Chapter 173: Chapter 167. Void of the Soul

There were times when Zein wondered what it would be like if he could see his mother now. What it would feel like if she was still alive somehow, somewhere.

Times, when he looked at the picture of her smiling face, laughing at someone he knew now, was his father.

He had wondered if she would come up in his dream someday, now that he knew what she looked like. He wondered if she would be young, just at the age when she had him. Or would she grow up with him, a decadently beautiful, lovely woman.

He wondered about seeing her in many forms.

But not this.

The blue eyes were as pretty as his, if only they weren't looking so hollow. If only they weren't placed above sunken cheeks and cracked lips. If only the fingers caressing him weren't so cold and bony.

The woman in front of him bore his mother's face. But it was also the face of the women in the red-zone. Wretched. Bitter. Riddled with misery, abuse, and hunger.