"ᴀғᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴍɪɴᴜs ᴏɴᴇ ɢᴀᴠᴇ ᴏɴᴇ-ᴀɴᴅ-ʜᴀʟғ, ɪ ғɪɴᴀʟʟʏ ʟᴇᴀʀɴᴇᴅ ᴍᴀᴛʜ ᴡᴀs ᴡʀᴏɴɢ. ᴡɪʟʟ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ-ᴀɴᴅ-ᴀ-ʜᴀʟғ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴅɪᴍɪɴɪsʜ ᴛᴏ ᴏɴᴇ?"*

The cocoa-colored hue never left my sight as I followed it, until it came to an abrupt halt. I could see the boy's eyes, the crimson bleeding in close enough to mix with his eyeballs. The affliction due to the mishaps taking a toll on his feeble mind. The aura that surrounded him had faded slightly. Just a tad bit.

For me to be able to get ahold of it, it would have to be completely detached. Or I could seriously hamper the boy's life and reap the soul. Which I'm not really a fan of. Taking in unaccounted souls would only leave me guilty of having reaped them far too soon. Now that the mother had given in, instead of the child, the child had to be safe.

Only after the boy collapsed onto the floor, unable to move, did I realize where we had been. As his eyes rolled to the back of his skull, his legs gave way. A tiny panic caused me to move closer to him, his mother's soul quivering in its outline. Almost as though she had been screaming for help. Forsooth, it had been her calling me, to bring him back.

"Yes," I whispered, as though I were conversing with the soul. "I know that he needs help. He's fainted, and you need to let go a little. Give him some room to breathe, love."

The tremors in the outline of the aura subsided a little at the moment I provided that reassurance. I needed to direct someone to his limp body... After all, I couldn't be of any humane help, at the least. Looking about, I noticed hardly any people who passed by the deserted lane. "Looking for someone will be harder than I thought," I mumbled to myself.

Nevertheless, I wandered a little trying to find someone suitable to help the young boy. I wasn't sure why I had been so determined to help the child. Selfish, some might call it. At that point, I seemed to be the one harbouring those unsettling emotions of nervousness and fear, that usually crippled the mortal coils. But, looking back, I realize that was one of the smartest moves I'd ever made.

It was then that a couple, holding hands, caught my eye. Despite the freezing weather, their bodies seemed to radiate so much heat. It just meant that my second meeting with them would take a little longer... At least, that's what I had gathered from years of experience. Sometimes, experience is a better teacher than anything a textbook can teach you.*

The black wisps of smoke-like ends of my body rose up, travelling to the two of them. The snow on the ground was hardly any match for how much heat the black smokes were radiating; almost melting the snow in the process. Warmth against the icy cold.

It was that heat - a trap - that the couple had fallen into. They followed the source of heat like puppets that I controlled on a string. This was against my principles - helping a meagre human child just because he looked too hurt and out of the place. But there had been no morality in me back then. Actually, morality only stemmed in me much later. Centuries old, I had been. But I was still young. Not in layman terms, of course. Young at heart? No, not that either.

All I had to do was wave the invisible black wisps in the direction of the boy, and the woman was immediately on her knees trying to get a good look at him. The glow around him diminished little more before brightening twice as much. Maybe the mother had gained some hope and that had been her way of showing some yearning? I couldn't be too sure.

"It's a boy," she whispered, looking at her husband.

"Oh," he responded, falling to his knees next to his wife. "What's he doing in this part of town? It's almost suspicious." His eyes squinted in scepticism, taking the boy's presence with a grain of salt.

When the woman's hand touched the boy; her lips parted open as she realized how quickly the heat had dissipated from his frame. "He's too cold. He's too cold," she repeated faintly and frantically. "Alaric..."

She had been shaken up by his impliable frame, her eyes darting towards every known direction; looking for clues on what she could do to elevate the situation. Feeling nervous or anxious was an invitation to check in with oneself, to have that moment of tuning into their emotions and finding the best way forwards. As one should.

"Let's take him home. Shh," he whispered in response, as he carried the boy in his arms and tried to return to where they had come from.

They were in such a haste to have the boy in a warm place. Their eyes always snapped to places around them, a certain sort of nervousness in their gaze. Had anybody caught them with a boy that wasn't theirs, they were sure to be in trouble. Even if they were just trying to help. Help was a foreign term. People associated more with assistance, viewing a certain benefit that they could reap.

That's how amazing the humanity had evolved, you know. Starting from barter system to change into selfish currencies. And now, people even hesitated to help others. The fear that had been instilled as a cause of Nova would never let them free themselves from its shackles.

Of course, it was minacious, putting life on the line for a mere boy they didn't even know. But I'd sworn to keep them off major harm until the boy was safe. That was the least I could've done for having reeled them into my cavern of hegemony.

