But as he was still putting his arms through the cloth, Sarah had seen his back—his back, his skin. She blinked once, then again, as if her eyes had become traitors conspiring with her heart.

"Oh… my God," she sneered, wide-eyed, her voice breaking somewhere between shock and disbelief, as she walked up close to Simma, who was now about to wear his clothes.

"Wait…" she said, stopping Simma.

Simma turned and stared at her. It was weird, a very weird moment between them, but nevertheless it was charged, like a room filled with the smell of rain just before a storm.

She went on, almost instinctively, and took the half-worn cloth off of Simma's shoulders.

Simma was still backing her though, and he knew what was going on automatically. Silence befell them, heavy and velvet-thick, like a curtain drawn over an audience before the first act.

Sarah swallowed hard as she stared at his bare back. Right on it were thick scars, some were long, some were like paw scratches, cane cuts and gouges boring into his skin.

Her eyes brimmed wet with sorrow and surprise.

"Oh my God," she sneered again, softer this time. She was confused and also wondered how a young man like Simma bore those scars across his back.

Slowly, through the tension and shyness that had already occupied the entire room, she moved closer, her fingers trembling like leaves in a mild wind, and ran her hand across his back. She traced the scars, trailing her fingers smoothly along the long one that ran across his spine.

Cold shivers ran through Simma's spine. Her touch was chilly and yet somehow warming, like water poured over hot stones. It relaxed his nerves, and for a while he seemed to have left the world of his agony, stepping instead into the quiet, impossible world of Sarah's touch.

Sarah meanwhile felt heavy for him, as if she had borrowed his wounds."W-w-who did this to you?" she asked, now resting both her palms on his back with her head bent low, like she carried the scars with him.

Simma turned to face her. His height against hers stood out a bit; she was reaching his nose. And as Simma turned, their eyes met with a brimming passion. For a while, there was something between them, something unspoken but very much deep, and it lingered with their stares at each other like a secret melody no one dared hum aloud.

Just then Sarah's eyes ran down to his torso again. Yes, she had stared at it lustfully at first and had failed to notice that those scars branched to the side of his abs.

Calmly she placed her hand on Simma's stomach, feeling his rising and slowing breath, feeling its warmness, the urge not to leave it, as she trailed her hand to the side of his abs where the scars etched up to.

All her touches were heavy on Simma. They made pleasure sear into him, made him forget his worries at the time, made his rampaging thoughts calm down. He wouldn't have minded if the touches went on for as long as the stars burned.

His eyes never left her; the way she simply and innocently stared at his scars and carried their weight with him, her impressed and shocked face and the question she had been desperately waiting for an answer to. Gently he replied:

"It's a long story," he said, his voice bringing Sarah's eyes back to meet his again, with his hand still on a scar at the side of his stomach. And as if the other scars weren't enough, she now saw the one on his shoulder, the newest and freshest one, given to him by the Singrith that killed Sonja.

Her eyes brimmed wet as she slowly and desperately reached out for it. Gently she placed her hands on his chest, just a few inches away from the four paw-like gouges that shallowed his skin.

Their eyes streamed into each other, dark and bright at once. They were now very close, and the heat between them was thick and gothic, curling like invisible smoke.

Sarah's voice was now a mere whisper, her eyes on Simma's lips, her palm on his strong chest not wanting or daring to leave. Then she said; her voice still low in a whisper and seductive, filled with tense ecstasy:

"I have all day to listen to it."

Her words drifted between them like a warm draft. Their lips parted slightly, their heads and faces drifting closer and closer. Sarah's palm on his chest became very comfortable and...

"Ouch!"

Simma bellowed as Sarah jolted at once, their heads parting away together with their lips. Just then Sarah realized how close they were as she quickly let go of him. Her face was now red all over... so red it somehow even ran down her neck.

"A-a-a-re y-you okay?" she stuttered, backing away a little more, palms around her face and heart seeming to skip a beat.

Simma felt very stupid and somehow he was punishing and scolding himself from the inside. But nevertheless he replied:

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. It's j-just that you kinda touched my injury."

Sarah looked up at the injury he was pointing at. Well, maybe somehow her hand, that was very close to it, might have touched it by accident. Not maybe, she did touch him. If not, he wouldn't have felt the sting.

"Yeah…" Sarah replied, her face still flushing, and she just wanted anything that made her forget what had happened, anything to wipe that moment away from reality.

Simma meanwhile quickly put on his top and immediately changed the topic to make the air between them breathable.

"I-I, ah, fought at the edge of the city," he chirped in, his eyes gleaming at Sarah, who looked up at him with a face that was surprised and somewhat embarrassed.

"That was why I missed the training at the VOR," Simma finalized.

Sarah didn't say anything, but the look on her face said it all to Simma. He exhaled and went on.

"I may have lied when I was asked about who I was," he swallowed, measuring his words as if he didn't really want to say them to her.

"I was once a slave to the Singriths... what they called an outcast... and they did this to me… I mean the scars on my body."

He took a measured breath as he glared at Sarah, at her face, which he didn't actually understand. That look on it; was it pity, or was it horror?... he shook his head at the surreality of his words.

"When I heard the emergency... that they were here and attacking people... I remembered what they put me through and something in me broke and..."

"Simma."

Sarah called, cutting him off, her eyes holding this pity in them and also something like anger or unbelievability.

"I understand," she added, her eyes into his, and this time she meant it.

But Simma tapped back.

"No, you don't, Sarah." He nodded, his eyes now glinting with traces of wetness in them.

"I still feel that anger even now… and the only way I'm going to get through this anger is by doing what I have in my mind to do."

Sarah got more confused. What is he planning to do?

"What exactly might that be?" she asked, voicing out her thoughts inquisitively.

Simma hesitated for a while, not knowing how the incoming words might sound. But gathering more momentum and knowing how serious and important his action would seem to him, he replied anyway.

"I'm going hunting tonight, Sarah," he said, his voice carrying the weight of a vow. No one, no advice, would make him not go.

"I'm going after the Singriths… and even if they have succeeded in going far, I will attack and infiltrate the Haydes."

Sarah's eyes went wide. She stood aghast, lost for words and devoid of how to feel. All she found herself asking was, "Why?"

Simma turned around and went for his bed, slumping into it buttocks first, and running his palms through his hair.

"I want to make them pay… pay for all the years of agony, of all the years of pain. I WAS ONLY A CHILD, Sarah... ONLY A CHILD!... and yet… yet they treated me without care. I would have died for all they cared."

He shook his head, his breath now very much ragged, the little peace and calmness that once lingered in the room vanishing completely into thin air, as if threatened away by his own fury.

But then Simma received a reply he never sensed was coming, a reply that, if anyone had told him it was coming, especially from Sarah, he would have laughed in total doubt.

That reply ran through his ears when Sarah said it:

"I'm coming with you then."

Her voice was steady, even though her heart beat was like a startled bird. The room itself seemed to lean closer, listening. Simma stared at her, caught between wanting to smile at her stubbornness and groaning at the trouble she was volunteering for.

For the first time since he started speaking, a faint, almost hidden curve played at the corner of his lips. It wasn't joy. It was something else, something like a flicker of hope.

The words resounded in his head...

"I'm coming with you then."

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