394 Shade of red

Alex lifted his hands, ran his fingers through his hair and tugged at them. His brows pulled together in a hard knot. He was trying. Trying his best to remember because he couldn't stand it. Seeing her cry and beg like this was unbearable.

It all started to make sense now. He finally understood the reason behind all these feelings of déjà vu, all those familiar feelings he felt since that night she appeared before him. This all made sense to him finally after hearing her words, her confession. It seemed like the images he had been seeing were fragments of his memories that he had forgotten. There was no other way to explain all this because he could see scenes that she had described perfectly in his head. They were exactly as she had narrated. Even though he couldn't make out any of the faces nor hear any voices, he was certain of it - that the woman in his head was none other than Abigail.

Tugging his hair, he shut his eyes, his face showing intense concentration. He tried to force himself to remember, to try and put all those jigsaw pieces together. His jaws clenched and his teeth gnashed together as he tried pulling all those images to the surface again, to put a face of the blurry shapes he saw in his head, to connect the disjointed scenes into a timeline. But the pieces were too few for him to even start. The void was too huge. He needed more. More pieces to bring together so that he could finally see the full, clear picture.

…

Abi watched his expressions closely and her heart sank. She had given this moment everything she had. She had opened her heart so that he could feel all the love she felt for him, so that he would understand just how much she loved him. She had spoken of the previous memories they shared together but even one of the most special memories she had of them couldn't bring back his memories. God! What was it going to take for him to remember?!

She couldn't take it anymore. Her heart had been filled with so much hope, so much belief that her plan would work, so when she saw the result, she couldn't stop herself from breaking down in tears.

She couldn't stop the tears that flowed like an endless river down her cheeks. She didn't try to as she looked back at him again. She wanted to see if he at least finally remembered something. She tried to calm her trembling body, to take some deep breaths, but it didn't work and all she could do was bury her face in his chest.

Gladly, she felt his arms move and embrace her. She settled into his arms as she poured her heart out through her tears. She felt his arms tighten around her before one of his hands started to caress her hair.

"Shhh, little lamb…" she heard him say. That immediately surprised her and she pulled her face back from his chest to look at him. Her eyes wide and expectant. Did he finally remember her?

But he didn't say a word. His fingers just wiped her tears away and his lips captured hers. His eyes were closed as he kissed her, gently bumping his forehead against hers afterwards.

Abi wanted to speak but Alex's silence made her choose to stay silent because it was as if Alex's spirit was troubled. She could tell that he was thinking about what she had done, what she had confessed and she subconsciously held her breath.

Was it finally working? Even if he regained just a little piece of his memory, Abi would be very happy. All she wanted was progress, a positive result, a sign that what she was doing wasn't futile.

He pulled away and she saw that his jaws were clenched hard and deep lines formed on his forehead. His eyes burned golden as he gazed at her. No, it was more of an orange-red this time. Abi had seen the color of his eyes change quite a few times now, but she never once had she seen them turn into this reddish shade; they were almost the same colour as Zeke's eyes.

"Alex?" she called his name when suddenly, Alex leapt back away from her, as fast as a lightning. In a blink of an eye, he was suddenly at the other end of the watchtower's wall, across her. Abi's hand was stuck mid-air as she looked at him in both confusion and surprise.

"Is something wrong, Alex? Are you okay?" Abi asked as she moved to approach him. His orange-red eyes looked to be becoming a deeper shade of red as time went by and looking at them made Abi feel nervous. His eye color was what set him apart from all other vampires. His eye color was supposed to be gold, not red. What was going on?

"Stop!" he said, stopping her, as he covered his mouth with the back of his hand. "Don't come closer for now, Abigail," he added as his eyes continued to burn red.

Abigail pressed her lips tight, unable to accept what he said. She knew something was wrong with him again but why was he stopping her from approaching him? She didn't know what the hell was happening and he wasn't explaining anything, so she put his warning aside and she continued moving, faster this time, so she could jump on him. But Alex disappeared before she could touch him. She turned around and he was now standing on the other side of the roof, with the table between them.

"Please… don't come for now. Let me calm down first," he pleaded, causing Abi to frown hard at him.