بسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In The Name Of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful

⊱ ⋆ ⊰

"Could you not find a more elevated spot to sit?"

She looks up at the thick branches of the mulberry tree adorned with lush green leaves. The sunlight pours down on her figure, but the branches spread over, and the leaves join together protectively, bestowing their shade over her.

Her lazy gaze travels back to him. "I could've, but I decided to just sit on this boulder wrapped by these tree roots," Wafa says nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders in response.

Kyle playfully narrows his eyes, then settles himself on the ground, his back facing her, sitting cross-legged while munching. "I thought you went to pray." He says, looking ahead.

"I forgot my hijab. Sofia went to get to it."

(headcover)

Both sit in calm silence, etching the scenic pulchritude.

Yes. Whatever happens, even on the plane, this woman has always remained consistent. He thinks. I wonder what she finds in it and why relief embarks on her when she finishes.

The tow-color of the daffodils gleam under the sunlight. The zephyr lightly blows around them and causes the yellow-colored flowers to sway. The serene sounds of waves that thrash over each other hit their eardrums.

"You know, when you are sitting with someone, you ask them if they'd like to eat whatever you are eating," The brown-haired girl eyes the small bottle lying on his lap. "It's a basic courtesy."

Vincent side glances at her, then with a curled lip, he lazily throws the bottle at her, which she catches in mid-air. With a grateful smile, she mumbles thanks to the charcoal-haired man.

"I didn't know we'd have such a serene place near the concert venue," Wafa expresses as she opens the lid and takes out a handful of mixed dry fruits, having dried apricots, raisins, almonds, and dried coconuts, then throws the container back on his lap. "It's literally a five-minute walk away."

"It is near the countryside." The charcoal-haired man remarks. "Of course, the beauty would be prepossessing."

"I think it's the first time Seiga is renting a place in Vermont."

"It's more of an experiment," Kyle states lazily. His eyes focus on the half-cracked shell of the peanut as his fingers try to break it completely.

"Huh?" Wafa tilts her head and knits her brows together.

"Recently, Seiga took over eight to ten resorts here in Vermont-"

"Did they buy the entire state?" The vocalist deadpans, cutting her friend's talk.

The other vocalist chuckles upon hearing his bandmate. He turns to her. "With all the power and fortune, I wouldn't be surprised if they buy it. Also, taking over some resorts is no big deal for the organization. And besides," He speaks with a dismissive wave of his hand. "us doing a show here means more profit in business for Seiga."

"How so?"

"Think about it; people will come here for our shows. They might even stay for a day to explore the beauty. But where will they stay for the night?"

Wafa nods her head. "The resorts with discounted prices." Her lips curl up from the corners. "Clever, I must say."

"Our show will be in less than a month, and by then, spring will be at its peak, which means more audience for our show and more tourism in Vermont. A perfect vacation." Kyle coolly finishes with a smirk.

Wafa leans back leisurely and reclines by the rough tree trunk. A peaceful smile breaks out on her face as she stretches her arms in front of her, cracking her fingers altogether.

"Yes, and then I'll have my vacation." The brown-haired girl speaks.

For a month. The charcoal-haired man thinks, glaring at the ground as his chest swells up with the feeling that he is in oblivion. Perhaps possessiveness? That he craves all her attention and time? That even thinking of her being away drawls a bitter feeling in his chest? He doesn't know.

And who is she to him to make him feel such notions? His conscience questions him.

A friend?

With this, he again deludes his heart and soul.

Another wave of silence washes over them. And again, Wafa intervenes to diminish it.

"Remember the nasty cut I showed you last night?" The vocalist reveals to him the back of her hand  "Look," She then chuckles, "it has faded tremendously."

"Oh, yeah." Kyle subconsciously leans closer-- too close until they are only a few inches apart. "Indeed it has," He breathes. His orbs lock with the faded scar as his fingers raise to graze it.

A sinister feeling then rises in her chest. Butterflies impetuously flap their wings in her stomach. Her eyes widen as a crimson hue blossoms on her cheeks. Suddenly their proximity erupts an ill feeling in her veins-- a forbidden temptation.

