“That makes two of us.”

Julie froze and stared at me with amazement, after all I was only 2 ½ months old, or at least it had been that amount of time since Grandma found me outside the orphanage.

Seeing as she was rightfully dumbfounded by my remark that even I was amazed by, I tried to hurriedly end any questions that might come for me with a few words.

“Now that we’ve got that straight, Goodnight it was nice meeting you.”

I hurriedly shoved my thumb in my mouth after that sentence, curled up and made myself appear as though asleep. Although I couldn’t see her with my body turned sideways and closed eyes, I could just tell that she was still standing there with a blank expression on her face just staring at me.

Her eyes terrify me the same amount if not more than Betty. Betty knows everything so his eyes hold indescribable amounts of knowledge but those eyes that Julie possesses are like ones that are judging me incredibly. Girls are scary…

Honestly, I was shaken up about the whole ordeal, but I managed to keep calm and react in a way which, although questionable, would not have been the worst possible reaction. When she had said that she disliked me, I couldn’t resist talking back simply because the only person that I had interacted with in my new life was Betty, and I can’t help talking back to him.

It’s just too fun.

-... Who is the true Satan now?-

-Oh hey Betty, welcome back. Where were you for the past 2 months, I was calling for you for quite a while.-

-I know it was really embarrassing, you know that me and my servants can hear you if you yell that loudly. One of my servants even asked who Betty was. Hell, that was embarrassing.-

-You can get embarrassed? I wasn’t aware, why thank you for that information.-

-Frankly… You scare me shitless. Seriously, I wouldn’t mind relinquishing my seat of Satan to you simply because of how terrifying you are.-

-Hahaha, No way in hell am I taking that seat of immortality. I will enjoy my new life for as long as I have it, without any disturbances at all.-

- *sigh*. Okay, so I came here to help teach you how to manipulate the ‘Death Element’ with your aura considering how you have managed to disintegrate the coating around your soul.-

-Oh, you were aware of that?-

-You caused such a commotion in hell manipulating and playing around with all the elements and especially since everything in hell is under my control, it became even easier for me to notice your breakthrough.-

-Ahh, I see… I have a question: Do I have any talent when it comes to manipulating aura and increasing my aura capacity?-

-What makes you ask such a question? Are you hoping that you are going to be incredibly talented and that it is amazing to breakthrough the barrier in 2 months?

I will admit, that breaking through the barrier in two short months since beginning is amazing, with only the most talented beings capable of doing so. However, your talent is mediocre at best.-

-What do you mea… Oh, I see so the only reason that this is possible for me is because of my capability to train while asleep. Am I right?-

-Yes you are indeed correct, now go to sleep and come here with your spirit body. I can’t train you while you are still on a mortal plane of existence.-

After he says that, I feel as though he terminates some kind of mental connection with me.

Strange, I didn’t feel this termination last time I talked to him. I guess that my soul gaining the ability to manipulate ‘aura’ had helped me in sensing such things. Well I better fall asleep fast then before I encounter some kind of problem.

I mentally state the last lines while thinking of that freckled girls face. Shortly afterwards I drift into sleep.

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Few months prior to the ‘incident’ of the babies speech.

Julie’s Viewpoint:

I never was really a follower of rules. I never liked people who followed what others said unconditionally. In fact, I had a policy that those who follow people without objection are simply brainless bodies, seeking others comfort. Honestly, beings like that simply disturbed me.

Because of my policy of not following rules, I was still awake even after we were told to go to sleep. Still awake even in the dead of night, I hear a slight tap on the door, and after that Grandma Sophia comes out of the churches annex in which she resides.

She opens the door and mutters something quietly and as I slowly crawl forward in order to see what she is doing outside, I see her come back in with a basket supported by both her hands.

She then walks with the basket into the ‘Baby Room’ and exits a minute later with an empty basket on which I can read the word ‘Sephtis’ on the side. I put two and two together and guess that ‘Sephtis’ is the name of a baby which used to be inside the basket.

Sophia then walks back to her annex and I fall asleep a few minutes later making sure to remember to go to the ‘Baby Room’ on the next day.

In the morning, I wake up and do the usual chores, greeting Mark, Liz, Milly and Zale like usual. After completing all my morning deeds, I walk into the ‘Baby Room’ and see that a crib that didn’t have a child in it yesterday suddenly has an inhabitant.

I peer at the sleeping newborn and gasp.

Although he was only a baby who appeared less than a month old, he already had long black hair reaching down to his shoulder blades. The hair seemed bewitching in the eyes of the 14 year old.

It was a strange colour, seeming to be an unnatural blend of purple and black. In the night, you wouldn’t even notice that his hair had a tint of purple as the purple was so dark that people would mistake it as black unless in an incredibly well lit environment.

