"Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday, dear Sophie...
Happy Birthday to you..."
Still with closed eys, my smile rises widely to hear the song is sung cheerfully by kids and some adults.
"Blow up the candle, Sophie..."
"But daddy hasn't come..." a voice of a young girl sadly replies.
"Daddy still has works to do.. come on, Baby.. your friends are waiting."
I slowly open my eyes. My smile is fainting a little to hear that conversation.
"Come on, Sophie.. Be a good girl... You also want to eat the cake, right ? It's your favorite chocolate cake.."
I jump off from the branch of tree I sat on to meditate. As I walk toward the edge of the forest, I hear a happy cheers, I assuming they were for responding the fact that the candles are finally being blown out.
"Let's cut the cake !!"
That invitation once again is responded by excited exclaims by the kids. After that, cheerful chatters are replacing the exclamations.
"Here's your cake, Sophie... Hey, where are you going ?"
"I want to give the cake to my friend..."
"You know your frends can not eat cake, Baby. they will get sick."
"Uncle Monk can..." Sophie insists.
"Uncle Monk ? Who's Uncle Monk ? Hey... Sophie..."
I hide in between trees when the backdoor of a house near the edge of forest is opened. A black hair little girl is running out of the house. Not long a red hair lady is catching up, but she stops right in front of the door.
"Just becareful, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy..."
Holding a cake on a golden paper plate, the little girl continues to run acrossing the backyard of her house and entering the forest. When she runs through the tree I've been hiding, I silently follow her from behind.
"Uncle Monk!!" She exclaims with her cute little voice.
"Uncle Monk.. Where are you ?? I know you're here! Patrick told me this morning that you have returned..."
That little skunk... I curse inwardly.
"You know.. today is my birthday, incase you didn't know..."
Of course I knew it already, Baby girl... I respond, once again inwardly.
Carefully, Sophie puts the golden paper plate on top of a stone's surface. "Here.. I bring you some cake. Please don't be shy. You don't have to give me any..."
I turn my speed into fighter jet before I walk approaching her. I take the plate and replace it with a small white teddy bear that wears a crown with pink seven-stars diamond as its jewelry. I eat the cake up before put the empty plate back beside the teddy bear and go back to my hiding place.
"... present."
Sophie ends her sentence with a sharp gasp as she realizes the empty plate and the teddy bear.
"Is it for me, Uncle Monk ?" She asks with glimmer in her eyes. Of course I don't reply her. Sophie takes the teddy bear and hugs it tight in her emrace. "Thank you, Uncle Monk. I love it," She says before giving the teddy bear a kiss.
"Sophie! Sophie!!"
"I'm here, Mommy..." Sophie replies in high tone to be heard by her mother. She then says with a low tone, almost whispering, "I got to go, Uncle Monk. Mom is calling."
With the empty plate on her hand and the teddy bear still in her hug, Sophie slowly leaves the big stone.
From a far I still can hear Sophie sounds of walking approaching her mother.
"Mommy..."
"There you are," voice of a relieve from her mother is heard. "Hey.. where do you get that teddy bear."
"It's a gift from Uncle Monk."
"Who is Uncle Monk ?"
"My friend.. he lives in the woods."
I can imagine a deep furrow appears on Sophie's mother's head. "Uncle Monk is a man ? A human ? You mean... he is an adult man ?" her voice is getting higher as she is being panic.
"Look, Sophie. You know the rules. No talking to a stranger."
"But he is not a stranger, Mom..."
I muffled my laughter hearing Sophie's tone is exactly like her mother's tone when I forbade her to open the door for stranger back then.
"Uncle Monk is nice. He is my friend," Sophie continues her protest.
Her mother sighs. "Come, let's go back to our house. Your friends are waiting to play with you."
"But.. my friends are in the woods..."
"Your 'human' friends, Baby. You need to have human friends, too."
"But, I want to play with my friends in the woods..."
"You can play with them tomorrow. How about that ?" Her mother tries to coax her.
"With Uncle Monk, too ??" Sophie asks excitedly.
"No.. Not with Uncle Monk."
"But Mom...."
"Baby, your can be friends with any creature in the woods, except for human. If you Uncle Monk is really your friend, you can invite him to our house."
"I did, but he didn't want to.."
"You see.. that's because he is not a good man. A good mnan won't mind to meet your parents."
Sophie doesn't argue her mother anymore. She knows when to stop arguing her mother. She really is a smart four years old girl. Yes, she is four years old now.
----------
Despite of my promise to disappear from both Jennifer and Sophie if I went back to this hell, I decided to go back to this place again. The place I'm talking about is the small forest at the back of Mr. McCourtney's house.
There are two reasons why I went back to this forest. I guess, you've already could guess the first one. Of course, I still have the urge to keep an eye of ones I love the most. Though, I know they have been living a normal life, I need to make sure that they really are alright. That urge had haunted me for so long. Unfortunately, I could only realization it a year ago, after I completed my mission.
The second reason, actually this is more like the main reason, is that I found a huge chi energy in this forest. At the spot I was meditated earlier, to be exact. I found that spot accidentally. If you remember, after I was beaten up by Thief's bodyguard, I went to this small forest to recover my self before went back to the house. It was when I realized that the crystal that I carried as a necklace was warming up. When I checked it, It was turning a bright red.
When I completed my mission a year ago, I was in a state where I almost broke through sixth level of my spirit energy. I went to this forest to accumulate my spirit energy. In merely two and half years, I could reach my spirit level back to fifth level, the same level before I was being "reset". Nothing big ever happened during my journey to achieve the fifth level. Only a little electrocute and burning sensation from inside my body. So, I thought the same thing would happen when I reached the sixth level. But boy, I was so wrong.
After meditating for few days straight, it was finally time for me to breaking through. It was fall and in town M, fall should be nice with mild wind and barely rain. But, dark cliud was hanging on the sky since morning that day. Even when I was about to break through, the town was having a huge storm. The rain fell as hard as the wind blew. Lightning stucked one after another, especially aboive where I meditated.
When it was time for my break through, the wind was striking me hard. I wasblacks and blues defensing my self from its strike. Even more when the lightning joined force to attack me. In my final attempt to defeat them, I finally lost my consciousness.