Chapter 145 - The Reaper's Backstory 3/4 - Dreams

The blonde haired young child smiled fondly as he thought about what he would practice next with Artorias and the other Slayers after his week long break.

But the thing he is currently looking forward to while walking the badly paved road back to his hometown was to see his mother again. Adam imagined how she would react after seeing him, a twelve year old boy already growing into a man. He would ask her what she had noticed first as soon as he walked in that run down home they lived in. "Would she take note of how muscular I have become? We never really had much to put in our mouths as a growing boy. I hope she has done well for herself and has lived much more comfortably after I went away…" 

All sorts of thoughts went through Adam's mind, all of them filled with excitement and eagerness. He had not even noticed just how far away his house was on foot. The High Council offered to send him a representative of theirs to accompany him and give him a carriage ride altogether, but he politely declined, saying that it was going to be fine and that he was used to walking for that long ever since he was young.

"Suit yourself, child. But do not overstay your vacation. One week is all we are giving you and that is all you are able to take. We have only ever given days of leave for other Slayers, you should consider yourself lucky that we are even extending your reunion with your mother to a week." The High Council's leader back then told him straight to his face.

Perhaps they were quite fearful that Adam would run away or something. Seeing that he was still but a naïve child in their eyes, although he never showed impulsivity in his actions, it was still something that the High Council would prefer to avoid. 

He had also taken the liberty of borrowing a couple of books from the library; books in which his mother would have liked. After seeing the silhouette of his house on top of the hill, it was still the same old run-down shack, but it did not matter anymore to Adam.

Adam Rosa had already planned out where they would be living after he became a Slayer. Somewhere near him. So no matter how horrible their living conditions were, it was only going to be mere fragments of the past. A horrible dream that they would both soon awaken from. And it is all thanks to the potential that the High Council and the government saw in him. He is quite thankful to them for that fact. Adam went from being the son of a sickly woman living in the far outs of nowhere and was now making a name for himself as one of the only people who could go toe to toe against the golden child of the Khalil family in combat practice.

Artorias heard about the insane hardships that he and his mother had to endure. At first, the thought it was some sort of sick joke that his friend was concocting to make a fool out of him, but after realizing that his words carried the weight of the truth, the privileged Artorias quickly got quiet and went on listening to his friend.

"I honestly thought you were trying lie through your teeth about your experiences, which would have been incredibly distasteful to those who are living an impoverished life in Niflheim, yet everything you have said, I sense no lie in what you have said. I do not know if it is a good thing or not to say this, though, you do not look like someone who came from such a background." Artorias Khalil said to Adam. This was because of the way that Adam carried himself, he was always mindful of how he spoke, how he ate in front of other people, and his overall demeanor was nothing like that of a peasant's. He shone very brightly among his peers. He even looked much more of someone who had come from a royal and rich background than Artorias did, who only cared about being strong and improving his sword training.

"Come on, I am not worthy of such high praises from the Khalil family's poster boy." Adam said jokingly. Artorias smirked. "It is settled then, I will implore the influence of my family name to help you in finding a suitable place in the Grand City for your mother and-" Artorias could not even finish what he had just said and Adam was already smiling the most wholesome he had ever done so far. "Thank you so much, Art. I am really glad to have met you. I will let my mother meet you soon, after I have transferred here to the Grand City, that is. That is a promise." He said to him. 

Hastily opening the door, Adam could not contain his emotions. "I am home, mother!" He exclaimed after walking in on their home. Fully expecting a hug from her, he was confused at the sheer silence that was handed back to him as a response.

A putrid smell of death and rot was greeted him instead. Adam fend off the stench by covering his nose with his arms. He coughed out and gagged for a bit before finally having the stomach to go further into the house.

There she was. Laying no top of the bed, she looked like she had already been dead for days now, which explains her body's rotting smell. She had looked like she aged ten years in only two years time passing by. Adam already forgot about how putrid the air was in here, all he stared at his mother's lifeless body and could say nothing. He could do nothing. He just stood there, gazing at what once was his mother.

"M-Mother?" He uttered out. Adam Rosa's initial shock was now replaced with anger. He desperately examined what had killed her, seeing if she was the victim of an intruder or thief. Yet his efforts were in vain, there were no wounds on her at all. Her illness was severe but it could not have made her age this much in such a short amount of time, there was no logical way around explaining it. 

Her skin was also unnaturally white, Adam had never remembered her being this way. Even for a dead person's body, it was too white to be called pale, it was as if her whole skin was painted white before she died. Adam flipped her over and saw something which horrified him to the core.

His mother had wings. They were small, too small for a living thing with the size of a person to take flight in. Much like that of a chicken or pigeon's wings. Adam fell over and stumbled on his steps, trying to catch his breath while attempting to make sense of what had just happened to her.

"W-Was it because I had left you here alone?! Was I the main reason that you had turned into this…this monstrosity?!" Adam exclaimed. His mother's lifeless body was not the sight he had expected to see after coming home. Especially adding that she had turned into something other than human, something indescribable. Almost like an Angel.

Once that thought crossed his mind, Adam quickly got up and contained his emotions. He thought about what the people of Niflheim would say after revealing that his mother had turned into something like that. He might lose everything that he had worked for so far. And the only reason why he worked that much was for her, now she is gone.

Adam Rosa picked his mother up with a white sheet which had turned sanguine from her rotting remains. That day, he dug up a place for he would bury her body.

"Was it my fault?" Adam kept repeating that question to himself. He was slowly blaming himself for what had happened. "A creature might have snuck into Niflheim and turned her into this, right?" He was now talking to himself, trying to come up with different scenarios that led up to his mother turning out the way that she did.

Adam Rosa leaned outside the damaged shack which they called home, holding a shovel with his hand, staring at the hole he dug for her. Tears started streaming from his crystal eyes, rolling down his cheeks. That night, Adam Rosa wailed as hard as he could. For fallen dreams and 'what if' scenarios that he and his mother could never ever live out. Before he knew it, he started slipping in and out of sleep, still leaning stalwartly outside, guarding her remains six feet underneath. Even if it was too late for him to be there for her already.

"Dreams. Should I have left her back then? I am sure the man would have forced me out of here still, but maybe if I had fought back enough, they would have taken her to the Castle as well…" Thoughts swirled around Adam's head once again.. Thoughts and ideas of what he could have done to prevent this.