The Reunion

The room was submerged in a thick penumbra where every sigh seemed to echo through the silence. She approached, her eyes heavy with uncertainty and exhaustion. The contours of her face trembled, revealing an anxiety that felt almost tangible. 

"Say something." 

Her voice was low, almost pleading, yet laced with silent resolve. 

I stared at her, my gaze distant and unmoving, as though watching a screen where all emotions dissolved into ashes. There was no anger, no love, no sorrow—only the cold control of someone who had learned to manipulate emotions like code in a closed system. 

She took a hesitant step forward, her hands trembling as she sought something I could not give. The faint light cast shadows across her face, betraying the complex mix of feelings—a war between hatred and affection, hope and resignation. 

"Anything… Just say something, please." 

She insisted, her eyes locked onto mine, as if awaiting a spark, a reaction that might shatter the suffocating silence. 

My words emerged, clipped and precise, devoid of inflection: 

"You can scream. Ask me anything. But I don't know what you expect to hear." 

As I spoke, I noted—without truly feeling—every tremor in her fingers, every subtle shift in her breathing. She was desperately searching for a reflection of herself in me, some proof that life still lingered, that the pains of the past and hopes of the future held weight. 

"I…" she began, her voice faltering for a moment before steadying with near-painful effort. 

"I can't bear this silence." 

The seconds dragged as though time sought to punish my indifference. 

"I don't feel." 

My words rang cold, calculated, as though each syllable had been processed without leaving an emotional trace. 

She recoiled slightly, her gaze fracturing into a mix of fury and despair. In the cramped space, where light struggled to pierce the heavy curtains, the air vibrated with the tension of unspoken truths. 

"You've always been like this, haven't you? Hiding everything…" she murmured, almost to herself, as her trembling fingers clenched in a futile attempt to hold onto what remained of her. 

I didn't respond. The silence lingered, deep and unyielding, like the code I had crafted. Here, in this space where love and hatred blurred into a sorrowful dance, I was merely a shadow—a presence that felt nothing. 

She reached out, hesitating between the desire to touch and the fear of being burned by my coldness. 

"Why don't you feel *anything*?" 

The question hung in the air, heavy and unanswered. 

The room seemed to hold its breath, every sound and movement amplified by the density of our reality. The only noise was the faint rhythm of my heartbeat—a barely perceptible reminder of an existence that, to me, had become purely mechanical. 

"Perhaps because learning not to feel is the only way to survive in this world," I finally replied, my calm tone as sharp as a blade. 

She closed her eyes briefly, as if trying to absorb those icy words and transform them into something tangible. When she reopened them, there was a flicker of defiance mingled with resignation. 

"What if one day, in this silence, you decide it's worth feeling?" 

Her whisper carried a hope I could not comprehend. 

I watched her silently as the room reclaimed its space, the penumbra enveloping our outlines. In that moment, suspended between unspoken tensions and the weight of emotions I kept locked away, the silence spoke louder than any feeling ever could. 

---

The fine rain traced uncertain patterns in the dirty puddles of the alley as she stared at me with eyes that bore invisible scars. Her gaze—wounded and hesitant—spoke of a shattered past. For a fleeting moment, something inside me flickered—almost pity—but the sensation vanished as swiftly as it arose. I was a killer; I couldn't afford to be swayed. 

She opened her mouth, her voice quivering like leaves in the wind. 

"I know you can't forgive what I did. But…" 

I observed her, expressionless, as she struggled to find the right words. My cold, calculated mind registered every hint of her nervousness—the slight tremor in her fingers, her rapid breaths—but none of it pierced my armor. 

I analyzed everything as data, predictable chemical reactions. I knew every smile, every nervous sigh, was merely dopamine at work. Yet, at that moment, none of it applied to me. I could dissect others' emotions, but my own remained an inaccessible enigma. 

"Why?" she asked, her eyes drowning in sorrow, confused as though seeking an echo of what we'd once been. 

The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy, like smoke from a fire refusing to die. 

"You can scream. Ask me anything. But what did you expect to hear?" My voice held no warmth, a declaration of indifference as cutting as a blade. 

She stepped closer, her lips trembling into a silent plea. 

"Please… just stay calm. Let me explain. Just give me a moment." 

With an almost ritualistic gesture, she pulled out a chair to sit next to me, the creaking of the wood echoing in the silence of the room. She picked up a glass of water with shaking hands and I drank slowly, mechanically savoring the cold of the glass.

The room seemed to hold its breath—each raindrop, each shadow cast by distant yellow light, amplified the tension thickening the air. She began to speak, her words tangled with emotions she tried to mask. Her tone betrayed an inner war—hatred, longing, and anguish intertwined. 

I remained motionless, the unshakable observer—a man who'd learned to bury everything. Her words filled the space, and though I felt nothing, I absorbed every detail, every pause laden with meaning. This wasn't about forgiveness or forgetting—it was the impossibility of reclaiming what was lost, something perhaps irrecoverable. 

The rain continued its relentless fall as we lingered in that confluence of silence and stifled emotion. Even as she poured her truth into words, the only response I could offer was the frost of a heart that had long refused to feel. 

---

He lay there asleep in the soft penumbra of a room where light scarcely dared enter. Elyon—my son—rested with the calm of a night devoid of promises. I watched him, Celestia Black, as a storm of sensations churned within me: pain I never imagined enduring, longing for the curious boy I once knew, and the bitter memory of a past that shattered me. 

