"Remember to tell your wife to stop skipping breakfast, Cashel! She needs her strength to keep up with those monsters."
The elderly café owner smiled warmly as he handed over two cups of freshly brewed coffee. Cashel accepted them with a small smile.
"I will, Uncle. Thank you," he replied with a small bow. He balanced the coffee and two grocery bags as he stepped out of the café into the early morning light.
It was Monday morning, exactly three years after that incident and after his death. Cashel’s thoughts drifted back to that moment like it was just yesterday.
He woke up kneeling on a wooden floor with his hands tied and his eyes covered, he had thought he was being punished for everything he had done.
That is, until the people around him said he was being sold.
It was absurd, and even crazier that there was not a single mark on him despite being treated like an object.
At the end of it all, he discovered he had woken up in a world where humans had the ability to use supernatural powers and even systems like the ones in the games and movies he once watched.
Aside from that, the person who bought him was a woman, and not just any woman.
She was a calm and beautiful S-ranked hunter, a Division Commander in the Special Awakened Military Division and a Lieutenant General in the regular military.
The downside was that she was blind. The upside was that he had nothing to explain because she never asked.
And all she asked was; a husband to gain permission to move to the urban areas without question, his loyalty, and for him not to bother about what went on in her job. He was also to accept whatever she told him.
"Why did it have to be the military..."
Cashel found himself asking multiple times. After everything he had faced, uniform-related jobs left a bitter taste in his mouth.
However, she was rarely deployed unless it was very serious, and that was rare, due to her continued. So she was mostly at headquarters handling government related tasks, at least, that was what he believed.
Cashel was glad and grateful either way; he had a new life, a new body, and somehow someone who cared about him after losing everyone else.
He arrived at their three-story house, sitting at the entrance of the forest that separated this rural area from the main city, not far from the bridge.
He unlocked the door and immediately noticed her polished boots by the entrance and her white uniform coat hanging neatly on the coat rack.
"Andeen," he called softly, pausing just inside the door without shutting it, waiting for her voice.
"Honey?!" she yelled from the kitchen. The soft clink of dishes followed her voice.
He sighed, locked the door behind him, and placed the bags down.
Tap!
Tap!
Tap!
The sound of bare feet on the marble floor caught his attention. He straightened up and turned around to find her standing at the entrance of the kitchen with a knife in hand and an apron over her uniform, her hair in a high ponytail.
"Andeen," he said, his tone dropping as he drew out her name. "I told you not to do this when I’m not here. You’re going to cut yourself." He scolded her gently and closed the distance between them, then carefully took the knife from her hands. A frown appeared on her face, but he smiled.
"We can’t have you hurting those pretty hands of yours."
Andeen turned her head. "I told you I can find my way around the house with my...."
"Echolocation?" Cashel was already walking past her chuckling softly. "True, you have the senses of a bat, but you cut yourself last time."
"No, I hear better than a bat and that was a small cut." She turned around and began following him, her footsteps echoing behind him in stark contrast to his completely silent movements.
"Sure," Cashel laughed again and placed the knife on the table before turning to her. "What do you want for breakfast?"
Andeen paused by the fridge. She turned her head from side to side as though searching for something, then shrugged. "I was trying to prepare porridge, but now I don’t want that anymore."
"French toast then?" She shook her head, Cashel narrowed his eyes. "Don’t even think about just having...."
"You bought coffee, right?" She cut him off, already turning around, when Cashel answered behind her, she went to grab the things he bought and returned.
Cashel smiled. He pulled the apron off her and wore it over his own clothes, then asked her to go freshen up and change, which she did without complaint.
By the time she returned and sat at the small dining table, he had already finished and set their plates down with the coffee beside them.
"Here, eat while it’s hot."
"Thank you," Andeen said softly, before he could return to the kitchen, she reached out and lightly tugged on his sleeve.
Already guessing what she wanted, he leaned closer. She cupped his face and kissed him gently, eliciting another chuckle from him.
He smiled and kissed her forehead in return.
Later, he carried the dishes away once they were done and made his way to the study on the first floor.
The smile on his face faded the moment he stepped inside, then he slowly closed the door behind him and let out a heavy breath.
At that moment, blood dripped from his nose onto his shirt. He covered his mouth, coughed, and blood stained his palm.
It had been happening for days, ever since she returned from her five-day-long mission.
He wiped it away quickly, took off his shirt, replaced it with a similar one, and hid the stained shirt among the others he had ruined in a box.
’How is this still happening?’ The thought carried a hint of annoyance, as he took a small pill from his pocket and threw it into his mouth.
However, when he moved to the desk to work on Andeen’s paperwork, a sharp pain exploded behind his eyes, causing his vision to blur.
The pain spread through his head and the entire world turned into a mosaic pattern. His ears rang, his heart raced, and even worse—
Cough!
Pant!
Pant!
Cashel stumbled backwards and dropped to his knees, unable to hold his body up, but then he began bleeding from his ears, eyes, and nose as well.
Cashel’s eyes widened in horror.
"C...rap..." He collapsed against the table, raised one trembling hand, and began searching desperately for the pills he had been using to stop the bleeding and pain.
Every time he brushed against a bottle, it was the wrong one.
Frustrated, he tossed the bottles to the ground and pulled himself back to his feet, his body trembling as waves of agony coursed through him.
He barely made it out the door before collapsing again in the hallway and the bleeding worsened.
With his vision was growing darker by the second, a blue transparent screen appeared in front of him, but the words were blurry and he could not read a thing.
Cashel raised his trembling hands to touch it or push it away, but it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.
For the first time in a long while, he was panicking. Gathering all the strength he could muster, he called out, "An...Andeen!"
It didn’t take a second for her to hear him. She was already hurrying up the stairs, the sound of her unbalanced movements echoing through the house.
"Honey...?" Worry laced her voice when she found him on all fours....bleeding. She hurried over, dropped to her knees, and grabbed his face. "Cashel, what’s wrong?!"
Cashel coughed out a mouthful of blood, spraying some on her dress. "Th... there’s a..screen in front of you..." was all he could say before he lost his senses completely and the ability to speak.
He collapsed in her arms, his body growing increasingly weaker. As darkness swallowed him, the last thing he heard was the sound of a bell and Andeen’s frightened voice, something he had never heard before....as she spoke.....to... someone?