"ɴɪɢʜᴛᴍᴀʀᴇs ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ sᴛᴏᴘ.

ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴛ's sᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇs ᴀ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ.
ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ɪs ᴀ ᴅɪᴀᴍᴏɴᴅ.
ʜɪs ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ."

I stayed right outside the house, watching the boy adapt to the changes. Taehong was so out of place in that quaint house, that I couldn't help but let a smile break out on my lips. He was the only one who had still been shivering like a newborn kitten.

I could feel the heat he had been emitting. The tremendous heat. For many years, heat was thought to be synonymous with the desire to live. It still is. And it's a fact too. And it was heartening to know that Taehyung was willing to live, despite all circumstances. Even if it meant doing it without his mother.

Moving on...

There was a certain kind of relief in knowing how fast Taehong was adapting to the changing conditions. His eyes were glossy, a watery sheen coated them. He was still processing the departure of his mother. Departure from the human world that could be seen by them, at least.

"Your room will be this one," Fores said, as she opened a door.

A woody scent engulfed him. The scent had been so familiar, yet so foreign. Little did he know that the scent that had been tickling his senses was coming from, none other than, the soul attached to him. It would seem quite cliché to say that there are characteristic smells for the souls too. But that was just how things are. 

Trust me, I don't set the rules. I just... Happen to be in charge of making sure that people, or things rather, abide by those so-called rules.

"My room is right opposite to yours," she continued, as she saw Taehong hesitating to take a step inside. "Don't worry. I was scared the first time too."

"First time?"

In a very long time, he had finally opened his mouth. His voice was shaky, a little feeble yet loud enough for Fores. His surprised tone made her lips break out into the slightest of smiles.

"I was like you too," she said, walking into the room. "Mom and dad... I mean, the people who brought you here. Taylor and Alaric? They found me all alone, and brought me here."

Taehong still wasn't sure of what to believe. He'd just been struck with another piece of information that he didn't really know how to process. And it was quite clear how stumped he was. Considering how much a kid of his age could stomach, I was surprised he hadn't already gone insane.

He just looked at Fores with wide eyes. "I don't understand."

It almost seemed as though he was trying his level best to discern what she had been implying, but it was to no avail. His head tilted on its own accord, as she led him in and made him sit down right next to her.

"I came here like you, too. Tae," she paused, carefully pronouncing his name as though it were the most fragile thing ever.

To be frank, he didn't know what to think. He'd been in that house, just because they'd found him lying on the glacial snow. He'd have frozen to death, otherwise. And to think that Fores hadn't been one of them was just... Uncanny.

She let a small smile creep across her lips as she said, "Let's leave that for later. Right now, you need to sleep."

Even though she was just a few years older than him, it almost seemed as though she'd had a lifetime of experience in handling kids. Taehong felt at ease with her. The feeling was the exact opposite of what he'd felt as he had passed out on the snow.

He felt her hands moving like the tongs of a machine as she helped tuck him into the bed. Fores had been ever so considerate as she flashed a soft smile and switched off the lights before she left the room.

----------

He felt it. Taehong felt it. The slow drip of wetness down his temples. Though his eyes were closed, the wetness was dripping down faster than it should have. "Mom..." he mumbled.

His mind had been tucked away in the farthest of places; places that would exist only in his imagination. But realizing that was a pain. It was agony to know that she had really just left. But he knew dead didn't mean gone. So, he was stuck. With her in his mind.

"Mom," he mumbled yet again.

Visions of those familiar brown eyes that he hadn't inherited from her danced across his mind. It zoomed out, giving the full perspective of her face. She had been smiling, and it was something that didn't really happen much. Seeing her elated, made him happy too.

A smile had finally crept up his lips. All good things didn't last, though.

It was only a fraction of a second, before small whimpers had left his mouth. His mother's face had lost its shine, had become pallid. She collapsed right in front of him as the smile on her lips faded.

Just as her limp, heavy body hit the ground, the entire backdrop changed. The world around him spun about and he wasn't in the same place anymore. He was somewhere familiar; recognizable. But it had been so long since he'd visited that place. Since he'd run away with his mother.

His father's home. His ancestral house. The place that was supposed to be the definition of bliss. The place that he dreaded the most.

He landed right where his grandmother had been knitting; right behind the couch in front of the fireplace. It sure was warm and cozy, but nothing about the people was the same.

Taehong found himself meandering through the elegant furniture with his hand clutching a piece of paper. Even with the dread that had been oozing through his mind, a big, wide grin had been plastered on his face. He couldn't control his reactions.

He wasn't his present self. He had been reliving that exact moment, when he and his mother had first been out on the streets. Without any place to turn to. He had been tucked away.

But, the vision wasn't new. Each dream, or nightmare rather, would be more embellished than the previous. He had had such recurring nightmares for quite some time. The only added factor was that, at least in the current one he got to see his mother.

Despite not wanting to say anything, he found himself uttering, "Grandma!"

She didn't answer him. Her eyes had still been trained on the woolen garment she'd been knitting. So Taehong thought, she hadn't heard him and went ahead with disrupting her movements. Like any kid, really. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Not realizing how displeased his grandmother had been due to his sudden interruption, he continued. "I drew our family. See!"

He thrust the drawings in front of her vision, just as an excited child would do. An ounce of care would suffice. But the haggard, old woman did not have any, to begin with.

"Taehong!" she exclaimed, slapping his hand away. "You would've hit me in the eye, boy! Go show it to your mom."

He shouldn't have been affected by it, but he was. His grandmother had always been the same way. Always so hostile. Ever so aggravated. There wasn't a moment that he'd seen her smile.

"B-But," he started, his childhood innocence evident in the turbulence of his emotions. "I... I jus-just," he cried.

----------

A loud yelp. The door was rushed open. Green eyes peering straight at the sweaty young boy who'd been having a nightmare.

"Taehong?" he heard, as his eyelids fluttered open.

His body flinched as he gathered himself in a small ball, his eyes moist with the promise of tears. The tears didn't hesitate to cascade down. I watched him intently, as he bawled his eyes out.

"I w-want my mo-mom," he stuttered, the back of his hand comping up to wipe his runny nose.

His breaths stuttered and the blocked nose made it hard for him to breathe. Right then, through the door, Alaric and Taylor had made their appearance. As expected, they all huddled in a group, each of them whispering words of consolation.

"Taehong... It's okay. We're all here," Taylor whispered as she rocked him in her arms.

It came as a surprise, a booming astonishment, to see that none of them there were any tinge... Evil? No. Not evil. Selfish. Yes, that's the right word. They weren't helping him for their own good. Of course not. What would they get from helping an orphan boy, after all?

That, however, did not mean that he stopped crying. The poor boy was still crying. His life almost leaving him with every laboring breath that he took. It was pitying. And not to mention the quivering soul that had been attached to him.

His mother wanted to wipe his tears away with her own hands. She longed for it. She longed to touch him, one last time. The more that Taehong cried, the harder the soul quivered. The more labored his breaths became, the brighter became the soul. It was almost entertaining.

After a while though, he'd fallen asleep in their arms. His mother's trembles had ceased, making her a little calmer than before. He'd cried himself to sleep and she wasn't anywhere near accepting the fact that she couldn't go back to the land of the living.

"If I let you go back, I'll have to take your son with me," I shrugged, and addressed his mother, as I went into the room. All the others had left the room, then.

She shivered yet again, this time motioning as though she were shaking her head. Of course, simple common sense would tell you the answer. No mother would want her child to die. And I was completely okay with reaping her soul, even if it meant it'd take a while.

----------

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."

- Emily Dickinson

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