people of the former city, their standing as international peacekeepers would be tarnished. So as part of our agreement for our independence, we go around killing Omen that left the city's walls, ensuring that they remain unaware of the true events that transpired on that fateful day."
Ansel looked at the body he had placed into the grave they had dug. Its last smile filled Ansel with a dreaded sense of horror as he could imagine how the man was killed. Ansel then turned back to Ashley as met with her curious gaze. Either what he said failed to process in her mind, or she really has a loose screw. The city of Pandora was not a place of curiosity that Ashley believed. It was a hell. A man-made hell that consumes the people who live in it.
The veins stretched more and pulsed even harder. Ansel was running out of time. His thirst for blood was about to consume him. While he resisted, the voice in his head let out a distorted laugh that echoed in his mind.
"Girl," spoke, still trying to resist. "You are interesting."
("Kill her.")
"How so?"
("Stab her.")
Her guard was down. She was completely taken by the city's story, and she yearned for more. She moved her hips from side to side in anticipation of a continuation of a story that she would never get the chance to hear. Her porcelain skin shined beautifully from the slight of the sun. Her skin looks soft enough that his blade could pierce it with little effort.
"Compared to your brother, you handled observing a corpse pretty well, too well."
("Kill!")
Ashley fell silent as she looked up at the sky. Her neck was perfectly exposed for a clean strike. A grin traced his lips as he gripped the dagger in his jacket.
("The blood of a young woman, doesn't it arouse you?")
"So that's what happened?" Ashley's tone was emotionless. "I had a feeling something was not right last night."
A gentle wind blew in. A slight chill from the wind tickled down Ansel's neck as the crimson veins on his body turned an ebony black. Ansel felt sick to his stomach as his vision turned red. The forest sounds were drowned out, leaving him with only his thoughts. He watched Ashley's back, the delicate slope of her shoulders hinting at her fragility as she stood lost in her own thoughts.
("DO IT!") The in his hand was more audible than before. ("If you are too scared to use the artifact, then there's only one way to confirm the sinner's crimes, right?")
He removed the dagger from his jacket and gripped it tightly. He bit his lip, letting a small trail of blood drip down. The scent of it lingered in his mind, keeping him conscious, but he was not in full control of his body. He needed her to run. He did not want to kill her. In a desperate attempt, Ansel kicked the shovel he had planted next to him towards a tree.
The Omen's bloodlust filled his head, erasing every other sound, every other sense besides his sense of blood. Ashley turned towards him, but it was too late. Ansel had already started charging towards her with his dagger drawn.
"W-what!?"
("Blood!")
Seeing Ansel dash towards her at such a speed left Ashley with few choices on reacting. She grabbed the first thing she could reach, her shovel, and used it as a shield. The moment she brought it up to her chest, Ansel's dagger got stuck halfway through the wooden handle.
Without wasting a single moment, he swiftly followed up his failed attack by letting go of the dagger and hitting the tip of the shovel with a precise crescent kick. The force of his kick whirled the shovel around Ashley's hand, slamming the head of the shovel into her face, resulting in a muffled ringing of the shovel. In a daze, Ashley dropped the shovel, stumbled back towards the forest, and fell onto a tree. Ansel grabbed the dagger from the shovel and approached her.
"!?"
Ansel grabbed her by the neck with his left hand, lifted her off the ground, and pinned her against the tree.
"S-stop!"
("Do it!")
Her cries were utterly drowned out by the Omen.
"Why are you doing this?"
("Spill her blood, that's the only truth you need.")
Ashley struggled in vain as Ansel used his dagger to precisely cut her shirt, revealing her stomach. Her face tensed with fear as the cold tip of the dagger pressed against her body. She stopped struggling and looked her assaulter in the eyes.
A crimson liquid poured down as the dagger effortlessly tore through the skin. The scent of her blood flowed into Ansel's nose. It was sweet, yet unfamiliar. He had the wrong person. The crimson trail that came from her stomach did not belong to the killer the previous victim had stabbed. The ebon veins on his body slowly changed back to crimson as the dagger dug deeper into her stomach. He could not stop; her blood was too stimulating for him.
Her pained eyes were enduring. She refused to scream. Ashley must have known that she could stop the dagger from digging deeper inside her. But she knew he felt regret for his actions. After all, his eyes widened with fear. The fear of making a mistake that cost another person their life is the same mistake that Ashley committed. Seeing the bitter irony in the way she would die, she smiled faintly at Ansel as she closed her eyes.
Ansel, still not in control, twisted the knife inside her and pulled out. He drooped her body and stumbled back.
("HAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!") The voice in his mocked him. ("Looks like you were wrong. Oh well, that was a shame, but hurry and drink her blood. I wanna taste that crimson juice off her pale skin. It's not every day I get to taste the blood of a cursed human.")
"FUCK YOU!" Ansel dropped the dagger and ran up to the girl. He placed his ear towards her nose and felt a gentle, weak breath tickle him. "Don't you dare die on me otherwise I…"
("Otherwise, you will be forced to carry another burden of killing an innocent person because of me?") The voice that spoke to Ansel held a slight, almost imperceptible snicker that sent a chill down his spine. ("A contract binds you and me. You use my powers, and I do as I please. Simple as that.")
"So you just keep killing more and more innocent people? You know the city already wants me dead. All you are doing is pinning a larger target on me."
("I am aware of what I am doing. But relax, boy. Everything I do is for your benefit. She won't die from the wound, just from the blood lost, if you don't do something about it.")
As the voice said that, Ansel ripped off her shirt, exposing a white bra on top of her pale skin that was slowly losing its color by the second. Ansel hesitated for a second as he noticed crimson veins stretched over the wound he had inflicted.
"She's cursed?" Ansel was surprised to realize that she was cursed. He had said that might have been one earlier as a guess since his senses were messed up. He based his guess on the taste and smell of the blood on the dagger, which matched the blood on her hands.
("Yeah, I kinda said that already.") There was a distinct annoyance in its voice. ("But how she got this far from the city is a question of its own. As you know, the wound will close, but she has low energy and looks like she has not awakened her powers yet. If you don't hurry, she'll bleed out.")
"Yeah, you don't need to remind me." Small crimson veins stretched out from his body once again. "I don't have a choice. Her blood is too stimulating; it makes me want to lick it straight off her."
Ansel used the remains of Ashley's shirt to create a makeshift bandage to at least slow the blood loss to allow her cursed regeneration to close the wound. Once he was finished, he removed his jacket and placed it on top of her. He watched her as she slept with a pained expression on his face. A profound sense of regret washed over him; rescuing her wouldn't alleviate the harm done. He knew her life would be a living hell.
Ansel let out a sigh as he reached for the case he had left near the grave of the man they had buried and pulled out his vintage camera. He pointed towards himself, and a silver flash of light filled his eyes.