"You heard my voice?" Airen asked to confirm.
She stared straight into Toren's eyes, as if figuring out the pattern of his abilities. That despite her pretty spell bounding around his soul, she seemed to still have not grasped the whole aptitude of the boy.
"It came from the poisonous flower which represented you," Toren explained. "You knew about my abilities. You knew how far my eyes could reach and you feared something beyond your control. And anything you could not spin in your palms becomes a threat to you."
Toren suddenly felt suffocated despite the abundant air around the surroundings. It felt like something had crawled up to his throat and choked him asphyxiated. His sight blurred and his strength was getting drained out.
He felt a pulsating pain until he fell down to the flowerbeds, making the petals rustle.
There was a burning sensation all throughout his soul.
A torture that had been getting more and more unfamiliar and worse than the previous second. All his eyes could see now was Airen – her pretty, white face and devilishly beautiful body. Her fragrance was also travelling up to his brain, bouncing across. It was pleasurable.
The only thing letting him survive at that moment was her sensation healing up to what his soul had been corrupted to. She was his only salvation. And right then, he heard the sound. It was the beguiling song that was beautifully sung by a siren's voice and felt like that foolish sailor.
He thought that he needed to go where the voice was coming from no matter what.
He looked up to Airen and thanked all gods that she was not moving her lips.
He actually hoped he was wrong.
If he was actually mistaken, things would turn out incredibly favorable to him, he thought. And so, he searched desperately where it was from.
He ignored Airen's beautiful face, flashing up a triumphant smirk, standing still and looking down below him as he suffered. When he heard that it was somewhere above him, he saw the gateways opening up.
Their thresholds slowly materialize in front of him like saviors descending down from him.
The world was gradually getting mute. The sounds of rustling petals and forming of gateways and his own wailing sounds were slowly melting into dissolution.
Before that happens, he poured all his strength into reaching upon the gateway and taking refuge to escape from the woman before him.
He crawled up until he had entered a room.
The song reverberated and he felt so much at ease.
He closed his eyes and let the song heal his senses. The gateways were closing and everything was returning to how it was supposed to be.
When everything was somehow calmed and his beating heart was pounding back to a normal pace, Toren slowly opened his eyes.
He was inside that room – where he had been spending the time with Airen.
The dimmed room splashed with yellow and orange lamp light. He felt a cold ice poured down his brain when soft fingers slithered down to his cheeks.
He knew about those sweet touches, the luring fragrance, and the smooth caresses.
When he looked over, it was Airen.
It was still... Airen. It's always her. In the end, it's still her.