Levi turned the card over. A splash of red, white and pink. A mother fox kissing the forehead of her baby. Her furry tail were clouds that cloaked the sun like a thin veil. Warmth embraced that cub even in the coldest of winter. It didn’t need to fend for himself, nor find food to survive the storm. It simply cuddled in its mother’s hug and trusted her heartbeat. A sign of life in the present.

All he ever wanted was a normal life. To be a child like everybody else. To have both parents to welcome you home from school. To fight, quarrel and make up the next day. To eat around the table and scoop food for his father and mother. To have parents by his side. To cheer him on when he’s done well. To stroke his back when he’s down. A hand he could hold. A person he could hug.

Why did you have to go? Why did you have to leave me alone? Why didn’t you take Dad away too so I could just leave this cruel world and join you? Why? Why!

Levi clenched his fists till they hardened like rock. It only reminded him that there wasn’t any hand he could hold. All he had was himself. He wanted to believe that. He would have prayed that it was never a story of two but of one. But he knew his father was still here. He couldn’t just lay in the snow like an abandoned cub and let the frost bites gnaw at his soul. Dying alone as the blizzard numbed his pain.

For the past 12 years, he had been holding it in. Every moment. Every second. He always looked beyond the windowsill of his ghostly classroom. He always wanted to know how it felt like for life to be over. A jump wasn’t so hard. Death wasn’t scary. No. It was release. It was freedom. But the dark red chains that clasped his bleeding heart held him back. His father were like chains that nudged his frozen heart. The heat from his father’s love melted the ice and made him aware of the pain again.

This was too much for 7-year-old Syndesi. She could hear his unspoken thoughts through haunting words that seemed to float like ghosts in the air. It was like she could see his naked heart surrounded by chains dripping blood. At this rate, she was going to go insane.

Just then, a summer breeze blew away all the gore and pain. It was like a painter splashed all the vibrant colours on his monochrome canvas that only knew black and white.

An invisible string tugged Syndesi’s heart from the azure skies above that were given the colour blue by the artist. The bloodthirsty words vanished as the rays of the sun illuminated the jet black tunnel.

She was connected to someone.

Someone that felt familiar. A vestige that seemed to exist somewhere. Out of this world.

“Eve?”

She knew this person’s name. She didn’t know how or why but she knew her name. And she could feel her presence taking over her body temporarily like a vessel. This spirit emanated life force that felt like a soothing hot chocolate drink in a cold season. Syndesi didn’t know who she was or what it was. But she knew this delicate entity meant no harm.

Like a puppet on strings, Syndesi moved her arms. She embraced the little boy like the mother fox and kissed his forehead.

This time, he could feel it.

Levi looked around but there was no one. An empty park with no one in sight. But it no longer felt so empty. He placed the card on his lap and moved his diary to the front. He turned the pages, worn and torn by time’s passing until he reached a blank new page. A white page.

Like how he will write Syndesi into existence 13 years later, he began writing. But this time, it was not a white lie. He removed a second mask he was wearing beneath his skin.

This time, it was his true thoughts.