Ragged breaths broke the silence of the woods. Hale stumbled through the trees, dragging a dark red trail behind him. He bit his lip hard, his face a mask of agony and fury as he tried to keep his footing.
​The jagged wound on his shoulder was already turning black with necrosis. It pulsed with a sick, itchy heat that wouldn't let him catch his breath. When a fresh wave of pain hit, Hale let out a raw scream—his throat was already shredded from the sounds he’d made trying to crawl away from the same town he had wrecked.
​He realized he was heading toward the place where he and his late wife had lived. He didn't know why his legs were carrying him here instead of his hideout, where he could actually dress his wounds.
​He couldn't get her face out of his head. And he couldn't stop wondering—how? 
Why did that damned human he’d tried to kill have her exact power to vanish and teleport? Even the scent of the man's blood felt like a haunting echo of her. It was eating away at his mind.
Yet all of his thoughts offered no answer.  It even pushed his sanity aside,  making him vulnerable. 
He could see her.  His dead wife,  hearing her voice as she walked slowly towards the same place he was heading for. 
​“My dear... my dear...” he rasped, sounding like a man dying of thirst. He had tried to bury her memory deep in his heart, so why was it suddenly clawing its way back to the surface?
​Another spike of pain brought him crashing down. He dragged himself through the sharp, tall grass, desperate to reach the one place he had spent years trying to forget.
A tear escaped from his eyes,  reminding him that he was not yet the monster he was trying to become.  
She—they are still his weakness.  For countless of years,  the pain didn't fade away.  
​”I-I’m finally home...” A single tear fell as he reached out a trembling hand.
​Seconds felt like years. His heart pounded in his chest like a ticking bomb. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, the memory of his small, happy cottage flickered in his mind. But when he opened them, the reality hit: a clearing of overgrown grass, well-tended but empty, except for the scorched ruins of his old house.
​It had never been rebuilt, yet it didn't look abandoned. A red hammock hung near the wreckage, and a few leather boxes sat on a makeshift table. A thousand questions hit him at once. He had avoided this place for decades—had someone else moved in?
​Hale forced himself up, shaking as he limped toward the ruins. With bloody fingers, he pried open one of the boxes. Inside was a dried flower that looked like a weeping eye. He didn't need a second look to recognize the teleflaur—the only thing left of his wife and their unborn child. A living ghost of their tragic end.
​”I’m so sorry... I wasn’t there to protect you...” He broke down, clutching the flower to his chest. The ache in his soul hurt far worse than his rotting shoulder. 
“Maybe if I’d been there... I could have died instead. It should have been me!”
​He screamed at the empty air, kneeling in the dirt. ”My wife... my child... why did you take them from me?“
​He hated how weak he felt. He had spent fifty years trying to outrun his past, even posing as a psychologist just to keep his sanity while he plotted his revenge. His family had been innocent; they never hurt a soul, yet they were slaughtered.
​Hale opened another box, this one stuffed with folded papers. Driven by a weird compulsion, he began opening them one by one. He pulled one from the very bottom—a letter from a stranger.
​“I finally bought this place with my own money. I couldn't let it go. It holds so much history—it’s painful, but it made me who I am. My mom told me she found me abandoned right here. She said I would’ve died if she hadn't taken me in to replace the son she lost. I’ve lived a lie for years, and it hurts.”
​A dried tear-stain blurred the ink. Hale’s heart skipped a beat. A cold, sinking feeling settled in his stomach as he grabbed the next one.
​“Sometimes, I wonder why my real parents left me. What happened to them? If I’d grown up with them instead of my ‘dad,’ would they have loved me? Would they have protected me instead of hurting me? Forget it. It’s not like I have a choice. I took one of the flowers home. I wonder if it’ll grow if I take care of it? It calms me down, even if I don’t know what it’s called. Weird, right?”
​Hale’s eyes blurred with tears. His mind was screaming a truth that shouldn't be possible. His family died fifty years ago, and these letters looked like they were written by someone in their mid-twenties. It couldn't be. Hale shook his head,  his heart was telling him to hope yet he knew hope is for the worthless.  He doesn't want to get hurt from hoping again.  
It always end on betrayal.  
The nymphs... the cat people... Trace... Anthony.  All of them who he put his hopes up yet ended up betraying him.  
​He grabbed another page, and this time, his heart nearly stopped.
​“I believe in magic. I know it’s real. I was supposed to die a week ago—my heart actually stopped. My ‘dad’s’ enemy stabbed me, but I saw the sachet of the flower I took from the ruins start to glow. Next thing I know, the doctors are telling me it’s just a minor wound. That’s a lie. I was bleeding out when that man left me for dead.”
​The next letter was newer. Hale’s chest felt like it was being crushed.
​“I went back there today. Sometimes I wish I’d just died that day. I’m dead inside anyway. But then, I met someone interesting. One of my ‘dad’s’ writers. I want to be his friend. Maybe it’ll make me want to stay alive. Maybe he can help me find a reason. Because, I already tried killing myself countless of times already. ”
He read another,  right next to it. 
“I don't feel like dying now.  He's now my bestfriend and I earned more friends.  I am so happy that no cap,  I want to cry.  I still feel empty inside atleast,  I am still breathing. 
I am looking forward each day now! :) ”
​Everything felt too familiar. Hale’s mind raced to Anthony—the only human he had ever felt a strange urge to keep around. Anthony reminded him so much of his son yet he knew he wasn't but it felt like a haunting coincidence.  That this stranger describing Anthony on this very letter. 
It couldn't be! 
​Then, the image of the man he’d "killed" flashed in his mind. He saw the blood on the man’s lips. He remembered the silver eyes from the farm, it was filled with fear—he remembered he found it amusing. He enjoyed his misery. And now, his once silver eyes turned crimson who stared back at him with pure contempt.
​A haunting scream tore from Hale’s throat. He sobbed, trying to push the realization away. 
That he killed someone that his wife desperately tried to protect even in death...
His own flesh and blood—Saint. 
-
Oh 🤭 a kissing scene + revelation.  More to go in the next chapters.