19 His Dream and Her Call (1/2)
When Reed awoke, he found himself in a familiar room, his bedroom. He felt as if he had slept through an eternity. The laid near the horizon when he woke, which left him wondering whether the sun was setting or rising...
An uncomfortable feeling built up in his chest the longer he looked at the hovering sun. He had suddenly remembered something from when he had been asleep.
The broken words rang softly in his head as he stared at the auburn sky.
”....Wake...soon, my belov.....”
Incompleted and fragmented, the woman's voice carried an unforgettable tinge of affection.
”You must.....and...repair the....”
He knew this voice; he was sure of it, but he could not voice out the truth.
Something prevented him from recalling her name.
”....Time is short....will not survive.....collapse. I have sent.....”
Such was the fate of the boy, or rather, his unique burden. One he could not run from.
A sudden noise shook Reed from his contemplation as Violett burst through the door worriedly. She'd been watching over him since he had fainted that night. The mother hen rushed in the room as soon as she sensed his awakening.
Reed smiled and said, ”Hey. You don't look too well, Violett. Have you been sleeping properly?”
He felt a small warmth in his chest when he thought about how worried he must have made her feel. Given how she looked at the moment, he guessed that she must have been worrying for days. The bags under her eyes and her frazzled hair spoke volumes about how she was doing.
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please clickfor visiting.
A long sigh escaped her lips when she heard Reed's tease. She knew then and there that he was fine. It was a reassurance that was spoken but not expressed in an explicit way. A soft smile formed on her beautiful face and she said, ”You're a dead man, Reed. I'm sure you understand why, right?”
Her cheerful, bubbly voice made his death sentence sound even more horrifying in a twisted way.
Reed hesitated, but then nodded his head. He knew that if he spoke now, he would only be digging his grave deeper. It'd be best to play the game safely and act submissively for now. No matter what she'd say, he'd nod and agree with her.
”Don't even think you'll ever escape me again. I'll beat you within an inch of your life next time you pull a stunt like that.”
Reed felt as if she had turned into the mistress of death and hurriedly said, ”I-I won't play hooky anymore, so cut me some slack! It was an honest mistake; just a youthful indiscretion! H-have mercy!!”
”...Fine. I wouldn't want you to say that I'm not a forgiving person. I'll give you a pass this time out of understanding; I was your age once, too.”
”I just want you to understand that the outside world is a dangerous place, especially for you, given your unique situation. You have no idea what people are capable of out there -- they'll eat you alive if you give them the opportunity,” said Violett. ”You were beyond lucky that no one noticed you during your outing.”
”...”
She lightly shrugged her shoulders and said, ”Ah, whatever. I'm sure you've properly recovered after a week's of sleeping, right? I'll run you dry now that you've come around; I'll make sure that you won't have any extra energy to waste on useless thoughts from now on...”
I've been asleep for a week!? Holy shit, what the fuck happened to me? I don't remember partying that hard, but then again, I can't remember half of the shit that happened that night.
Goddamn, no wonder Violett was worried out of her mind. Being comatose for an entire week is certainly enough to be seriously concerned...
”By the way, Reed, I didn't think you'd have a tattoo. You're a bit too young to be getting one so soon. And it's such a strange design, too; why'd you choose something so...odd?”
Confused, Reed said, ”What do you mean, a tattoo? I've never gotten a tattoo before. I'm not quite sure what you're talking about.”
”Oh? Then I'm sure you'll have some sort of excuse or nonsensical story to explain the tattoo on your chest, right? What, are you're going to tell me it's a birthmark?”
”That odd symbol is some sort of character belonging to a language, even I can put that together. What's it mean? Must be pretty special for you to engrave it over your heart, I presume.”
Reed hurriedly took off his shirt and inspected himself; what he found left him speechless. An azure-golden glyph lay directly on his chest, above his heart. An unknown text was written within the lines that made up the peculiar glyph, too intricate to read with the naked eye. They looked like faint markings at a distance, but once you got close up, you could see that they were words of some kind.
All in all, the 'tattoo' had a beauty to it that was hard to describe with words. It gave him the impression that it was deeply meaningful to him, even though he couldn't understand it.
”Interestingly enough, I tried translating the text within the tattoo when I first saw it, but my tome couldn't identify what language it belonged to. That piqued my interest; the tomes have records of hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects from innumerable worlds, but it couldn't identify your tattoo's language.”
”The great guilds have been documenting all of the various races and their cultures as they've appeared over millennia, so they've indexed an enormous amount of information. That's why this is a very rare occurrence, so to speak.”
”That fellow, Julian, inspected your tattoo thoroughly when he discovered it and seemed endlessly engrossed by it. Don't know why though; he just took a bunch of photos of it and hurriedly left after I arrived. He said he'd talk to you soon enough, or something of the sort? Pfft, those scholars always do what they please and leave us with their messes...”
Reed blankly stared at the mark on his chest; he felt unease and excitement. It was another mystery he'd have to solve down the line, along with the egg incident and the shadow who had kidnapped him.