“This should be-”

  Magic noises!

  Just as I was about to express my massive happiness and sense of accomplishment, the pages shine brightly the moment that I finish ordering them correctly, transforming into magic and gathering into a single point, one that is just a few centimetres in front of me and at my head level but mind you, I’m currently sitting down as it made easier for me to look around and separate the pages. Mere moments later, all the pages have transformed into a ball of magic, one that is visible even to the naked eye and a second or so later, it slowly gained the form of a book, materializing the very next second. Gravity then quickly grabs the book with his unescapable hands, forcing its rules on it, making it fall towards the ground if I didn’t pick up midway.

  “Welp, we did it!”

  I sure do have a smile on my face as I happily say this, now do I? I mean, it only took us roughly 15 minutes to actually do this, so I think I’m allowed to be this happy. But, moving on, even though she’s not saying anything at all I can comfortably say that, she’s eager and quite curious to know what’s written in the book and from the title “The Hatted Child”, I can guess why she would feel like that.

  “Born from the forbidden ritual, from the despised interaction between a mortal and a god, from the despicable intercourse between two completely different and distinct beings, this child, alongside his mother, lived their miserable lives as best as they could and as best as the villagers and the gods allowed them to. Although, this best is nothing more than a small shinny object in the middle of trash. Said shiny object, while it will easily grab your attention, the moment you truly see what it is, it’s the very moment you understand that it's nothing more than trash, one that is desperately trying to not be trash, but failing to do so. They lived on the streets and the first 5 years of the child’s life were beyond horrible, not only for him but also for his mother. Food was scarce, close to none existent as they were banished from the markets, from hunting and even from foraging the forest. His mother could only find food in the trash and of course, said food is only a mere fabrication of the word itself and its true meaning, as no sane human would call food to what she found.

  Year after year, their miserable lives got even harder and harder, worse and worse until of course, it became unbearable. While they were “free” to roam the streets of their “hometown”, that does not mean they were welcome to do so, no, quite the opposite. Some of the inhabitants were violent towards them, more so towards the mother as their broken morals for some inexplicable reason, draw the line when it comes to a child, one that is no older than 5 years old. Although, they still despise said child and even some are eager for it to grow so that they can inflict upon him the same treatment as his mother suffers consistently. This “only” lasts for said 5 years as one special day, one that indeed was supposed to be special, but only for the two of them as the rest of the world, it’s nothing more than a nightmare coming to reality yet again. This day is no other than the birthday of the child, an occasion that in a normal situation would be celebrated by many if not by all but, in their case, the opposite was the simple and cruel truth where the mother’s child suffered the end of her fate by the hands of the inhabitants themselves.

  The child was left alone, roaming aimlessly, wondering what to do and how to survive. He decided to keep on doing what his mother was doing for him, searching for food in the trash and drinking water from the nearby river. A few days go by and the child is close to meeting his demise but, that’s when a simple canine comes across him. The only one that stared at the child with no ill intentions behind its gaze and because of this simple action from this illogical animal, a tremendous logging for affection hits the child, one that he misses dearly as his mother no longer is able to give him said affection. An affection he took for granted. They become friends because of it, an inseparable force even, one that can only be broken by the reaper itself although, if the case does happen, severe consequences will follow. The canine was nothing more than a wild dog that was abandoned by the previous owner and yet, even after being forsaken by the humans he so loved dearly, he still was able to quickly become friends with this weak, pathetic and Hatted Child.”

  “So young and he has already suffered so much…”

  Her tone of voice is gentle and soft but with it, sadness follows it, one that even I can easily feel even though I’m across a completely different universe from her. She’s not wrong to feel like this, what that child went through is something that shouldn’t be allowed to happen but, this is a flawed world created by the gods themselves, on purpose mind you, this might as well may be from “design”. They wanted us to suffer, I think… I have no clue what potential might be the goals and motives of the gods themselves and even the goddess that “blessed” me, although I have had some interactions with her and I see her in an extremely positive light but, I still don’t know much about her either. Actually, I wouldn’t mind learning more about her, maybe even becoming friends with her but… Why would a god do something like this? While this is a story, this tragic set of events happens too often in the real world, some worse, some slightly “better” while others are easily represented in this short story. But let’s get moving towards the future, there is no point in me going on a tangent. With this book in hand, we are only missing one, we are almost done now.

  “Unfortunately, this happens too often in the real world. I’ve travelled throughout the world and I’ve seen this happen a few times. Too many times even.”

  “Di-Did you do anything about them?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  My eyes are wide open as she asks this, as she stutters at the beginning, as she then gains the courage to keep going with her desire, fully asking her question. Her voice wavers right at the beginning and throughout the entire sentence it gets weaker and weaker but surprisingly, always in the same timber. I wasn’t expecting this question from her and I can somewhat see her staring at me, with hopes that I indeed did do something about these tragic stories. Either prevented them from happening or simply saved the protagonists from suffering. I can understand the hope she has and even desire to be true. After all, I’m the Hero, I’m the one that was and is blessed by the gods (goddess) themselves. I have a tremendous amount of power in these two simple hands, I have the abilities and capability to make the impossible possible. I can go beyond human limitation, whatever it’s physical, magical and or spiritual. With such an individual in front of you, who wouldn’t think that he could do something so simple as stopping those tragic stories from being tragic? I mean, he has enough power to forcefully stop those stories from being tragic, don’t you think? Lay down punishment to those that are committing atrocities towards those that are innocent. As Alice would say, bring justice down their throats. But…

  I have said a few times that this world is flawed and that of course includes me.

