Letters [KTH FF] [SOF Prequel 0.1] ✔

Chapter 26

For two whole days, Aria had been so heartbroken, that she could only cry through the pain of her grandfather's betrayal.

The casual way he had written the confession still drove home the fact that he had still remained illiterate on the magnitude of crime he had committed. He had killed his family. In cold blood, for the love of a girl who was never his. His actions causing her to die in the end as well, no matter how indirect it was.

He had taken four lives.

Processing such a fact in her life felt surreal to her. Never had she believed herself to be a part of such a web of deceit.

So-ra had mourned with her, keeping the matter quiet.

It had taken two days for her and So-ra to gather enough courage, to steel themselves against the onslaught of emotion they would feel to unlock the basement after 59 years.

Both had dismissed the staff that night as the went back to the cellar, counting the bricks. Aria had prayed it all to be a joke, an elaborate joke by her grandfather, but when the wall had made a loud rumbling sound and had slid open to reveal an iron door, Aria had started crying again.

It was all real.

This was the door, behind which Taehyung had been made prisoner in his own house. The door he must have banged endlessly for hours, in hopes of reaching his little fairy. In hopes, of seeing his Love again.

The torment he had gone through when he lay dying of starvation, knowing the effect his death would cause to his Love.

Knowing how he was breaking a promise to her.

Taehyung had died in there. And his remains, was still inside.

"I cant do this." Aria choked, "I cant do this," She said through her tears.

Somehow in her mind, the phantom pain of the horrific tragedy still felt unreal. But seeing the evidence of its cruelty would drive home the fact that the phantom pain, was someone's real life history.

A pain, that two souls had lived through. Had died in.

So-ra took the key from her hand silently, and placed it withing the enormous lock. Just like the attic, the key turned easily, the mechanism echoing a loud click before a puff of stale air escaped as the iron door pushed an inch open on its own.

So-ra and Aria stilled. Their hearts beating fast, a ball of emotion burrowing deeper in their chest. They stood still as statues, not wanting to move. Not wanting to see the scene inside to overwhelm their pain.

Long minutes passed before Aria bit her lips. Tears were a constant stream on her face, as she took one step to push the door with all her might. Even through its age, the door easily swung open to a dark room within it. The darkness dense enough to have no visibility.

So-ra dragged in the huge standing emergency lights they had gotten down, just for this purpose. Aria joined in on the efforts, the two of them together managing to drag six of those lights and have it standing inside the room, clustered together, facing towards it.

The churning in her belly increased as she signaled for So-ra to switch it on with her. Both females concentrated on switching on the six lights, not seeing the room yet.

They allowed themselves an additional few minutes of respite before turning to see inside the now brightly lit room.

So-ra and Aria both cried out at the sight. Both stepped back. And both, wept. All it took was a single glance for a story of a past lifetime conveyed via Letters to take shape as reality. To not remain a story any more.

A skeleton sat at the far end of the room, tatters of a suit clinging to it.

Taehyung had died here.

He had, died here, with the name of his Lover on his lips.

All these years, his body still remained captive. Time passed by as the era changed, as the roads grew more haphazard, the societies more evolved, but the history, the past of his bloody desolation, the tale of his despair, remained locked in the room. As merciless as the Fate which had given him the blow.

Taehyung, had remained locked here. While his Love had died in the very house, waiting for him.

Aria slowly moved forward towards the remains, sorrow throbbing in her chest, her tears flowing unchecked as she sat in front of the skeleton.

Looking at it, she imagined what he must have felt in the last moments, in the room, knowing he had been one breath away from his death? What was his last thought, before his heart stopped?

A sob tore through her mouth.

Her eyes moving down to the ground in reflex.

That's when she noticed a page beside him, kept at some distance. Crinkling her brows, she squinted at it to make out markings.

Reaching out, she lifted the paper from the ground, bringing it before her and gasped as she saw it.

It was a Letter.

Taehyung's Last letter to his fairy.

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