[Yes.]
"Goo-"
[But before we do, Master Alex. We'd like to ask you something, are you willing to answer or shall we get straight to the final phase.]
Alex looked at the orbs. Willow. Pyxlus and Obsidia... these orbs, spheres or whatever they were. They were alien. Indifferent to him. Minor to him in both and spirit. So why?
Why would he answer their question?
"Yah, sure."
[...Okay. Master Alex.]
Why?
Well, in all rights and circumstances that he had to consider. Remember. Think through. Revise. Acknowledge and restructure. All so that he would find an excuse to say, no.
But...
'Ahhh, dammit...'
His memories betrayed him.
'Why now...?'
His accepted and twisted as he tried to refuse.
But what was there to refuse?
It was simple... simple enough that anyone else with the right mind would understand why he felt so. What he had tried and was still trying to refuse.
Was it a memory?Yes and no. Was it pleasant? No and painfully so, but... this memory was of something... he felt not so long ago. But how long?
The crossed his as he wonder. How did those look like when I had gone back just now?
He thought as he tried to etch out the images of his family and friends in that moment, but...
'Ahhhh.'
All he could remember. Was the hazy movement if people who wore casual clothes blizting around. Or was it towards him?
Ahhhh.
He just couldn't remember.
But... the memory that made him feel this way. And his heart beat. His skin crawl. His bodily hairs rise. His breathes tingle and shake. His mind ache. His stomach churn. His vision blur, but... with what?
Tears.
That almost fell from his eyes. And revealed a heavy sadness and burden he still wanted to carry alone.
This...
Was the memory of warmth.
The warmth that rested on him. On his body. That stopped the shivering althought it was warm. That rested his restless mind. Filled with endless thoughts. That stop his tired and seemingly sunken eyes from closing... for good.
This warmth saved him. From the darkness. From the loneliness. And especially... from the madness.
All that he was taking in and processing at a rate that... then again any person with a similar mind as him... probably wouldn't survive.
But then, if so, what kept him alive? What made him fight? The answer is he didn't know. He didn't know who to call to? Who rest on? Who to look for, but...
He remembered that there was a Lord. And that he was once taught that this Lord created all things. All people. All life. The universe. And that he was an author. Of what?
Of everything. And that in all the plans that he had for the billions of lives, animals, planets, the universe, the aur, the ground, space, and everything in between.
Hahaha.
It was actually quite funny at a certain moment. When he realized that amongst all the plans that that Lord, his Lord, had written down. He remembered that...
His Lord had a plan for him to. And in order go with plan... he to trust in the process and go on. So that he would receive the better end of the stick as well.
But he faltered. Not his mind only. Not his heart only. Not his body only. Not even his soul fell alone. No.
His entirety faltered. Fell. Misfire. Strayed. And went off the right path as it fail the test that he was given. As he gradually fell apart. Bit by bit by bit. From bits to pieces and from pieces to chunck and from chuncks to his entire being falling apart until nothing was left.
But when fell. He fell not to give up. But to pick up the bits and pieces and chucks that he could find of himself, but...
There was one piece. One big piece that had really... got away.
And so he fell. And rested. Tired of running. And yet his body was energised. Tired of breathing. And yet his lungs breathed steadily. Tired of feeling feeling. And yet his body was as normal as the average humans was.
So why?
You may ask. Did he not look for the pieces. He wanted to intact. He was thinking of multiple ways to find what he had lost. And just when his thoughts had faltered again.
He closed his eyes and breathed. Slowly. Fearfully. And with a calm acceptance.
And just when his was about to lose it all.
In that instant.
He felt. Warm. Complete. Motivated. Energetised. Whole and... safe. Safer than anywhere safe he'd ever been. Which was home, school and maybe the few malls he'd agreed to go to for the sake of the food.
And when he opened his eyes and saw Willow... what he named her. Or it? Did it have a true name?
No. It couldn't. If it did why would it request him to 'name' it? He really didn't care why.
Because fir all he knew... it was a somewhat sort of... 'miracle' as one might describe it.
And so... he decided. No, he'll that he had repay them back. By doing what? By answering their questions. And doing as they told him to do. For he was great full to them.
For they were his... little miracle or miracles?
Hahaha.
So he looked up at the orbs and said, "Well, go on. We need to get on with this final phase thingy, right?"
[Yes.]
"So... go ahead. But if you want to... you can take your time."
He said. His voice softer than the wind he longed to feel. And more stern than his own will.
[When you said you felt absorbed, what did you actually feel after that and what did you experience?]
"Hmmm."
Alex hummed with a puzzled frown at the corner of his right lip.
His then flashed open as the flashes of images from before resurface in his mind.
"I can remember... a... eyes- eyes they were blue. Ummm, a long... yellow... or gold... uh, I cant imagine it clearly enough. Damn. Uh... a smile..."
He said as his face contorted with struggle, "And... and..."
[...]
"Uh huh! Something about... a round two."
[....] [....] [....]
The orbs remained silent. Like a man who'd lost everything and had nothing to say about it. Like a woman who just lost her parents. Like a person lost in thought as if the unimaginable was just mentioned to them.
[It seems... that there will have to be... some extra adjusts to be made.]
"..."
Instead of questioning this statement. He remained silent as well. Not like someone who knew what was being talked about. But as someone who knew one thing...
And that there was no time to waste.
None that he didn't have in particular. But time he simply couldn't waste because where one side of him knew that was something greater ahead of him... the other just really wanted all this to be over.
So he wanted to 'cut' all the extra time needed for all this and shorten it and bring closer his return to his family.
After all... he was a 'man' with a home to return to. Was he not?
[Don't y'all want a spoiler chapter for the ending of the first arc? Then go and please the author's note. Thank you for reading!]