Reth: The Ghost Agent

A Father's Sacrifice

It was 2:00 AM. Torrential rain lashed down with a fierce wind. The weather was terrifying. Amidst this horrific storm, a car skidded sharply on the road. The driver was panicked, repeatedly glancing in the rearview mirror. In the back seat, a one-year-old baby was happily gurgling and playing.

“Just a little longer,” the driver muttered. He checked the rearview mirror again and increased his speed.

After about fifteen minutes, the car stopped in front of a house on a quiet city street. The driver quickly got out and opened the back door. He looked at the baby’s face and was lost in it for a moment. “I couldn’t just leave you like this,” he whispered.

The driver, drenched in rain, picked up the child. He carried him to the house and laid him gently on the doorstep. To shield the baby from the rain, he removed his grey overcoat and draped it over the child.

“Reth…” the driver said, kneeling and gazing at the baby’s face. “Remember… you are my son… the son of a Ghost Agent… and you… you are also a Ghost Agent… Reth the Ghost Agent… I’m sorry for the life I’m giving you. Before you were born, my mother and I dreamt so many dreams for you, but none of them will come true now. We can't decide your future.” He looked up towards the sky. “Your future has already been decided by fate.” He touched the baby’s forehead, then stood up, rang the doorbell, and quickly ran back to his car. He started the engine and sped away before the door opened.

The door opened, and a stout woman peered out. “Who is it at this hour…? Oh my… there’s a baby here… Oh my goodness… come out quickly…”

“What’s wrong…? Why are you shouting at this hour…?” A heavyset man emerged from inside.

“Look… there’s a baby here…”

“A baby…!! Who left him here…?”

“I don’t know…”

“Who would leave a baby like this…!! Didn’t his parents have any sense…?”

The woman stepped forward and picked up the baby. “He has a locket around his neck… there’s a name written on it…”

“What name… let me see… here…”

“Reth…” the woman read aloud.

“Let’s go inside… it’s raining heavily, he might get sick…”

“Yes, let’s.”

They closed the door and went inside, their hushed conversation gradually fading.

The woman said, “Let’s raise this child… we don’t have any children anyway… we’ll name him Reth… what a beautiful name…”

“Stop it… what will we do if someone comes looking for him tomorrow…?”

“Then… then what… he’ll be ours until he leaves… and when he has to go, he’ll go…”

_____

The man who had left the baby was still panicked, driving at high speed. Tears streamed down his face, tears of having left his child alone. While driving, he picked up a strange device from the passenger seat and examined it. “You are a curse upon me…” he said, staring at the device. “If it weren’t for you… I wouldn’t have lost my wife and my child…” Saying this, he lowered the car window, muttered something, and threw the device out. The device, a Sudarshan Chakra mounted on a small trident, landed on the roadside and was swept away by the flowing water. Suddenly, it dissolved into smoke and vanished. The driver wiped his tears and continued driving at high speed.

Within thirty minutes, he pulled up in front of his house. He got out, opened the trunk, and took out two cans of gasoline. He went inside and, sobbing, splashed gasoline everywhere. Inside, there were many strange devices, countless old books, and photographs in which he appeared to be standing with someone, but the other person was not visible. After drenching everything in gasoline, he came outside. “I will erase every trace… they will never reach you…” He took a lighter from his pocket and lit it. “I won’t leave anything that could endanger my child… he… nothing will happen to him… I lost my wife, but nothing will happen to my child…” He threw the lighter towards the house.

The lighter had almost reached the doorway when a black smoke appeared, and a hand emerged from the smoke, catching the lighter. The smoke quickly coalesced into the form of a man whose lower body was severely burned. “You’re a little too hasty, defrady adorb…”

Deferred adorb’s eyes widened. He frantically searched his clothes, looking for something.

“Are you looking for this?” the half-burned man showed him a device. It was a V-shaped letter tied to a stick about half the length of an arm. “This… with which you chant spells… and leave us helpless and destitute… you decide our fate… you, the Ghost Destroyers… you Ghost Destroyers have made our lives miserable…” He glared at the device.

“You receive the punishment for your actions… the punishment for your evil intentions… intentions in which you will never succeed…”

The man laughed, in a very stylish way. “Whose problem is that now…?” He laughed a little more, then stopped. “Let's cut the chatter and tell me, good boy… where is the Hell Dimensional Device…?”

“You think you’ll ask like that and I’ll tell you where the device is, the device with which you bring about the apocalypse, the device you intend to unleash here?”

“The apocalypse will come…”

“But not while I’m alive. I will die, but I will never tell you where that device is…”

“Until you reveal the device’s location, your life will continue…”

“You can’t stop me… absolutely not…” Deferred adorb declared, confidence blazing in his eyes as he lunged towards the man. He reached him, bent down, grabbed him, and jumped inside the house. The lighter, still burning, fell to the floor. The gasoline ignited, and the entire house erupted in flames. The man and defrady adorb were engulfed in the fire.

As the house burned, the man coughed and stood up. His body was still burning, but he seemed unaffected. He wore a long cloak. He lifted the cloak and draped it over himself. Instantly, he became translucent. He lowered the cloak and, in his translucent form, knelt down, grabbing defrady adorb by the collar and pulling him upwards. Deferred adorb’s soul left his body. “You will have to tell me the location of the device…” the man said.

“I… I…” stammered defrady adorb. “I will never reveal its location.”

“Then… then… good news for you… congratulations… your soul will be tormented until the end of eternity, until the end of time.” He stood up and, laughing, carried defrady adorb’s soul out of the house. There, the man said, “This is not the end, it’s the beginning… the beginning of the apocalypse… and the apocalypse… the apocalypse cannot be stopped… by anyone.”

The man dissolved into smoke, vanishing with defrady adorb’s soul.