  The first and only time that I did something to transform those stories into something else, I lost someone extremely important to me because of it. Right now, I don’t want to go much further as my mood will sour beyond anything you can even think of, even more than biting the sourest type of lemon that exists on this earth. But I can say that me meddling in the middle of affairs that I have no reason to be on, made me pay a severe consequence. Although, I think she paid much more than I did. I might be a coward-or became one in this case but, that event scarred me for life and unfortunately, not enough time has gone by to heal it. Sigh, humans truly are cruel, even more than monsters themselves and they were created to be in this way mind you, and yet even though humans have the abilities and capabilities to not be evil, as we have seen several times now, it seems to be impossible for such to happen. Moving on, I will just tell her the truth, part of it in this case. She will be disappointed and might even hate me but, I prefer to be honest and be hated than creating a false ideal of who I am.

  “I did once and paid severe consequences because of it. After that, I’ve decided to not meddle in these types of situations anymore.”

  “Wh-What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Ah crap, I knew this was going to happen. Just thinking about who I have lost because of my stupidity makes me beyond furious and mad. Tsk, my tone of voice was cold, so much so that you could easily and briefly feel the true coldness from up north, a place where temperatures casually drop below -25 degrees. To make it worse, I match this with the look on my face, my eyes are staring deeply at the pink orb, way past, beyond the universes that separate her and me, staring directly at her because of it. They are sharp, cold of course and the rest of the look on my face matches however, my body language is stoic. I’m not expressing much and what I am “unconsciously” expressing with it, is nothing more than “anger” and annoyance.

  “Ah, I’m sorry…”

  Dammit! Here she is apologising for something that she has no fault whatsoever. She didn’t know that of course and think that the way she sees me, way up there I would guess, when I did something like this, something that she didn’t expect that someone like me would do, the disappointment quickly came crashing down towards her, making her curious but also frustrated to why I didn’t answer the way she wanted to, forcing her to ask said question but unfortunately, she triggered a mine to explode, one where she didn’t even need to step to trigger it. I’ve goofed it up, haven’t I? What am I supposed to do now? Her tone of voice was for the quiet side, filled with regret as she more than regrets for asking such an “insensitive” question. I can only imagine what she’s currently thinking about, probably blaming herself for my change in mood. She over stepped her boundaries with that question and therefore, she’s in the wrong and it’s her fault. I have to do something about this, I don’t want her to think in such a way, especially when she’s so kind and gentle.

  “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know about it. Not only that, I’m the one who has to apologise as I was too cold when answering you. I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention.”

  And we have switched roles as I’m now the one who is apologising… Maybe we aren’t that different. Let’s move on before we both start to apologise again as she will probably say that, “No, it’s my fault, I should’ve been more careful, I’m sorry.” Then I will say, “No, you didn’t know, don’t be sorry.” And so on. Seriously, this will start a cycle of repetition as we both probably are way too stubborn to let the other one “win”. We feel that we have to transmit to the other one that we are indeed regretful for our mistakes and we only will be satisfied once the other party fully accepts our “sorry”.

  “No… I was too insensitive, we just met a few hours ago… I should’ve been more careful with my questions. I’m sorry if I made you remember something painful.”

  See, what did I told you? And you know what’s worse? She means every single word she says, every single emotion she’s letting out into the world comes from within her very own soul, telling me and those that listen to her who she truly is. Or in other words, she’s a kind person that worries about others, far too much I would say. However, pray, do tell me, how can I not be “happy” for seeing, hearing and knowing that in this vast world there are good people like her out there? It gives me hope and a massive and strong will to keep going further, so that I can fulfil my “job” as the Hero, as her Hero.

  Pat!

  To be honest, I did this without even thinking about it. The happiness that I felt in that brief moment made my body act on its own as it wanted to tell her that everything is ok and to not be sad about it. While I did physically touch the orb, I doubt she felt it in the real world as she is using the orb as a medium, as a “crystal ball” rather than being said orb herself. Ah, enough of my yapping, she didn’t say anything but I can tell that I might have stepped a little past her boundaries so, we are equal in that regard. Though I should remove my hand now, slowly at that and with a “normal” look on my face so that I don’t make it even more awkward as the moment I touched her, silence consumed the entire library for a few moments, creating a rather beautiful serenity between us. One that I did enjoy deeply, even if it was for brief moments. Ahem, slowly… slowly… and there, smooth as you can even imagine, nice job me! Now, time to move the subject towards something completely different so that we can put this behind us and definitely not forget about it.