A diamond hidden within the gray line

Chapter 81: Nate's letters and gifts and the starlight crystal's purpose.

-Max pov-

Holy shit, nate must've typed this when he found out that I had been adopted hours earlier...but why? Why do type knowing that no one would ever come here? Or perhaps he wanted me to find it when the time is right? I still can't believe that this place has been around for that long...how is that possible?! And the fact that the magishadow were adopting kids just for them to join zöhm's following...why the hell would he do that? What kind of 'perfect image' was he wanting to publicly show, assuming if that's what he was trying to do?

-Narration-

He walks towards the hallway he had always walked in. Looking at it now...how empty it is...how utterly quiet it is...it made him feel incredibly uneasy before walking down the hall and comes across the clock he looked at on the morning kylie told him he was getting adopted. It read that it was 2:27 pm even though it was incredibly dim and some of the ceiling lights, while most were off and some were dim, flickered randomly. It didn't take him long until he find the very room he was living in with the door unlocked. "Nate must've found the key..." Max muttered before he got ready to walk in until he looks at the door. He knew that all the bedrooms here had a number on it even though he never paid much attention to it at the time, but this one...had the number 237. And the room number in his hospital room he once woke up in...also had the same exact number!

"No way...it can't be..." Max utters. Beneath his mask, he had a shocked look on his face. Was it just a coincidence? Or..did this number in particular have a deeper meaning?

Max walks in his old room and find that the lamp that he had in there was turned on and his old double bed is still in there and so is his old nightstand along with the lamp that had been turned on albeit dim. On the nightstand, he found another letter, and to his surprise, he also found the very book his mom wanted him to read without saying anything written down out loud and a small, yet old looking jewelry box on top of it. "I never thought i would see this book again..." Max mutters as he sat on his old bed. He looks out his window only sees a rainy yet foggy scene. He never bothered to look outside much, if at all and he never had the energy to explore the adoption home in its entirety. He could do that right now, but he didn't want to stay here any longer than he has already. He looks at the letter that is a couple of pages long and he knew that nate wrote this for him to see and reads it without having any idea what to expect.

"Dear max:

I don't know if you'll ever get this letter, but i do know that when i arrived here, you were already gone. I originally planned to take you out of here and uncover to mysteries of your von ghoul family history while finding a way for you to break the concealment spell placed over by your mother, but i now realize that would've been a complicated mess. I don't know if you were ever aware of this, but once every six or seven months, you would get sick and your body would feel painfully sore since you complained that's what you would feel. Clawdine would cast the concealment spell on you once you fell asleep during that night or in the afternoon depending on what time it was and you would always wake up feeling better and you were always told that you must've caught a nasty cold or a stomach bug. In fact...before you came here, clawdine used a long term spell on you in order to ensure that the concealment spell wouldn't break while you were here. I highly doubt any of the staff were even aware of the spell.

That was a lie of course, but she didn't want you finding out what she was doing. She got mighty sore with me when she found that i told you that you were more than human, and i reasoned with her saying that she can't protect you forever, which she immediately grew quiet and i saw the look of despair in her eyes. She truly believed that she could protect you by not letting you explore the outside world, yet was ok with you exploring koopa village which made no sense to me at all.