As the low voice resounded in his ears, Cain turned his head. Near the bed where the silver-haired woman rested, a man in his mid-thirties stood imposingly. His sharp blue eyes scrutinize him.
He wore a formal white suit, a loosened red tie, and an open button. Even his short platinum blonde hair was a mess, giving him a disheveled appearance. The man also had a rough breath and sweat streaming down his temple.
Solid proof of the man was also received in the news recently, just like Luna, and he rushed toward home.
'Is he Luna's father?'
Cain gulped, clenching his fists. The boy's stiff lips were intended to open his mouth, but shifted his attention to the side as he watched a long silver hair flutter elegantly and gently settled herself near the bed, crouching down to match the woman's level.
"M-Mother?"
With the word from her daughter, the woman in the bed flinched. Her closed eyes shook before they fluttered open. The woman with black eyes stared ahead, feeling empty. Her cracked lips trembled, struggling to squeeze a word that got stuck in her throat.
"Lu, na?"
Hearing the woman's weak voice reverberate across the spacious bedroom, Luna, the man, and Albert closed the distance and stood beside the bed, gazing at her, their eyes narrowed with worry.
Cain stood where he was, alone and forgotten. Beside him, the maid wiped away the accumulated tears in her eyes as she tried to hold back a sob.
"...Selena, good morning."
The head of the house clenched his teeth hard before uttering his wife's name. His voice was gentle, different from the one he shot at Cain. Yet it couldn't mask the sorrow in his eyes.
On the other side, Alberts took the woman's left wrist. He pressed his index fingers against her wrist, trying to check her pulse.
Albert's black pupils dilated, his brows furrowed. The darkness in his eyes oozed out, carrying an ominous sign that shrouded the entire room in gloom. For a brief moment, the man and Luna peeked at Albert, but bit their lips as they noticed the grim situation.
"Aakh, cough!"
The woman's hoarse voice caught everyone's attention as she was about to say something, but the sickness was preventing her.
"Mother, you should rest!"
"..."
Luna abruptly stood and sat next to her mother's bed. Her blue eyes gazed at her mother's calm expression, even though crimson cracks already swallowed half of her face.
The woman's thin lips parted, her black eyes gazed at her darling daughter with affection. Her right palm twitched and slowly reached out to the girl's cheek.
Noticing that, Luna took her mother's palm and rested it on her cheek. She held her breath the moment a chilling coldness seeped through her skin.
The girl's blue eyes trembled, and so did her hand. Glittering tears started to accumulate, but she shook her head sideways as if refusing to accept the reality before her.
"...Lu, na, I'm sorry I couldn't protect our promise."
Selena's voice was quiet, almost inaudible for everyone to hear. But thanks to the stillness, the words reach everyone's ears.
"N-No, mother, what are you talking about? You'll be cured and then we can go out together, there's a lot of things I want to tell you and friends I want to introduce..."
Luna's word trailed off at the end, noticing a single streak of tears streaming down her mother's cheek. The girl stiffened, and her mind went blank for a few seconds.
She didn't know why, but her mother's atmosphere rang a sickening alarm in her heart. It brought a whisper of emptiness that gnawed at her core.
Selena's black eyes shifted upwards, watching her husband's appearance. She sighed.
"...Wear your outfit properly!"
The man didn't say anything else; he buttoned his suit and tightened the red tie circling his collar. But, instead of comfort, he felt strangled to death as he heard Selena's resigned voice.
After watching her husband's conduct, the woman lifted the corner of her lips and shifted her attention to the man on her left.
"...Big brother, I think it's time.'
The woman paused, trying to catch her breath. She exhaled and said the next word with conviction.
"Take me to the isolation room."
When the words left her cracked lips, the atmosphere froze; no, it was as if time itself stopped. Everyone in the room knows the meaning behind those words.
It's been too long. Selena was fighting the virus in her body; too long she was hidden from the public, and too long she made her family bear the burden.
Selena was tired of listening to her daughter's laugh that hid a bitter sadness every time she came to visit. Then, her husband's bravado, who always tends to act casual before her, was crushed by loneliness. And her other son, who was tormented by guilt.
All of their worry turned into a knife that shredded the woman's consciousness. That was why Selena wanted to sever the ties for good and let everyone around her accept the outcome of her death.
Because of that, Selena wanted to isolate herself in one of the facilities that housed people who had been corrupted by the virus and awaited their death in silence.
She closed her eyes, a fragment of memories she spent in this place with her loved ones replayed in a flash. The time when she held her partner's hand in a sacred vow, scolding her first child born for making a mess in the garden, and the birth of Luna completed her life's chapter.
'It's okay, I'm sure they could move on and grow to become a strong family ...even without me.'
Selena opened her eyes and gazed at her brother, only to find her eyes widen as she witnessed that her brother's gaze was somewhere else.
"...Big brother?"
"I see now why you are so hung up with the research for the cure, so this is the reason."
A young man's voice entered her ears. Selena saw a boy with ashen hair standing beside her brother; his black eyes penetrated deep into her soul.
'W-Who are you?'
Selena's voice caught in her throat as she watched the boy's dark pupil, like a night sky, soothe her raging impulse.
Cain narrowed his eyes, watching as the virus symptoms spread through all of the woman's body. He looked at the woman's hands; the surface of her skin was cracked open by crimson veins.
A faint red glow spread around her body, pulsating as if alive. The boy couldn't stop his nose from twitching because the reek of rotting flesh penetrated deep into his consciousness.
'Is her condition far more worsened from the picture?'
Not only the crimson crack, but he saw the woman's pale fingertips tainted by a faint blue, a sign of her flesh starting to decay.
"Ah, that's why. Can you consider it?"
Albert's word was soft, barely a whisper that sent chills down Cain's spine as he watched the man's slouched posture. Cain closed his mouth; his conversation with Alberts drew everyone's attention to him.
The grey-haired boy glanced at the woman's face, who was staring at him. Deep within her black eyes, there was a firm resolve that struck a chord in his heart.
However, it was not a strong will to live, but a will to die and leave everything behind.
Cain unknowingly clenched his fists, the nails dug deeper into his palm skin. He turned sideways and accidentally met Luna's gaze. The girl's expression was dampened with tears.
'A mother, huh?'
His brows twitched as he recalled the earlier event where the system suddenly showed a few fragments of his deceased mother. There was no way this series of events could be assumed as a mere coincidence; the timing was too perfect.
The boy clicked his tongue, and before everyone's presence, he took the woman's hand. His expression twisted into a sinister grin.
'Okay, I don't know who you are, but I will let you do as you wish, system.'
"Absorb!"
A black light began to envelop the room as Cain started to absorb the virus inside the woman's body.