Mom had been right all along. That was the first thought that crossed Airin's mind, as rage bubbled from within her.

Mom had always thought there was something amiss between Dad and May.

Thus Mom had been right. All along.

"Dad!" she tried to sound assertive, but failed. She sounded just shocked.

Dad and May, engrossed in their act of physical carnality, jumped in surprise and they turned toward her. May rushed to fix her shirt, and Dad took a deep breath as his fingers ran past his hair.

"How long have you two ...?" Airin could feel her breath get shorter and she tried hard not to be hysterical.

May darted her gaze above, Dad stared straight at Airin. "Your mom is dead, Airin. But our marriage had been over long before that," Dad sounded callous. "Look, May's marriage was over some years ago. Your mom and I ... all we did was fighting over ... everything. May gave me some ... comfort ..."

Airin could not prevent tears that glided uncontrollably down her cheek. "How long?" she asked again, putting emphasis on how and long.

Dad huffed, combed his hair with his fingers again, took a glance at May, and answered,"Two years."

That was all she needed to hear. Dad had been mean to Mom, and Dad had also cheated on her. A tint of relief in Dad's voice made it all the more painful for her, as if Dad had waited to finally say "two years" to her, to tell her a secret he had kept for these two years. A proclamation, a confession, a revelation that took away his burden of silence.

Dad's thunderous voice asking her to stay, don't go, was all she could hear as she sprinted out of the kitchen, out of the bistro.

Dad had been cheating on Mom. Mom's intuition about it had been right. She was always right.

Even a couple weeks before her sudden demise, Mom would tell her after Dad missed their wedding anniversary dinner. "Maybe he has found someone else, Ai. Maybe ..."

Mom was not sure, she was shivering and clutching her own palms, then smiled at her and nodded with a forced spark in her voice. "Well, he must be so busy tonight. Let's eat!" Mom tucked into her specially-made walnut mayo shrimp, Dad's alltime favourite, tried to look like she was hungry enough to want to eat, and Airin followed suit, and tried not to think much about what Mom had just said.

Airin knew she was crying, her face was wet, even though she was not sure how much of it was her tears and how much was from the droplets of drizzle that fell on her face as she ran, wobbly from the explosions of various emotions that she could not really describe.

Anger, rage even, at how Dad had lied to her and Mom all these times. Mom had known instinctively but was too weakened by Dad's constant criticism of her to trust her own intuition about it. She loved Mom dearly, but she hated her for being right about this.

Her feet felt like jelly now but she kept running and tears kept falling. She bumped some people who shouted some pissed off words at her, but she did not care.

She went up the road to the city park area. The sky was almost dark now and the rows of massive oak trees that lined the entrance to the park looked like giants that welcomed her.

The gravel road was quiet as it wound up to the park forest.

The park was touted as the "lung of the city" where the native forest of gigantic oak and beech was kept in as pristine condition as it could be, with gravel road built winding up and down for a few kilometres in the forest terrain, dotted by picnic benches every hundred meter or so, and manmade-lake for dogs to take a splash and sandy playground for kids to play in.

The park, colloquially called "The Greens" by the city dwellers, was popular for walking, dog walking, picnicking, jogging, and even some mountainbiking activities.

The Greens was strangely quiet that day as Airin ran up the gravel road. Her ballerina shoes slipped a few times, let some gravels into it, but she kept running as her tears just poured. The sky turned dark as the sun set, and Airin kept running on a straight road.

The straight road that finally got her to notice her surrounding.

The Greens was never straight for a long stretch.

It was always winding. She knew for sure because she was in the Greens often to do her thrice-weekly jogging round.

Thick fog blanketed the trees, and all kinds of forest sounds quietened.

Airin could only hear her labored breathing as she slowed down to a complete stop, and started wondering where she was.

She was in The Greens. Well, supposed to be. That was the logical thought, but she knew she was currently not in The Greens. This forest was too unfamiliar to her.

There was only one road, and she was not even sure if it was gravelly or not as fog had covered her shoes and the ground.

The road was as straight as could be.

Where have I run to? that was the thought that kept playing in her mind.

This is not the Greens, that thought also flashed and she turned her head and started looking for familiar signs.

There was nothing familiar at all about this place. Confusion engulfed her deeper, questions popped up in her head, and none she had answers to.

She continued, slowly, tentatively, walking. She told herself to be careful, and she walked on the perfectly straight road. There was something else strange about this place, this road, this forest. This forest seemed to invite her, coax her, to keep walking deeper into the forest, ignoring all her confusion and questions.

The straight road cut through the rows of trees, and she realized something else as she watched how the trees were positioned.

"What the f ..." her lips shivered as her eyes darted here and there to pay attention to the trees.

The trees formed a circle, one row of trees after another row in a perfect distance from one another.

Who would plant trees in circle rows like this? This was definitely not The Greens. She tried to breathe slower and she still could not stop walking. Then she smelled it. The smell of of wet leaves and damp soil, of rotted tree barks. Of summer and sunshine that had gone away from a forest.

The circle of trees grow smaller and smaller when she continued walking from the outer circle to the more inner circle.

She was walking toward something in the middle of the circle.

The circle of trees grew closer and smaller.

Then she saw faint light down the road. In the center of the circle.

Something was there.

The center of the tree circle was a grass clearing of maybe about five-six meters in diameter, and the only object that was there was a well with white stone circular wall.

The well, about two meters in diameter, glowed faint white light from the stone that made up its wall.

What was more mesmerizing for her was: Orbs of lights shot out of the well. Orbs of different sizes shot out, floated above the well for a bit, then flew away, dissipating as they flew.

The orbs were beautiful. So beautiful. They were like lanterns with colorful lights flying away.

Airin stood still with mouth opened. Her mind failed to provide any explanation of what she saw, why she was there, or what place this was.

Slowly, she walked closer to the well. Her sanity told her to stop walking closer to the strange well, but she could not stop. She wanted to know what this well was about. The well seemed to have called her, to invite her to come closer. The invitation that made her ignore all the warnings from her logical mind.

When she got to the side of the well, the orbs kept shooting out, flying away, but they did not harm her. They felt cool to her skin, and she could have sworn she smelled fragrance in the air. Like a mix of different flower fragrance that filled the air in the peak of spring.

The orbs did not scare her, in fact she felt a sense of serenity and clarity of mind when she was so close to them.

She decided that the orbs were not dangerous, but she did hesitate a bit before deciding to crane her neck to peek what was inside the well.

Other than the orbs that kept shooting out, there was nothing special inside.

It was just water like what a well usually had, with soft waves rolling gently, hitting the wall of the well in a rhythmical movement.

The water was so clean, so clear she could see the coming orbs. The orbs of lights that seemed to swim up from the bottom of the well, and shot out from the well. Beautiful.

"So clear ..." whispered Airin. She fought her own urge to extend her hand and touch the surface of the water.

Her jaws dropped even lower when the waves started to ripple harder like sea water in the storm, as the well began to shake, the faint light of the well turned brighter.

Instinctively she stepped a few quick steps back while shielding her eyes with her right arm when suddenly a light beam shot out from inside the well, a light beam that ejected two objects.

The two objects began to take clearer form as they wafted on air before floating down to the ground. The orbs of lights still flew out as if they were unaffected by the light beam.

Airin squinted her eyes to check what the two objects were, and she saw them. But she decided she had to walk a bit closer to ensure what she thought she had seen.

Her jaws dropped in shock.