"Will you abandon that power and stay here, chasing that endless strength?"
"Or will you throw away the world that holds this strength, and chase your goal?"
That question caught Vlad off guard, making him finally meet his dark gaze.
It was hidden deep beneath the shadow of his face, which flickered as the curtains behind him were carried by the wind and pulled to the side, revealing a long scar going down his neck that seemed thrice the size of Vlad's.
"Are you serious?"
His father stood a step away, unmoving. He only looked down at Vlad, who stared back with a dumbfounded expression.
He didn't respond to him, nor did he plan to, as the strange question kept echoing inside the silent office.
Power and strength, goals and the past. Nothing he said made any sense; it was like he was speaking in riddles on purpose, not mentioning the very reason he wanted to meet him in the first place.
He was always like this; he never talked to Vlad.
No matter how many times he wanted to speak normally with him, all he could do was watch from the side without doing a thing.
And Vlad hated it.
So much so that he started to regret coming here.
"Are you kidding me? You're still not going to speak to me?"
"I am-"
"SHUT UP!"
Vlad's voice rose, making his father's expression unreadable.
"You really want to stand there and think I'm just some kind of god who understands everything about everyone?"
It was as if he were talking to a wall.
"Maybe I would have understood, maybe I could listen to you once you actually spent some time with me, but you don't even want to meet me unless there's a big reason behind it."
Or it was because he hadn't seen his father for over a year.
"You don't even think of me as your son anymore! I'm nothing but a chore for you to keep a look on ever since mother-"
"Silence."
That made the two of them stop acting like family.
Something pushed down on Vlad's shoulders, making the chair below him shatter and smash his body against the floor. Splinters flew to the side, digging into his pants and drawing some blood.
The invisible pressure over him intensified as he could feel the look his father gave him on the back of his head.
'Urk!'
His eyes turned bloodshot as he tried to claw his way up through the desk in front of him. It was as if he were put under a hydraulic press; his bones were slowly crushed while aching with pain he hadn't tasted before. His muscles tore, his skull stung, and blood dripped down his cheek, piling up into a small pool beneath his chin, reflecting his expression and his open scar.
He didn't notice his father standing beside him, kneeling down next to the shaky boy, and smearing his fingers in the spilled blood.
"I wonder what 'he' saw in you to do something like this."
Vlad couldn't see it clearly, but he noticed his father's shadow moving in a way as if he had placed his fingers on his tongue.
'G-go...!'
He tried to pull himself up but instead was pushed lower, the pressure making him fall to the floor with his face dyed in a pungent crimson that made his throat churn.
Something loomed over his head, creeping closer and closer as only the silhouette of a shadow reaching for his neck reflected on the lonely wooden floors.
'I said... let-'
***
"-Go!"
His voice came out strained as he shot forward and hit something with his nose, falling back into his seat soon after.
Vlad could feel his body break free from the crushing weight as his hands closed in on his throat, holding the place where his father's had previously wrapped around.
Breathing heavily, he looked around to see the cabin of Lightning Express...
'Right...'
He sat back on the seat, breathing with relief.
It was just a memory of his conversation with his father. The one they had had a day before Vlad departed for the Frigora.
His grip on the seat's arm tightened, letting out a tiny scraping sound.
'And you still chose to stay silent.'
He didn't understand what he meant by these words, even after thinking about them for hours. Sure, the fact that people are chasing strength made a bit of sense, but there was no telling what the rest was about.
'Fucking riddles.'
After a short breath, he took a close look at his surroundings, or rather, the flickering static that covered the door through which he entered and the outside view of his window that still had stains from Cesar's attempt at stopping him...
'Cesar!'
As if remembering something, he shifted in the seat and turned on his pulseband to then let out a hollow chuckle.
"Thirty-seven unread messages."
It was a lot considering what kind of person Cesar was; he never really cared about pulse bands in the first place, always choosing to deliver messages in the old-fashioned way and maybe strike up a conversation while at it.
Repeating the number in his head, he checked the missed calls he got, which, to his surprise, turned out to be only two. The numbers kept blinking in the corner of the tiny azure screen, which he opened up hesitantly with a swipe of his finger.
"Huh?"
And to his surprise, all the messages opened at the same time.
However, they weren't what he had expected.
He kept on writing strange instructions about following orders and going with the flow, as well as mentioning a kid with strange hair.
But after seeing that each message had only one word or useless exclamation marks. He gave up on trying to understand what that crazy man wanted from him.
"Who even writes like this..."
"I know, it's kind of stupid."
Vlad's brows furrowed as he turned to the side and saw a person standing there with a red and white bucket in his hands. He had deep blue eyes and wore a neat dark suit that didn't fit a big navy hoodie over his head.
He didn't seem taller than Vlad, but his build had a lot of similarities. Slender body that looked weak to an untrained eye, narrow shoulders that shook each time the boy pulled out something from his bucket and stuffed it in his mouth with a loud crunch. And the pulseband on his wrist, which seemed to be currently off as he stared at Vlad, and took another mouthful of food.
"Can you move to the side? My seat's next to yours, and you're kind of..."
"Oh! My bad."
"Hm."
The boy sat there lazily, putting one leg over the other as he stared off into the cabin and suddenly spoke to Vlad while stuffing another mouthful of what seemed to be popcorn inside his already swollen cheeks.
"Do you know what they're going to do there?"
"What?"
He seemed to stop for a second. Then turned to Vlad and made something like a face-palm motion without actually touching his face. Instead of explaining, he looked him straight in the eyes and took Vlad's hand without asking, staining it in oil.
"I'm Marco Wenric by the way."
'Uh.'
Marco shook his hand vigorously before taking it back and pushing it back inside the bucket.
Vlad took a long look at his oily hand and wiped it with a handkerchief hidden in his pocket.
The strange boy sighed as he chewed on the popcorn, his face leaning on his fist as he boredly added, making Vlad tense up.
"It's quite lucky to be invited to the Frigora's citadel, isn't it?"