18

"What's the big deal about it anyway? Just because the kid is deaf?" Khittan throws an inquiry.

Right now, the three of them; Khittan, Karin, and the priest at The Sacred Moonlight Shrine were having a small talk in the middle of the praying area of the shrine.

"Let me tell you something. For this ritual, you have to trust the process as a whole. If you have a doubt, even for a second, things will get a lot worse," says the priest. "Besides, will you depend your life, your future, on a deaf kid that you never met before?" the priest inquires them.

"If he can do it, I'm taking a chance..."

"Lady Sun, we're talking about mind under consciousness. We're playing with spirits and soul," the priest tries his best to convince Karin.

"Just now, you claim the kid can help us. Yet, you're trying to implant the harm of the course that we'll take," says Karin. "Now tell us, how can we distrust the kid?" she then inquires the priest.

Khittan, who stands by her side nods in tiny. After giving them hope, the sudden airbrake that the priest pulled made things sound impossible.

"If you think we'll back off after you gave us the way, then you're wrong. If you ask me to cross a river of fire... If that means I can end the suffering that both of us had been through all these years... I'll swim with my might!" Karin grabs the priest's robe, staring deep into his eyes. She is full of determination, maybe desperation.

Either way, she's stuck on her ground.

"Fine. If you say so. Let's meet the kid."

***

Another room. More to the east side. The light sources illuminate the room sufficiently, enough to show what or who has occupied the room.

"There he is..." the priest whispers at Karin and Khittan while pointing his finger to a figure who sits silently facing the wall with some ancient writing. There is a stone bowl in the middle of the room, collecting droplets of water from the cave's ceiling just above their head.

The priest slowly approaches the boy, tapping his shoulder softly. The boy opens his eyes and looks at the priest. After a while, they walk towards Karin and Khittan.

"Venerable..." they greet the boy. He looks at Khittan, and then his sight falls on Karin.

Khittan taps his shoulder a bit. He makes some hand gestures. Later, the boy nods and does the same.

"Where did you learn sign language, Your Highness?" the priest looks shocked. Khittan smiles in bitterness.

"The King used to have a princess that was born deaf..." he replies.

"I didn't know..."

"She died when she was 10 due to some illness..."

"May she rest in peace," the priest prays for the soul. Karin touches Khittan's forearm.

"I'm sorry..."

"It's fine. Although the royal tries to hide her from the public sight, she had a great time with us. All of us; my brother, and my cousin learned sign language so we could communicate with her whenever we visited the princess," says Khittan.

"Why did you guys hide her?"

Khittan sighs. He grabs Karin's hand tight.

"To have a disabled child, especially in the royal family, is symbolic of imperfection and vulnerability. Plus, I think my father might wanna suppress the constant worry if she was exposed to the public," Karin frowns.

"Is your parent ashamed to have her? That's cruel!" Khittan smiles. He caresses Karin's cheek softly.

"When you have someone that you love so much and you know how fragile they are, you can't help but feel uneasy all the time. You keep wondering, are they gonna be fine? Are they in a safe place? Would anything or anyone harm them? It's not that my parents hate her. I believe it's easy to keep her around, far from the public eye..." Khittan explains.

"But, it's torture! She has the right to feel normal and explore the world..."

"We never treat her differently, though she's a bit special. We let her do whatever she yearned for. We just wanna make sure that she was safe," Khittan replies as his head drops down, staring at the room's floor. "Thought it might sound cruel..." he continues.

"I think, that's enough debate about that. What are we gonna do now?" Karin ends the conversation about the topic immediately. There is no time for drama. This will end, once and for all.

Khittan nods and switches his sight to the boy. He makes a hand sign again. And this time, the boy doesn't answer him.

He walks straight to Karin and touches her hand. Right at that spot, Karin experiences something.

Some glimpses of her past life play like a series of videos in her head. She can see fire, screaming, running, and everything all at once.

Karin's body almost slams onto the floor. Lucky for her, Khittan is there, and he grabs her even before she can even reach the floor.

"What happened to her?" Khittan asks the boy. The boy stands there and does nothing. Karin finally began conscious. She slowly wakes up.

"Karin... Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I think I might have experienced some glimpses just now. All of the incidents that happened to me from my previous life... They rush into my brain," Karin flinches a bit.

Then, she looks at the boy.

"Show me... What exactly happened to us? Show me..." Karin asks the boy.

"I'll... Sho..w...yo..u..." the boy responded to her.