EN | An encounter she will never forget | ᴄʜɪʟᴜᴍɪ

33 - The cold that reveals the secrets

SUBTITLE: The cold will kill the pinkie that once betrayed your friend...

Childe had fallen asleep profoundly happy next to the one he was madly in love with. The day had been complicated at the moment of the cake, but he didn't regret this little surprise he had organized. Throughout the afternoon, Lumine had taken to the game, trying with all her strength and will to have fun and to laugh while hiding her sadness. He knew it was hard for her, but she was really making efforts to stop being that pessimistic. Moreover, Childe still had an entire day before his meeting with the Tsaritsa, which he was determined to benefit from the joy, having this young woman with blonde hair in the company of his own family, was giving him. He normally didn't have anything to worry about.

However, he was woken up really early in the morning by a feeling of immense loss and void next to him. At first, he tried to get back to sleep again, thinking he had had a nightmare. But, as the tic and tac of the alarm clock hand which was on the bedside table were becoming even more deafening as time went by, Childe knew something was wrong without even knowing why he had this strange impression.

In a mechanical gesture with which he had planned to calm himself by playing affectionately with Lumine's hair, he stretched his arm to reach for her, but he only found the cold and void.

The person next to whom he had fallen asleep wasn't there anymore.

The young man instantly straightened up, his thoughts swirling in his mind. Maybe she went to the toilet? Or maybe she went downstairs to drink or even eat something? Childe immediately stood on his feet to check these two hypotheses, but he couldn't find Lumine. Everything he was seeing was a house in which only darkness and silence were reigning. Nobody was awake, everything was still as it was compared to the day before: no glass was out, the boots were still resting anarchically on the entrance floor, the coats were still hanging in the entrance closet.

Stopping an instant to think of all the possibilities, the sound of a door opening was heard. It was Tonia who seemed to have been awakened either by the light or by the noise her brother was making.

"Ajax, what are you doing?" she asked while yawning.

"Did you see or hear Lumine leave? When I woke up, she was already gone."

"Leave? In the middle of the night? Where to go? That's impossible," she affirmed.

"That's what I was also thinking, but..."

Childe's gaze stopped again in the entrance, and more specifically on the door latch.

"Tonia, you're the one who entered the house at last yesterday, right?"

"Yes, why?"

"Did you lock the door behind you?"

"Yes. Anthon even made a comment to me because I was taking too much time to check if the door was correctly locked."

This answer gave Childe a cold sweat. In a couple of steps, he reached for the door, then pressed his hand on the handle. It was unlocked. He had noticed based on the position the key in the keyhole was, but didn't want to believe it was the case, because if it was true, then it meant his lover was alone, in the cold and the dark, without her boots, her coat, and even without her usual outfit which was still resting on the chair in Childe's room. Either she left of her own free will which seemed unlikely, or someone had entered the house, and at this moment, it was the most probable hypothesis.

Without further ado, he took his Vision, wore on his boots and his coat and threw himself in the freezing cold.

« Tell the others that Lumine is missing and I went to search for her ! » had he just the time to shout to his sister before the door shut behind him.