Chapter 91 - A Payment : Part 2

"You can't hear it. You can't see it."

A man with a blindfold hummed. He let the wind play with his torn cloak as he sat on a tree, hiding below the fallen leaves. He raised one of his knees up and rested his elbow on top of it.

"Yet, it's there. It's everywhere." He continued humming, enjoying the breeze of the afternoon sun. The blinding light of the world would soon vanish as a moon took its place.

"But don't you know? It's like a show." He darted as a leaf fell on top of his hood. The man stared at the sun despite having a blindfold over his eyes. "Where you go, it'll follow. Frequently than your shadow."

"It's in your room. It'll be your doom." He sang, haunting the graves that were surrounding the trees he was on. "It's in your head till you're dead."

He stared down at the nearest grave to the tree. Lavenders adorned the tomb as if it was a garden instead of a dead one's resting grave.

"It's in your heart that's changing from soft to hard." He stared at the name that's beautifully craved to the grey tomb.

'Cecilia Vergessene.'

He sighed as he saw the hole on the grave. The body had already disappeared, and he was watching the person that stolen the dead woman away.

"You should turn the lights on." He kept singing when a certain hitman slowly approached the grave.

"In the cursed mirror, you'll see the darkness's form." He finished the song and coldly stared down at Cain.

The wind played with his cloak for the last time before the bow in his hand slowly morphed into a dark void.

And as always, the man disappeared without a trace before anyone could see him.

✵✵✵✵✵✵

Cain missed his wife. He had been missing her for years. Every corner he saw, every lavender he smelled, everything reminded him of her.

He could not stand it anymore. He could not stand the unsee stitches, the broken pages, the cover-up lies, or the hidden cries. Yet he stood alongside the fake happiness, the made-up faces, the dollhouse family- the ones that everyone would see.

She was the only one he ever had. When he thought no one was there, when he thought that he had lost everyone around him, Cecilia stayed.

After he lost his family and was betrayed by his only best friend—the only thing in his mind was revenge and doing what Raziel wished him to do.

But when he had achieved everything, when he had done everything that Raziel wished him to do and to be, he lost his way.

He did not have a purpose in life anymore.

So Cain started to wonder. How does it feel to be drowned in water? Or a knife through his vein? Will it remove the pain?

He started to imagine. How does it feel to shoot a bullet through his skin? Or maybe his head left hanging? Will it change everything?

He started to daze out. How does it feel to jump from the cloud? Or standing in a busy street? Will the aching eventually quit?

But when he stood on the edge of a building, ready to end anything, a woman with a pair of violet eyes that would make all the violet flowers envied her cried, shouting at him to stay—giving him a reason to stay.

Cain finally had a purpose again. She gave him a purpose to be alive.

So he started to delay all the possibilities in his way. He pretended to be okay until it became real day after day.

But then she left him too, eventually, just like everyone did.

Cecilia asked him to be happy, saying that it should be his purpose in life.

She was cruel, really. She told him to be happy so he would not join her soon. She knew that he could never be happy without her by his side.

When she was gone, Cain did everything she had asked him to do. He forced all reality, trying to stay 'happy'. It was all fake, and he knew he was only lying to himself.

In the end, he needed someone to blame, even though all truths eventually came.

He did that because the truth hurt. But Cain didn't realize that it made the lies hurt even more.

So Cain had a new purpose that had never been reached until this point in his life. To be happy.

With lavenders in his hand, he started to visit her again. Reassuring his dead wife that he would be joining her soon. He would be happy soon so she should wait for him.

He walked as the sun tried to hide away from him. His pace was still and steady. The man's heart was beating rapidly. He was always nervous about meeting her.

So when Cain stood in front of her grave, lavenders fell from his hand, scattering on the ground. The leaves danced around him, singing to him, mocking him.

His gaze darkened that the sun itself desperately tried to let the moon switch with it. He clenched his fists too tight until the nails made his palms bleed.

Someone took her body, and Cain would turn the world upside down just to find her.

✵✵✵✵✵✵

The scientist opened a hidden room that the mercenary would never find in her building. She pushed a painting of three women hiding their faces with their hands and made the wall slide away, opening the way for her.

She slowly walked in. The sound of her heels was the only thing that adorned the air. While letting the wall close itself behind her, she stopped in front of two big tubes and smiled at them.

A woman with blonde hair was inside the left tube. She wore a white dress that covered the wound in her stomach—the cause of her death.

Another woman with black hair was in the other tube. Her short bob hair flowed with the water around her. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully. A white dress covered her body, and she looked like a princess just by 'sleeping' like this.

Grief was another case for Alea.

She was scared, thinking, 'maybe it's too late to fix everything when they were already dead.'

She felt empty, and yet her eyes still could not see the truth. Every night, she would grab her own hair and whisper, 'what's happening to me?'

The regrets filled her mind, and she knew she would never be free from the regrets.

She was sad, she was mad. She did not want to be a bad person until she found out that she was a two-faced woman. She would sometimes feel like her body wasn't hers.

That was the time when she finally lost Isabella after losing Cecilia. The world mocked her and punished her for everything she had done in the past.

So when she found out how to bring them back, she did not hesitate to try it.

She visited their graves every day to make sure their body would not wither away. She took care of them, making them stay pretty because they would always be beautiful.

Alea also tried to stay young, so they would try everything again from the beginning when her plan worked. They would be best friends again.

They were her only family. She did not have anyone other than them.

The scientist put her hand on Cecilia's glass with a smile that had never worn out by the time she got in the room. "I always envy your beauty. You didn't even try to be pretty. Lucky."

"I'm glad I wasn't too late to make you stay pretty. I thought your body already withered away, but I think that damn Cain was desperate too."

Alea's brown eyes twitched as she gritted her teeth. "That's why- that's why he should die for you."

The lights flickered a little. The hollow of the night outside the building cried, telling the people to rest while they could.

The scientist closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. Under the dim light, her gaze fell over to Isabella. The shag haircuts waved a little when she slowly made her way to the blonde's tube. "Bella, I-"

Alea choked and bit her lip. "I know you told me to move on from Cecilia when she's gone. And I know you would say the same when you're gone."

"But I-" She paused, giving her best friend a weak smile. "I can't."

"It's okay. I'll fix everything. I'll apologize properly when you both wake up." She chuckled and tried to fight away the tears that started to form in her brown eyes.

"I'll treat you in our usual cafe. There's a new menu. I think you'll like it." Her voice wavered. Something in the back of her throat was trying to choke her while she talked.

"It's my fault." The woman's voice cracked, lowering her head down that her curtain bangs hid her face away.

"It's my fault." She repeated her words like a mantra. Tears finally fell down from her eyes. She could not hold them back anymore.

She desperately stared at the two while she slowly became a sobbing mess, "So please-"

"Please go back." Her knees gave up and the woman fell in front of the tubes, kneeling in front of Isabella and Cecilia.

"I'll pay for the price of your hatred when you two wake up." She whispered. Pathetically tried to smile in between the tears. "You two always said that you were happy by marrying them."

"But I want to be happy too."