Coen was always just inside the control room, observing the children like a night owl.
He would watch over them individually and write a report about them.
It sounded like a tiring job for Toren, but seeing his brother, it did not seem so to be the case. Coen was quite lax about it.
Maybe because of the countless jobs he had taken previously that such chore is not so much of a chore anymore to him. But inside the dimmed room lighted only by the flashes of monitor screens via surveillance cams, a nurtured darkness grew over him like a tree.
All with sturdy trunk and thick branches and lush leaves. And his roots crawling underneath at the secret room he built from that space.
It felt like the demon inside of him had grown silent and dormant. It murders with soft clutches.
Among the peaceful nights and soundless worlds, it lurked stealthily and somehow even outlived his own immortal flesh. Toren did not realize when it had all started, but Coen became more and more like a completely different person.
Maybe he got too immersed with his roles, he thought.
Maybe it was when he made a bargain with Airen, he thought again.
Or maybe because there was some underlying darkness that had been so pent up, awaiting for its revenge. Toren was not too sure anymore.
But the longer he stayed inside with Coen alone, the more frightened he became – as if some other entity had seized the space that was no longer for him. Despite being a soulless perception peering through to the reality's edges, he felt like a complete stranger in that world.
That at those rarest times, Toren doubts the fact that Coen was actually his brother and the children were born centuries after his supposed death.
Toren was like an overflowing sink. Overwhelmed with his own capacity, he just wanted to run away and get scared forever whilst hiding inside a safe and comfortable place.
Anywhere in that laboratory was a living hell.
Sometimes, as he walked through the foyers, he could hear the whirlwind spinning. And gradually, it became more and more vehement until it threatened to suck him in and rip him into pieces.
And then, he would inhale a fistful gasp of air to dispel everything altogether. The storm, the whirlwind, the ominous clouds – everything would disappear and he would be left keeling over, short of breath.
He thought that maybe he had his internal organs in him, stuck with his consciousness. The breathing lungs, the beating heart, and thirsty throat. They all seemed real and suddenly, they would slip into his own grasp.
Memories would then begin to seep in him like some dirty waters getting filtered slowly. The destructive whirlwind, he remembered.
Its vortex encapsulated him once at the otherworld. It destroyed the fields and the flowerbeds. It even sucked the celestial bodies and tattered them into fragments. But then, it would stop.
He could not remember what happened afterwards and how it all got fixed.
He and Airen had been in the otherworld, yet everything seemed fine.
The flowerbeds were lush and glowing, the celestial bodies and fluids were silvery and fine, and the world was tranquil.