Chapter 107

"I'm willing to die for that unknown purpose," Ross decisively said. "If what you're saying is true, then so be it. I'll wholeheartedly accept death."

It was a silent night.

Ross and Toren were in the room, talking about Coen's intentions as they have for the consummate time. It has been a while since they have had a private conversation since the week was busy for the professor.

And since he was the only person to acknowledge Toren's existence in that place, he thought it would be a good idea to communicate with someone that was almost nonexistent.

A lingering spectator without a flesh or a soul.

"Must be really nice," Toren sighed. "I wish I could also wholeheartedly accept death like you can. But no matter how much I want to, the world is not too forgiving to me."

Ross stared at him intently, trying to understand and empathize with his situation.

"I'm not sure what mess you've gotten yourself into, but I think everything's teaching you courage. You had to escape death and now you yearn for it. You must've been so scared of the future that you relinquished your past. Until now, are you gonna run away?"

Ross stood up and opened the lower cabinet to collect the piles of document papers.

Toren had skimmed those written reports that his brother had submitted about his observations regarding the individual behaviors of the children.

"The progress is unwavering and steady," Ross went on. "If the experiment goes as expected and the product has been successfully distributed, I could die peacefully afterwards. I wouldn't care about myself if I have seen my ambitions come to fulfillment. That's all there is to it for me. I'm content with all the pleasures I've already experienced so far, so I'm good to go."

Toren glimpsed at the report papers, then back to the man's eyes.

The satisfaction exuding out from it was quite as starry as the twilight skies.

Full of twinkling stars, ready to explode and return to the black hole. Toren thought it was always the end if death came to a person and that it should be feared.

But looking back, farther even at the memories he had lost, maybe death was not such a cruel entity after all. Maybe death was like a gasp of satisfied breath to supply your soul. Then what was he so desperate for?

What was he so scared of that he eluded so much at the expense of himself?

And like an ominous answer, a canvas sheet had flashed before his mind.

It was an unwelcome intruder suddenly gushing in to seize him. And then, there were colors. A spectrum of them. A kaleidoscope of primary shades and blends.

Then, there was a painting brush.

He suddenly remembered the strokes he did, the juxtapositions, the techniques he used and discovered. Before he had the new identity, he was a living being.

Someone else that was tainted with the lurks of dark recesses.

The person he had become after seeing the world progress era by era was an entirely different person from the one who originally had his body.

The person that was Coen's brother, the person that was adopted to the En family, and the person who had painted millions of pictures.

And those two entirely different persons had been clashing inside of him.