"Memento vivere: remember to live."
. . .
Just standing here... waiting for someone that he knows wouldn't come, Alastor Nyx has never felt so insignificant in all his life here and now, at this moment.
Dawn is approaching, the air quiet and sleepy even with a busy city like this one. It has been days since his mate had disappeared without a trace, days since he had gone shopping and returned to a too-big and too-quiet house on his own.
And yet, she still hasn't come back.
Nor the next day or even the day after that.
The last time Alastor saw William Veil, the kid had seemed to be genuinely sympathetic about Alastor's plight but somehow... in some way, Alastor gets the distinct feeling that the kid hadn't been really worried about his sister's sudden absence—which was the norm, or so he claimed.
Winters will come back soon enough for their trip, after all.
That's what matters here.
So... Alastor tries not to dwell too much on it.
Alright, so his mate seriously does have a penchant for missing in action, she said so herself. Okay cool, that's cool. No big deal.
That's fine.
Except, the thing is... it's not.
It's really, really not.
Because standing here with absolutely nothing but his stupid thoughts and the near-dead silence on the train platform instead of accompanying William on the streets of Tokyo by now (all because he stubbornly refuses to take that stupid plane without Winters), Alastor, absurdly enough, suddenly feels like he was the only person left in this world.
It's the first week of September.
And even the early mornings are beginning to grow cold with the usual promise of a rainfall... or even a light snowfall.
He huffs and puffs out a misty white exhale, nuzzling his reddened nose, seeking for warmth on his newly brought scarf from online. His surroundings are still, quiet, save for his steady heartbeat sounding so loud, too loud in his too-sensitive eardrums.
(Alastor's five senses had grown sharper ever since he met his mate, after all. He just couldn't decide if it was a blessing or a curse... sometimes.)
It was a few more minutes before the train is bound to arrive when an exhausted looking nurse (or Alastor thinks the middle-aged woman must be a nurse judging by the cap she still haphazardly has clipped atop her head... maybe she just forgot to take it off?) wearily steps onto the platform, swaying a bit too unsteadily on her feet, not too far from where he is standing with faded make-up still on her weary face.
He watches her from the corner of his eye.
If she faints... well, he'll be sure to be alert so that he can catch her if necessary. He doesn't want her to hit her head on the hard ground or something.
Should he start dialing 911...?
Their eyes meet and Alastor politely smiles at her in greeting, inclining his head at her. "Busy night?" he asks, cordially.
"Yeah. Mondays are just the worst," she says, tiredly smiling back at him, her face pale and drawn, the make-up doing very little to help hide the bags that were shadowing her dull eyes that looked so dark underneath the too-bright lights, most likely from a long, all-nighter shift from the nearby hospital.
Their train arrives.
The inside of the train is just as empty as the platform outside and not for the first time since he found and met his mate, Alastor feels so alone all over again.
Even though, technically speaking, he isn't really alone right now. There is only the overworked nurse and the former Alpha of the Northern pack now occupying the train, their seats on opposite ends of the compartment with the lady nurse falling fast asleep in her seat the moment she slumps down on it.
Poor thing, he thinks. She must have been so tired.
Alastor internally salutes the nurse for her hard work.
Sighing, he turns away from the nurse to give her some much-needed privacy as she dozes off while he takes in the sight of the empty train—of all the empty seats around him and the hazy glow of sunlight that continues to stream in and paint the unoccupied seats and the floors of the train with a distinct splash of yellowish red, accompanied by a gentle orange that reminds him of the hue of the real thing.
Alastor blankly takes in all of these sights, seeing but not really processing them all that much. His mind was attentive but completely uninterested.
He feels so tired.
So dead to this world.
As he rubs at his eyes, he blames it on the fact that he hasn't been sleeping well lately, he just... couldn't, not without knowing if his mate is safe. Then again, her job isn't what one would consider 'safe'.
She literally hunts down monsters.
Alastor huffs lightly at the thought as he turns to look out the window again, watching the way the scenery before him shifts from a glaring light and into an array of too-bright colors as the train begins to finally move.
...It was beautiful.
Leaning back on his seat, Alastor releases another quiet sigh and continues to stare at what the view has to offer him.
Any moment now, the world will wake up soon.
It's not until the train goes through a tunnel, one that temporarily catches him off guard because it throws him into a sudden state of blackness that Alastor almost thought, for a terrifying second, that he had actually gone blind.
And as Alastor desperately tries to blink out the spots that were still dancing behind his eyelids—the all too sharp contrast between the early morning light and the sudden darkness of the tunnel was actually kind of painful, jarring on his too-sensitive eyesight. Come to think of it, he hadn't even been sleeping much these days.
...Maybe that's why.
When Alastor was so sure that he had managed to blink out all the spots away from his vision, the train has already finished going through the tunnel. So, he looks up and instantly sees his sleep-deprived face reflected so clearly on the train window.
And in it, he sees the goddess of shadows sitting right next to him.
