章節 34: Choose Him

Chapter 34

When two beliefs were at odds inside of you. Which would you choose? Would you choose something you genuinely know lean towards the right thing? Or would you explore the other side?

The night was young, fireflies were floating around and crikets began their nightly chripping. The gazebo leisurely floated in the middle of Bulusan lake, a tourist hotspot in our province, Sorsogon. It was perfect, romantic even. But I could see the conflict and hurt brewing in Xedjedy's beautiful face.

His brows were furrowed. He looked somewhat guilty. As I looked Xed straight in the eyes, I could see his pain. It dawned on me that he never really wanted to be involved with whatever was happening.

I saw the man who wanted to just know his parents. I saw the person whom I loved. At that moment, he looked so vulnerable. It was as if he was as confused as everyone, with what the world had become.

"All I wanted back then, was to get my memories back.'' He slowly entwined his arms around my waist and made me sit on his lap. "I just wanted to know whose laugh it was I kept on remembering."

I rested my head on his shoulder, getting comfortable as he held me. "Whose laugh was it," I asked him, secretly hoping it was mine.

He leaned his chin against my head and hugged me like I'm a huge teddy bear. "Obviously, who has that ear-splitting high-pitched laughter?" I could clearly see him smiling as he tried teasing me.

I pouted and poked his rib cage with my finger which made him jerk involuntarily. "Well, at least you remembered my laughter."

"Not to mention that snort at the end!" He laughed so hard even a poke on the rib didn't sway him to stop. I blushed embarrassed. "I swear, it made my unbearable days a little better." He was tortured in that facility. That was clear to me now. And I could feel his pain and the bitterness laced in his voice as he told me that.

"What happened to you, in that facility?" I asked him. He looked at me with a smile on his face, slowly turning to a straight line.

"I don't remember it personally. I just knew of what they did to me through blood memories." I was just attentive to him. I was letting him speak as I listened.

"The scientists' memories gave me the knowledge that my parents made me immortal. But when I was born, I wasn't what they expected me to be." He was looking up to the sky as he told me that, "they thought they failed, so they raised me like a normal boy. The project got sacked and they forgot about it."

"But why are you a vampire now?" I was curious. I wanted to know what happened to him. Why he got turned into one.

"The immortal gene was engraved in my DNA long before I was born. I was genetically engineered by my parents to be a vampire. But when I was born, the gene got dormant that I looked human." He answered. " But then they figured out a way to activate it somehow."

What he said next made my heartbeat in a rapid rhythm. "To activate an immortal gene, one must die. I died. They killed me. I was tied in a steel bed then they drained my blood." He paused for a moment, I could sense he was trying to recollect what had happened to him. "They must have hit my head pretty hard to mess up my memories as well."

"How did you escape?" I asked him.

He sighed, it took a minute for him to compose himself, "The Duke of underground Paris helped me escape." He replied. "I resented every scientist in that facility, that I killed almost everyone after the door in my cell was opened."

I remembered that news more than a year ago. All the scientists were killed but the utility personnel were unharmed. "A janitor was interviewed by an international news agency when that facility was attacked. He said a blue-eyed man told him to hide in the freezer."

"They gave sympathy to me and every living experiment that facility would make." He was a compassionate man, he could never change that even if his memories were somehow erased.

I knew I was threading so close into choosing something that would contradict my morals. But When it would come to Xedjedy, I would always choose him.