COME BACK TO ME, SLAVEN | #Wattys2019

Chapter 7 - We found her. Yes, we found your song.

Four days later. . .

****Slaven's POV****

He is looking down the city before him. He wants to think he's a god. But he's not. If he is, he could've prevented those things from happening. Now looking back, he wished at least, he knew before that happened. He could've done something if not stop it from happening. Now he's wondering if it was worth it all, if he lost the only life that matters. He lost -

"Slaven." His thoughts stopped wandering back to those painful days when somebody called his name. He turned around to see his mentor - Shinye. "We've been looking for you."

He's on the roof deck of EL Building.

"We found her. Yes, we found your song." She beamed happily. Slaven knot his forehead, not understanding.

"Who?" He asked himself which Shinye immediately answered.

"You have to see this. We know you'll agree with us this time." Shinye excitedly set her laptop on the table, and motion for him to come closer.

Still unknowing, he came close. Shinye opens a video file. It's a girl, with the background of a tall building and an outdoor restaurant.

"What, and who is this?" His forehead creases didn't disappear. He can't understand why Shinye's wasting her time to show him a girl's video.

"Watch and you'll see." She playfully answered and press the play button. It's his song with a girl singing. Well, 'a beautiful voice of a sweet girl's heartfelt singing' , he corrected himself. The longer he listened and watched the video, the creases on his forehead slowly disappeared. The sweet, sweet voice blended perfectly to his song. It's as if the voice originally belongs to the music. She understands his song! It's as if he knows how he feels. It's been a while since he last felt this way. And that was when he made the song and felt that the song and he were one. And now this girl. . .

"Who is she? And where did you find her?" He asked right away after the song ended.

"I thought you might be interested." She dropped a folder on the table and opened it before him. "We found her 3, or 4 days ago via Youtube. We would've informed you earlier that very same day when we found her, but we don't want to spoil everything. So, we decided to look for her first before telling you about this." The knot on his forehead slowly returned. It goaded Shinye to continue explaining. "Well, she was on Youtube. But she didn't join the contest. A friend of hers uploaded the video privately, but someone who knows about the contest got hold of the video. And it was 'shared' to our site. It was crazy, yeah." Shinye sighed. "But the craziest part is, we have no information whatever about her. The only thing we know is she's from the Philippines. So, for long three days without sleep, we searched all social networking sites and alas! We found her!"

Shinye's long explanation justified Slaven's suspicion.

"Her name is Ella Orravan. Twenty two years old, worked for almost a year now, as a customer service representative, at Quality Network Unlimited based in Cebu, Philippines. The company she works for offers wireless services to the US, it's a cellphone prepaid company. Well, she's the eldest among seven children. Parents are separated but living together, which is weird. She went to college as a scholar but had to stop, three years ago, due to health reasons. Though she didn't finished her studies, she has excellent academic standing. Brilliant student leader, and very talented. She sings, dances, plays the guitar, writes stories, and everything under the sun. Hmmm..." Shinye paused, as she was scanning the paper.