Redemption's Inferno

: The Cinnabar Mole

The day I was admitted to the hospital, Sean Valerius took a phone call and left.

The next day, he stood before me, exhausted, and said he had gone to work overtime last night after seeing I was fast asleep.

He said that for the next few days, work wouldn't be a distraction, so he could stay and keep me company.

I scrolled through a group photo someone had sent me on my phone. In it, Eve Shaw was leaning her head on his shoulder, her face blooming with a smile.

Sean Valerius was smiling too, a light shining in his eyes.

That very light in his eyes once illuminated my entire youth.

'But now, I don't need it anymore.'

After a moment of silence, I said, "Sean Valerius, let's break up."

Sean Valerius stared at me in disbelief, as if he'd just heard something as impossible as boiling water freezing over.

He said, "Serena Sterling, you must be delirious from your illness."

1.

Sean Valerius and I went to the same university.

Eight years ago, he and I registered on the same day. Amid the vast sea of new students, I spotted him in an instant.

He was wearing a clean white t-shirt and a backpack, just standing there under a plane tree, smiling at me.

Sunlight filtered through the dense leaves of the plane tree, casting mottled shadows. It painted bright, warm patches across his face, just like the light in his eyes.

That single ray of light swept away the gloom of my past eighteen years.

I never dared to dream of a boy like him, but I never imagined that one day he would become my boyfriend.

It was the day we registered for our sophomore year. Snow was fluttering down from the sky, and even from a distance, I recognized the dark figure standing in the snow as him.

His back exuded an undeniable air of sorrow and desolation.

I stopped and watched him for a long time, thinking he would be just like before and never turn around.

But this time, he suddenly turned and looked at me. Under his jet-black umbrella, his eyes were as dark and inscrutable as undiluted ink, betraying no emotion.

"You like me, don't you?"

he asked, his gaze lowered, standing just half an arm's length away.

I don't know what came over me, but I admitted it.

"In that case, Serena Sterling, will you be my girlfriend?" His voice was low and raspy, tinged with that same undeniable sadness.

Amidst the swirling snow, I looked at him under his umbrella and nodded. "Okay."

It wasn't until three days later that I learned his Scarlet Mark, Eve Shaw, had gotten engaged at home that day.