The Cruel Side of Hearts [COMPLETED]

Chapter 7: Crystalline Soul

     I will begin this chapter with a distant memory- biology. Namely plant cells. I remember once being told that vegetables get all squishy when their cell walls rupture during defrosting. And this is also why you cant really freeze bodies. 

     On that happy note hi again. If you're here I'm surprised you still want to listen to these ramblings but anyway....This chapter shall be chaotic.

     You know this feeling when you fall on ice and you form this nice bruise, and the longer you lay there the weirder it feels? Yeah that's a common thing that used to happen in Omen.

Before I left,  the slightly chilly climate has been frosting over, though the actual air kept getting warmer. Which is strange. Omen's weather reflects the  state of It. Speaking of It, It is slightly going dormant which is strangely awkward. Without it's looming presence, and Ethel, Omen felt kind of...empty.

Ever since I left it , Omen has been appearing to me less and less. Little sparks of it crowd my memories but where I felt like I was supposed to feel relief, I simply felt abandoned. My task of finding myself. While before the echo was painful it just feels numb right now. Ethel is gone. It feels like the only thought my mind was consuming myself with is gone.  

Wrong. It feels all wrong, going to searing hot to frozen over. This is about a week after I left Omen with Mira, on my way to...something. I live with her in her apartment in Luces, currently focusing my mind on rewriting and annotating the book that we borrowed from the library.

"The history of the Red sisters" That's what the book was entitled. The cover was dark red, unsurprisingly, with the silhouette of two girls etched in gold leaf, along with some other fancy decorations all around.

This book was part of a series of historical mages and sorcerers that encompass different types of human emotions. The red twins, as they also were commonly referred to as symbolised two similar and common ones: Rage and Lust.

The best way I could describe them is like, a vampire, who drains you of one thing and replaces it with other. They come creeping in the shadows of your mind, and pounce as soon as the moment allows for it. It seems to me that Mira thinks that they have visited me or Ethel as well. I shut the book closed as soon as I think of this, feeling It slowly returning. Barely a trace right now, but it hasn't left, that was too much to hope for.

I take a few breaths to calm myself down.

"You are not It, you can control It, you will not allow It to hurt anyone. You are not It, you can control It, you will not allow It to hurt anyone. You are not It, you can control It, you will not allow It to hurt anyone." I repeat to myself as I feel my heartbeat return to a semi-calm pace. 

I sigh, and open the book on a random page, hoping to find something that is similar to It.

" The red sisters are a metaphor of the emotions that circulate in the human mind after a series of events that may have left them confused, disoriented, guilty, and unable to leave the situation from which these emotions have derived from. The twins work with both sides of the card, one allowing the persons in the situation to provoke anger, the other making the person addicted to the aftermath. During the times the emotions are strong, the red sisters may hinder in the minds of the people, leaving them unable to understand the situation in full clarity. Such symptoms include numbness after an overflowing amount of rage, the desire for violence while simultaneously seeking pleasure from the host and the difficulty of differentiating between right and wrong."

I glance at Mira, who is busy in the other room. She doesn't seem to notice me. How did she feel all of this and understand all of this about me through one simple encounter? She did mention me being "one of the infected", and it would clearly explain her disdain for love and emotions altogether if in this city it was considered a near-terminal illness.

This could explain also why Ethel seemed to loved to wear flowing silk dresses- an Homage to the ones she allied herself with. But...would It be possible that she was an unwilling participant as well?

I shake my head, scolding myself for such thought. Ethel could have stopped it at any moment. She could have left, she could have been neutral. She could have simply been honest after I apologised! No need to drag it on. And now that I've banished her, she still continues to live in my mind through jumbles memories and the everlasting presence of It.

"Hogan?" 

I look up to see Mira standing in front of me, her long white hair contrasting with her dark skin, complementing her silver eyes beautifully.

"Yes?" I ask

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I..um...yes and no..?" I respond, not sure how to formulate my words properly "I will need to read some more."

"Well get ready" she replied " And get your dog ready too"

"where are we going?"

"Just about. Not sure yet. Simply get ready" 

She seemed to be annoyed with me. I did'nt have much to get ready with, so I simply went and washed my face In the bathroom sink, and stood by the door with Roger.

Mira followed shortly, wearing yet another another silver dress, which reminded me greatly of the flapper dresses from the 1920's. 

We left the premises. Mira summoned her giant moth, and soon enough we were yet again soaring above the city of Luces.