However, Laurem did not give up.
As summer approached, schools across the land granted their students a reprieve, allowing them to return home for a well-deserved break. Many pupils took advantage of this opportunity to embark on adventures to exotic places, jet-setting overseas to visit far-flung relatives or seeking summer jobs to earn a bit of pocket money. Others, however, opted to remain on campus, enrolling in summer classes to complete credits or delve into advanced subjects.
For Laurem, who had no family or home to return to, this break served a different purpose entirely: to search for that elusive person who had captured his heart.
He would return to the town, asking anyone he remembered seeing before, but despite his best efforts, Laurem could not seem to locate any information about that stranger. No one in the town seemed to recall ever seeing him, which came as no surprise, given that the stranger was not a native of the area. It has been a few years too, and some traces would have been erased through the weather,
Still, there should be some information left.
How could someone be gone like that?
He tried to describe the features of that person. With only the vaguest of memories to guide him, Laurem struggled to recall any defining features that could make the search much easier. All he could conjure up were the stranger's most redeeming qualities, such as their striking eyes - a description that hardly did justice to the person's unique and captivating gaze.
Yet, every time, he will receive the shaking heads of the people while saying that they did not know any person with that kind of feature. Many times, and many more, Laurem had long grown to the numb feeling of receiving the same response all the time.
Why...
Why does it seem like this person did not exist at all?
For such a person—nobody remembered the person who has six small siblings following his footsteps, the person who would always run strange errands on the street, the person whose eyes would shimmer even on the darkest of nights—the person who should be very recognizable to everyone.
A person that should be remembered.
If not from Laurem recovering his memories, does it mean that nobody will realize the existence of that person? Will nobody realize that he is gone?
Laurem suddenly felt cold.
He had already prepared himself for the possible outcome, in the case the person he sought had already passed away. He knew he would feel a sense of loss, for meeting one's soulmate is a rare gift from fate, and losing them also means losing oneself. Still, perhaps this reunion, even in death, could offer a salve for the deep ache of his longing - the only way to quell the incessant yearning that consumed his every thought.
To find closure, even in death.
Fate is a fickle factor in this world, with its fragile strands interweaving together all the destinies of all those who dwell on it. The final release of death can occasionally turn out to be the nicer outcome, since it puts an end to the struggles and suffering of this earthly life.
Laurem would succumb to it if not for his sense of survival.
Yet for him, the notion of merely stopping to feel seemed unacceptable given the lingering "what-ifs" and the alluring prospect of a possible survival. He craved closure, he craved resolution, and he was willing to explore the far reaches of existence itself to find it.
But it will be different if that person did not exist in the first place.
What if he is just a figure he imagined?
After being schooled, Laurem learned that when individuals are on the brink of death or are starving, they begin to hallucinate. It has something to do with brain delusions due to the lack of oxygen or any other needed nutrients for the brain to properly function. During this period, they will encounter a "third party" who appears to guide them to survival. This "third party" appears near them, seemingly undisturbed by the severity of the surroundings.
Something along the lines of a "guardian angel."
That person, indeed, seems like a guardian angel. But it made Laurem feel worse. Fortunately, before he could wallow in another episode of depression, he found an old news clipping about the train traversing on the seven cliffs incident that happened a few years ago. It doesn't seem important and looks ordinary, but it is his saving grace.
The news clipping described the incident in detail: the what happened, when it happened, where it happened, why it happened, and who are the people affected scheme.
The train was illegally seized by a group of slave traffickers from a merchant they killed along the way and had been using it to transport slaves and explosives between continents. The group collected quite a number of slaves from a beast camp nearby and just passing by to refuel. Along the way, they collected more beggars to become slaves, together with the crates of explosives they smuggled from a factory. Their intention is to sell it to the demons.
However, it seems that while they are in the middle of traversing the seven cliffs; the engine malfunctioned, that suddenly increased the speed a hundred more past the limit of safety. The carts rattled, and the wheels grumbled with the forceful run as sounds of metal scratching reverberated along the tracks.
Since it just starting to snow, the rails are cold and slippery, causing the wheels to go off-trail when the train needed to take a sharp turn. As it fell, the explosives were ignited and every being, the living and non-living, were scorched evenly. All the passengers entered the doors of death.
Nobody survived the incident.
And since it was snowing that time, the rescue took time to arrive. It is only after the snow thawed that the bodies of the dead people are found. Most of the bodies were children and beast people, while there are also those from the traffickers. The town made a burial to the poor souls, though nobody knows which is which since most of the bodies are burnt to the crisp.
Laurem never felt so heartbroken after hearing the news.
He remembered making a promise with that person... but that person did not give his promise back...
He... He hated that person ba!
Laurem never felt so hateful before. Both his demon and beast blood boiled in frustration. He suddenly wanted to break things, smash buildings, and kill people. The beast in his heart yelled in rage while the demon mourned and grieved for the lost. It seems unfair for the world to continue spinning as if none of it matters.
Luckily, he calmed down. He did after hacking a couple of trees in the mountains and toppling about three hills in the process. With the anger out from his system, Laurem started to assess the situation more carefully, trying to understand the flow of events. He feels like there is something wrong with it, something that he had missed.
His mentor told him that he was found him unconscious near a shrubbery nearby a cliff. The sound of the passing train is quite distinct and the reason why they conclude that Laurem was pushed out from a train due to some reason. Then, while it was still running on the track, a smell close to sulfur lingered in the air before a large explosion happened.
Which means that before the train fell, it exploded. The reason why it went off the course is because the large explosion destroyed the railroad tracks, forcing the train to continue forward until it reached the edge of the cliff. Following this scenario, it seems that what is written and known by people is different from those who had seen the real event.
Actually, how did these people know what happened if nobody survived the incident? How did they know that the perpetrators are traffickers and not slave traders? How do they know that the explosives are smuggled and not bought?
A light seems to enter Laurem's eyes.
He read the article once again and noticed how the writer is so elaborate in explaining the details on how the accident happened... or how the accident is supposed to happen in the writer's pen.
He could clearly see how the facts were being twisted!
Nobody saw the actual scene so nobody could determine the article's credibility. Combined with the results of the investigation handed by the officials, the events written by the writer somehow matched everything like a puzzle. But it is so perfect that if one would just look closely, they will see it so fitting as though the author itself is on the scene during that event.
The shreds of evidence are also illogical. Assuming that the train did explode after falling, then how are the officers able to find bodies? There should be no bodies since everything will be obliterated into pieces. And was not able to rescue quickly? Isn't this stupid? The date it happened showed that winter is just about to start. How could they not recover the bodies if there were only a few inches of snow?
Then, what if the writer of this article is that person... this juncture is pretty much acceptable than these fabricated facts? So, Laurem decided - that person is alive!
Laurem could not help smiling as he let his body fall to the bed. Summer break is just around the corner. He will start another search on that town again, wishing that this time a miracle will happen. They first met during summer, so he always visits the alley where they last met at the same time.
He hopes that that person will appear again, like how that person suddenly arrived in his life.
He went to sleep while hugging that coat as usual. These years, Laurem would always dream the back of that person. The scene where that person was slashed by the ax then being hit by the whip eventually falling on his knees.
The last memory that he could get from that person...
Once, he'd never had a sweet dream.
It has been twelve years.
How many years should he spend to stop feeling this agony?