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Staring at the doorknob, Till held his breath in as he tried building up his courage.
They found her.
The so-called ‘ witch’ who always searched for love.
Truely, he had never seen her as a witch. After all of these years, he still couldn’t completely wrap his head around someone as sweet and kind as Mizi being deemed as such.
Maybe he was a hypocrite for thinking that way. After all, she was the reason he was still alive and kicking. She was also the reason so many others had died. The reason so many others had died in vain…
But he couldn’t really blame her for it. As bad as he sounded it.
After all, he wouldn’t call himself innocent either.
He grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open. The room was dark, the only thing allowing him to see inside it was the dim light that broke from the boarded up windows.
There she was. The girl that once was his only option, light, his innocent first love.
Sitting on the corner of the room, facing the wall and cradling her legs, was the witch. No, not the witch.
Mizi, whose skin once felt soft and clean, now covered in burnt marks that traced all parts of her skin. Now, she was nothing like the girl he fell inlove with at the ANAKT garden.
She wasn’t as innocent anymore.
But was she ever at all?
Was the girl’s innocence he once fell for ever real?
Could he even say what he felt for her was honest love?
He couldn’t know. How could he ever know it?
All he knows now is that she needs his help. She needs help. And he’ll give her that.
He slowly approached her and put down the materials he had brought with him on the floor. He stood by her as had done so for days on end now trying to figure her out.
He knew Mizi was broken. Hell, he didn’t think he could bring her back to how she once was.
He grabbed the brush he had brought with him and gently brushed it on Mizi’s shoulder. She looked at him.
“Hey.” He spoke softly, so as to not scare her away. “I’m gonna paint this wall. Do you mind?”
Mizi didn’t nod or even respond, but she did crawl away from the wall and to the other side of the room, the black wig she insisted on wearing dragging behind her.
He looked at the corner Mizi was fixating on and confirmed his suspicions to be true.
Various pieces of paper ripped from a sketch book, doodled on and torn apart, and a broken pencil. There were tear marks staining each of these papers.
All of the drawings had different faces, different features, different clothes. If you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t be able to guess they’re all drawings of the same person.
The same woman.
“Mizi.” Till spoke in a calm manner. In his hands, he held two sketch books he had found on his last expedition. She looked back at him. “Draw with me?” He handed her one of them along with a pencil. “Please.”
After a while, she took it from him without saying a word. She didn’t speak. She never did.
Till drew. He drew the flowers he remembered seeing in ANAKT as a kid. He drew the motorbike he rode that same morning. He drew a boy with short black hair and a toothy grin, but crossed him out. It wasn’t the time for that. He drew a meteor shower as clear as he remembered the last he had seen.
Whenever he drew, it felt as if he was somewhere away from this world. Someplace else where he can imagine Aliens never existed. Where he can imagine them having normal lifes, where he could sing without remembering him.
He… He couldn’t think of that. Not now. Not when Mizi needed him.
Mizi, who had started crying without making a sound.
“Mizi?” Till reached out for her, but before he could touch her, she hunched forward and hugged herself. Her wig hid all traces of her face, but the tears that slid down to the floor and the shaking of her shoulders made her emotions obvious.
For the first time in weeks, Mizi spoke in a whisper, so quiet had the base been any busier he wouldn't have heard her.
“I can't remember her face anymore.” She sobbed. “I can't remember…”
Till shook his head and shuddered at the sour reminder. He couldn’t zone out at a time like this, especially now that she was looking at him.
“...I’m gonna be here for a while. It's probably going to stink like chemicals for a while.” He stated as he turned back to the wall and took out the sketch of the painting he had planned.
“Mmh.”
Good, she's responsive today.
Looking down at the sketch on his hand, he opened one of the paint buckets and started placing the base of the decoration.
As the time went by and the light of the room dimmed, Mizi’s eyelids closed shut despite her unwillingness to. The smell of the paints the other was using was oddly relaxing.
And before she realized it, a day had gone by.
Except that now, instead of waking up being curled up against the wall, she laid down on the makeshift bed that had been set for her covered by a blanket that hadn’t been in her room before. She could only guess he brought it for her.
She sat back up and looked around, noticing Till wasn't there anymore.
Good.
He shouldn’t be with someone like her. Someone that uses others for her own benefit. Who uses and abuses without thinking twice about why.
Someone who blames others to feel better about herself.
Someone who hurts the ones that care for her.
The one she loved.
The one that loved her.
The one person she wanted to keep. To be with.
The person that had died for her.
“I can't remember her face anymore. I can't remember…”
SLAM!
The witch slammed her fist on the wall by her bed.
How dare she?
How could she?
How did she dare betray her like this?
After everything she had lost, everything she left behind for her, the least she could do is remember her as she was.
…And yet…
…she couldn’t even remember what colour her eyes were.
She covered her face with her hands in shame, leaving her alone with her own thoughts.
…And the sticky, tacky texture on one of her palms and cheeks.
She took her hands away from her face and inspected it, and surely, the hand she had banged on the wall was now stained with paint. She could guess half her face was also painted white now.
Of course, Till was painting here before. How did she forget? He was always one with a passion for art.
…Why did he want to paint this wall?
The others didn't look as freshly painted either, and there didn't seem to be any recent reforms on the rest of the building either. Or at least, she thought.
And then finally, she looked up at the wall by her side.
My god.
Mizi felt the air leaving her lungs and her limbs stiffen up.
My universe.
If you asked her what true perfection looked like now, she would be able to give a perfect description of it.
She was staring right at it, after all.
Mizi quickly stood up on her own feet and relayed on the wall to keep her standing. Her fingers clawed at the wall as she looked at her beloved’s eyes.
They were lavender. A beautiful lavender.
The believer’s eyes filled with tears as her legs slowly gave up on her and she fell on her knees in front of the portrait. Yet her look never switched away. She didn't even dare to blink.
Carefully so, she raised her arm and slowly and smoothly ran her fingers through what would be the portrayed woman’s neck as if it would flinch away any moment. The texture of the wall was rough, and the drying paint threatened to blur itself away with background colours.
But it all felt so real.
She could almost feel the woman’s soft porcelain skin.
Feel the way her fingers interlocked with hers in a way no one else’s ever would.
The love she gazed at her with.
The one she loved.
“Sua…”
And the one that loved her.