Part of Them

Part 37

"You stay here, I'll talk to the others about this," He said, his eyes avoiding my skeptical gaze as he left the room with heavy, but quick steps.

I sighed. My head hurt from all the thinking. I needed some rest. I sunk into the mattress some more and lifted my arms to start massaging my temples. This was really getting to my head now. I was in an extremely difficult situation.

Being doomed to stay in a place you hate, with people you hate for all eternity and having no way out of it was bad enough. But add the fact that I've got to decide between getting my mind washed by a developing curse and actually slowly starting to enjoy it here and between lifting it, getting a clear head again but absolutely hating it here.

That was a big weight on my shoulders.

But at the same time, it wasn't even for me to decide this. Rayi was going to tell the brothers about his new discovery now and THEY were going to decide about what happens next, not me.

And I couldn't do anything about this.

I let out a big sigh.

This is bullshit. Why can't I just wake up from this nightmare and open my eyes to be back in that abandoned village where they had chased me down that day? I want to go back to the days where my only task for the day was to get food, water and sleep. Even if it got a bit lonely sometimes, I was still independent, free and somewhat content with my life.

It wasn't luxury, comfort or family that made me happy, but the feeling of complete independence. I didn't need to rely on anybody to survive but myself, and I was proud whenever I survived a particularly bad injury or successfully hunted for my food. As narcissistic as it sounds: My skills were enough to keep me going.

3rd POV:

As the black haired male stormed down multiple sets of stairs silently, groans and crying traveled through the cold concrete walls of the dungeon.

The four men, who were the cause of the women's misery, were already making their way out of the blood-stenched halls when they felt the male approaching and quickly fastened their pace, fearing that something had gone wrong in their absence.

Just as the men had reached the top of the stairs and closed the heavy door behind them, they saw Rayi's disheveled form standing in front of them, breathing heavily.

The moment one of the men opened their mouth to demand what happened, the male in front of them started talking in a serious tone.

"Faer has just suggested that lifting the curse might not work in our favor. While it's possible that the curse is shifting his feelings towards our plans, the opposite seems also like a plausible theory. And since we don't know how he was feeling before he was cursed by that woman, we have no way of finding out."

The eyes of the men slightly shifted, turning into skeptical slits.

"Then we must ask him about his previous feelings and make sure that he's telling the truth," one of them stated.

But the suggestion was quickly thrown out of the window when another man spoke up.

"But how do we know to what extend the curse has messed with little Faer's head? Maybe he doesn't even know about his old feelings and memories himself anymore."

There seemed to be a lot of confusion between the four men. Neither of them seemed to know what to do.

But then the smallest of the men, a man with light brown hair and red eyes, spoke up.

"It's simple. If we don't know how strong the curse is messing with his head, we have to lift the curse. It doesn't matter if there are some beneficial effects for us or not," He said. "Afterall, we can just add a new curse pattern, which binds him to us, right?" He continued. "Then it doesn't matter whether he wants to stay with us or not."

"You don't understand... We can't be this selfish. We want him to be happy too, it's not all about us," Grimm, a man with dark purple, almost black hair, black eyes and a beauty mark said. "If he's not healthy, both physically and mentally, then we can't possibly be happy ourselves," He continued.

"Then, is it possible to curse - or let's say charm - him to be happy with his living circumstances?" Asked Alerus, turning to the male standing in front of him.

"Hm, it's definitely possible, but it might be a little tricky because we'd need to clarify the circumstances under which he's happy..," Rayi mumbled, scratching his chin. "Wait - we could just set the circumstances as around us, right? That would guarantee his happiness as long as he's with us and we would be free to treat him like a real baby brother since he's going to be content no matter what!" He exclaimed happily, throwing the men he was facing a hopeful look.

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Thank you for commenting your opinions! I've come up with a concept of the end (it's somewhat of a mix between the most popular options) and I hope you'll like it!

(Also: I feel like this whole curse thing is getting a little weird- but I have to work with it now so that the story makes a little sense)