A long time ago, when my brother, Angelo, was still healthy, our family lived a peaceful and happy life. School was fun to attend, and our family may not have had much money to live hugely comfortable lives off of, but it was bearable. As long as we had each other, we were happy, and life was beautiful.
However… there came a time where that lifestyle changed drastically.
Angelo came home from school one day with a high fever. Our mother, Angeline, told him to rest in bed while she called for the doctor. Father and I just figured it was the flu, but mother wanted to be certain. It wasn't unlike her to go to such measures so make sure that everyone in the house was healthy. All she looked out for was our well-being, but we weren't expecting my younger brother to end up catching a severe illness.
When the doctor first came to see him, he also thought it was just the flu. He said he would recover in a couple days and would return to school shortly, but that never happened. He only became sicker. His coughs were ugly, and they sounded painful. He'd sniffle and blow his nose all the time. He started to lose his appetite and refused to eat. He'd barf blood. The doctor kept coming back to check up on him, but he kept saying that unless he got the medicine he needed, Angelo would die. As much as we wanted to heal Angelo, we could not. We did not have the money.
That was when the Earl approached me.
I was gathering flowers out in the fields for Angelo to try and cheer him up because he had become more and more depressed as he became even more ill. His friends had stopped visiting after a while because their parents didn't want their children to catch Angelo's illness. It was understandable, but the pain it caused my brother… It was horrible to watch. I could do nothing for him as he cried during the night when he thought no one could hear him.
"Hello miss."
I turned around and saw a very large man who was finely dressed with a strange looking umbrella with him. He had a gigantic grin on his face that was extremely abnormal, and his glasses hid his eyes.
"Hello," I greeted.
"You're Miranda Espern, correct?" the man asked.
"Yes, but who are you? I haven't seen you around the village before," I replied.
He bowed and replied. "I am the Millennium Earl. It would not surprise me if you had not heard of me, but I believe I can be of some help in your… situation."
"…What do you mean?" I asked.
The Earl straightened his back and chuckled. "I can give you large amounts of money in order to pay for your brother's medicine-"
"You can?!" I interrupted.
"Yes, I can," said the Earl in an irritated tone, "but you would have to do me a favor in return."
"I'll do anything," I said with earnest.
I wanted my brother to be healthy again more than anything else in the world. My own happiness didn't matter. I just wanted my brother to be happy and healthy. I wanted our lives to be normal again.
The Earl's ominous grin seemed to grow just a little more. "Do you happen to know what Akuma are?" he asked.
"No," I answered.
"An Akuma is a demon. I use these demons for my… business, but I need human souls in order to create them. If you can provide me with these souls, I will pay you handsomely," the Earl explained.
"How do I do that?" I questioned.
He dug into his jacket pockets until he found a small bottle with purple liquid inside. He held it out to me saying, "If you pour a small drop of this into someone's drink or food, then they will die. Their loved one will then mourn for them, and I will visit them. Then I may take the steps necessary in order to create my Akuma. That's all you have to do."
I reached my hand out to the Earl, and he placed the small bottle into my hand. I didn't question the job. I would be receiving enough money for my brother's medicine, and that's all I needed.
It was a terrible mistake.
The first time I helped the Earl, I had killed baker in the town's bakery. He had died of a heart attack according to the rumours. His wife and children were devastated.
Later that day, the Earl had visited me and handed me a small pouch filled with a large sum of money.
"Congratulations on your first Akuma, Miranda," he had said, but I did not feel happy. I felt guilty and horrible. I had killed someone. I had made a family suffer from a fate that I was too afraid to go through myself. It ripped me apart on the inside, but I couldn't bring myself to tell the Earl that I wanted to quit. Angelo meant too much to me.
So I kept killing while the Earl kept providing the means and the money. I became his broker; his silent killer.
I killed the head lumberjack in our village, and then I killed his family. They had died of natural causes, but people were beginning to become afraid. They wondered why people started to die off. The villagers then targeted my family. They blamed them for the people dying because of my brother's Angelo's illness, even though it wasn't his fault. My father, Ronald, tried to explain to them that they were being unreasonable and were placing blame where blame didn't belong, but they didn't listen. Instead, they banished us from the village, so we had to move elsewhere.
The move was hardest on Angelo. He started to feel guilty, and thought that he was at fault. I comforted him as best as I could, but nothing I said took merit. He continued to blame himself, and his depression only worsened.
I decided that if I wanted to continue to bring in enough money for Angelo's medicine that I would have to take long journeys so that my family wouldn't have to receive that kind of treatment again.
My decision proved to be beneficial, but my parents weren't pleased. They thought I was sleeping around with rich people in order to acquire such large amounts of money. I couldn't tell them otherwise because the job I was doing didn't even sound believable to myself despite all the evidence that there was. Instead, I told them that I helped deliver expensive packages. I knew my parents didn't trust my words. They had already made up their minds as to what I was doing, but I was bringing in enough money to save Angelo's life, so they couldn't complain.
I became cold and distant after enough stolen souls. It was easier to not think about what I was doing and what the consequences could be. I lost all emotion. I couldn't even fake it to villagers in order for them to trust me. Because of this, word of the mysterious deaths got out. Then everything changed…
