A pick-up truck drove into a street with rows of two-storey buildings, all made of blocks with traditional box windows and gable roofing.
All of them had bright colours with small staircases leading to the doors.
Sitting at the back of the truck, Godfrey took in the scenery of paradise once more but all of this serenity gave him no sense of security and peace as it once did.
Rather, he felt sick.
"Thank you." Godfrey said calmly to Isaac who drove and Lucy sitting beside the driver’s seat. As he stepped out and closed the door, Lucy looked at Isaac with concern.
Both of them found it hard to connect with Godfrey. His eyes barely showed much and were kind of unsettling.
He had returned but was more distant than ever.
"Godfrey!" Lucy rushed out of the vehicle. Godfrey turned and she embraced him, hiding her face in his chest.
Godfrey looked down at her for a mont, then at Isaac who stepped out of the car, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"I know you don’t really feel like speaking to us. But try to smile." Lucy boldly tilted her head to face him.
"Your mother has been worried and your dad is back."
"Do you know how Isolde died?" Godfrey asked, his Black-Out eyes forcing Lucy to recoil.
Snow was with Isolde, they had appeared on the news earlier with a united front and in the next he killed her. That was what Lucy knew.
"I...I—!" Lucy couldn’t formulate a sentence as Godfrey walked away.
Isaac held her shoulder with one hand. "He’s still grieving."
"It’s different. It felt like he was forcefully trying to be cold even when he would have loved to smile at his friends." Lucy bit her lower lip.
Isaac’s eyes narrowed as he watched Godfrey walk away. He was so far away now, Isaac rembered when Godfrey dropped his bag to fight those bullies.
They were a bit close back then but now... did the difference in strength separate them? Percival had also left for a different world, apparently the world of his summon. It was shocking news when he revealed that he had the ability to venture into the world of his summons like a native.
Unfortunately, none of them could follow as that was a world filled completely with water, and they were not certain about any possible landmass.
Isolde was dead, Godfrey was broken, Percival had left Earth. Why did it feel like it was only him and Lucy now?
Godfrey was their king, he was supposed to keep them together. Did... did he fail?
Isaac shut his eyes. No... he couldn’t think that way. If it were him in Godfrey’s place, all that would have been was carnage.
"Let’s go."
Even after they left, Godfrey stood silently. He had spent the past few days with Snow, discussed every possible reaction or ans to control himself.
Snow ca to a conclusion that he would surely explode and shouldn’t go. Truthfully, these few days made him know Snow even more. Apparently the side of him he knew in school was just a fraction of his character.
He was quite... chatty, blunt and skeptical.
Finally gathering his resolve, Godfrey knocked and he heard a man’s voice.
"Don’t worry, I’ll get it."
His eyes glead.
Ronald opened the door, their eyes t. Ronald’s eyes widened with shock while Godfrey’s own hardened.
He looked at this clean-shaven man with golden hair like his. He looked quite handso for his age but was he... uneasy?
When both of them remained in the sa position for quite a while, Valentina appeared behind Ronald, her eyes widened with delight at the sight of Godfrey so she rushed out, wrapping her arms around her son.
"Your eyes..." Valentina ached to see her son like this.
"I’m okay."
***
They all went inside. Godfrey sat on a different sofa while Valentina sat on a longer one with Ronald. That alone made Godfrey frown.
But... was this anxiety he could feel from them?
Ronald must have been concerned about eting his grown-up son he never saw grow. Now they t, he didn’t know how to start a conversation.
"So you ca back to life." Godfrey began, his voice cold.
"It’s going to be tough isn’t it?" Ronald’s shoulders slumped down.
"What?" Godfrey raised an eyebrow.
"To earn your trust. You’ve married, lost your wife, grew up being ostracized and had to kill to protect your mother. That’s a lot without in the picture."
Godfrey looked at Ronald, his eyes still calm. "Is that so?"
"Sweetie..." Valentina stood, sat on the armrest and caressed Godfrey’s back. "... He’s your dad."
Godfrey closed his eyes. ’I believe you’ve t him with Percival in so sort of tower filled with books...’
Isolde’s voice rang in his head. That was all he could think about, he was afraid. Afraid slipping up will let Cain take his mother from him and this man ca at a ti that made him a pri suspect.
Especially now that he knew Cain would love nothing more than to kill those around him, torturing him to the point of insanity. His life according to Cain’s plan is to be one filled with pain, anger and an undying desire, an overwhelming one even... to get stronger and stronger.
’Am I too suspicious? Will Cain notice sothing? I don’t care if he notices or not, my mother is off limits.’
He stood up. "Where is Victoria?"
"She went to her gym." Valentina responded.
"I’ll be in my room then. I need to rest." Godfrey left them. He opened the door to his room and walked in. The mont he sat on the bed, golden threads spread out from the floor to the walls and the ceiling.
Everything around him changed into a world of gold threads forming several things, as if recreating scenes. He saw when his father rescued him while his mother slept, he watched him fight those orcs.
He watched him escape with one arm, roaming the world of orcs as a hunted man. His eyes followed the golden thread that ford Ronald moving from forests to deserts, a brutal existence until he found a white dungeon that led him to a dwarven world.
Godfrey didn’t know how long he watched this world play out a man’s life or why he even watched in the first place but it eventually got to when he t humans once more at Antarctica, his reactions to his mother’s bounty and his own too.
The golden threads kept forming images like when he t Isaac at the subway, it was the exact sa scene he watched on Isolde’s tablet.
He was more interested in when Ronald t his mother, their conversations were quite amusing but he frowned when his mother embraced him.
However the atmosphere around him changed when Gabriel showed him, saying words that made Godfrey’s eyes gleam.
"You don’t seem too happy with that fellow. That’s odd, your mother said you were fond of him."
Everything dissolved and Godfrey’s eyes t Ronald leaning against the doorfra.
He squinted.
"Your mother cooked dinner."
"Dinner?" Confused, Godfrey looked at the window. To his shock, the sun had set. He had been sitting here for hours!
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