A week later: in the flipping days of falling March, the night of glum air cavernous, the windy road in Rivendell had cars flying to break out the gale murmuring close—solemnly spiralling from the west to drown the capital city of Erriador in angst.
On the top floor of the low rise apartment building of combined four grounds, in the sombre room, the lit screens of the array of computers lined on the desk assumed the impression of the shadowy figure, the lone brightness washing—drawing his features.
The muffled thunderclap slashing the sky, the gusts of calling storm slamming the window, the index finger of his right hand smoothly clicking on the left button of the mouse, and occasional sips of beer as he lifts the can in a lazy grip of fingers of the other—issues the presence of aliveness on the otherwise stifled mind of Rhett.
Then his focused eyes turns bleak, crushing the can spurting out juice, he hurls it accross the room with a raging force—down impelling on the wall with a clashing noise.
Breathing heavily, he swivels his chair, back leaned with an arm over his eyes.
He exhales out a shaky, harassed breath.
It was always the same.
The same futile forage of four years.
Everyday he's more hopeless, more shattered than the previous. So rotten and forfeited. He's overwhelmed—caged in harrowing Pandemonium of night terrors.
Rain gurgles down a flood, white rumbling thunder–bolt searing accross the sky, booming, blustering to split the earth into two.
The wind whipping to uproot the trees and buildings, hailstones ramming the roofs, the bleary uncurtained window, trickling droplets of water through where Rhett absorbs the nature's wrath.
A deceiving swell of satisfaction runs through his mind. Hands calmly clammed and placed together on his thighs, he blinds his heart, relishing the storm—the clone of his soul.
When the chillness shuddered the bones, the gale thrashing homes, killing people, fear and morose numbing the senses; he would have been warm and safe in the embrace of his wife; his Neva; his Angel.
Her smiling face flashes in his eyes, and a roll, a crack, the burned smell, the room in turmoil, the ravaged bedsheets—on the very bed they'd made love, the gory bed where she was—
Agony drills through his chest, his body stiffened and so cold—it's combusting.
He harshly rubs down his face with calloused palms. He gulps, his scarlet, trembling orbs echoing the scalping soul.
He's falling off the cliff, again.
She's his mercy, the only one who holds his hand when he's so close to pull the trigger on himself. It's their fate that haunts him; the way of the world killing him.
She's okay. She's alive.
He'll find her, he'll bring her back to home. Everyday it's what jerks him out of the abyss of the barren skeleton he's trapped in.
"Dada?" Rhean's small, dulcet voice murmers through the roll of thunders.
Rhett slowly turns to look at the boy, his demeanour purging at the soft appearance of Rhean rubbing his eyes and approaching him—with a stuff toy of a white little lamb in his hold.
"I can't sleep Dada." Rhean says, spreading his arms to be picked up.
"Afraid of thunder?" Rhett asks with an apathetic tone, swooping him up and into his lap.
Settled in his father's secure, Rhean shakes his head. "I miss mama." He mumbles, gripping the stuff toy, the little lamb his mother made for him closer to his chest.
Rhett's eyes flickers, a pleasure, a pang in his heart at her spell.
"Me too." He whispers.
"Can we watch her Dada, please?" The child requests, shiny doe eyes looking at him wishfully.
Some days, when an illusive hint to finally locate her whereabouts pops out, and he's confident, he'd hurled up courage, breaking out of his paralysis to look at the film of her—of them together.
But he doesn't know if it's today.
"Please..." Rhean trails off.
His teary eyes, pursed lips—hurting Rhett, ripping him to strip a slit of the blankness.
Human's can be confusing. A miraculous moment draws: a wish to live, a sanguine of a dream—inspiring, a fruitful bliss of yearning.
And another dread seals you in a coffin: a monster, a Demon with a face without features and flesh—dripping blood from the remnants, scraps of meat in the slashed skull clawing in, painfully slow scrabbling the weed over the grave, the soil and then the long black nails poking, screaming deafeningly, stabbing the wooden coffin to devour your soul.
Feelings are distraught: a grave of emptiness, sadness, a cocoon of happiness. They cannot be explained, the scenes stirring cannot be grasped. They are easy to manipulate. The Devil to rule them.
But for now, a breeze of mirth cools the soreness in his chest. The blessing before the curse in his possess.
A beautiful Neva with her huge eighth–month belly poses for the camera.
She clumsily changes postures, the peace sign of her hands—a pout on her lips.
Then switching on to a more charismatic portrait: she airs her graceful side profile, nicely tilting her head with arms clasped behind her back, with Rhett giggling at the rear of the camera, her photographer—for he's fooling her, and actually is filming her.
"Why are you laughing?" Yells Neva at him, her forehead crumpled up and glaring at him through her butterfly lashes.
He laughs harder at her for pulling an adorable face.
"Rhett!" She shrieks like a kitten. "Let me see. Do I look bad?" Neva lunges for the camera, to which Rhett easily gives in and let's her have her way with it.
"You can never look bad Angel." He phrases, slyly kissing her rosy cheek, swooning over her like a lovesick teenager.
Neva narrows her eyes at him, orbs big and round like a deer doe close to the flicker.
She dissapears from the screen for a short moment.
She gasps dramatically when the camera shows the recording of their room instead.
"It's a video. You've tricked me!" She glares thorns at him, punching his rock–hard chest with bare strength in her fist.
He keeps giggling at her, and steals a kiss from the lips of his cute and angry wife.
"You just troubled a poor pregnant woman in vain!" Neva grumbles pushing him away, while he films her walking, struggling out the door with a hand on her back and the other on her bump.
"I'm sorry Angel. I love you." Rhett calls, tailing after her.
"I hate you! Off with the camera!" Neva retorts. "It's for our baby Angel." Rhett grinning pans the camera to himself, "Gotta make it up to my darling wife." He waves at the camcorder—and the recording stops.
It's silent again.
He floated with the memories, but now once more he decays in the darkness.
The storm had now mollified. He shuts down the panel of his private laptop, the black screen aligning with the rest of the computers on the six–feet glassed desk.
He glances down at Rhean in his arms, head resting on his chest, steadily breathing. He'd slept through the rest of the videos visiting only two, clutching the lamb that Neva weaved for him when he was five months old.
On rare days, that he earnestly longed for his mother, Rhean would ask to see her.
Whisker of things makes you feel alive, to stay alive.
A stone's throw spawns you to end the world, or gash out the ghost from it's flesh.
At times, he allows the shadow of death to cloud over his soul; when he feels is impossible, the hopelessness strangling him.
But there's always a spark that enlightens in his heart, surviving him. For he knows their bond, the one of the spirit, it cries out to him; she's alive, waiting for him. Yearning for him.
He chooses to believe the spirit, in her, in himself.
She's never far too gone.
He was never the one to believe in the Almighty. But Neva did, her faith softened his heart for the Divinity.
Before it collapsed with her.
He had enough of drowning himself. For Neva, for Rhean, for the future they've envisioned, he would let the light dawn on him. To lead him out through the valley of darkness—and to her.
As long as the whirlwind fades, and there's light of veracity in the earth; she's alive.