Chapter 35

Uriel was left at the arcade when Olia Isema told him that she'll be going to the services counter to pay some bills.

Since he had nothing with him, he couldn't play even a single coin-op machine at that place no matter how much he wanted. He was left with no choice but to just admire the bright colors of machines and wallpapers around him while envying those other kids who were able to play.

He watched the repetitive preview battle from the street fighter game machine over and over.

He had gotten tired of it and watched people joyfully bowling and dancing.

As he got bored at that joy-ridden place without the ability to have any of those experiences with him, he glanced outside and saw a dull-looking bookstore across.

Compared to the arcade, it was quite bland and boring.

Since he had nothing else better to do anyway, he gave the bookstore a chance and thought some kind of book might get his interest.

He couldn't remember which books he had already read before, but he knew that he wasn't much into one.

As soon as he got in, the merry noises suddenly sounded distant and he's transported to a cold, quiet dimension. It was quite a fascinating dynamic as he looked back across at the arcade.

Somehow, he appreciated the peace he's in than the color-splashed world back there. It was a different kind of bliss.

As he looked around, there were no particular books that made his head look back and stop.

He had read the synopsis from the fictional ones at the back of its cover and they were all imaginative and creative. However, once he puts into mind that he'll have to go through a hundred pages just to witness everything that the person wrote in had thought of, he'd return it to the shelf, walk away, and instantly forget the book.

It was as simple as that.

None of those imaginary worlds could take him anywhere else, he thought.

He was planning to get out of that bookstore until he passed through the nonfiction section and came across a thick book which had riddled him.

He grabbed the hard-bound book and scrutinized it at each corner.

"This is supposed to be a non-fictional?" He whisperingly asked. "Does that mean everything that's written here is true?"

He returned his gaze at the front cover and read the huge golden title of the book – Bible. It was quite obvious from the length and thickness and the quality of paper.

Inside were contents of names he could barely recognize, but he was familiar with the passages.

This caught him off guard since the only times he felt that way was when he saw his parents' name written at their tombstones.

He thought that he must've been raised in a quite religious environment to be able to retain familiarity with a bunch of words that felt quite strange to him.

He didn't like the idea of condemning it and he doesn't want to blindly worship it either. It was like a bigger, complicated cipher that he knew was impossible to crack, but still had the desire to do so.

Maybe because it was something he wanted to understand or something he wanted to rebuke – that he isn't so sure of.

Later on, as he couldn't suck in anything else from the riddled book of Christianity, he went back to the arcade.

And for some reason, whenever he looks back across and sees the bookstore, the walls splashed with spectrum colors and game machines locked with children's happiness suddenly felt duller and bleaker than that white-washed, boring bookstore.

He saw something more than colors over there, after all.

He saw tales and otherworldly portals he knew at some point, even he could not imagine to exist.