OVERLOOKED ㅤkotlc

027. Seraph

ROSALEEN ELLIS.
TOKYO . JAPAN
NOV 16 . 3:51 AM

It smells really bad.

I can see a neon city in the distance, underneath a blanket of dull stars, and suburbs near the hill we're on. In the dark, I can barely see the parking lot at the base of the hill. (There's only one car, and it's white. It's clean, but I think the license plate number starts with a 3, so it's pretty old.)

If it's night here, it must be in a different timezone than Siennalair. I tick off some time zones in my head, reminding myself to tell Dex later.

And then, as I'm about to follow Alvar up the hill, I get hit by very, very strong emotions.

I can't even tell where they're coming from—or if anyone's touching me—

"Hey." I feel a hand on my shoulder and instinctively recoil, turning. It's just Seraph. "Are you okay?" she asks.

Trix and Alvar had gone ahead, on a path that goes up the hill we're on.

I feel numb, not sure which emotion is mine.

"I'm fine," I say, as if in a fever dream.

"Really?" She studies me closer. "You look a little pale."

"Oh. Sorry." This is... confusing. I can feel joy, and pain, and sorrow, and something nauseating, and grief, and—I don't even know what the other half is.

Seraph pauses, glancing over our surroundings. "Ah," she says, gesturing at a building nearby. "That's a hospital. And you're an Empath, correct?"

Oh. "Um—yeah." That makes sense. Humans' feelings are amplified.

Seraph frowns—at least, I think she does—and reaches over, brushing her thumb across my cheek. "You're crying," she says.

I am?

I gesture towards the hospital. "It's probably because of..." A pang of pain passes through me, and I suck in a breath, the world spinning.

Emptiness fills me for a second, and then all the other emotions hit me harder.

Emptiness... isn't that... 

Seraph sighs and gently takes my forearm, quietly guiding me up the hill. The farther we go, the more I can feel myself, but I'm still crying.

Eventually, she stops, looking over the edge of the path, letting me cry for a little bit. She doesn't say anything, but it doesn't feel like she's judging me.

"Are you okay?" Seraph says after a moment.

No. I'm pretty sure I just felt a human die.

I don't meet her gaze. "I'm sorry. There was... the hospital..." I trail off. That human probably had a family: parents, a significant other, maybe, or kids. And they just died.

Seraph watches me for a moment, then shakes her head, looking away. 

"Don't be sorry." She takes a flask of Youth from her satchel, holding it out to me. "Do you wanna continue? We can stay here for a bit if you still need some time."

I take the flask, thankfully drinking some water, and hand it back to her. "We can... um, we can keep going," I say.

"That's good," she says, putting the flask away. "But let me know if you need to take a break or anything, okay?"

I nod, and we continue up the path.

And then, at some point, she blurts out, "Do I know you from somewhere?"