In this dark little place, Levi was crouching with a soft smile as he stood before a trembling, weeping little child... a child that looked exactly like him, but at the same time, not?
Like being hidden in this place for over a decade changed him... made him easy to scare, to cry, to run, and to feel.
A little wounded fawn...
Levi reached out with his hand and patted him on the head... feeling his gentle, comforting touch, little Levi stopped trembling and lifted his head, gazing at Levi with a broken, tearful look in his eyes.
A look so heavy in pain and trauma, it would make anyone look the other way.
"We went through a lot... I know, I wish we didn’t, but we did..." Levi said, his voice soft and assuring, "But... you don’t have to be scared anymore... I’m here now. I’ve grown. I’ve learned... You can rest at last. You did enough. You survived, for me."
As he listened to his assuring voice, little Levi lifted his head and gazed at Levi with trembling lips.
"Can I?" he asked, his high-pitched innocent voice breaking apart as tears streamed down his face.
Levi gazed at the pupils of his inner traumatized child... eyes so beautiful, so mesmerizing, used to be rich in life and color... but now, they were dark and shattered like a mirror that was never meant to break.
But, it did.
Now, all he saw were hundreds to thousands of horrible scenes... each fragment showing him, reminding him of the hurt he wanted to forget.
His eighth birthday... children celebrated with a cake, a party, and their parents around.
Little Levi? He woke up to the smell of his mother’s cooking... sunlight warming his cheeks. His father’s laughter from the other room, calling his name to show him the gift he had prepared for him.
For a moment, little Levi forgot the screams, the blood, the darkness... he ran toward them with small eager feet, just for the light to fade away the moment he stepped inside the room.
The warmth vanished.
The laughter turned to a gurgled cry.
He found himself standing in the same spot in the living room... his mother’s body was on the floor again, eyes wide, and bitten all over... and so was his father’s chewed-off face.
The dream he wished so much to be real... turned to a nightmare in an instant.
A nightcrawler appeared behind him with a sinister, mocking smile and whispered near his ear, "I gave it back so you’d remember how it felt to lose it."
As little Levi wept on the ground, all curled up, the nightcrawler laughed.
When he woke up... he didn’t find any solace in escaping the nightmare... why? His world of darkness was packed with nightcrawlers, laughing, and waiting for their turn.
They were taunting, making jokes, and even placing bets with each other, like the first to break little Levi wins.
Little Levi could only laugh at the sight like he was enjoying it too... for he had no eyes to shed tears, and it was a bliss in these moments.
Because even when his already cracked heart was breaking bit by bit, he knew he couldn’t show any weakness... he just couldn’t. Or else... the torment was going to get much worse.
He thought that if he could show a strong, unbothered front... the nightcrawlers would eventually get bored and leave him alone, but they never did.
The nightmares just never ended... each time he slept without an SR Pill, they were there.
Always.
They called him Soulless Gaze... a respected nickname amidst the nightcrawlers, for it represented a child who refused to break apart or sign a Sleepwalker contract with them.
If only they knew... behind that Soulless Gaze was a child, like any other, feeling everything they put him through... every nightmare, every pain, every heartbreak.
Everything.
He just soldiered through... night after night, day after day... awaiting the day that kept him sane.
The day he avenged his parents.
That’s why the moment Levi met Darius, he lost his control over his emotions and wanted to kill him, not caring if his secrets would be exposed. Or in the cell... where he kept blacking out, just to wake up with his hands bloodied.
As Levi stared at the broken eyes of his inner child... he looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly, an innocent angel who was born with a treasure that doomed his parents and life.
The eyes he wanted back so much, no one knew that he hated them... he despised them with so much passion, for he dreamed every single day to be born without them.
Then, none of this would have happened.
"It’s okay... it’s okay... You don’t have to fight anymore. You have already seen the ugliness of this world... there is no need to see more... leave the rest to me."
A single tear slid down Levi’s face as he reached out with his finger to little Levi’s eye and wiped his tears... it was like he was telling him: you don’t have to carry that burden anymore, let me feel the pain and cry for you.
Just rest...
As he looked at Levi’s gentle smile, the little boy stopped crying... he stopped shaking... he stopped hurting.
He looked up at Levi... not the way a scared child looked at a stranger, but the way someone looked at home for the first time.
He went closer and hugged him... Levi hugged him tightly, his hands trembling nonstop, trying his best to keep a strong front.
For he needed to be strong... for both of them.
As they hugged, Levi felt his inner child breaking apart into angelic white particles... particles that slowly illuminated the darkness within his heart, forcing it to retreat away.
And then... the particles took the form of his father, mother, and little Levi in front of him. They had wide, gentle smiles on their faces as they nodded at him.
Still, Levi didn’t cry... he just shared the same gentle smile of his mother and waved his hand at them, watching them walk away.
Little Levi turned around and smiled for the first time since that cursed night... he waved his hand at Levi, and they faded into the backbone of his heart.
They were gone, but they never left... never.
"Mom... Dad..." Levi uttered one last time with the same soft smile, "I love you."
***
Soon, Levi opened his eyes and let out a long exhale... his right cheek was stained with a single tear. But, he didn’t wipe it off.
He just smiled at the Bishop and Darius... then, he stood up and walked in their direction.
"Heh, finally lost it?"
Darius sneered as he saw Levi’s hands getting closer to him. But instead of killing him, he freed him from the straps, leaving him stunned.
Levi ignored him and went to the Bishop, doing the same... when he freed them at last, he walked back and dusted his hands.
"Big mistake... die!"
The Bishop was the first to move... launching at Levi and taking hold of his throat. Yet, Levi didn’t fight back.
He let himself get choked, keeping the same serene smile... a smile that took months to build.
As the air was stripped out of his lungs and his eyes were slowly losing focus... Levi said one last thing, his voice escaping through the cracks.
"I will find you," He whispered. "And when I kill you in the most inhumane way possible... There won’t be any hard feelings, right?"
He winked one last time before the darkness engulfed him... but it didn’t remain for long.
In an instant, Levi found himself standing in the same grass field on Ash’Kral’s territory with the three Ancestral Trees still in their spiritual forms.
He looked at them and breathed in like a man who didn’t go into a trial... but a healing process. Of course, he wasn’t fully healed, but it was a start in the right direction.
So, he didn’t lash out at what he went through... no, he simply bowed his head in appreciation and said with a soft smile, "Thank you... I didn’t know how much I needed that."