A few hours earlier, in Shyla QUINN's apartment.
After their separation, Shyla had returned to her apartment. The same size as Sirius's, the only thing that differed between the two was the atmosphere and the décor, which blended the witch's personality with a few instruments useful for magic and witchcraft.
Exhausted, she threw her bag onto one of the living room's pieces of furniture, went to the kitchen area of the apartment, and opened the mini-fridge there. She took out the food she had prepared and put it in the microwave to heat.
Meanwhile, she went to her room, changed, and got into the shower to enjoy a nice hot bath and relax.
In the bath, she thought back to her meeting with Shauwn.
"Shauwn… Arkynas."
Barely had she finished saying his name when she blushed and fidgeted in the tub. She thought back to everything that had happened.
After a long while, she finally got out of her bath, letting out a long sigh, the thick steam wrapping around her tired body.
She grabbed one of the towels placed at her bedside and wrapped it around her body.
Shyla then went to the mirror, wiped away the steam to look at her reflection, to whom she made a few cute gestures before taking her comb.
With it, she began detangling her wet hair — a battlefield between the knots formed by a busy day and the comb's branching teeth.
After one last look in the mirror and a few skincare touches, she got rid of her towel and put on a comfortable "pajama."
Shyla's pajama didn't look at all like a conventional one; it was just a big, cute pullover with cat ears that she liked to snuggle into.
"Cling! Cling! Cling!" It was the sound of the microwave, a reminder that her dinner was ready.
"Oops!" she said, rushing to the living room.
She carefully took the still-hot food out of the microwave, sat down, and devoured it.
After finishing, she grabbed her flip phone from her bag, went into her bedroom, and lay down on her soft bed, whose comfort made her let out a "hmmm."
Most Arcanum students used the evening to relax and have fun, but that wasn't the case for Shyla, who spent most of her evenings, that is to say: bath – eat – browse – sleep.
Shyla didn't really have friends, except for her neighbor in the next apartment. She had tried to get closer to the other witches; however, for some reason, they didn't like her. It wasn't really a big deal anyway — her father had warned her to be careful about who she befriended, so it wasn't much of a loss. As for her neighbor, she was far too teasing and often embarrassed her. Moreover, the fact that it was at night made Shyla wonder about the kind of crazy things she might do when in her element.
Browsing was the last step she did before going to sleep. As soon as she opened her phone, she was surprised by a message notification from her neighbor.
"Oh, it's Katalya," she said.
She opened the app that led to her private chat.
"So, you're back?"
That was the message Katalya had left hanging. She hurried to reply.
"Yes, for a while now."
The reply came back just as fast and unexpectedly.
"Oh?! I thought you and your boyfriend would need a lot more time…"
"Eh!! He's not my boyfriend." She blushed in front of the screen — the way she typed the message showed her embarrassment.
"Humm, really? That's not exactly what the position you were in suggested…"
"It's a misunderstanding."
"Seeing my little Shyla with a boy, and in that position no less, made me proud and sad at the same time. I thought you had a boyfriend and didn't tell me — your best friend!"
"That's really not what you think, I swear!"
Shyla took what Katalya wrote far too seriously, while on her end, Katalya was just teasing her — she found her reactions rather cute.
"Don't worry, Shyla, I was just teasing you. So, if he's not your boyfriend, who is he then?"
"He's the new resident, Sirius Arknight. You must've received the message, right?"
"Maybe, I don't really care about that kind of thing, you know."
"You should pay a lot more attention, you know?"
"If it makes you happy. So, Shauwn — love at first sight?"
"KATALYA!!!" appeared instantly on the screen in big letters.
"What?"
"I don't know, I just met him, maybe…"
"Alright, alright."
Shyla sighed, smiling. Katalya had always known how to make her blush with her teasing. But that was also why she liked her so much. Their conversation went on to lighter topics, and little by little, Shyla felt the tension of the day fade away.
The conversation between the two young women had barely ended when she heard a noise coming from Shauwn's apartment.
She had no doubt — it was the sound of glass shattering.
"SHAUWN?!"
---
The broken glass shards in the sink were still there, stained with blood. The water that had been used to clean a few scratches kept running, to the point of overflowing and spilling onto the floor.
Shauwn himself was in his bath, completely submerged from head to toe, his eyes open, lost in the void. Hearing a voice speak to him — and replying — happened only rarely. When these events occurred, the results were never pleasant, as they tended to weaken his current personality, his resolutions, and his principles, sometimes forcing another part of him — an older personality — to emerge, regressing him to a former state of being. That's why he had to re-anchor himself in reality and define who his current self was.
To do this, he had established keywords, each linked to specific memories, images, and emotions.
Shauwn Arkynas, freedom, Ivy, Sofia, Wallace, Lily, detachment, ethics, moral compass, selective justice…
Some of these words didn't represent or concern him directly; they served as mementos. After repeating these words several times while drowning in his bathwater, his consciousness, weakened by the conversation he had had with himself, grew stronger and finally stabilized. He had come back to himself — the Shauwn Arkynas who had come to start over in Silver Creek.
On the verge of drowning, he quickly pulled himself up, his breathing loud — though he eventually calmed down. Sitting in the hot water of the bathtub, feeling the pressure in his muscles slowly dissipate.
His eyes closed instinctively in response to the calm that reigned in the room. Unfortunately, the conversation he had had a little earlier prevented him from wandering freely through his thoughts, rehashing all his bad memories.
Finally, he let his gaze wander around the room. He watched the steam rise and evaporate in the bathroom, thinking that it would have been easier if his thoughts and memories could do the same.
He took a deep breath and let the air slowly escape from his lungs. The warmth of the water soothed his physical pain, but the emotional wounds were deeper. The broken mirror in the bathroom was a reflection of his inner state — fragmented and disturbed.
It was now time to get out of the bath. The hot water, despite its healing virtues on his body, had not truly managed to make the pain lodged in Shauwn's fist disappear — the consequence of his fit of anger that had driven him to break his mirror.
he scanned the shower with his eyes. It was a real mess. He got out of the bath and turned off the sink tap to avoid flooding the bathroom. Once the bathroom was quickly cleaned up, the glass shards from the mirror hadn't moved; he'd deal with them later.
He quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his body, marked with scars — seven of which were bullet wounds.