WMMAP - [S1] Shelter You - (愛)してる

Chapter 59: Twisted Fate

His ragged breathing, the faint pulsing heartbeats that started to slow, the life force that only she could see, flowing out of him.

She knew she wasn't supposed to interfere when she came to retrieve the book. But now that she saw the man that lay on the cold hard floor.

She pressed her hands to the side of her head as if seeking to push the awful visions from her mind. "A shadow fades before the light." The girl repeated to herself, tears wouldn't stop falling from her eyes.

His breathing labored and his whisper grew faint. A rivulet of blood leaked from beneath his clothes like a red tear through her heart.

The agony on his face never eased, his breath rattling in his throat as his strength began to fail.

He looked too much like her own father that she couldn't shake off the image.

Tears dripped as she closed her eyes and did as her instinct told her. She lifted her shaky arms out to the side, letting the magic drift from her fingers. She felt the magic stir within her but whispered the mantra taught to her by her mother to keep it from rising too close to the surface.

Throughout the years, she'd learned to better control her power, but sometimes, when her emotions ran close to the surface, it was hard to keep the energies contained.

A deep breath, she took, filling her lungs with cold air and letting the light within speak to her as she placed her fingertips on the bloody tattered clothes, feeling her heart break for him.

She eased the numinous radiance of her magic down through the man's body.

"...Athy?" 

She heard a whisper calling out to her mother. It was rasp and faint, dragging painfully low. How his eyelids open slightly, looking at her. 

"No... Lumina... De Alger Obelia... The illuminator of the Light..." She introduced herself. But as his eyes started to close again, she panicked. "Fath-Mister...!"

"...Who are you... calling father...?"

"Ah... It's... No one..."

"...do I look like yours?"

That was a sensitive button he just pressed when god knows how much she missed her father. 

"Please... Shut up. Or I will kill you instead of heal you."

She heard him draw a sharp breath as if he acknowledged her warning, then nothing more. Realizing her temper was rampaging because of her emotion again, she bit her bottom lips, holding back tears.

Still, to her, it was a strange reaction that he actually listened. 

Maybe he isn't like the rest... 

"You two actually look a bit... Alike..." 

"I bet... I'm way better looking..." He said, making her laugh in between her sobs.

She shook her head. "My father would say you look like a foot wipe..." 

He somehow managed to snort. "...a dream come with an insult... How adorable..."

He was properly the first one to have a rather peaceful interaction with her compared to the ones she met so far.

She wasn't sure if it was because he was just a mere mortal or it was because he was dying or perhaps it was just how his personality was supposed to be.

But it was nice not to have her 'Father-look-alike' trying to kill her every now and then.

"You know... This is... the first time... that a dream... Feel so real... But this is still a dream... right?"