Chapter 32：Hello Again

Titus pulled them under a concrete slab just as everything around them exploded. Rosalind held Viola close to her as the screams of the people and falling debris filled her ears along with the screaming and crying coming from Viola.

It's been a while since she heard this much screaming and she felt panic rise to her throat as those memories flashed through her mind again.

Titus's arms were protectively on the both of them but she could feel him shake too. He is reliving his nightmares right now and is trying what he can to keep calm about it.

Rosalind grabbed his hand in hers, trying to comfort him and herself as well. If they were going to die here, this wouldn't be such a bad way to go.

Even Viola has gone quiet or the other sounds just drowned her crying out.

Rosalind bit her lip trying to swallow back the tears that threatened to spill as she rocked Viola and calm her down.

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When everything settled down, they carefully made their way out of the concrete slab, Titus going first then he helped Rosalind who was still clutching Viola, out.

He hissed when he saw the blood and bodies around them, glaring at the officers that made their way to them.

"Lieutenant General Titus Hangzo." They saluted to him, standing on the rubble and some bodies underneath.

"What happened here?" He asked.

"Rebels. There are some who supported the other side's ideas and are trying to start another war, sir." One of them replied, he looked like he is in his early twenties.

"Have they been arrested?" He asked, looking around him. Only the battlefield should look this bloody not the marketplace.

"We are getting close, sir." The man replied, "Would you like to help us, sir?"

"I already retired, officer," Titus said rubbing his forehead.

"Titus!"

He quickly turned his head to Rosalind's panicked voice, eyes widening when he saw her expression.

"What happened?" He rushed to her, avoiding the bodies sticking out of the rubble.

She held her hand out to him, white-glove dyed red with blood. They looked at Viola to see a bloody gash on her forehead.

"Hospital. We have to get to the hospital." Rosalind called to them, while Titus froze seeing his daughter still and unmoving in his arms.

"Princess?" He whispered, stroking her cheek but she didn't move.

"H-Hey, Viola? This isn't the time to be sleeping. Dada's calling to you. Sweetheart?" His entire body shook when she didn't move, Rosalind was talking with some of the relief workers that came to the scene. She gripped her sides as she continued to speak, she was calmer than Titus at the moment or she is just better at hiding it.

They made their way to Titus and took Viola from his hands and began to inspect her. After a quick examination, they handed her back to Rosalind shaking their head.

"What? What happened?" He finally spoke up, fear in his voice. "Where are you going?"

"Titus. I am going to take Viola to a hospital not too far from here." Rosalind told him, grabbing his hand.

"I'll come with you."

"Lieutenant General Hangzo, we need your help here. There are too many men and too little of us." The officer from before called to him, urgency in his voice.

"Take care of this Titus. They need you. Come back home when you're done ok?" She didn't give him a chance to say a thing as she ran to the vehicles there and, after talking to the people there, got in and drove away.

Titus followed the officer to a group of other soldiers waiting for him, some he recognized from the war front.

"So?"

"Lieutenant General Hangzo." They all saluted to him, admiration in their eyes.

"I'm retired. I'm only here because I was told that I am needed. Tell me what's going on now?"

"Sir, we have located their hideout but there seems to be quite a number of them. With the disaster that just happened, we are a little low in staff. We would like your assistance as we storm their headquarters, sir."

"Sure." He answered without hesitation. His blood boiled with the image of his daughter and wife and all the other bodies he saw littered on the ground.

"Really sir? We are honoured to have you on our team." They smiled at him.

Don't look at me with so much admiration, I'm only doing it for the both of them.

"So. How do we get there?" He leaned closer to them.

"Would you like a gun, sir?"

"Just get me anything sharp."

His eyes and the air around him sent shivers down their spines as he walked to the vehicles.

I said that I wouldn't kill again when the war ended, but they brought the war here and unnecessarily killed so many people and they hurt his wife and child. They weren't going to get away easily.

He hasn't felt this anger in a long time and the bloodlust was practically suffocating at this moment.

But every time he remembers Rosalind's voice and expression before she left to go to the hospital he felt uneasy.

"Why do I feel so uncomfortable about this? They'd better be safe otherwise, more people are going to die."

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"Rosalind?" Titus called out as he entered the house in his blood-soaked clothes, he had some new wounds but its nothing.

"Titus! Viola is ok!"

His body almost crumpled to the ground as he heard Rosalind say that, he could hear her footsteps rushing to him.

But he heard more than her footsteps, he also herds her fall and crash into something occasionally.

"Are you ok, Rosalind?" He asked walked to the stairs after he threw his jacket to the ground.

"Titus!" Rosalind appeared at the top of the stairs gasping for breath, hair covering her face, her legs buckled under her dress as she fell down the stairs.

Titus ran up and caught her before she could tumble down too many stairs. He carried her up the stairs and laid her on the floor.

"What do you think you're doing, Rosalind? You could have gotten hurt." He scolded her as she pushed herself off the floor, laughing, hair still covering her face.

"Rosalind? Are you ok?" He asked reaching out to her but she grabbed his hand and held it here, finally looking at him in the eyes.

Titus felt his blood grow cold when he saw her face, the same soot colour her hands were covered in, slowly began to engulf the left of her face. He couldn't even see her eye anymore and it just keeps spreading.

"Rosalind. You didn't. Tell me you didn't." He grabbed her hands gently but they still fell off and landed on the floor like a rotting corpse's body

He released her, startled.

"I did it, Titus. I did it." She gasped out, her breath cold like ice and her body shivering but she was smiling so brightly. "I was able to bring Viola back."