The aura around them is no longer friendly-- but something different. Unlike her heavy breathing, the wind smoothly blows around them.

The way his dark bangs fall over his forehead, shading his eyes from her, bewitches her, luring her to him. And to her, he is no longer the brotherly figure she always perceived him to be but a man who is making her hormones jump wildly.

"HEY!" Wafa roars.

She shakes her head in order to break out from her harami trance and quickly retreats her hand before their skin can brush with each other. Backing away from him, the vocalist brings her hand behind her back for support, but ironically it fails to attain a firm grip on the surface of the giant rock. As her form disbalances, terror glints in her orbs, and within a span of a few seconds, her back collides with the hard grassy ground with a thud.

(forbidden)

Without blinking, the charcoal-haired man remains seated dumbfoundedly. He covers his mouth with his hand as he bites his lips to not cackle at her. Sadly it betrays him, and his chuckle echoes in the air of the green lands.

Recovering from his laughter, Kyle walks to Wafa as she sits up, her hair curtains her face from both sides. "Are you ok?"

"HEY!" Wafa roars again. This time louder as her sight clashes with a broken half a meter-long branch. "HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF SOCIAL DISTANCING OR A THING CALLED PERSONAL SPACE?!" She grasps the stick and points it at him defensively.

Taken aback by the sudden change in the condition of her brain cells, Kyle's jaw drops to the ground, his eyes holding bewilderment. Her face is a hue of beetroot. Perhaps the rose gold color of her frock is reflecting its color onto her face. He doesn't know.

"Did you hit your head?" He asks her, almost worryingly.

"No!" Her nostrils flare up.

Kyle tilts his head. It looks as if the soul of an untamed bull has possessed her body. The thought brings out a smile to bloom on his features.

He is about to take another step toward her but halts upon hearing his bandmate.

"Sit on the other side, Vincent." Wafa grits, gesturing to him with the tip of her stick.

He raises his hands in surrender with a playful smirk, then walks to the other side of the rock and again sits on the ground while looking ahead in amusement.

As his gaze hits the men in black outfits, looking at both of them while standing on the far edge behind the tree trunks causes his smile to drop from his features. Kyle clenches his jaw. His eyes become steely.

Guards. Or Seiga's puppies.

And though it has been more than a year working under the said 'holy' organization, all his whereabouts sent to Seiga have always pricked him. When he leaves his penthouse, when he comes back home, whom he spends time with when he finishes his errands-- everything and all gets reported. And Kyle absolutely despises it, for those men are like his second shadow whom he fails to dodge every time.

"Sofia is taking longer than ever," Wafa says awkwardly, rubbing her hands nervously, normalizing her breathing and frantic heartbeat. No wonder why it is prohibited for a man and a woman to be alone. The accursed devil surely does his job anywhere and everywhere.

The vocalist nods, popping his fingers and mumbling the song he was practicing before.

After a few moments, a smile again graces his lips as he looks at the small pond where Micheal is trying to drown Ivan as Richard is helping him in his heinous act while Alan films the entire scenario.

"Hey," Wafa calls out to him, attempting to dissolve the clouds of awkwardness from above their heads as an interesting topic crashes her mind.

"Yes?" He turns to her.

"You are a Medical student, right? S--"

"Was." Kyle cuts her. "But continue."

"So tell me something. What is something that caused my skin to heal?" She asks him, inspecting her skin.

The wind picks up its speed, tickling his jet-black bangs as he slightly tilts his head. The leaves above them rustle, and the clouds conceal the dying sun.

"Well," Kyle looks at the back of her hand and examines it again warily from where he is sitting-- in order for her to stop from jumping to the ditch again. "your red blood cells help create collagen, which basically makes the body tissues strong and resilient." He then locks his sight with hers. "The wound starts to fill in with granulation tissue. And in your case, since your cut wasn't that deep, new skin begins to form over the tissue rapidly as it heals."

She smiles and nods like a teacher who is proud of her pupil. "Yes, and do you think it's a self-healing process without the intervention of anyone?"

"Yes." He states as if the most obvious thing on the planet Earth.

