Gabriel carefully opened up the still sealed letter. It read ‘dear Gabriel’

  ‘I honestly don’t know where to truly begin, I have pondered about it heavily, ever since I made up my mind, whether to pen this letter to you or not and believe me this is not the first draft. I sit here now with bundles littering my bed of previous drafts. I feel I should just start anywhere and when we meet again, if we meet again, I will address any of your confusion. Or, High Scholar Zhao would be there, you may ask him to clarify. I don’t know if you have ever heard of the 'Tamashii artifact'? It is what we call the tree within the sacred oasis and its fruit. I must have given it to you to eat already if you are reading this letter. You may be wondering, why? What is so important about this fruit. Well, it goes like this, there is a screening done once every sixty years or so, here at Samsara. I do not know the criteria for selection but whoever is selected is given this fruit. Once this person eats it, he somehow becomes the famous Sage of Yin and Yang of my Samsara institute of Science and Souls, I do not know how it happens and if my grand-aunty knows, she did not tell me.

  Now, why am I telling you all this, well, you know my great grandfather, Sage Shi Hao, the then 'wizard of the night'. Well, my grand-aunty says he was obsessed with obtaining the powers of the fruit, he was looking for a way to make the effects permanent, still is actually. My great grandfather is still alive; he is currently in my father’s body. It will interest you to know that, according to my grand-aunty, my great grandfather is currently just an aether body. He uses a technique that allows him to body hop. He possess the body of another being, killing them in the process and taking over their bodies as his own. My grand-aunty says the technique will not perfect and must have many severe downsides but it works and he has been using it to keep himself alive since. She believes he has to body hops into his victim at around their sixteenth year, it makes sense because that is when most people awaken their aether body. At that point their bodies are barely strong enough to contain his soul but not strong enough to resist. My grand-aunty found out when he hopped into my father and is now on the run. She thinks it may now be my turn. Well, I refuse and have decided to fight for my life, while hitting them where it will hurt. I was the one that suggested this plan, my grand-aunt has nothing to do with it. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Yes, I took advantage of our friendship. I do not know what will happen to us when we eat the fruit, my grand-aunt says that if we eat only half of it, our bodies might be able to handle the strain and it will be less likely for us to suffer any adverse effect, we might even benefit from it. But what will actually happen after, nobody knows. This method has never been tried before. I won’t ask you to forgive me, Gabriel, not now, not in this letter but when we meet again, I will and you can punch me in the mouth then. Your Friend, Shi Ming.’

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  Gabriel finished reading the letter, feeling conflicted. He didn’t know what to feel in the moment, on one hand he felt betrayed and by the one of the only person he truly called a friend and it hurt. On the other hand, he felt disappointed, that his friend felt that he-Gabriel-couldn’t be confided in until after the deed was done, like he wouldn’t offer to help if he knew. that also hurt. So he felt pained but that pain was caused by two opposite reasons so he felt bad for feeling pained and that also pained him and that pain reminded him of his dream-the pain he felt in it-which prompted him to search within him, exactly why he had felt that way.