It wasn't a time where people just mindlessly helped each other. All that stopped long back, I'm afraid. Not long after the Second World War, I presume. I don't exactly keep count, you see. Humans just coin weird names to everything disastrous and then move on like none of it were the children of their imagination. Commendable performances!

Now, I know it would have been inhumane of me not to follow the boy until I knew he was in capable hands. Not that I allowed the human notion of sympathy dictate my views... It was just that innate urge to see him stable. I was aware that eliciting such emotions was not in line with my ideals. But there was nothing I could do about it. The inaudible scream emanating from the glow around him had been far too compelling to ignore.

I remained outside the door of the house that they brought him into. It wasn't a shabby place. Yet, I wouldn't say it was the best choice either. The paint had been chipped off the walls. It was the kind of place that didn't look fantastic at first, but you learned to adore as time passed. It would feel like home.

Home was a sense of serenity in the soul and, with that, you could feel at home anywhere. The rest was your comfort, your familiarity... and whilst changes in these things could present challenges... you'd be alright. When you add real soul to a house it becomes a home.

"Fores? Honey?" I heard Alaric call out.

The next thing that caught my eyes were the pair of orbs that had a certain glow to it. A glow that I was far too familiar with to not recognize. It had a déjà vu feeling as I peered into those dark green orbs that the girl possessed. Their daughter, I mean.

"Who's this, dad?" she asked, kneeling on the floor and examining the unconscious boy. Her eyes carried the keen interest that I'd seen in very few eyes, off late.

It was the way that she looked at him that finally made me realize where I'd seen her before. That's right, I had seen her before. But she had been a frail, old woman with her hair so white it seemed to spun out of silver. She had gracefully accepted my embrace, smiling like she had been waiting for no other.

"We found him unconscious in an alley," her mother explained. "Can you bring me some warm water, Fores?"

Fores walked away without saying anything as she observed her mother rubbing her hands across the boy's. Her efforts were evidently not in vain, as the boy's breathing had become heavier. He was willing to pull his body back from the state of oblivion.

A cough. Then another. And then a series of coughs, and he was back. It was only then that I realized I had been far too worried to even have left out a breath. I mean, of course, I don't exactly breathe... But you know what I mean, don't you?

Such emotions weren't new to me. No. There had been times where I had been genuinely scared for the whole of humanity. But what surprised me was how much I seemed to care about a mere boy. Was it due to the enigmatic way his mother pushed me off guard? Maybe. Was it because of that sheer will to survive that I knew he possessed? Most probably.

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The boy had been hurdled up in a blanket, his body placed close to the fire place. He had been shivering heavily by the time he had awoken. The warm water he'd chugged down did not pose as much help, and the only thing he wanted was the gelid feeling to stop.

The hair on his arms had stood up straight, his breathing leaving him heavy, and inducing in him the strength to curl up tighter. The cold became invisible weights tied to limbs that would rather fly, rather dance. His inner thermostat had been set by some skin-flint miser, and all he was allowed only a few degrees below real comfort.

"What's your name?" the woman asked, cautiously approaching the boy. "I'm Taylor. He's my husband, Alaric and she's our daughter, Fores." Her palms had been turned upward, the primal desire in her to prove that she had come in peace.

Taylor's eyes were paler than the boy's, still a shade of blue. Not so much in contrast with her skin, but very much in contrast with the fiery red hair that flowed down to her back.

Her strands of hair had been slightly matted at the end, like she hadn't washed them for days in a row. A lion had messy hair, so did a wild horse... None of which remained on Earth, sadly.

The girl, Fores, had her eyes evidently trained on him, and the man seemed to be quite indifferent about his entire reaction. The woman, however, was prudent. She approached him as though he were a feral animal that they'd brought in to shelter.

The anxiety in the boy's mind bled through the noiseless atmosphere, as he let his eyes roam around for a bit.

What else could we possibly expect? The poor lad had just lost his mother. Or so he thought. He'd fallen unconscious atop a clump of snow, only to have opened his eyes in an unknown house.

"I-I..."

Anyone in their right sense of mind could understand the hostility he was showing, though it hadn't been severe. It was unfortunate for him to have undergone such a heartbreaking event. He was far too shaken up to even cry about his mother's death.

"You don't have to be scared. It's okay." It was Alaric who had spoken that time. Though his mannerisms didn't show it, his brown orbs had a certain type of softness with regard to the care he was willing to exhibit.

"Taehong. Wan Taehong."

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"Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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*If you hadn't understood the meaning of those lines, please feel free to check the THESAURUS chapter. There's a detailed explanation on why I chose those words to depict what I wanted to.