A gentle breeze blew on our flushed faces, quite like the real one, reminding us that we were still alive, still safe and sound, still together.
We lay on the soft grass, contemplating a cloudless clear sky, the wires in our brains twisting and turning, thinking of the steps ahead. I couldn't believe it when Noah confessed to me a truth he kept from me for so long, a truth that could change my entire point of view of him.
"You're immune to poison?!" , I exclaimed when I heard the words leave the boy's lips.
He only nodded, looking at me like it was the dumbest fact in the world.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I fumed, but he frowned at me, not comprehending what I was getting at.
"What would you have done if I did? Fall in love with me sooner? Kiss me sooner?" , his face didn't betray a single hint of sarcasm, and I realized that despite the amount of human feelings Noah learned, he didn't quite know how to use sarcasm yet. His question was purely innocent. His cheeks flushed red when he asked, while he turned his gaze away, afraid of my answer.
"I---m-maybe, maybe I would!" , I muttered.
It was true. The whole Haru thing made me extra cautious around boys, and now that Noah showed up in my life, it was like all this time, I've been waiting for someone like him to appear.
As if he was made for me.
I shook my head, pushing these fairy tale thoughts away, then I stood up straighter, hugging my knees to my chest, and fixed Noah's horizontal face resting on the grass, the rest of his body in a snow-fairy position.
"What are we supposed to do now? How do we stop them from using us any longer? How do we stop this vicious loop?"
Noah shut his eyelids tight, pursing his lips. He hummed something I didn't quite catch.
"I'm trying to think, but you're all in my head right now. You're everything I can think of. How do I stop this? It's causing me a headache."
A warm chill took over my spine, as my heart almost skipped a happy beat, dancing to the irresistible melody of love. I figured that Noah's honesty would either kill me of happiness, or send me to jail for doing unspeakable things to him.
"We were supposed to be under the Queen's protection" , I started, urging Noah to think with me. "but she left because someone ordered her to. She probably does not know of Michael's treachery, but if the ones controlling our fate let him approach me, it means that they wanted it to happen."
Noah opened his ocean eyes, their crystal clear surface, filled with endless lights, reflecting the current state of his mind.
"And if they wanted it to happen, but didn't want you to die..." Noah replied. "Then they knew you were going to be saved by Cassiel."
I nodded, over and over. The pieces of the puzzle were assembling, yet, there was a huge hole in the picture. A hole we can only fill if we play along in the game.
"No matter what we do, they have it all figured out" , I said helplessly.
"The only thing left to do now is to let them unravel our fate to us, little by little. We'll follow the story like baggage-less passengers, we'll ride the train they sent for us, but we will never let them meddle with our decisions."
"We'll only take our own side" , I agreed, a smile taking over my lips, following Noah's.
I didn't know how long we could keep the promise we made that day. I didn't stop to think how foolish it sounded, the moment we made it. We were challenging the gods of this universe, without a care in the world. We were delusioning ourselves in thinking we were the ones in control, when we were nothing but dolls being moved by someone else.
When the grass under Noah's body changed color, turning from green to black, then to that scarlet blood I hated so much, I knew that our world was about to collapse. A cold chill, resembling an invisible hand, seized my throat, silencing every scream I could ever utter. A familiar feeling freezed my limbs, one by one, rendering them completely useless. Fear. Fear itself materialized like Death before my eyes. A second later, I was looking at my own death in the face. The certainty that I was going to die at that moment grilled my brain, as I shook uncontrollably, tears overflowing on my cheeks, eyes as wide as a dying prey in the mouth of its predator. I could swear there was no one visible next to us, but I knew. I knew he came. I knew with every cell in my body who we were dealing with, who we were challenging, with our silly promises and our delusional hope.
I blinked back what I could of tears, and my vision returned to normal, fear still immobilizing my body. I looked at Noah, whose eyes were the only ones reflecting the same fear I had running in my veins, rummaging my cells with toxicity. It was the first time I saw that color in the boy's irises. A dark shade of red, almost like....like coagulated blood, tainting the pavement of a dark alley, after someone has been killed. His limbs froze like mine, except that...the realization hit me then, like a sword digging in its victim's guts.
Noah was being swallowed by the ground. The moving sand-like scarlet grass ate away at his feet, his legs, his palms. Now, only his head showed. Seeing him like that woke every cell in my body, breaking away the chains of fear.
I stretched out my hand inside the red mud, searching for his.
My heart sank.
Instead of grabbing flesh and bone, I closed my hand on.... nothing.
I moved it blindly, left and right. Yet, nothing seemed to touch my now-sweaty palm. I sank deeper into the scarlet mud, my heart racing, my blood boiling. In a frenzy, I sank my head underneath the ground, just to see what was beyond the mud that was taking Noah away from me.
Before I knew it, a scream escaped from my throat at the sight of the impossible.
A cloudless sky in my vision. No Noah, No ground, nothing but a blue colored void, with no end to it.
"NO!" , I shouted to whoever was with us, the one responsible for our never ending misery. "Noah! Noah!"
From the corner of my upside down head, I saw the mud space was closing in, little by little. I barely had the time to emerge back to the other side, and when I did, I looked down at the floor.
No scarlet mud. No black grass.
Noah was gone.