Aerie's Fallen Immortal

Chapter 43

"Well I thought- that there would be something that you would never know." He said calmly. Calmly enough for Aerie to shiver. He turned so suddenly, it took her by surprise.

It was that brief moment when Aerie was taken by surprise, they made eye contact. The eyes were red- red like polished rubies taken directly from a jewellery box. The same pair of eyes that used to be brown. Now red was running throughout the same pair of eyes, the stare it gave off matched with the amount of stains it had on the cloth- mad, determined. 

The next moment when the moment of surprise faded, Aerie was in front of him instead of a few meters away. Somehow she was dragged forwards, pulled towards him.

"I thought that there might be the slightest chance that you might not know about- about me." Cade said. He was calm as usual- not even in the slightest sense he looked like he was bothered by the fact that Aerie was shaking and if anything- she would cry.

"Well. That's that. Look at you." He said gently, laying his hand on Aerie's cheek and wiped the tear that was running out of her eye, only to stain it with red instead of making it dry. "When I said that you would run when you knew about my past, I meant it. I couldn't blame you if you wanted to stay asleep back there. It's a pretty hard fact to swallow."

"The eyes." Aerie said. She couldn't help herself form shivering- her heart felt like falling into an abyss even when she was standing still, and she knew much before the scene. "What- what happened to them?"

"Oh that's your concern?" Cade replied, blinking for a few times. "Well it's pretty easy, actually. A few pairs of those lens at halloween stores could do the trick pretty well."

"But why?" Aerie said, "did you- did you really did- everything?" Her heart shrank. She asked and tried her best to hold herself together. But even when she spoke with the softest tone she could manage, and as slowly as possible to not have tears running down her eyes out of fear- she could not. When she blinked, the eyes were still so wet, with heat heat rolling down her cheek.

"It's pretty difficult to believe that someone like me- playful and young- could ever possibly be involved in so many wars and stuff, right?" Cade replied. "And oh yes, you must have noticed. It's pretty impossible to find survivors, so even if you had, which wouldn't if I had not be alone- they wouldn't be very lively anyways."

"Your friend?" Aerie asked, "the one who-" The boxes. The boxes of stuff, information that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere- she suddenly remembered them all. "The friend that you kept mentioning but didn't mention the name for the many times you talked about?"

"Anything else?" Cade asked Aerie, "look. I know that you must have a lot of ask- and if you are interested in how I managed to hide- you know, like- everything, it's just drama. And nice acting."

"No. I- I only wanted to know what you hid." Aerie said. "I thought- I always thought that you were- someone different. The peaceful and supportive figure that I always had in my mind."

"The friend that you are asking about-" Cade said, "Is excerpt what you thought about. You did try to get to him, much back with your friends, weeks ago. And I was there- the one who stopped you from getting any further, the annoying one who caught and turned in the all of you."

"I know what I know, so please cut to the chase." Aerie whispered.

"You're only asking for me to tell you what you already know." Cade said simply. "You were only alive because I, as what people regarded as The Only, stopped Nightmare from killing the all of you."

Aerie laughed. The laughter came along with the tears that kept rolling down her eyes. There were no words in her mouth- she was wordless. She wanted to look into those eyes of his and somehow see the chocolate colour in those pupils again.

"Wonderful." Aerie mumbled. She looked away, though they were so close that there weren't much to look at at the corners of her eyes. Wet. Her noses stuffed. When Lovelock offered her to join them- she did not hesitate. But now, when she stared into Cade again, actually having everything coming together, she wished that she had at least hesitated.

"I have always thought of a lot when I read the book you left- that book that I finally knew about that dude named as The Only." Aerie said, solemnly. "I thought- I really hated them. I wondered why someone could possibly turn evil in that way. Every single one country he stayed in eventually resulted in their demise. Anyone that mattered to them would eventually be hunted down and be slain by his enemies. And in turn, he would run and murder a way out."

"Sure." Cade said. "You're not wrong, though. The book might have exaggerated a little, but that is what I am."

"This is what I am."

"It's a cycle that never ends, right?" Aerie asked simply. "I thought- that even if it was you- you know, there's not a lot of immortals, really. And especially when it comes to unrecorded ones. It's pretty impossible, right? Nobody could live for 500 years and leave situations so clean, so unnoticed. So I thought that there may be a chance- for all of this to end."

"It wouldn't be me, would it?"