Soul Searcher by D.M. Richardson (novel24 .TXT) 📕

Soul Searcher - a person or creature that has the ability to see inside someone else’s soul, this person or creature can see their victim’s darkest secrets, and instantly knows their personality, the person or creature must have eye contact for their abilities to be effective. They often have no control over which soul they search or what they see.

Soul Reader - a person or creature that has the ability to search someone’s soul, they have complete control over what they see and can choose their victim at will, they require skin contact for their abilities to be effective.

Soul Shredder - a person or creature who has the ability to shred another’s soul into pieces, the result often results in suicide or insanity, they often have to learn to control this ability, they can choose their victim’s, they have to draw blood for their abilities to be effective, the person with this ability though often starts as a decent individual will more often than not turn power mad sometimes causing people harm as a sort of amusement.

It was my sixth birthday the first time it happened. I had awoke early that morning looking forward to my birthday breakfast. Blueberry pancakes, my favorite. I ran downstairs and into the kitchen where my mom stood at the stove piling the pancakes onto two plates.

My dad was sitting at the kitchen table looking uncomfortable. This was the first time I had seen him in a couple months. He had left my mom the year before. At first he tried to see me as often as he could. Then his visits became fewer and far between.

He smiled at me and I ran into his arms. Neither one of us had the chance to say a word before my mom put the plates on the table with unnecessary force. I went to my seat across from my mom, and picked up my fork.

I looked up just in time to catch my moms eyes. My mind went blank, and I felt pressure at the nape of my neck. Like someone had grabbed me and gave a light squeeze. Not uncomfortable but not exactly comfortable either. It lasted only a second but a second was long enough for me to see what no six year old should see. I looked at my plate trying to piece together the images in my mind into something I understood.

My mom at her office sitting at her desk. She was an accountant. I only knew that she did a lot with math and numbers. She was in her usual suit with her glasses perched on her nose.

Then the image had shifted to a dark room with swirling lights, and tables and people all around. It was only now that I know it was a night club. She was sitting on a mans lap laughing. A bunch of other men sitting around them all wearing suits. She was wearing this really short bright red dress that showed allot of her chest. She reached over and playfully tugged on one of their ties. The man who’s lap she was sitting on tugged on the skirt of her dress getting her attention back.

The image shifted again. She was in a back alley with the same man she had been sitting on. They were kissing and his hands were roaming all over her body. She was giggling and teasing him. Her hands pulling on his hair and then moving to the front of his pants.

Shift. She was in a dark room on a bed with the same man. They were naked and rubbing against each other. She was making weird noises, and he was grunting.

Shift. She was in our living room in her suit again, and she and my dad were yelling at each other. She threw a vase at his head, but he ducked. Then she stormed upstairs to their room. He got a spare blanket out of the downstairs closet, and laid down on the couch.

Shift. She was in the dark room again on the bed with a different man.

Shift. My dad was walking out the front door with a packed bag. Telling her his lawyer would call her.

After a couple minutes I managed to put the pieces together. She was the reason my dad left. She had gone to bed with those men, and he her. Left me. She was the reason I didn’t have my daddy anymore. Just a new stranger that stopped by every few months.

That was all back when I didn’t know that it was better to just keep my mouth shut. Before I realized that I wasn’t supposed to know all of those things. I was so mad at her that I couldn’t help but to confront her. To demand answers to questions that I shouldn’t know to ask.

I put my fork down without taking a single bite. The silence was a heavy weight on my small shoulders. My parents never looked at each other, and they barely glanced at me. I looked up at her. She glanced up and I caught her gaze. There was no pressure this time. No images that would rush through my mind. I had already seen what I needed to see.

“Was that why Daddy left?” I asked. She gave me a confused look. “Because you were on that bed with those men?” Her mouth dropped open, and she dropped the fork that was half way to her mouth. My dad just stared at me. She turned on him angrily.

“What did you tell her?!” she yelled. He was still staring at me shaking his head.

“How could he tell me anything. I almost never see him.” I answered instead. I was getting more and more angry. “So is it true? You were with those men and that’s why he left?” Her face turned bright red.

