Demon Lord Shapeshifting System

Harker woke up in his own bed. Again. 

The children so far didn't seem to notice anything wrong. They never mentioned about him disappearing for 2 days straight, never mentioned about how he found himself back in his bedroom. As far as Harker was concerned, he had never been to the Imposter's domain, never met with Alan Robock, and spent the two nights in their cozy house in the cul-de-sac with Chloe, Sam and Sammy.

But he knows better now, doesn't he?

He knows the influence of the Weaver. As he stared up at that string on the ceiling, hanging so delicately like it would fall any moment... He knew better. 

Yet he could tell what the Weaver also wants him to do now. His body moves, sluggish and unwilling, and yet he has done his routine. Get off the bed, take a bath, prepare breakfast for everyone, take the kids to school. Eat, sleep, rinse, repeat.

He wondered if his days before being a Demon Lord had also been moved by a fine, fragile thread. Most likely. 

As he had hailed a cab for the children and returned to their front porch, he suddenly saw a car approaching his way. And out she came, but Harker wore no surprise in his face. 

He actually felt nothing, and he knew that all the expressions he would wear from now on was nothing more than a mask to hide his true, hollow self. 

"Artea. Skipped school today?"

"Roland is missing. I asked his house, his connections in Court, and even Felix Garcia himself. All said that he just went up and left, postponing the trial and I just…. That doesn't make any sense!" Artea exclaimed, looking very much distraught. "The Roland I know wouldn't just do that! He could have told me something, or…"

She looked at him, her eyes almost pleading. "Have he talked to you?"

Harker shook his head. "No."

And he wasn't really worried, because the emptiness just pushes all his worries away. Only able to lazily emulate his former 'self', his former personality. 

"You look awful. Haven't slept in a while?" Harker said. 

"Of course I haven't! I was attacked by large monsters, I saw you die and learned you were some 'demon lord' yourself, my best friend is missing, and you don't even seem to care about it at all!" Shë exclaimed. "Do you really have no idea where Roland could have gone?"

"I have my ways to find him." Harker said calmly. "But that way is going to school now. So let's just wait for her dismissal."

"Just wait!? How can I just 'wait'? Harker, Roland could be in danger! All of us could be in danger, we know absolutely nothing—"

"And it is better that way. Knowing too much…. It's just pointless. It makes you realize how pointless everything is."

Artea looked very much stunned by the conviction in his words. how much Harker was convinced that what he said was true. She could tell that there was something very much wrong with him.

She clenched her fist, and went back. "Fine. If you believe everything is pointless, then believe whatever you want. But you can't expect me to do the same thing. I will keep fighting, and I will fight with everything I got. Not because I just felt compelled to do so while not believing in a purpose."

She went and left. And Harker just sat on his front porch. 

Waiting. 

Waiting to be compelled to do something, or for some unforeseen event to come his way that would make him do an action.

Maybe Roland will come into his doorsteps, bloodied and close to death. 

Maybe Mina will visit, and ask him again why he had not been answering his calls. Then they will have sex, but his arousal would not be for her. Just an arousal in general, no emotions. 

Maybe Joan will tell him what she found out about Pele. 

Either way, fate will draw its course and push him to the direction it wants. Move its loom. And he won't fight against it, won't even try to not take action just to retaliate. He will do as it wills him to do, as he was fated to do.

Harker will just wait, like a…. like a ghost. 

Which was funny because ghosts and stuff like death was considered the opposite of the Weaver. Loss was the opposite of destiny. 

"I do not know why we are considered the opposite even though we are connected to each other. When you realize that there is no free will, you lose that illusion of free will. And you feel like you lost everything."

She sits beside him, tears always flowing from her eyes. She never stops weeping, never stops mourning. 

"Lady Kun." Harker said. 

She nodded. "I have been called many names, most of the time I am referred to as Muerte now. But the Weaver does not like that, he calls me Perdida. In a sense, both are correct. I am mortality, and the effect of such mortality on every being. That grief, that sorrow…. the forsakenness."

"And you are here because I have died, haven't I? Died in my own body." Harker said. 

The Grieving Lady smiled. "Everything dies, Hero. Your 'will' has died, yes. Your sense of purpose. But just like what the Weaver's servant said, you have always been dying. Everything is always dying, and every day that follows, we mourn for our past."

Harker sighed, only nodding at this. 

"The Weaver would want you to follow after the girl." The Grieving Lady said. "But I want to offer you something else."

"Death?"

"Rest." She said. 

Harker actually did consider it. Oh, how he would love to rest, and come to an end. 

But he shook his head, and leaned his head on The Grieving Lady's shoulder. "Even if I die, I am sure that I will come back in some form or another. Suffer the same cycle again and again. Ash to ash, dust to dust. Return to the earth, rise back up again. There is no point."

The Grieving Lady patted his head, just like a mother comforting her child. 

"Yes. That is true. I shall meet you when the Weaver decides it is your end, then."

Harker closed his eyes for a while, thinking about his mother in this life. Josephine Jones. She too had died every single day, and was given temporary rest. Then, she wakes up with a new life somewhere, and she will continue to die again.

Eventually, the shoulder he leaned on had also forsaken him. Slowly, blown by the wind. And as she left, Harker let out a shaky breath and a single tear. 

Just one. Watering the earth below.

He walked and walked, his hands on the pockets of his pants. The autumn leaves had littered almost everything, even the sidewalk. He looked down, picking up one of them….

And there, he saw him.

He was so happy back then, even with the problems and insecurities. That cheesy smile, that large glasses on the bridge of his nose, that books and toys scattered on the floor. 

And he had a father, and a mother. And he had love. 

They would hold his tiny hands. His mother would rock him to sleep, while his father would sing a song, leaning his head on her shoulder. When he gets himself hurt, gets himself wounded, he would cry. And that was the end of it, as either one of them would kiss the boo boo away. 

He had friendship, and that too was love. The tenderness of playing together, the shared kinship, of understanding each other the way no one else could. 

They would build a pillow fort, and it felt like there was nothing beyond those blankets. Not even the darkness that children like them were so afraid of….. That even adults were so afraid of. 

The promises they would make, securing it with locked pinkies. 

They were gone, along with him.

It has been a long time since that little boy had died, and Harker realized that he never really took the time to properly mourn him. He was too caught up in fighting for survival, day by day. Living for the sake of survival, even now. 

As he realized that, it felt that only the sadness was real.

Happiness was an illusion, as beautiful as it was. Even the anger, the shame, the envy, the fear and dread….. They were all there to push him further into the illusion that all of it ever mattered.

Only the sadness was real, and he let that go too. 

He gently crushed the leaf, and said his goodbyes to that little boy. Allowed him to remain in that little space in the past, stored in his mind forever, but only to be watched and observed. Never to return again. 

And he said his goodbyes to his mother and father, to the people they once were.

As for him....

He said his goodbyes to him too, and the friendship that was never really going to last forever.