Chapter 3

Aria turned her head enough to look at him from the corner of her eye and stayed in that position in silence. Her stare made him a little uneasy, but Linus just shrugged off the feeling since he knew Aria didn't mean anything bad by it. After warming up to her, it didn't take long for everyone in the club to realise how slow she functions. So they had tacitly adopted the method of waiting, giving her the time and space she needed to formulate a response.

Alex and Kaitlin also paid attention to Aria's answer, brimming with curiosity about the plans of the most mysterious member of their club. Despite getting along with Aria for three years, no one had been able to break through her ironclad wall. Aria wasn't an individual that actively divulged any information on herself, and when questioned, she would simply smile and keep silent.

Even though the possibility of Aria answering was minuscule, it was still an opportunity to find out at least something about her. Not to mention, she wasn't giving the same smile of rejection that she usually deals out.

During this test of patience, one person had been continuously fidgeting in his seat. The longer Aria stayed expressionless, the more excited the four people got. Just as they hoped for the improbable, Aria turned back to face the moon crushing their hopes, only to be responded with a low tone filled with melancholy whispering into their ears.

"Continue searching."

"Searching? What for?"

Nathan dumbly asked, his mind not yet caught up after being stimulated from the impact of Aria's sudden rare showcase of heavy sorrow.

Having watched Aria for so long, he had known that Aria rarely showed any emotion. And in those rare moments, sadness was always the only emotion that showed up. He had never managed to figure out why, and his heart felt stifled whenever it did. She always carried a faraway look in her eyes that gave him the impression that she would abruptly disappear then and there, and it never failed to make him panic.

Kaitlin, Alex, and Linus were just stunned, silly. They had never seen or heard Aria so desolate before. No one knew how to react or what to do, glancing around trying to signal others to do something.

While they were panicking, Aria remained motionless and silent. She was staring at the moon that filled up most of her vision, up in the vast stretch of seemingly endless darkness listlessly.

Just as they thought Aria no longer paid them any attention, her voice floated over softly, sounding even more desolate and fragile than before.

"Have you ever wondered if the moon could survive without the sun?"

Her question stunned them once again, and it took them even longer to recollect themselves to contemplate her question seriously.

Even though they knew that the moon could survive without a sun, no one answered. They knew that the answer wouldn't be that simple. One thing they learnt about Aria was that Aria's questions were never literal. It was always a riddle, requiring them to decipher the deeper meaning behind it to even get a head start on where to begin.

Linus looked visibly frustrated, his mind not in the best condition to be making sense of her riddle. Combined with the pressure of the hanging tension in the air, he couldn't concentrate. Taking a quick glimpse at the others, they all had equally heavy expressions, all burdened with the need to find the right answer in hopes that they could console Aria's sadness even just a little.

Linus sneaked a peek at Aria, only to realise that she had never expected an answer in the first place. She was, as usual, the same languid and lethargic self, the melancholic side she had shown just a few seconds ago long gone. As if it had merely been a figment of the imagination.

In an attempt to ease up the atmosphere and hint to the others, he rubbed his face roughly as if to vent out the irritation from being unable to make heads or tails of Aria's question, resulting in his following words be barely comprehensible.

"You know, I've always wondered why you joined the outdoor adventure club instead of the literature club. With your capabilities, you would be able to lead those stuck ups by their noses all year round."

Alex and Kaitlin smirked at the image Linus had built, while Nathan seemed to have not heard him. Still frowning with a serious look on his face, staring fiercely at the fire burning in the middle of the group.

Without so much as a change in her expression, she hummed in acknowledgement in the same sluggish way everyone was familiar with.

Alex and Kaitlin relaxed at the sight of Aria returning back to her usual self. However, Nathan frowned even more and pouted a little but remained silent.

As they chatted deep into the night, the atmosphere got livelier. Nathan soon joined in the conversation with Aria responding every once in a while.

Linus was the first to knock out, prompting everyone else to clean up and retire for the night. After they were done, everyone entered their respective tents while Nathan helped Linus' unconscious body back to his.

Aria retreated back to hers, and silence enveloped her tent. She laid still till slumber took her consciousness away.

Time quietly trickled by, and with each soft breath from Aria, the sky soon became dark enough that it seemed to suck someone in if they stared long enough.

Without anyone's notice, a cloud of black smoke passed through the fabric of Aria's tent and slowly condensed into a human figure. It slunk it's way over to Aria's sleeping figure and settled to lie down beside her, soaking in the pleasure of this nostalgic intimacy. In that moment of tranquillity, it remained silently watching Aria, observing and engraving everything in its memories.

As the night approached its' darkest, giving the moon the chance to shine at its' brightest, Arias' eyelids fluttered open gently. She slowly sat up, staring dazedly into space. Only the rustling of her clothes indicated she was awake. While everyone else was sound asleep, Aria left her tent and shuffled sluggishly to the open area by their campsite that was a fence away from the forest.

Blankly staring up into the obsidian night sky, stars dotting and further enhancing its dark beauty. It looked like sparkling jewels embedded in a sleek black cloth that stretched beyond where the eyes could see. However, what Aria had her sight on had always been the full moon silently illuminating the night, with eyes reflecting a deep sorrow yet still remained dry like wells that had long dried up.

Unknown to Aria, in the forest surrounding her, a dark cloud floated silently back and forth restlessly amongst the leaves.

Aria stayed outside with nothing to heat up her surroundings, leaving her body cool under the night breeze and shivering slightly. But the small and vulnerable figure still stubbornly remained, not moving to find something to warm herself up with.

After fulfilling her nightly self-imposed punishment, Aria moved her shivering body that had gone numb from the cold to catch more sleep, lest she collapses from fatigue and over exhaustion later in the day. As she tilted her head back down, a figure flashed by at the corner of her eyes.

Aria's body froze, and before her mind could process what it was, her legs were already running, carrying her body past the fence and chasing.

Even though Aria didn't get a clear look, she just knew that it was him. The one she'd been searching for for years. The one she'd been hoping and lost hope for, to see in the early mornings till late nights.

Hope, fear, and longing drove Aria's stiff body forward. Reasoning and rationality long abandoned, calling the name she obsessed over in her mind over and over again.

Yet despite running desperately, Aria couldn't find his shadow again, as if it was just another figment of her imagination. But for the first time, she had never been more certain that it wasn't another hallucination.

Ironically, because of her unwavering belief that it was real, the panic of this chance slipping through her fingers like sand in an hourglass drove her closer to the edge of insanity.

Running recklessly deeper into the forest with only intuition to guide her, she didn't realise when his name that was gushing out from her heart had overflowed past her lips. She had been so focused on finding him that she remained utterly oblivious to how ragged and disorderly her breathing had become, resulting in her coughing and wheezing violently in between her calls.

As her intake of oxygen couldn't keep up with how much her body was burning, Aria's mind sunk deeper into chaos and despair.

She felt a stinging pain in her eyes and a salty taste in her mouth but could barely pay any attention to her surroundings. Stumbling and tripping with only her long pants saving her knees from being scrapped, she was inadvertently dragged back to relive the days that continued to devastate and haunt her.

The longer she remained immersed in her memories, the more disoriented she became. Guilt, regret, hatred, and dread overrode her senses and an avalanche of 'what ifs' chorused through her mind. Her shouts grew louder in a futile attempt to drown it out with his name.

Tears falling, she realised it was of no use.

It would never allow her to forget. It would never forgive her for her sins. It would never let her move on and live peacefully. She could only repent and live the rest of her life amending the wrongs she had done. She simply couldn't stop, nor did she want to. She didn't deserve to.