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Klein Moretti, as Gehrman Sparrow, looked towards the sunset. It had been years since he had seen his siblings, Benson and Melissa Moretti.
He had been climbing the sequences, endlessly, to protect each other.
Yet at some point, he had forgotten the faces of those he had cherished most.
Using Creeping Hunger, he found himself in front of 2nd Daffodil Street.
It was a home he hadn’t seen in a long time. But he could not stay for long. There were countless angels trying to find his location to see his beyonder characteristic.
Behind the windows, he saw Benson and Melissa Moretti, eating lunch—without him.
Of course, there was no reason for him to be eating with them. Officially… he was dead.
Was there any purpose in him going up into the house of his family and potentially endangering them, pulling them into the madness of the beyonder world?
No, there was no reason for him to go back. Was he being considerate to his siblings if he suddenly appeared, alive, after all of this time?
But yet… he was an angel. If angels couldn’t get what they wanted, then who would be able to? And he himself was known as a Miracle Magician, once upon a time.
Klein flipped a coin, performing a brief divination.
He had… some time.
A brief window of opportunity to send a historical projection of his into the building so he could once again be with his siblings.
There would be consequences to this, sure…
But…
Would he ever get another opportunity?
And maybe, just for today, he wanted to be selfish.
Flicking his hand and unveiling a historical projection… he pulled out an image of Klein Moretti. Not an image of him from the present yet from him all that time ago.
It was Klein when he was still a sequence 9, when he was still naive to the horrors of this world.
It was Klein when he still had hope to achieve his dreams.
And it was the Klein that was still fully human.
Of course, a historical projection couldn’t fully portray what he had been. It was merely a facade of the past. For a magician could not bring life to a puppet, only mimic it to the best of his own abilities.
He pulled on the strings of his projection, making it adjust its top hat, smoothen out its coat, and walk towards the front door, fiddling with a coin between its fingers.
The coin part was Klein’s own nervousness, not an act pulled by the marionette for deception.
How would his siblings react? He wasn’t sure.
Taking in a deep breath, it walked up towards the front of the door, molding its expression into one that resembled calmness and nonchalance. It knocked.
Looking inside the window, he could see Benson pause in his meal, hearing the sound coming from the doorstep. He could see Benson standing up, walking to answer the door.
Klein’s perception of time slowed as he watched Benson walk towards the door, and his marionette, standing casually, trying its best to mask a sense of nervousness.
Benson opened the door, with a hint of confusion before jumping back with a startle.
“Klein?!”
“It” looked awkwardly to the side and smiled.
“Hi?”
Benson’s legs began trembling as he took a double take at the man standing at the front of the door that so closely resembled his own—dead—brother.
“But… you’re dead!”
“It” nodded, looking away slightly and scratching beneath its chin.
“Yes, I was dead. But I received the blessings of Evernight and she returned me to this world.”
The marionette looked towards Benson with sincere eyes, pulling out a pocket watch from inside one of its coat’s pockets and handing it to him.
“Could you give this to Melissa? The watch stopped working some time ago and I never managed to fix it.”
Benson shakily took the watch from Klein’s hands, feeling the coolness of the metal seeping into his skin. He looked towards Klein, speaking softly.
“Do you want to come in?”
The marionette in Klein’s place smiled, things were certainly going better than expected.
Just from within the dining hall, the two of them heard Melissa calling out towards them.
“Benson? Who is it?”
Benson didn’t answer, instead the two of them walked towards the living room.
Melissa, who was eating contently, looked up towards Klein’s face and froze, her pupils dilating in shock. The grip in her hand slakened, sending the spoon clattering onto the ground.
“Klein?! But… You’re dead!”
Klein laughed awkwardly, "I was dead, but I’m alive now.”
Melissa paused, looking between Benson and Klein, before screaming.
“Benson?! Why would you let a scammer into the house?! Klein is dead. Nothing can change that.”
Benson looked to the side awkwardly, eyeing Klein suspiciously. It seemed he wasn’t thinking that far when he let Klein in.
“Why would you let some look-a-like in? Nothing would be able to bring Klein back, you dumb, curly haired baboon—” she picked up the spoon from the floor and threw it at Klein.
“Get out! You can’t be impersonating a dead person like that?! Do you have any shame! How do you go around desecrating the dead before trying to swindle their grieving families out of money?!”
The marionette of Klein let the spoon hit him in the face. If everything, this was the expected reaction. Who would believe that a dead person came back to life?
Benson thought to intervene but held back. In a sense, Melissa was right.
The two of them looked towards “Klein” hoping for him to explain himself.
The marionette awkwardly coughed, hoping to diffuse the tension before starting to explain.
This action was not met with friendliness from the two siblings but they let him talk. Benson quietly shuffled back to the table, sitting down so he could continue eating. Revived brother or scam artist, food costs money and he was not going to waste it while it was fresh.
“Have you heard of beyonders?”
The two shook their heads.
Klein waved his hand in a simple gesture.
“Well in essence, they are people who accept madness to gain power.”
The siblings nodded but then paused, confused.
Melissa shouted out, “Are you suggesting that Klein was going crazy just so he could become powerful? That’s not the Klein I know.”
Klein shook his head, trying to dismiss the worries.
“Nevertheless, one of these abilities involves the ability to revive from the dead. And Klein—I had obtained it through luck and chance circumstances.”
The marionette waved his hands to himself, trying to show that he was still the same as he was before.
“I’m Klein.”
Melissa looked towards Klein, trying her best to blink and sigh in relief as it was just her eyes betraying her, that this whole event was a hallucination she had come up with out of nowhere.
“But… the church that came, he said there was nothing that could be done…”
Klein looked at Melissa curiously. A hint of his restrained madness flashing through.
“Do you think the church would tell you the full truth?”
Melissa felt her mind collapse as she relived the moment the police officer knocked on their door, pronouncing Klein dead and handing her a check.
That was definitely real. This was definitely real.
So what was she supposed to believe?
Was the officer lying to her? But why? Why would they lie like that causing her so much heartbreak and grief for the years. Only now had they started to be able to move on yet Klein came back, ruining it all.
Benson Moretti looked towards Melissa, in the midst of a mental breakdown, and asked her softly.
“He gave me this watch, saying that you would be able to fix it.”
Melissa looked down at the watch, tears almost welling up in her eyes.
She was well familiar with this watch. It was the watch that she had given Klein all of that time ago.
Absent mindedly, she fiddled with the gears, and within seconds the right hand began ticking once again.
She lifted the watch, looking at its ticking with tears dripping out of her eyes.
“Klein? Why did you only come back now?”
The marionette looked at Melissa with a hint of affection in his eyes. It was standing in the doorway, smiling, acting as if it was thinking back to a time long ago.
“So much happened, I had to travel around doing all sorts of things”
“I came back, here, once or twice, but I never managed to bring myself to visit.”
Tears began appearing within the marionettes' eyes. The original body of Klein was sitting on a bench just outside. He tilted his hat down, hiding his eyes from the outside world.
“I was always worried that my life would bring harm to you.”
Melissa stood up, walking up to Klein—tears were streaming out of her eyes.
“Here’s your watch. Don’t break it again.”
Klein reached forward, picking up the watch from Melissa.
“Thank you.”
Benson, still eating dinner, paused, looking towards Klein.
He paused, thinking about something before asking.
“You said you were a beyonder right?”
Klein nodded slightly.
Benson smiled, setting down his spoon and shifting slightly in his chair, leaning in.
“So… how much do you get paid?”