A week later: in the flipping days of falling March, the night of glum air cavernous, the windy road in Vernilla 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 turned bleak, he crushed the can spurting out juice, hurling it accross the room with a raging force—down impelling on the wall with a clashing noise.
Breathing heavily, he swivelled his chair, back leaned with an arm over his eyes.
He exhaled out a shaky, harassed breath.
It was always the same.
The same futile forage of four years.
Everyday he was more hopeless, more shattered than the previous. So rotten and forfeited. He was overwhelmed—caged in harrowing Pandemonium of night terrors.
Rain gurgled 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 vertically, through where Rhett absorbs the nature's wrath.
A deceiving swell of satisfaction ran through his mind. Hands calmly clammed together and placed on his thighs, he blinded 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 flashed 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 drilled through his chest, his body stiffened, and so cold—it was combusting.
He harshly rubbed down his face with calloused palms. He swallowed, scarlet orbs trembling, echoing the scalping soul.
He was falling off the cliff, again.
She was his mercy, the only one who held his hand when he was so close to pull the trigger on himself.
It was their fate that haunted him; the way of the world killing him.
She was okay. She was alive. He will find her, he will bring her back to home.
Everyday it was what jerked him out of the abyss of the barren skeleton he was trapped in.
"Dada?" Rhean's small, dulcet voice murmered through the roll of thunders.
Rhett slowly turned to look at him.
His demeanour purging at the soft appearance of Rhean rubbing his eyes and approaching him—with a soft–toy of a white lamb in his hold.
"I can't sleep Dada." Rhean said, spreading his arms to be picked up.
"Afraid of thunder?" Rhett asked with an apathetic tone, swooping him up and into his lap.
Settled in his father's secure, Rhean shook his head. "I miss mama." He mumbled, gripping the soft–toy, the little lamb his mother made for him closer to his chest.
Rhett's eyes flickered. A pleasure. A pang in his heart at her spell.
"Me too." He whispered.
"Can we watch her Dada, please?" The child requested, shiny doe eyes looking at him wishfully.
Some days, when an illusive hint to finally locate her whereabouts pops out, and he was 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 was today.
"Please..." Rhean trailed off.
His teary eyes, pursed lips—hurting Rhett, ripping him to strip a slit of the blankness.
Human's could be confusing. A miraculous moment drew: a wish to live, a sanguine of a dream—inspiring, a fruitful bliss of yearning.
And another dread sealed 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, stabbing the wooden coffin to devour the 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 cooled the soreness in his chest. The blessing before the curse in his possess.
A beautiful Neva with her huge eighth–month belly posed for the camera.
She clumsily changed postures, the peace sign of her hands—a pout on her lips.
Then switching on to a more charismatic portrait: she aired 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 was fooling her, and actually was filming her.
"Why are you laughing?" Yelled Neva at him, her forehead crumpled up and glaring at him through her butterfly lashes.
He laughed harder at her for pulling an adorable face.
"Rhett!" She shrieked like a kitten. "Let me see. Do I look bad?" Neva lunged for the camera, to which Rhett easily gave in and had let her have her way with it.
"You can never look bad Angel." He phrased, slyly kissing her rosy cheek, swooning over her like a lovesick teenager.
Neva narrowed her eyes at him, orbs big and round like a deer doe close to the flicker.
She dissapeared from the screen for a short moment.
She gasped dramatically when the camera showed the recording of their room instead.
"It's a video. You've tricked me!" She glared thorns at him, punching his rock–hard chest with bare strength in her fist.
He kept giggling at her, and stole a kiss from the lips of his cute and angry wife.
"You just troubled a poor pregnant woman in vain!" Neva grumbled pushing him away.
While he filmed 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 called, tailing after her.
"I hate you! Off with the camera!" Neva retorted. "It's for our baby Angel." Rhett grinning panned the camera to himself, "Gotta make it up to my darling wife." He waved at the camcorder—and the recording stopped.
Silent again.
He floated with the memories, but now once more, he decayed in the darkness.
The storm had now mollified. He shut down the panel of his private laptop, the black screen aligning with the rest of the three computers on the six–feet glassed desk.
He glanced 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 made you feel alive, to stay alive.
A stone's throw spawned you to end the world, or gash out the ghost from the flesh.
At times, he allowed the shadow of death to cloud over his soul; when he felt is impossible, the hopelessness strangling him.
But there was always a spark that enlightened in his heart, surviving him. For he knew their bond, the one of the spirit.
It cried out to him; she was alive, waiting for him. Yearning for him.
He chose to believe the spirit; in her; in himself.
She was 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 this whirlwind faded, and there was light of veracity in the earth; she was alive.