THRANDAL: The Phoenix and the Siren [UNDER EDIT]

EPILOGUE: HEART OF A SIREN

EPILOGUE: Heart of a Siren

Nero's POV

Time and fate, indeed, is such a terrible pair. They were both pricks that did whatever they wanted to do. Time doesn't care if you can't keep up. It doesn't care if you crawl on your knees and beg it to stop or reverse for even just a single millisecond. And fate doesn't care if you don't agree with its decisions. It doesn't care if you knock on its doors everyday just to beseech it to change its mind.

One cannot bargain with time and fate.

Over the years, that's something I'm still having trouble accepting. I was a shattered boy who hated those two words. I hated it to the core of my being.

Again, time passed and I grew up. I learned two things. First Life is full regrets. Every day is a blessing, but it's full of regrets. You may regret not putting on knee plates because you think it's not necessary, but you end up hurting your knee because it landed on a rock; or you could regret hating a person everyday of your life and in a blink of an eye, that person is gone and you didn't get to say you're sorry.

You regret it because you only realized that person's worth when that person is permanently gone.

The other thing is that even if you regret everything, you should keep living. Do not let the horrors of the past stop you from living your life, because life doesn't move backwards. Again, time doesn't give a damn about you, nor does fate.

Just like us.

We spent so little time together, but even a single second with her felt like a lifetime. I regret not getting to know her when I first saw her three years ago. If I did, then maybe even then, we would have clicked.

I'd be happy because I'd be able to show her how much I love her, how much I cared for her.

I won't regret because I know I did the things I wanted to do with her on my side, and I on hers.

But time and fate crumpled all that thought and pulverized my heart when she died. My insides were trembling and my mind was more than clouded. My heart was an even bigger mess.

At first, I felt pain, pain that was so much worse than a dagger to the heart. But when she turned to ashes, that pain became numbness, and that was where everything froze.

Everyone around me was in hysteria, but I just knelt there. I couldn't speak. I felt like my throat would hurt if I did. All I could think of was beg time to reverse and fate to change its mind. All the 'ifs' played mind games on me.

If we would have just been selfish and ran away that night at Pallacine, would we have a different ending? If I stopped her sacrificing her life, would the page only turn and the book didn't close?

I can't help but blame myself for her destiny.

So when I saw that she was reborn but couldn't remember anything, I turned away from her. I could never look her in the eyes again. Just like with my mother, the guilt was too much for me to handle.

That day, I walked away from the only person I loved so much, the person I wanted to spend eternity with. I stared up at the wall of my quarters the entire day until I got tired. When she died, a part of me died with her. And that part was no Phoenix that gets reborn any time soon.

When she lived, guilt and shame killed me.

Time passed and the hours turned into days, and the days turned into weeks.

It has been a month since that fateful day and just like that, we were going to celebrate the monthsary of that battle and victory tonight. It's also going to be the commemoration of the imprisoned souls that were freed after fourteen long years when the Black Cloud got defeated this very same day last month.