“That is none of your business young lady. How do you know about all that?” I looked at her more confused than angry now.

“You showed me. With your eyes.” Both of my parents went deathly still.

“What do you mean I showed you?” I shrugged wasn’t what I did normal?

“You showed me. I looked at you and I saw it.” Her face turned from red to green in a second.

“Go to your room. Get dressed we don’t want to be late for the fair.” I stood and headed up the stairs.

Every summer on my birthday the fair was in town. I used to feel so lucky that it always happened that way. So in the morning I would get my birthday breakfast, and the three of us went to the fair. We would spend all day playing games and riding the rides. It was the day I looked forward to the most. Not Christmas not thanksgiving. Not even Halloween though it was a close second.

I changed my clothes and brushed my hair. I pulled my hair into a pony tail. I was so proud the first time I managed it on my own. I wore a pony tail in my hair every day for a full month.

I ran back downstairs and heard my parents murmuring in the kitchen. They heard me come down the stairs and went silent again as I opened the door. They told me to go wait in my mom’s car while they cleaned up. I didn’t have any reason to worry. I may have surprised them but they were my parents. They may have made mistakes but they still loved me.

I sat in the car for fifteen minutes waiting for them. To a six year old fifteen minutes was a life time when you weren’t having fun. Finally my parents walked out the door. My mom was holding my back pack. My dad went to his car and waved at me with a strained smile. I waved back and turned to my mom as she got into the drivers seat.

“Why is Daddy getting into his car?” She met my eyes in the rearview mirror for an instant before looking away.

“He’s going to meet us there.” She started the car and backed out of the driveway. I watched the houses pass by, and when we got to the center of town, I watched the stores. We had gone to the fair every year, never missed one. So when she turned the opposite way I started to get worried.

“Where are we going the fair is the other way?” I asked, and was answered with silence. After five more minutes I saw the sign saying we were interring the next county. Twenty minutes later my mom pulled into the parking lot of an old church.

She parked and got out of the car telling me to do the same thing. I watched her carrying my back pack, and my hands shook as I unfastened my seat belt. a tight knot of fear hardening in my stomach. I knew something wasn’t right.

I got out of the car and followed my mom into the church. The dead silence was unnerving. The place was completely empty. My footsteps echoed with each step I took. She directed me to the front pew, and told me to sit. I obeyed and she set the bag on the floor next to me. She kept her eyes on the floor never looking at me.

“Just sit here. I’m going to go check on something. Don’t move until someone comes for you.” without waiting for an answer she started heading back the way we came.

When I heard the front door open and close I jumped up and ran to the windows that showed the parking lot. I watched as she climbed into the car. Started it and pulled out the lot onto the highway heading back toward our town. She never even looked back. Not once

It was then that I understood. I was young not stupid. She was leaving me. Abandoning me to whatever fate decided. Left me in a church on Saturday, and my dad knew about it. That was why his smile was strained. Why he climbed into his car instead of ours. He couldn’t stand to face me knowing that they both were abandoning me. Though I think he abandoned me a long time before that. Now he just wouldn’t have to keep up pretenses.

I walked slowly back to my seat and looked down at my bag. They had packed my favorite jeans. An ordinary black t-shirt, and my hair brush and hair ties. There was my tooth brush and socks and underwear. There was a sandwich, and a bag of chips along with a bottle of water. Nothing else. No pictures, no note, nothing to remind me of them. Nothing to tell me why. And especially nothing to tell me they loved me.

I curled up on the pew and cried silent tears. I cried for hours. Until the sun set and the moon rose. The stars twinkled in the June sky, but by the time I fell into an exhausted sleep I was numb. I didn’t feel anything, and I didn’t want to. I only understood one thing. A thought and feeling that had been tickling the back on my mind ever since I saw those images.

My mom was a bad person.

The next morning a woman found me sleeping on the pew. She asked me what I was doing there, and where my parents were. All I could do is sit there and cry silently. She took in my slept in clothes, and the contents of my bag which I never bothered closing. She got a knowing look that was quickly replaced by pity. My tears stopped and my small shoulders straightened. This woman was a stranger and I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me.

She kept asking me my name but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to remember my name or