Learning to be Strong Alone // Jeraphina Fanfiction

Chapter XXV: Winter to Spring

"If you want something,
be prepared to fight."

...............

3rd POV

"Are you sure you're going to be alright, Alden?"

The boy nodded dimly, tired chin rested upon his hand as he looked out the window view he had gotten oh-so used to over the past couple of months.

The flickering illumination of the streetlights and late-night cars as they quietly buzzed passed lit up the darkened road that could be seen outside the window. Tall, once-busy buildings had begun turning off for the night, hard workers heavily drained from their shifts, ready to go home to their families.

A gentle moonlight had wafted into Alden's room sipping his blond-dyed hair in the white rays, his eyes shining an only brighter golden.

Valarie sighed and made her way to the door, her legs cutting through the cumbersome silence, only otherwise broken by the light click-clack of keyboards from those who decided to stay late.

"Well, I suppose I must be—"

"Do you think I'll ever find my family?"

The woman stopped with her hand on the frame of the door, an unnatural mellow light creeping in from the buzzing lightbulbs in the hallway, slivering their way to rest between the crevices of the white tile floor.

Valerie looked at the boy before her, watching as his golden eyes looked almost accusingly to meet her face, his hair seeming devoid of its blond colour. Her back was illuminated by the unnatural light, the warm yellow, a contrast to the cold blue which surrounded the boy.

She sighed, grip subtly tightening. "I'm not sure, Alden," she spoke, hand swinging on the edge of the door, "but I do hope that one day, you're able to find comfort in where you are."

With that, he nodded.

She left.

The door closed once again, leaving Alden to bathe in the darkness still interwoven with the gentle moonlight.

His sheets were thinner than the day he first awoke in the hospital-like room, the warmer air coating his body in a light film of sweat. The breeze from the open window no longer tried to use its blunt blade to cut through his face, the air merely brushing past his skin.

From winter to spring; around . . . six months of being awake.

His half-birthday; Valarie assigned his date of birth to the day he awoke—since neither knew his real birthday, of course.

Alden faintly unsheathed his body from the summer sheets. His softly glowing eyes stared down at his legs, sock-covered feet rested firmly on the ground. The shorts he wore exposed his legs, the pale skin no longer covered in blood and stitches—in bandages and scratches.

He stood, wandering over to sit in the armchair where Valerie sometimes asked him questions of himself and questions of his past . . . not that he ever remembered.

The window had been cracked open, the cool city breeze blowing through, causing the curtains to float and dance in the small space of his room. The sounds were stronger now that he had sat in this chair, the nostalgic sounds of city life flowing to him like an ocean wave.

But before he could take a deep breath—before he could even begin to relax...

he heard a creak.

The door he had heard—the one he had recognised as Valerie's office door—had creaked quietly, opening quietly . . . yet with some intent; somebody had purposely opened the door to her office.