Chapter 377 - 369. The Paladin
The time Zein found himself devoid of thought could be counted on one hand.
To be so blanked out, so shaken to the core that he couldn’t do anything but stand in place as if he had turned into a lifeless statue... had only happened once before; when he found out he was stranded with two toddlers.
This would be the second time, and the fact that he stopped breathing made him look even more like a statue.
He just stood there, five meters from a glowing light that imprisoned his father.
It was so close; a distance that he could reach in just two seconds. And yet, he couldn’t move.
He was scared. He was scared that it was just a mirage, a hallucination, a dream. He was scared that if he moved, if he walked closer, that glowing light would disappear, like any mirage.
And so he stood there, like a rooted tree, thinking of nothing but how scared he was. Everything went still and silent as if he was drowning in darkness--
A wordless touch met his hand, warming his cold fingers and frozen courage. The touch, of someone who had been drowning in darkness, was telling him it was real; it wasn’t a dream.
It wasn’t a dream.
Slowly, Zein felt his legs unfroze, stepping forward one leg at a time like a toddler learning how to walk. With each step, he took a deep breath and waited until he was sure the tank was there, the light was there, his father was there. And with each step that brought him closer, he could see the man’s face.
The face he had only seen in two portraits, and a few times in his dream. A young face of a young man, frozen in time. Handsome, sharp in the right angle, and delicate in the right curve. Even in the paleness of death, he was graceful.