At first, Layla thought it was an off comment made by Muka. Perhaps it was meant as a joke, but from the time the two had known each other, Muka had never cracked a joke, especially something like this. Another thing was she knew how important Quinn was to the latter, which was the main reason why Layal was taken aback. After all, to her, to even think about making a joke like that in the current situation was not only bewildering and confusing, it was heartbreaking as well.
“Come on, Muka, Quinn hasn’t been gone that long for you to have forgotten about him?” Layla asked.
“I have seen the sword by your side for a long time, but I have never heard you say its name before,” Muka stared at the sword for some time before giving a shrug and adding, “Regardless, I think we should go ahead and check on the vampires to see if they are okay.”
Layla decided to put a pin on the matter and headed outside the castle to check on the vampires. It looked like everyone was fine, and all of them were talking about the headache they had experienced.
When seeing Layla, many of them had forgotten what had happened as they turned towards her.
“Layla, are you okay?”
“She’s always been so caring, checking on us rather than thinking about herself.”
If Layla stayed out for a while longer outside of the castle, then she would soon be surrounded by the others wanting to greet her, and she was well aware of this fact. So at times, when she had to go out of the settlement, she would do so with a disguise. In the end, only the disguise could keep attention off of her and let her mind her own business in peace.
Layla’s trusty partner Xander appeared out of the crowd as he landed in front of her, looking around with squinted eyes.
“Layla, is everything okay? You’re not hurt, right?”
“I’m fine,” Layla replied while pushing him away to ensure he kept his distance. “What about the people? Is everyone alright?”
“There have been no reports of anyone receiving any serious injury whatsoever, but everyone reports the same occurrence. It’s a bit strange, but all of them suffered through intense piercing pain in their head.”
Since no one seemed to be hurt, it was best to ignore the situation, at least for now, or to not worry about it too much, but Layla was concerned about one thing, whether strange things had occurred not just here but in other areas as well.
“Is Minny outside?” Layla asked.
“The last time I saw her, she was heading back into the castle, she looked alright,” Xander replied, reassuring her.
Layla nodded, “I will go to her.”
Xander shrugged, “I will accompany you.”
Waving goodbye to the people, Layla headed back inside with Xander, and while doing so, there was still something bugging her. A strange thought at the back of her mind.
“Quinn Talen.” Layla suddenly said, using his full name just to be sure. “Have there been any reports or sightings of him at all?”
“Quinn Talen?” Xander repeated the name. “I’m sorry, but did you ask me to look for such a person?”
Layla had stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart started to beat louder. This was impossible. Turning her head, she looked Xander straight in the eye.
“Are you playing a joke with me right now, Xander? Please say you are playing a joke right now.” Layla asked. “Quinn Talen, the Vampire King, the one who saved us from the Dalki, the one that helped us a million times…the one I…I…” Layla’s shoulder quivered. She fell on her knees as a thought of what was happening around her flashed in her mind.
“Layla, I’m so sorry,” Xander said as he went to her side. “Usually, I don’t forget things, but if such a being had done all these things, Don’t you think I would know? Besides, I think you got all your facts wrong…”
After the first few words, Layla didn’t hear what Xander said. One might have been a coincidence, but for two people close to her to completely forget such a person right after a strange ring, it made her a good idea of what that ring had done.
Waving off Xander, Layla wanted to speak to others at this moment and time, those that would know Quinn Talen. She asked the staff working cleaning the castle about him, but they all shook their heads.
As Layla asked more people in the castle, she started to wonder if she was the one who was crazy. Had she made up everything in her head? But, no, that was impossible because of what was inside her and the sword to her right.
Layla noticed a few shadows when walking through the hallways, and eventually, a small Minny was there. Layla’s eyes lit up as there was hope. Surely this person could never forget Quinn Talen.
“Minny, you know who your dad is, right? You remember your dad, right?” Layla asked as she grabbed both of her shoulders.
“Of course, I remember dad,” Minny said. “Is he back? Is dad finally back? Did you find Quinn?!”
At that moment, Layla grabbed Minny tightly and pulled her in.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know where Quinn is, but I’m sure he is still out there. As long as we never forget about him, I’m sure he will return to us.”
Trying to figure out what happened, Layla decided to head to their international bay in the castle. It was an area built that allowed for communication with those on earth. Clearly, all the vampires had forgotten Quinn for some reason, but what about the entire world?
Was she and Minny the only two that remembered Quinn? If this was a type of power, how could it even reach so far? The one who could form the best guess was Logan, the person who had received Richard Eno’s knowledge.
———
Recalling the story, Layla was a little shy as she went into a little bit too much detail about how she felt when Quinn was gone, and everyone forgot about him, but seeing him here made all the sorrow go away compared to before.
“So the strange headache most likely caused everyone to forget about me, but I’m a bit confused,” Quinn replied. “From the sound of it, everyone still remembered you, but when I asked for the leader of the Red Vampires, for Layla, they had no clue who you were?”
“There are still a few more parts of the story, but I will tell you now that I still am not sure why it happened. For example, we can theorize that the sword had blocked the ability leaving my memory intact, and Minny was in her shadow due to the headache. Yet, Russ still had his memories, and he is the only person in the vampire settlement at the time that I know still remembers both you and me.” Layla explained.
Thinking about it, Quinn had two guesses. It was either something that conflicted with his God Slayer ability. After all, Russ’s ability seemed to be mind related as well, or due to the specific Qi commands that Quinn had given beforehand.
“Did you ever find out about those on earth? If someone had removed their memory as well?” Quinn asked.
There was silence, and Layla’s heartbeat started to speed up ever so slightly, which had kind of given Quinn his answer.
“I did, mostly due to Russ’s help. But, to be honest, Quinn, there are a lot of details in all of this that is to come in the story, and at the end of it, I want you to make a decision because I’m not sure everything that has happened is a bad thing, or at least the result isn’t too bad.”
Quinn was intrigued and would just have to be patient as he listened to all of the details in the story.
——
When Layla entered the international station, she was ready to make the call back to earth, but that’s when she saw someone else was there standing by the command console. It was none other than Xander.
“Sure, we will make sure everything goes smoothly, and we can’t wait for your arrival,” Xander said, ending the call there.
“We have visitors?” Layla asked, surprised because, one, Xander would usually ask her first unless it was someone that Layla would certainly have no problems visiting. The other thing was that Xander sounded pleased when talking to the person on call.
“Yes, they will be arriving sometime later in the day. The arrival time is around 2 hours.” Xander replied. “I think the whole settlement will get a boost from their visit, as Jim Eno is paying a visit, and he says he has a nice surprise for us all.”
“JIM ENO!” Layla shouted back and ran right to where Xander was.
From what Layla knew, Jim Eno was dead. He had been killed. On Blade island, so many of her friends had died because of him.
“Why would I be happy that Jim Eno is coming?!” Layla shouted.
Xander looked confused.
“What do you mean, because he is the hero of all us vampires.”
******
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