2 Chapter 2

The boy's eyes widened as he gasped for air, even through the piercing, wintry air.

"Uriel?" He asked once more. "That's me? What do you know about me? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Who are you?"

"Your name is Uriel," The voice said, still like a broken recording devoid of listening capabilities.

The boy became desperate, tossing and turning in the middle of the ground.

The rainfall began, damping his whole aching body with much more burden than he's already having at the moment.

"What did I do?" He asked himself, almost pleading for an answer from anyone. "Where did things go wrong? How am I supposed to make things right if this was my punishment all along? What was my sin in the first place, anyway? What else do I have with me except my body and existence? Why am I here?"

It didn't matter to him whether it would be a lie or a fabrication. He just wanted to ease the pain, even if it meant clinging to the notion that he shouldn't be feeling this way.

He's just a little, weak, and hopeless boy undeserving of such an ordeal.

The moment his eyelids gave up, all he saw was darkness.

But he could still clearly feel the ache all over his body, the coldness of where he's lying at, and the confusion he's being subjected to.

It was all painful until vague images suddenly appeared across the darkness that made things a bit bearable.

He heard familiar voices and saw familiar faces, but he couldn't remember exactly what they are and who they are supposed to be.

If it was a memory, it didn't seem like a luxurious life at all.

And if it was a dream, it didn't feel so dreamy at all to make him believe that he's in a deep slumber.

Even a shallow nap would be unacceptable with these kinds of images. It was a tad bit horrible, but it wasn't too bloody. When he tried searching for some hint of light, he saw smiles.

It somehow relieved him that at little parts of those images he hoped to make sense of someday, there was a genuine smile. A hearty laughter and jolt of happiness.

Even if it was only a fleeting moment and though it was there to be shattered in some ways, he could still breathe a sigh of relief with that.

A single tear made all his emotions speak that if something was shattered, meant something can be shattered. And if he could hold on with the broken pieces, something became whole for once. He didn't think of anything else but that point of where he wanted things to be in place.

When all the images stopped flashing down his brain and his sloppy memory lane trip was over, he was back with reality.

The pain, the coldness, and the crippled breaths returned to him like an expected boomerang that was shot back to him. He struggled to get up.

Focusing on that warm shelter, his feet could only get him as far as its walls.

His legs slowly collapsed there, but he was somehow grateful that he's at least underneath the house's gutter to prevent the rainfall from further making his body ache.

He crumpled at that corner looking so pitiful with his small body frame and embraced his knees.

He could only feel the shivers of his body. His chapped lips painfully bleeding and his hair tangled up.

"Uriel," He whispered with so much struggle. "My name is Uriel. I'm Uriel."

He couldn't say the next words, fearing it might be true.

Something horrible happened, but he wasn't too sure of it.

His own nature couldn't accept that something like that could really occur. Among the images he had seen, one clear truth floated up from the darkness. And it was enough to suffocate him.

It made his shiver and feel down to his core what coldness really meant in the reality he woke up to. With only his body, existence, name, and unsure memory, there's only so much he could do at this place.

But he realized from then what sad and misfortunate destiny he's been tied off to.