Elara Metanoa

"…Rin"

"Matsuoka… Old man…"Alvin stared at the wall of flames to his right, it stood between his room and the kitchen, consuming everything slowly. He shouted without moving, hoping—praying—that someone would answer.

But, no one did. 

Now, Alvin prayed in his heart that he had gone deaf. 

Deafness was the reason that he was unable to hear their voice, they were calling out to him but he could not listen.

Yet again, the crackling of the fire, licking every inch of the restaurant burned that hope.

He opened his mouth but no words came out of it. His lips quivered and a single tear dripped out of his right eye. The pain of the loss was so much that even his injuries seemed to be a soothing balm on his aching heart.

Just then—

Alvin heard something, it was the sound of something clacking coming closer to him.

Alvin turned to look at the source of the noise with limpid eyes, his vision clouded with tears.

When he saw the figure of a woman wearing a kimono appearing in his sight, his heart clenched, "…Rin?" 

The words rolled off of his tongue, hope and desperation laced in his tone. Alvin wanted to believe— no he needed to believe that Rin was safe. 

The woman, upon hearing the desperation in his voice stopped but said nothing. 

Her silence unsettled Alvin. 

He closed his eyes, allowing the lingering tears to fall before opening them. 

Now with clear eyes, he looked at the figure standing before him once more and his stomach twisted. He realized that the woman standing before him was not who he hoped she was.

"Who are you…?" he asked, his voice devoid of emotion. He appeared to be drained of energy but in the depth of his eyes, a strange light flickered and refused to die out. 

His eyes linked with a pair of wine-red eyes. A fleeting scene appeared in his mind, he recalled why the woman seemed familiar. To be precise it was her eyes that he had seen before. 

She was the woman whom he caught peeking at the fight from the private room, the same woman who had booked an entire floor of private rooms just for herself. 

During the argument he had with the customer earlier, he had looked upwards by coincidence and saw those eyes for the first time. 

They were the most beautiful and captivating eyes he had ever seen in his life. But at this moment, he could not bring himself to appreciate them even a bit. 

The only thought on his mind was— Why is she unharmed?

Alvin was not cursing her to die or angry that she survived after all even if he was alive, for now.

But what he could not bring his head around, was the fact that not only had the woman survived such an explosion but she was unscathed. Like she was never in the middle of the explosion when it happened.

'How is that possible? I am sure it was her who was watching the fight from the private room.' The sudden anomaly took Alvin's mind temporarily off his pain and loss.

Earlier he did not think much about them due to the heated argument and looked away but now… he couldn't sit still when the woman who should have died along with everyone else was now standing right before him.

A cold chill ran down his spine, irrational yet undeniable. Alvin's fingers brushed against the broken wooden floor beneath him—a habit, something he did to calm himself down when he needed to think.

Under the bluish shade of the umbrella, the woman's pale face gave off a gentle aura. Yet her eerie calmness unsettled Alvin the most. 

Her wavy, long black hair was tied in a loose braid that rested on her shoulders, giving the woman the appearance of a graceful Japanese wife.

Yet Alvin noticed that she was not Japanese, she simply dressed like one. 

Noticing the wariness and confusion in his eyes, the woman sighed and lowered the umbrella she was holding, folding it smoothly. 

"Everyone here is dead except you." Her blood-red lips broke the silence. 

But hearing them Alvin trembled, his face paled as he lowered his head. He felt the last bit of hope in his heart shatter a hope that made him believe the people he cared about somehow did not get caught in this disaster and somehow escaped. 

The mysterious woman paused, allowing the news to sink into his mind, and spoke again, "You are also on the verge of dying." 

Her voice was devoid of any pity, sympathy, or any other emotion besides calmness. 

She was not being cruel, nor was she here to mock him—she was merely stating facts. Her gazer dropped, it fell on the huge piece of wood on the broken floor that was now sticking out of Alvin's stomach, its surface drenched in blood.

The wound was so ghastly that even a huge part of his stomach and liver was destroyed by the same stake. 

The rest of his body was not unharmed as well, his legs were twisted in a way there not supposed to even bend in. 

Alvin had already seen his situation and knew there was nothing he could do about his situation. "I am bound to die, I am aware." He said dryly but a look of unwillingness flashed through his eyes. 

This unwillingness was rooted in a deep fear of death and the unknown journey it entails.

Alvin himself may not have realized this, but the woman before him saw it clearly in his eyes. She could see through him like an open book. It was not like Alvin was a master at hiding his emotions.

Alvin tried to change showing he was not bothered, "But who are you? What happened here? Why are you fine?"

Even though he did not fool anyone but himself, the woman went along with him. For the first time, she smiled—barely.

"Pleased to meet you, I am Elara Metanoa" With a graceful bow, she introduced herself like some kind of aristocrat "Would you mind answering a few of my questions?"