0002 Evie Hunter

She was in a very cold and dark place, but there was no pain. Surprisingly she was numb— so numb that she couldn’t feel her body at all.

Was this… death?

She opened her eyes— or at least she thought she did as she could not feel anything at all. However, whether opened or closed, she could not see anything aside from the infinite abyss where she seemed to remain drifting for nobody knew how long.

For the moment, her mind was so foggy that she could not remember a lot of things, like who she was and how she got there. All she ever knew was that she had died— perished in battle.

Huh? Battle? What… battle?

But before she could think further, a wave of fatigue engulfed her, draining what little of what’s left of her energy. She ‘closed’ her eyes and let herself be lulled into sleep.

The next time she awoke, the infinite darkness was gone. Instead, she found herself in a distorted space. Spiraling around her were broken pieces of glass. When she used her strength to focus, she realized that each shard contained different scenes— her memories, she presumed, as her confusion started to abate, and she began to remember.

She watched each and every shard like someone watching a movie. As soon as she finished with one, the shard would spiral towards her and embed itself in her forehead, making the memory clearer in her head.

Her name was Evie Hunter— the daughter of heavens. Her high aptitude with divine inheritance made her the strongest in her kingdom. But it also caused her downfall.

The process repeated until the shards were all consumed, making her recall everything— and everything meant including her death.

Recalling the last moments of her life, her eyes widened. Yes, she could feel her body now. She had been a numb ball of confusion when she had woken up, but the memories triggered her sensations.

She was beyond angry, but not all because of her death alone. It was because she had witnessed that person’s demise as well.

That person….

An image of a giant of a man with his gentle, boyish smile flashed in her mind. Even in the end, he had smiled at her like that.

Fury…

The all-consuming rage brewed inside her heart like a storm. She opened her mouth, and an agonized scream escaped her lips. But mixed with her anger was her grief over losing that person closest to her heart.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

She did not know how long she screamed until she got exhausted. But when she finally calmed down, she realized that there was another set of kaleidoscopes of memories surrounding her.

Huh?

She focused on a shard and was confused as she watched the piece of memory that played before her.

“Since when did you start to smoke? Are you planning to die early? And what happened to you? Why are you so dirty?” 

The man’s angry questions rang in her soul as she watched him go after his daughter up the stairs.

“Stop right there Evely! Are you trying to anger me to death?”

The heavily painted young lady with violet hair stiffened as she halted, making the dry dirt that clung to her skin and tattered clothes detach and littered the carpeted floor. She had been ignoring everything and everyone around her since she entered the house until now when she suddenly stopped, and turned to look at her livid father.

But there was no fear on her face. Instead, she looked so indifferent, as if his anger had nothing to do with her at all.

“Am I succeeding?” she demanded in her husky voice; her expression betrayed the derision she felt for the man. “I do hope I anger you to death,” she said bluntly, baffling her father before turning around to walk towards her room, slamming the door hard in her wake.

“Y-You—” he sputtered as his face turned liver in color, but there was also great sorrow and pain in his eyes.

Of course, the young lady who locked herself in her room never saw this scene— never knew the sadness and helplessness that her father felt over her treatment of him. But Evie who had been watching all along had seen everything. In fact, she had seen this scenario for the second time already.

“Why…”

Confused, she turned to the rest of the shards of memories and realized that they were not her own but that girl’s.

But why?

She had known that young lady since she was a child— had been a silent witness to her life.

And it was a very short life.

In a peculiar twist of fate, the young girl whose name sounded similar to hers, and who also uncannily resembled her face if she would just remove her garish makeup was her Gemini. At first, Evie did not understand what that meant until she told the old sage of their village about her.

A Gemini was a celestial twin. Evie had been seeing that girl whenever she looked in the mirror. But this Gemini had already died before her. Evely perished a week before Evie died and in a very tragic manner like her.

Evie turned and was taken aback when the shards began to rush towards her, embedding themselves into her brain like her memories did earlier.

“Wait— no!”

Without heeding her protests, Evely’s memories came to her and became her own. Her mind reeled as the other girl’s pain, grievances— all her emotions and unfulfilled wishes settled in her core, mixing with her original ones and she felt like bursting.

And she did burst. 

An explosion sounded suddenly as the distortion of the space began to ripple.

She had opened her mouth to scream but the sound that came out of her was a loud gasp as if she just regained the ability to breathe.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

When she came around, she realized that she was no longer in that distorted space. Instead, she stood suspended above ground. Below her feet was a huge hole that seemed to fit a person and she frowned.

“What…”

She quickly tilted her head as she took in the surroundings and realized that everything was strange, and yet, familiar at the same time. A sound behind her made her turn, and her eyes widened upon realizing the distorted space where she had been was a demon gate.

“Wait!” she called out as she tried to enter the space again, but the gate suddenly vanished, and she fell on the ground.

But Evie was no mortal, and so it was not difficult to land on her feet.

“Damn it,” she muttered, but then froze upon realizing that she had cursed.

She never cursed. Evely did. She quickly covered her mouth with her hand in shock.

“A-A-As-s-sura…”

Evie turned around at the voice and saw five terrified looking men kneeling a few meters away from her. She opened her mouth to ask where she was when she saw the men’s faces clearly and she found them familiar looking.

She paused for several seconds before she looked at her surroundings again and realized why everything looked familiar even though she had never been in that place before.

Evely! The familiarity was due to her memories.

But Evely was long gone. Why was she…

Wait.

Evie looked down at herself and noted the dirt on her body. She noted her tattered clothes as well, before pulling her long hair to check its color.

Violet.

“Damn…” Apparently, she had returned to the past, but neither in her own world nor her own body.

Evie Hunter had become Evely Hunt.