The beating heart was going on and on, ringing against his body. He pulled it out again, fed up.
The next thing he did was to cock the gun he had and pulled the trigger with the muzzle directed on his brain. The gun fell off the wooden floors, its creaks reverberated along with the echoes of shot. A smoke rose up unsteadily and a hole formed from his forehead. It immediately got healed with new sets of skin.
The neighborhood panicked from the sound, barged in the En household when no one was answering their aggressive knocks.
They saw Coen lying on the floor, completely devastated as a crowd had gathered around him.
Coen fixed the mess immediately and dismissed everything as an accident.
He lied to them, telling them he had accidentally shot the gun and got too shocked by its sound. The people seemed relieved and one by one went back to their places.
Meanwhile, at a different space, Toren sat on the bedside of their room.
The walls were washed with golden brown shade and the floor was painted with a floral design like a mural. The room was dimmed; a yellow orange lamp lit up the corners.
Airen slowly slithered her arms around from behind him, locking the boy into her grips.
"You seemed bothered," She whispered. "Are you okay?"
Toren turned his head towards her, then back to the floors.
"I do not know," He answered. "Is this really the right thing to do, Airen? Are we really supposed to be like this?"
"Do you not like being with me?"
"I like being with you, of course. But something feels strange. Should I not know who I am more than my name and more than you? If so much freedom to my thoughts exist, why does the world feels so limited before my eyes?"
Airen slowly cupped the boy's face towards her and soothed him with her voice, "What are you so worried about, dear?"
"Everything. I do not even know what is wrong."
"Then do you like to know more about yourself? Do you want to know what happened to you?"
Toren innocently nodded and his eyes had been one of the most endearing sights she have seen.
She told him that his memories had to be erased because things back then got too complicated for him to deal with.
His memories had died, of course, at his will.
He had permitted such things, knowing that reviving them would take a long, long time.
"But why did I do that?" Toren asked. "Even if things had been too complicated, why did I choose to be a different person? What was I escaping from? What was the face of the demon I was against to do such a drastic measure?"
Airen sighed and caressed his cheek. "Maybe deep inside, you were scared back then. After all, you are so young. The void could have frightened your wits. The war may have damaged your consciousness. Or everything else had wronged you so much."
Toren looked down, his worried face exuding out like a natural expression.
He told her plenty of times, consciously and unconsciously about his desires and his longing for his own identity.
And so, after just a few days, Airen gave in and brought him back to the otherworld – where the flowerbeds rested.
She showed Coen's image and told him that he was Toren's brother.
Toren immediately agreed to being allowed to see his brother despite the haunting condition of being separated from his soul.
He had been locked into the void for a second and was soon transported into some strange, unfamiliar face.
The scene that was plastered in front of his eyes right after had shocked his core. In a dark room from headquarters, Coen was pointing a gun against the sleeping colonel.
The scene was like a frozen image as no one was moving an inch.
Breaths were hitching, one was asleep and the other was nervous.
Toren could not believe that his brother, it turned out, would be a murderer.