The Gray Area

Chapter Eight

Vita suddenly jolted awake.

The dog sleeping beside her couldn't be seen anywhere. She touched her heart as she tried to calm it, wave of emotions attacked her, waiting to be handled.

She dreamt of Morte and their... She shook her head and pushed the dream away. That stupid dream!

After three deep breaths, she closed her eyes again.

***

"Miss Sargosa?" Kiko called out shyly.

Vita turned and looked at him as the other students started to leave the room.

"Thank you,"

She smiled. "For what?"

"For knowing what to do in my situation."

Vita nodded and smiled again. She looked at the calendar hanging on the wall and eyed the last number. November was about to end, her mission's due date was about to come.

Later that afternoon, she had received a call from her bestfriend Hannah, asking her to hang out. They ate at a mid-scale restaurant, coping up with one another. Vita tried to re-tell the accident, leaving the other truths and incidents that followed it. She couldn't just tell anyone about her mission, even though she wanted so much to rely it to her bestfriend.

She just wasn't sure if that would help her simplify things.

"Oh damn," her friend Hannah said, "a scar." She stretched out her hand, softly smoothing the scar left on the side of her head.

Vita automatically lifted her hand and searched for the scar. She felt the rough, ragged, thin line left on the left top of her forehead. A souvenir.

"A remembrance," Hannah muttered.

Unlike the short hair of Vita that just fall a little below her shoulder, her friend Hannah had curly long hair, gathered in a ponytail.

After their lunch, they headed to Two-four Seven Convenience store, both of them pushing their shopping carts as they scanned the rows of canned goods.

"Why are you wearing all black?" Vita asked after a while, noticing Hannah's dim composure.

Her shoulder sagged. "I'm going to a burial later," she replied. "My friend's brother committed suicide," she whispered.

Vita grasped the handle of her shopping cart as she stared at her friend.

"Really?"

Hannah shrugged her shoulder. "Yeah. I don't know. They say that he was kinda depressed these past days."

Sadness invaded Vita's face.

"Depression," Hannah added as she picked up a bottle of soda. "It's a silent killer. It kills you inside, it poisons your mind and a total bitch, I must say. And no one could even notice how depress a person is."

Vita's mind wandered, thinking if Morte was behind it all. That devil- that beautiful devil, the heir of Satan. She must stop him.

But how? Her mind had kept on asking. She was just a human- the kind of human that dreamt of angel and the kind that could see the form of the devil Morte.

She could tell that her friend Hannah was still saying something but her ears shut it off. As they headed to the register to pay for the groceries, they silently walked toward the exit door. Dark clouds covered the night sky, even the moon was hidden, the ambiance gloomy.

Hannah put out her cell phone just as they started to cross the busy street. The traffic light displayed the red light but Hannah kept on walking. Vita, who just shook off her reverie about Morte, saw her friend too busy with her cell phone.

"Hannah, wait!" she tried to grab her arm to hauled her back but it was too late.

Just then, a car honked and it skidded to a stop, its bumper an inch apart from Hannah. Following her instinct, Hannah took advantage and run, desperately trying to get to the other side. Vita followed behind her when a motorcycle appeared beside the car to overtake and was about to hit Vita.

Then everything happened in a fucking slow motion.

A loud thunderous sound hit them, the motorcycle abruptly forced to a stop, sending the driver off the seat. Vita was on the ground together with Hannah, both were startled at the sound.

Morte stood in front of a wide-eyed Vita, his glare so hard and terrifying, making her shiver nervously inside. And with a blink, he disappeared.