His breathing was rhythmic, like the cadence of a time I desperately tried to reclaim. Even closed in sleep, his eyes held an abyss of colors—a dark aurora borealis that reminded me that, despite all horrors, there remained something inexplicably beautiful in this being. 

"Elyon…" I whispered, as though fearing the sound itself might break the spell of silence. 

For an instant, I nearly felt a flicker of pity, a desire to envelop this child with a love that had long ceased to belong to me. But the sensation dissolved. I was a killer. My life was built on merciless choices, on searing pain that taught me never to yield to weakness. 

As I stood there, immersed in observation, memories invaded my thoughts. I remembered when I was just a fragile woman, lost in a cruel world, before fate turned violently against me. At eighteen, I was shattered by the brutality of an American mafia—a violence that tore my soul. Forced to mature in an instant, I survived amid fear and pain while the world crumbled around me. 

It was in that hell I discovered the betrayal of a father I'd never wished to know—a mafia advisor who fed on others' suffering. He was killed, beheaded, and destruction consumed his family. I nearly perished that day, but something within me—a survival instinct, a shred of hope—kept me alive. I discovered I carried new life—a son I never chose, who became my only anchor. 

Now, as Elyon slept, memories of that lost childhood merged with the ache of solitude I'd endured so long. I sought him, begged fate for reunion, but he always drifted away, as if sensing too many secrets in me to share. Yet here he was—older, stronger, but with eyes that still radiated the pure innocence of a boy who once loved me unreservedly. 

The room's stillness carried the distant patter of rain against cracked windows. The air bore the weight of a past I couldn't—or perhaps wouldn't—change. 

"Why did you leave, Mother?" A trembling voice, perhaps from memory's depths, echoed unanswered. 

I closed my eyes, trying to decipher what remained of me amid wounds and coldness. Emotions, to me, were mere chemical reactions—data accumulating without revealing true humanity's warmth. I could analyze every detail of his sleep, the faint tremors in his fingers, but nothing within me stirred to feel. 

"I can't forgive what you did… Yet I miss what we had," my words formed like indecipherable code, caught between desire and impossibility. 

Elyon, even unconscious, seemed to carry the promise of lost time—a mother who, despite all darkness, yearned to reclaim a past where love existed unchained by betrayal or pain. 

The rain continued its mournful whisper as I stood divided between remorse and the need to endure. The room's silence was profound, broken only by the solitary beat of a heart refusing to turn fully cold—even as survival demanded the sacrifice of purity. 

That night, as the indifferent world carried on outside, I wondered if I'd ever find the courage to feel. For deep down, even an assassin lost among shadows yearns for something beyond silence and pain. And Elyon, with eyes reflecting universes, was perhaps my only chance to reclaim what I'd thought forever lost. 

---

The rain fell heavily outside, relentless, as I drowned in haunting memories. That night long ago, I nearly succumbed. Nearly died. But something within me fought—an unexpected spark, a feral survival instinct. 

I was pregnant. I didn't want the child—the burden, the fate. Yet deep down, I knew that life was my only salvation. The child of a mafia advisor, born of cruel destiny, and I, daughter of a treacherous man, already knew the world would never be the same. 

"There's no choice," I thought, my voice raw with refusal to surrender, as the clock sealed our path. 

Thus, Nayara was born. 

She entered the world unwanted, a bitter surprise in a merciless universe. Her eyes, pure as a dawn's promise, soon faced the world's brutality. Her father, the mafia man, never cared. He left me ghostlike, alone with a daughter I barely knew how to protect. 

I survived. 

Alone, I built an empire. From pain, rage, and fear, I forged my company. Developed technologies that defied limits and created the world's largest intelligence network—my second power. Each achievement was armor against the past, yet loss's shadow never faded. 

Nayara… 

Her memory haunts me like a specter. At two years old, the mafia father threatened my existence. They demanded I launder dirty money, submit to a filthy system—the price was my daughter. 

"She's my weakness," I heard them whisper, cold as calculated fate. 

In desperation, I turned to an assassins' guild. They promised to protect Nayara. Funding them, I left her in their care, sworn she'd return at twelve. 

But she vanished into that machine. I never saw her again. 

Guilt settled, crushing any shred of humanity I dared show. Forced into coldness, I wove lies to stay alive. 

Then Elyon was born. 

He arrived with a paradox—chocolate skin, snow-white hair, aurora-borealis eyes. A contrast so stark it defied reason. He was unique. Unacceptable. 

But I loved him. 

Watching him grow, I saw redemption in him—a tether to what remained of me. His eyes, intense and curious, absorbed the world with a thirst for truth I'd lost. 

"Teach me, Mother," he'd say, hope and silent pain mingling, as I replied with practiced indifference. 

Time conspired for him. Each achievement, each discovery, tried to fill Nayara's void, to reclaim the irrecoverable. 

But nothing could. 

Deep down, Elyon too was a victim of the cruel fate I'd accepted—a legacy of betrayal and loss. As the rain hammered the windows, I stood torn between remorse and survival, between cold calculation and the faint flame of love that still flickered. 

The day the mafia discovered him arrived like an inescapable nightmare. The air thinned, tension weighting every breath. I sat in a cold room's gloom when the news struck—irrevocable. 

"Elyon…" My voice trembled but stayed controlled, each syllable ice. 

Across the room, he stood. The boy who'd once been my existence's spark now embodied void. His eyes, once bright with curiosity, reflected an indifference sharper than any blade. 

He showed no anger. No fury. Only distant detachment, as though I were a shadow from an unrecognizable past. 

"SPEAK," he demanded, voice rough and emotionless, echoing through the silence between us. 

---