"What about the dead? Why do their blood cells don't make collagen?"

"Because they are dead, Wafa." Kyle deadpans. "Their hearts, the main organ for life, expired."

"Yes--" Wafa scratches the top of her head. Clicking her tongue, she aligns her posture straight and turns to him with a gleaming smile. "And though they have red blood cells and everything to carry out the process of self-healing, they can't because their hearts have died, correct?"

The charcoal-haired man props his chin on the palm of his left hand, whereas his elbow rests on his knee. "Just get to the chase," He blatantly speaks, almost bored.

"Who causes death, Vincent?" She asks him, eyes locking up with his, holding no humor. "You're stating all the factors for death, but Who causes death? Who orders it to be, and it does?"

And suddenly, an eerie shiver runs down his spine upon the way of her interrogation. His orbs widen, a breath stuck in his throat.

Death-- Huh? His heartbeat begins to accelerate. True. All I was stating were the factors. Death-- is inevitable. No man, no matter how powerful or wealthy he may be-- has never lived forever. They couldn't fight with it. I know this. And someday I, too, shall perish. But-- who causes death?

To him, it feels as if irregular pieces of the puzzle had been disarrayed, clouded from his view that he can't complete the picture to find the truth. Unlucky as Kyle can get right now, suddenly, he is clamped by the claws of his newfound addiction in a deathly grip. His fingers itch to grasp the vial in his pocket. His throat urges to feel the burn of it. His hands begin to shake a little.

Not now. Please, not now. His conscience pleads to him. At least not in front of her.

Wafa then stares at her fingers. "Remember Amelia?" She breathes.

"The orphanage girl you are obsessed with?" Sitting straight, fisting his hands, the vocalist intakes the air and voices out, hiding his inner dilemma.

"Yes." A melancholic smile spreads on her face. "She was telling me about an incident the other day. Two girls in the same orphanage had lung cancer. Both had their lungs damaged by sixty-three percent. None of them had any other problem except it. Same symptoms, same hospital, same treatment, same medicines, and same results. Yet, one lived, and the other died a few months ago."

His heartbeat takes another wild turn in his ribcage. His palms get clammy out of the blue. Kyle rubs them against his jeans as the smoke of anxiousness brews in his body. The sides of his forehead begin to pain.

What is the matter with me? He grits his teeth.

"Say, Who did it?" Her eyes shine with mirth as she speaks with a soft smile. "Who causes death? How is it that sometimes a man with numerous diseases lives a hundred years, but an infant with no such disability dies at a young age? It does not make sense," Wafa gazes at his confused self. "unless Someone is in Control of it."

Her eyes then roam to the vast field. "A human digs the soil-- puts the seed waters it. And that's it. That's it. That's the ikhtiar they possess and nothing more."

Kyle huffs in annoyance and raises his eyebrow at her in question. It is taking all of him to remain stoic and conceal his inner battle from her. It is taking all of him to delude her into thinking that neither is anything wrong with him nor is he affected by her interrogation. However, in reality, it is all but a lie.

"It means authority, Kyler." She giggles, well aware of how that name agitates him. "That's the control they have. They become powerless after it, and yet--" She clicks her tongue and shakes her head in dismay, "they behave like they own the world; what is in it and what is beyond it.

And just like that, Wafa shreds away his sanity. She makes him question himself and his existence. And perhaps that is the reason why he holds a special place for her in his heart.

Fear, and perturbation rain on his form. His breathing starts ragging. He feels lost. He feels deserted. He feels as if his body-- his chest clutched tightly with heavy metal chains.

Kyle abruptly stands up, causing Wafa to snap her head in his direction.

"Are you o--" Concerned, she begins to ask him, but her words die in her mouth as Sofia calls her from afar, waving at her, stealing the brown-haired girl's attention from him.

Kyle steals his eyes away from her. "I am going for a walk." He stiffly says before walking out.

"But.."

"Wafa! I'm sorry I'm so late. It took a toll on me to find it."

"H-Huh?" Wafa stammers, turning to Sofia. "Yeah, I apologize too. I forgot to inform you where I put it."

