Chapter 13 - TRIGGERS

"I'm Sorry…"

Yue turns her head towards the source of the voice, it was him

He again, stands amongst the veil of the curtains, levitating from the natural air perforating through the open glass window.

She strives to push herself off the mattress and into a seating position.

And Yue is flabbergasted, as unexpectedly she can move with ease.

Her limbs seem to follow her commands deprived of any unusual affliction or pain!

Her eyes immediately shift their gaze towards the one who inflicted this miracle.

He relieved her of her torment, he poured life into her again, he was a savior in Yue's eyes. Ignoring the fact that he just a moment back, endeavored to suck the living soul out of her.

"I tend to act up at the sight of red…" his sudden pause leads her to catch his gaze which lingers on her lingerie perhaps. Her hands instinctively attempt to cover her exposed skin, without making it obvious.

The sight of the color affects him? Was he undergoing some mental illness? Could it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or the likes?

Maybe it is Emotional Synesthesia.

Emotional synesthesia is a condition in which specific sensory stimuli are consistently and involuntarily associated with emotional responses.

There is a very small number of reports of subjects with these stereotyped emotion-sensation pairings. One report described a subject in whom tactile stimulation from different textures (e.g., denim) elicited affective experiences (e.g., feelings of depression).

Others have described emotional synesthetic associations to grapheme-color perceptions and to written names of acquaintances. Because there is such a small amount of literature, all in normal subjects with long histories of synesthesia, the neural substrates are unknown.

"Blood…" he proceeds in defense of his unlawful acts, also clarifying that her scarlet lingerie had nothing to do with it.

"Red Blood?" she tilts her head into questioning, and he simply nods his head in agreement.

The way he's staring at her seemed homicidal, a glint of dark, malevolent eyes.

'Did I offend him?' She replays the happenings in her head. Her lips draw into a thin line as she feels as though the pointing out of the color of his eyes made him displeased after all. He glances at her lips momentarily before shifting his gaze elsewhere.

Yue however disregards the creeps she received from him. She could clearly feel the fearsome aroma his form radiated, the way he glanced at her was frightening, it reflected his resentment at her words.

She set about her legs at the edge of the bed, as she seeked to motion herself now, into a standing posture. And yet again, she is able to perform the desired movement with utter ease. Her heart occludes with overwhelming gratefulness of his unrequited services.

"It's alright." She mumbles as she stands on her feet, glancing at him to affirm that he's listening.

"You helped me recover, that's all that matters." She overlooked his peculiar corporeal changes and smiled, a beam of elation, while he simply stared at her, as though in disbelief.

He had thought upon getting rid of the girl who simply thanked him? Her gentle generous words makes him think twice of his targetted actions. And her smile stirls something in him, perhaps a fluttering of the heart which he hadn't felt in centuries.

Given how easily she had forgiven him for his consequential damages, and didn't react the way she was supposed to after witnessing his crimson eyes, he was assured that she was unaware of who he was. And that she had no knowledge whatsoever of the grave importance that his color variation held.

Yue begins to advance towards him but then, a shiver goes down her spine as she takes the first step towards him.

Her legs give into an abrupt weakness, turning wobbly and unable to support her own weight. Perhaps she was being too quick into thinking she was healed enough to indulge in a task like walking. He hadn't healed her to the end, it was only a partial remedial essentially, akin to giving a tablet or medicine to a sick person to aid their recovery.

"Ah-" she fumbles in her steps, it was almost like she had been a patient diagnosed with paralysis and could not walk innately after months of laying in the bed.

She anticipates the impact of making contact with the carpeted yet still frigid ground below and thus in response squints her eyes instinctively.. But the impact never arrives.