Chapter 2 - Show Me Your Face, You Coward! (2/2)

”Sorry, Miss Feng, this is urgent!”

Halia panicked at first, but then her head quickly felt heavy and her body got weak. She stumbled a few steps backward, the world spinning around her. Finally, she felt herself land into a pair of strong and warm arms. Looking up, she slowly made out a face. A pair of soft, gentle eyes looked down at her reassuringly, ”Everything will be OK.”

This voice was very convincing.

Halia felt like all her energy had been drained from her body. As she looked up one last time at the pair of gentle eyes, she nodded her head and fell unconscious.

Everything turned dark and silent.

Halia couldn't tell how much time had passed, but slowly a pair of eyes appeared in view again.

”It's those gentle eyes again,” she thought to herself.

But, as she stared into the dark brown pupils, there was something different about them. No, they weren't the same gentle eyes that she saw before she fell unconscious. These eyes contained a sense of pity and pain.

A moment later, the silence was broken by a man's laughter. It came from the owner of the eyes and it carried a sense of ridicule, as though he was mocking himself for feeling pity and pain. Then, like a flip had been switched in his head, his eyes immediately turned cold.

Halia felt her heart race and her palms sweat. She was frightened.

Next thing she knew, she felt a sharp pain in her neck and the eyes in front of her suddenly turned red. Not just the pupils, but the entire eye, including the eyelashes were a blood red. Blood? That's when Halia realized, the man's eyes were actually covered in blood. She instinctively held her neck where a throbbing pain was growing and looked down at her hands...

It was her blood!

Halia collapsed sideways as her head began to spin. Just before she closed her eyes, she saw a pair of hands holding a cross...and red...everything was red.

”No, this can't be,” she thought to herself.

As she was plunged back into darkness and silence, Halia was in disbelief. Was she dead? What happened?

Unwilling to accept this fate, Halia forced open her eyes and jumped back up screaming. She couldn't die just like that. She didn't even get a proper look at her killer.

”Show me your face, you coward!”