He could only stare as the soot continued to spread up her neck and to the other side of her face.

"No. No. No." He wanted to touch her but was scared some other body part would fall off if he did.

Rosalind shivered, the temperature of her body kept dropping as the seconds ticked by and Titus's expression made her feel sad, especially with her vision disappearing.

"Why, Rosalind? Why? Why is it always you?" He asked, this is the first time she saw him cry and it broke her heart.

"Don't be sad, you still have Viola." She tried to reassure him but the cold she felt and him fading in and out of her vision filled her heart with fear.

"We were supposed to take care of her together, Rosalind. Not just me." He shouted at her, tears streaming down his eye as he hit the floor with his fist.

"Titus. Where are you?"

He looked up and felt his breath stop at his throat as he saw her eyes completely blacked out as she waved the stumps of her hand around, searching from him.

He wanted to shield his eyes and hideaway, maybe wake up from this nightmare but he knew, from the back of his head, that this was real and it could not compare to any nightmare he ever had.

His blood rushed in his eardrums as his heart hammered to his chest and throat, he felt like thousands of needle prick on his skin as he, with a shaky hand, gently held the stump of her hand and pulled her into his embrace.

"It's really cold, Titus and so dark. I can't make anything out but your warmth, I can feel it. It feels so nice Titus." She said as he pulled her shawl tighter around her.

No word could come out of his throat as he held her, watching her hand on the ground disappear in horror.

"No. If you disappear, you'll stop existing. Everything about you will disappear, even my memories. No. Stay. Please. Please"

"I can't hear what you're saying, but it feels so full of sorrow. Take care of Viola ok? Oh? Adriel! Did you see my daughter? She is the most beautiful girl in the world. Yeah."

Her voice got weaker with each sentence she spoke, her body slumping more.

She leaned against Titus and whispered with her ice-cold breath on his skin, causing Goosebumps to rise all over his body, "You are the best thing that has happened to me. Thank you and … I love you. Viola, love, I am so sorry."

Her voice died with the last word and without a warning, her body dispersed into nothing.

He tried to grab onto anything he could but they disappeared in his hands.

Titus crumpled into a heap on the floor when he tried to remember her face but couldn't seem to recall what she looked like anymore.

"How? I just saw her only a few seconds ago. How?!" His voice boomed across the house and then fell silent again.

The silence was broken again when he heard crying coming from the room.

"Viola!" He ran and picked the baby in his arms, one so close to death only moments ago. "Thank God. Thank God." He cried, holding the little girl in his arms. She cried with him as the memories slowly faded.

"Please. I don't want to forget her. Please. Please." He begged, not knowing who he was talking to but to anyone who could hear him.

"You." He said just as Adrial appeared in front of them, Rosalind's things still disappearing.

"I can't do much." He said, walking to Titus, "This is all I can do for you. I am going against so many rules but, I can do this much for you."

He waved a hand over his face and all the memories of Rosalind came rushing back to him, vivid as ever. Fresh tears streamed down his eyes as he remembered.

"Thank you." He sobbed at no one in front of him, the house looking emptier than ever. Viola quietly cried with her father for someone she didn't know she lost, as the sun set below the horizon.

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"Hey we should visit Rosalind sometime soon, with the bombing today, I don't feel too good," Grandfather said, folding the newspaper.

"Who's Rosalind?" Grandmother asked, confused.

"Don't you remember, she's- wait. Do we know anyone named Rosalind?"

"No. I don't remember anyone by that name." She said.

"Strange. I feel like I should know that name. Why do I feel so heavy in my heart when I think of that name?"

"I feel it too. We should go get checked at the hospital."

"We're just old."

They laughed but it was a dry empty laugh. The night passes cold and full of confusion.

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"Hey, Vincent." Louis talked to the gravestone, holding a glass with wine in it and another glass on the gravestone, wine bottle beside her. "You got to be cremated and buried, just as you wanted. You have the weirdest wishes you know that?"

"I'm thinking of visiting Rosalind and Titus tomorrow with Louis. What do you think? I want to meet little Viola again. She's the cutest little darling. I hope Rosalind is doing ok. I felt a little off the whole day."

She stopped the glass midway, confusion on her face, "Wait, who is Rosalind again? Wait. Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something? Give me a minute, Vincent."

She ran all the way back to her house and made a call.

"Hello?" Sounds at the back tell her that he is cooking. "Put that down Haiti. Put it down now or you aren't getting any dessert today. Good."

"Ralph!"

"Oh, hey Louis, what's up?"

"Who's Rosalind?"

"Rosalind? What? Are you playing a prank on me?"

"I'm being honest here, tell me!"

"Of course Rosalind is- Eh? Wait, who is she again? What the hell?" Ralph could be heard panicking and throwing things around in the back.

"Ralph?"

"Something's not right Louis. Something's not right. I feel like I'm forgetting something so important."

"Me too, I feel like it's something I shouldn't forget … Ralph?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did I call you again?"

"I don't know. But I feel very off right now."

"So do I. How's dinner coming along anyway? I would give anything to eat your cooking again."

"You should come over again sometime, Louis. I don't mind cooking for you. Oh, gotta go, the rice is almost burnt."

"Ok. I'll see you later. Say hi to your siblings for me."

"Sure and if you remember what you forgot, call me ok?"

"OK. Goodnight."

Louis continued to look at the phone long after she hung up, unable to get this unknown feeling off her chest. As she hoped the new day will dawn with more answers.