"No biggie." Her assistant throws a big smile at her.

With one last worried glance at Kyle's figure, walking away from her, getting smaller and smaller, Wafa wraps the hijab over her head and goes to pray.

He didn't look back. Kyle can't. His feet move faster on their own. His chest heaves and falls. He wants to go far away from her. His fingers tightly grasp the vial secured in his jeans pocket.

His dark habits. Kyle just can't let them know: his mother and Wafa. Maybe it is because of shame. Perhaps the sheer disappointment in their eyes if they find out will kill him. He doesn't want to take a risk.

His gaze falls on a parked car after walking for a few minutes to get out of the garden, then onto the man, reclining against its trunk, busy typing on his mobile screen.

"Excuse me!" Kyle calls out to the man, tossing two-hundred-dollar cash to him. "Take me to The Lodge at Spruce Peak."

The sight of cash causes the driver's eyes to glimmer. He hastily nods and opens the back passenger door for Kyle, then hurriedly sits on the driving seat and starts the car, unaware of the havoc erupting in the vocalist's body.

The wind begins to hit his face as the cab drives off, easing his senses a little. The driver tries to strike up a conversation, to which he replies only with silence. He then wordlessly takes out the vial with a pounding head and empties its fine components in his mouth.

What have I gotten myself into? Kyle swallows the bitter drug. He rests his head back, his eyes getting moist. A call to death itself.

⁂|                  |⁂

After finishing her prayers, Wafa strides to the pond where the boys are handing out. A few guards are standing alert away some meters, which all the pop stars ignore, almost immune.

The group jokes around and throws teasing remarks at each other. Alan Smith then shows her the video where Micheal is attempting to drown Ivan, to which Wafa can not help but giggle.

"I was checking our flight status a few minutes ago. Apparently, our flight to Texas is delayed three hours because of the bad weather." The chestnut-haired man says, slipping his phone into his jeans pocket when the video ends. "Which means," He continues, "it'll now land at one in the morning"

Wafa nods, sipping the orange juice which Richard handed her with a shy smile.

"Soo.." Alan trails, raking his fingers through his hair nervously.

"So?" Wafa quirks an eyebrow at him.

"Since it'll be late after that, and I, as a good friend, can't leave you alone with your luggage in the middle of the night," He rambles. "so stay tonight in my Villa and then leave on Sunday after attending the party." He says with an innocent smile, then hastily continues as he notices her facial expression turning sour. "With my sister!" Alan raises his hands in surrender.

Today two men raised their hands in relinquishment. Is she a cop in disguise? Wafa internally rolls her eyes.

"The boys and I will sleep in the basement rooms, so you two can have the rooms upstairs." The chestnut-haired man finishes.

"Lara?"

"Melissa."

"Oh," The small spark of excitement dies in Wafa's bosom. Lara and she have become good friends after three meetings. As Melissa's personality is the opposite of Wafa's, they could hardly sit in a gathering for ten minutes together without feeling uncomfortable.

"And that way, you will attend the party at my place."

"I'm sorry, Smith. But I think I'll be good at my own place, and about the party, I don't think I'll be attending it." Wafa politely declines.

"Hey, Waffle!" Ivan calls out to her from afar, gladly saving her for a few moments from Alan's upcoming tantrums. "Where is my father?"

Startled, she turns to Alan, who is looking at Ivan with a lopsided smile.

"Vincent," Alan informs her.

⊱ ⋆ ⊰

| QUR'ANIC VERSE |

He brings forth the living out of the dead, and brings the dead out of the living, and revives the earth after its death. It is in this way (that He revives the dead earth) that you will be brought forth from the dead.

- 30:19

| AUTHOR'S NOTE |

This is one of my Favourite Chapter I've ever written for The Artist And The Atheist!

Just to make it clear, Kyle is NOT Alan's father. Alan sometimes treat him as his father because of Kyle's protective/wise nature.

So now ready for something dark? Coming soon!!
I hope you've enjoyed it the chapter!

May Allah  ﷻ make you of those who are pure from associating partners with Him!

- W A L I Y A