Chapter 99
Every question drifted silently, imprinted upon the cold air as though forming a mirror for Aldraya to see herself from an angle she had never known before.
Buuuk – buuuk!
"...."
Aldraya halted precisely when Theo stepped into her path, as if her body recognized the obstruction without needing a conscious command.
A small motion appeared within her, merely a slight tilt of her head to the left, so faint it barely qualified as a reaction at all if not for the fact that it truly happened.
After that, silence seized her form in a far more severe manner.
Aldraya's entire body froze in a posture that resembled a statue carved with deliberate, perfect precision.
No breath expanded her chest.
No blink disturbed her cold eyes.
Even her fingers, which usually held the faintest tension, seemed drained of all life.
Theo noticed this when he glanced down briefly to check the watch on his wrist, counting the seconds that passed one by one.
Ten seconds slipped by within a silence that felt far longer than the number reflected on the dial.
During those seconds, Theo wondered whether he had gone too far.
Not from worry, but from curiosity—curiosity about the limits of a girl said to possess no emotion.
Time moved slowly between them, filled with a strange tension—not born from conflict, but from the space that existed between human and something not entirely human.
When the tenth second passed, the air around Aldraya still refused to move, as though the entire world waited to see whether she would function again or remain locked in endless stillness.
"Before we continue, I want to know your understanding of freedom. Is your definition the same as mine?"
'He's cunning. But I'm not an author so easily trapped by something that simple.'
"To me, freedom is a state in which something truly holds meaning.Anything besides that is merely another form of restraint."
As the silence cracked softly at the fifteenth second, Aldraya finally moved again like a machine regaining its current after an unnatural pause.
From her lips—lips that had remained sealed without a hint of life—emerged a looping question, one crafted not to seek an answer but to hold the momentum in her grasp.
She challenged Theo's conception of freedom, placing it as a mirror he must answer before she would unveil anything of her own.
There was no biting tone.
No gentle tone.
Only a construction of logic too slippery for an ordinary person to evade.
But Aldraya was not facing an ordinary person, and the world knew that in its own quiet way.
Theo regarded her with calmness that reflected not the situation, but himself.
A smile grew on his face, a smile neither pleasant enough to remember nor dark enough to fear.
A smile occupying a gray territory, a place where thoughts churned and instincts trembled without knowing why.
He stood like a shadow leaking from the border between author and creation, between human and the maker of the world he wrote.
Each sheet of drifting articles around them seemed to withdraw, granting space to something far larger than Aldraya's question.
He did not fall into the trap, for such a trap was an old game to him.
In his mind, freedom had long ceased to be a simple word used to close a conversation.
Freedom was a structure he understood from the roots of a story to the peak of suffering, from the foundations of Last Prayer he wrote to its echoes within Flo Viva Mythology that consumed ninety-nine percent of his real life.
Thus, his answer emerged not as a reaction but as a declaration of something he had known for a long time.
To Theo, freedom was merely the state in which something fulfilled its meaning, a point where every line meant to be drawn finally connected.
Aside from that, everything was a form of constraint, whether visible or hiding beneath the illusions of a journey.
At this explanation, the air grew slightly heavier.
Not threatening, but enough to make the space between them resemble a boundary between two interpretations waiting to crumble one after another.
"I have fulfilled your request, Aldraya.Now it is time for you to answer my question."
Yuaaahh!
"So, what do you think is the essence of freedom?As I asked earlier, is it a philosophical matter? A sense of confinement? A life without meaning? Or a step taken atop suffering? Or perhaps another understanding, something deeply personal to you?"
Four seconds after his words hung in the air, Theo shifted his weight forward slightly, as if that small step was necessary to pierce the silent space Aldraya had created.
His gaze traced her face, unchanged, fixed upon a point unreadable to human perception.
And when he felt the resonance of his own words begin to fade, he let his thoughts return to the unanswered question.
It was Theo's turn to demand the answer.
Not with urgency, but with a slow, sharp look reminding Aldraya that freedom was not merely a concept—it was the root of a conflict in a form far greater than the articles floating around them.
The space around them spun slowly, filled with drifting sheets of information like fragments of memory laid bare.
Theo lifted his chin slightly, ensuring his line of sight remained aligned with Aldraya's figure, waiting for the slightest crack in her composure to slip the question back into her thoughts.
Between the rhythm of his own breath striving for steadiness, he reminded himself that freedom was the most painful riddle for Aldraya—something that once awakened her deepest side as a being bound to fate and destruction.
At least, from the fingers of the Almighty.
With that awareness, Theo presented a question that was never spoken, yet clearly communicated through his posture and gaze.
He demanded Aldraya's own meaning of freedom—whether she saw it as philosophy, as a form of shackles, as a journey without meaning, or suffering carried as the price to understand her connection to something higher.
Silence stretched time once again.
Aldraya remained still, but her stillness was no longer empty.
There was a thin pressure woven into her gaze, a subtle force signaling that Theo's question was not merely asking for a definition but touching something far closer to her core than she had ever admitted.
Theo saw it, felt the faint ripple moving between them—a ripple not born from emotion, but from the concept brushing too near something Aldraya did not wish to expose.
At that moment, Theo understood that her answer would come in its own way, a way that rarely followed human logic but rather a logic shaped from memories, faith, and wounds kept hidden.
'I understand your signal, Aldraya.That movement was enough to say you feel no need to answer my question.'
Hooooh!
'Still playing it safe, are you?'
At first, Aldraya moved only slightly, a motion that appeared fragmented as if her body needed to relearn how to function beneath the spinning world.
Her right index finger rose slowly, drawn like a line carved from cold air, until it nearly aligned with her still-silent lips.
To be continued…