BREATHE ✓ ⇢ [EDITING]

《 CHAPTER 1: MICROCOSM 》[REVISED]

CHAPTER 1

MICROCOSM

The word "no" did not exist in Hans Hayder's vocabulary.

His heart pulsed against his chest as he lit the cigarette and accurately placed it equidistantly between his lips, exhaling as he closed his eyes. His body felt lighter and for just the smallest amount of time, he forgot who and where he was. For the briefest of moments, his feet left the ground and he was soaring, flying high like the hawk his mother imitated when Hans was a child. The sky was illuminated as he passed villages surrounded by forests and cities with shining neon lights.

Unexpectedly, reality was a heavy shove, and he was pushed back into the world that he had now been accustomed to: the world where he was a grown man with no mother to cook for him and no wife to sing for him. The dream of marriage seemed so far away even as the opportunity of age brought him closer to it. He woke up every morning and his hand always reached for the other side of the bed that he knew would be empty, but a part of him hoped would not be. His dream of a faceless woman laying beside him with a bulge in her stomach grew into a nightmare that left him sweaty and breathing heavily with each passing day.

The dim lights of the delicatessen were disheartening as he was dropped to the ground from the angels' haven above. There were a few men standing with stronger dosages of drugs that Hans couldn't stand to smell himself. He passed the cigarette to Maj Ali, an acquaintance since their births to reputable families twenty-three years ago. However, behind closed doors, Maj was Han's bone and flesh, separated only by their DNA. They had been joint at the hip from the second they could walk. 

Maj dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel, imagining his sister's tan face against his foot. There was a bitter satisfaction to it that left him ultimately satiated until he repeated the cycle and became miserable again, trying not to think of her shoving her hand out of his grip before she disappeared again.

Hans walked towards the outline of his navy motorcycle slowly, his head bowed down just slightly, nearly unnoticeable and his heart beating a bit more calmly than it had just a few minutes previously. Suddenly, he heard a hum, and as he looked up, he saw the headlights of a motorcycle blare like neon lights in the darkness. After quite some time, his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness as he squinted against the light.

Hans realized that it was the hum of the engine of his motorcycle, and something clicked in his mind then: someone was stealing his prized possession that he had worked for years to get.

Hans dashed to his one and only love like a cheetah, and unsurprisingly, caught the silhouette with his long, nimble fingers. The head of the thief whipped around like a sharp boomerang, long and jagged curly hair slapping against the smoothness of his cheek as the figure revved his engine with a rather fiery attitude. His hand lunged for the mysterious thief, and his fingers closed around a soft cotton clad slightly muscular shoulder. Realization dawned on him as if he's been drenched in ice-cold water. How dare a woman touch his motorcycle!

His breaths were released in rough spasms as he hovered over her. The woman's eyelashes instinctively fluttered as she was met with such close proximity. Hans pushed her off of his motorcycle and faced the mystery thief to find her ready hands lash out and slap him across the cheek so harshly, his head snapped involuntarily to the side.

His skin throbbed from the sudden blow, but unlike other times, it refused to numb. He pinched himself to ensure that he wasn't going insane, and sure enough, the feeling was just as raw as the hit from seconds ago. Hans tilted his head in curiosity at the ground before lifting his gaze to find his assaulter fuming with anger and her eyes dark with ferocity.

He stared at her, absolutely tantalized by those fierce chocolate eyes, his nearly stolen motorcycle forgotten from the corners of his closed mind.

Hans Hayder only watched in utter awe as he watched her disappear into the darkness, and the roar of his motorcycle grew more faint to his ears.

He had to have her.

He would make her his queen. And she would have no say in it.