For the second time that day, Saari experienced a numbness across his body, except this time, it came with the euphoric glow of satiated lust. He lay rested in bed, one hand behind the head and another wrapped around the shoulders of the naked woman asleep besides him.
His heart was regular once again, calming down from the love making session with Dr Kendall. Finally convinced himself at one point some time in between their grunts it didn't matter he was someone else in her mind. Realized for a while he needed her to track Syafa down. To get his life back on track.
Syafa.
The name jogged Saari's memory how she had beaten him squarely yet again, using her abilities in a way he didn't know how to or even replicate. The cold and callous savagery in her, snapping Dr Kendall's neck, wiping the slate clean from the mind of the man Kendal was in love with and in so doing, extinguishing the lifeforce of another. One of a trio who Saari thought would give him the edge over Syafa, no matter how good she was.
Lying still in bed, Saari recollected the tranquil moments he had experienced immediately after Mohir's death. He didn't know how long it lasted, only how the floodgates broke soon after. Morbid chatters in words and visions not his own, him staring and unable to close his sights to a cauldron in both the sane and the insane.
Only in the embrace of the darkness was Saari relieved from the torrent of thoughts.
And then one day, he discovered Syafa. In a better place than he was, a personal Eden and at peace with herself, while he was stuck feeding from the putrid blackness in his mind and others. He tried reaching out for her one night, only for a damning void around her repelling him with a force greater than even Mohir's deathly scream.
Saari couldn't do anything but throw a tantrum, hammering the protective wall around her. If only to rile her up. He remembered the joy he felt when he read an increased comprehension in her mind. Joy that turned into despair when he found her thoughts focused and controlled, so unlike his own awakening.
The envy within him grew in intensity and led to a decision that fateful night to completely exorcise his convoluting anxieties by silencing her for good. Found his assassin in the male patient staying in the room next to Syafa. A patient whose mind was besotted by a second, deeply hidden, female personality.
His partner sudden stirring snapped him out from his recollections as Saari withdrew his hand from her and slid away from the bed, the muscles in his back cramping slightly.
Saari walked slowly to the bathroom, grabbing a towel from the rack beside his wardrobe. He saw his reflection in the full-length mirror, sullen-faced, eyes still red from sleeplessness.
Pathetic small wonder Syafa didn't want you rejected you
He washed his face at the sink inside, glad to find a shaver and a tube of shaving foam in the hotel's vanity kit. As Saari began brushing, his mind began moving back within the comforting darkness where no light could enter. He shrugged off a hesitancy, knowing full well it will come to naught anyway.