Luckily the old church was designed to fill every place in the room with light. It did it’s job well and succeeded in lighting up all the darker areas of the house, with the exception of the corner opposite the place where Sephtis slept.

“What beautiful hair.”

I muttered that with an almost inaudible voice, which only people who stood within a 2 metre vicinity of her would hear. However, there was no one awake that stood in this area at the time.

The next month went quietly, with me taking care of the younger children while occasionally going to the ‘Baby Room’, to check on Sephtis.

Frankly, it was disappointing. As opposed to his strange and mysterious hair which seemed to originate from darkness itself, he wasn’t interesting at all. He slept and ate, slept and ate and also slept and ate.

I was expecting him to be at least somewhat intriguing, but his actions said otherwise. But because of me trying to sneak peeks at him for the past month, I was in the vicinity of the other younger children and found that I enjoyed their company.

I even feel like becoming the Mother of this orphanage when Grandma passes away at this point. Ok, I have decided. I will go talk to her about my wish to stay here and become a Mother this week.

…

The week past by quickly, with there still being no change from Sephtis. I had begun to start feeling animosity towards him because of how much time I spent watching him out of the corner of my eyes, but still had yet to receive any interesting reaction.

On the bright side, after I talked to Grandma a day following my wish to tell her, although she had rejected me, telling me I have a bright future in front of me unlike her who could only do so much, I had eventually convinced her. It only took a few days of harassing her every half an hour, including during sleeping times.

I remember her face when she was awoken at half past 2 with me staring at her with a candlestick on a plate that was held in my hand. Her reaction was so worth the time and effort.

When she gave in, she took a nun habit that was slightly larger and far less used than hers and gave it to me. When we children of this orphanage grow to 14 years of age, we are allowed to ask for any types of clothing as a present. I had delayed my request although other had instantly asked for theirs.

Because of this I received the habit as the piece of clothing that I was allowed to get. It made me ecstatic, to say the least. I thanked Grandma with tears streaming down my face, as receiving this habit was also a form of recognition from Grandma about my wish to be the Mother of this orphanage.

Although she hadn’t verbalised her compliance with my wishes, her actions said it all and I knew that she only wanted me to be able to do what I want. That is the only reason she forces the 14-16 year olds out of the orphanage. Only because she knows that staying here will inhibit their wishes of becoming rich or likewise.

The remainder of the month went by with me still receiving no entertaining reaction from Sephtis and with no mention of the reminder of Grandma’s recognition from her. I at one point thought that she had forgotten about the events that happened in her old age.

But whenever she saw me wearing the habit, she would just smile and nod, reminding me that she definitely didn’t forget as well as sending warmth to my heart.

Another week past without any problems, but after that week came an interesting occurrence.

Normally, Sephtis would sleep for about 6 hours and stay awake to eat for 2 hours and this cycle would repeat, however one day he just didn’t wake up and just kept sleeping. Needless to say Sophia was incredibly worried about the matter.

Her feelings of worry increased to a critical level when for the entire week, Sephtis hadn’t opened his eyes at all. Sophia even wanted to call an expensive doctor to help him, but I managed to convince her otherwise as we simply don’t have the money to pay him without selling all our belongings.

Sophia cares for all her children equally and exactly because of that, she understood the dilemma and didn’t push for a doctor after that argument was made. Although she could diagnose one child with the reason why they weren’t awakening, it would be at the expense of a months food for the other children.

Everyone knew that it wasn’t Grandma’s fault that she couldn’t pay for a doctor to help Sephtis, but nonetheless she kept beating herself over because of it.

I felt slightly guilty as well, as I had cursed and disliked him for a while and now he is in such a predicament. Although I clearly understood that it wasn’t my fault, I also couldn’t help but feel as though at least a portion of his ‘illness’ was caused because of me.

I watched over him for a while and at the end of the next week, I saw something incredibly strange about him. All of a sudden after I fell asleep watching over him, I awoke to a feeling that seemed like a cold chill filled the room.

But the cold was not from any reduction in temperature, but rather far more frightening. It felt as though Death had come for us all, and that the epicentre of it all was this little elven boy named Sephtis. At that point I felt intense fear caused by that 2 month old boy.

In a second, I felt as though invisible mist that was the cause of this feeling rushed back to him, but not before hitting me and almost knocking me unconscious.

At that point all of the fear I felt had vanished along with that feeling of oppressive death.

He is terrifying.

Nothing as boring as I had thought he was at the beginning.

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And we reach the maximum word count at this point. I actually intended to finish up to the moment where he had said his words towards her. But alas, not everything goes as wished. Also the limits imposed on me by the thing called ‘Word Count’ are incredibly strong.

I apologize.

-Waffle Fluff