Her eyes immediately flashed spectrum colors. And right then, he realized how much he had been truly trapped. Toren remembered the void where his soul had often resided.
Every time the time thread sucks him in, the portal flashes the same spectrum shades. It had always been her all along, he thought.
Wherever he goes, she has always been there and he always needed her.
He submitted to her hypnosis, feeling helpless at the groundbreaking things he felt like he misunderstood. Somehow, he thought between the gaps of time that there would still be a chance to break out of his own mess.
But it turned out that he had never realized how deep in it he had gotten himself into.
Beneath his sub consciousness, he saw a sandcastle dissolving onto the ground along with its black dahlia flower. And when Airen decided to finally bring him back to Coen's reality, the world went by so quickly, it almost flashed to him like a fast-forwarded play. But he was there.
Toren was there all along just like how Airen had been to him.
When Coen had finally realized the boy named Eric's peculiarity and extraordinariness, Toren was there. When Coen had finally favored that brilliant boy and got him in his own selfish schemes, Toren was there.
When Coen repeatedly attempted murder against Professor Ross all by his own means and eventually failed to do so, Toren was there.
When Coen decided to teach twisted things to the little child and plant a deep-seated traumatic reality into the innocent field the boy was in, Toren was there. He was always around, yet it felt like he had faded from his brother's memories.
Toren witnessed everything.
Even during the times when Coen would curse his name, glaring daggers at the portrait he painted, Toren heard all of it because he had been there too.
Professor Ross had finally begun preparing himself too.
He began hasting up the experiment and creating the drug he was trying to accomplish. He arranged meetings quickly and planned the distribution processes.
And a little beyond Coen's sight, Professor Ross had also fixed everything for the aftermath of his death that would ensure protection to his properties and rights. He was truly ready to die.
If he was mentally prepared for it, Toren did not know.
But from his perspective, it seemed like Ross had been quite grateful for the life he had on earth.
Toren only knew about it, but he could not comprehend such feelings. He never felt the sense of death as something gratifying when it was his time and he never felt fulfillment at the longevity of his own lifetime.
And soon, it has finally arrived – the day of reckoning and the day that everyone had been waiting and preparing for. It was during the last game among the survivors. It all boiled down to the two children left to play. Everyone else had died during the previous bravado. Coen was not invited to the last event, so he went to his control room and passed through the trapdoor to stay in his underground room.
He laid down on his bed with his journal above his chest.
Looking up at the ceiling, it made Toren remember the moments they were together.
They would often spend their time looking up. And when they do, Coen would be able to look past that ceiling.
Above, he knew about the skies.
The stars he had been gazing up to and the celestial bodies that were rotating up heavenwards; he knew about them. However, Toren would see a completely different thing.
Emotions, spectrums, hues, shadows, and abstracts. For the past few years, Toren would always see the same thing over and over again.
Fear, insecurity, and doubt.
This time, he saw madness swirling up majestically more than all the celestial bodies scattered above.