A KINGDOM OF DEAD HEARTS [COMPLETED]

CHAPTER 16: XANDER'S GIFT

Xander was silent, he seemed to think about something, trying to decide on something maybe, and his gaze to Airin softened. Airin nodded, glad that Xander seemed to understand that she was just joking, a way to vent her frustration without making her sound like a miserable loser.

She huffed and patted her notebook and glanced at the clock. 1:30AM. She had to work tomorrow, and she had to be on her most rested form, to be a good teacher for her kids. But she could not let go. Damn. How hard is it to write just a few sentences?

"I'll stay up just a bit longer. I just can't ... break this wall in my head. I don't know what else to say!"

Xander looked like he was still deep in thought, his expression was pensive as if he was trying to think of what to do. "May I ... have a look at ... your writing?" he almost stuttered as he asked that.

"Well, may I see your drawing? We exchange, on a count of three!" Airin was not being super serious, she would have let him look at her handwriting mess without the drawing, but Xander thought for a bit, and nodded.

Xander grabbed the stack of paper on the coffee table, and Airin grabbed her notebook.

She counted till three, and the exchange happened.

The two of them sat at the opposite side of the couch, Airin with a stack of paper of Xander pencil line drawing, and Xander with Airin's notebook.

Each piece of Xander's paper was filled with lines. Attempt at drawing something but Airin could not make out what it was he wanted to draw. Thin hesitant lines, haphazard, filled up the pages. What are these? Why would he draw lines like these? were questions that ran nonstop in Airin's mind.

She glanced at Xander. He was solemn, pensive, as he turned page after page of Airin's notebook.

"It is incoherent in some parts, I know. It's a massive mess," Airin stated, feeling the need to make sure that Xander knew that she knew it was a mess.

Xander did not seem to hear her, he stared at one page intently, as if trying hard to comprehend what was going on in the storyline. He nodded, and looked up at Airin. "You will finish your writing," a statement that sounded strangely assured, he ran his fingers on the page he was reading, paused, then closed the notebook.

They exchanged back the stack of paper and the notebook. Xander grasped his stack of drawing, then threw it on the coffee table. Airin wanted to ask about the line drawing, but she decided not to. Everyone had their own artistic journey, or whatever it was that Xander tried to do. He should have his own time and space to find himself, without anyone, let alone someone from another universe, meddling with the process.

Airin said good night to Xander, and went to her bedroom.

Sitting on her airbed, she stared one last time at her notebook in the dimmed light of her room. She heard gentle snore of Lyanna, and autumn wind that blew outside.

Almost unconsciously, her hand moved and grasped her pen.

It came like drips of water that had been dammed, and a small hole was drilled in the dam. Trickling, dripping, but flowing. On one empty page of her notebook, Airin's hand started moving. Images materialized on the page before her, images from her mind, of what she wanted her novel to be, but failed to translate it into words. Until now.

Her hand moved, describing the images with precision and ease, like a documentary that ran on the page, a projector that played a movie from her head, from her imagination.

A long exhale, she had been holding her breath for sometime, then just some quick inhale to get some oxygen in, and she kept going.

"What the f*ck ..." she whispered to herself after she had filled up four blank pages with her handwritten notes.