“What the hell were you thinking?!”

I admit. I was reckless walking alone in that place without ever telling anybody. Though, it wasn’t supposed to end that way. I was actually going to ask for assistance a little while ago. But as soon as I heard that voice, I could not help myself and went to look for it on my own. It was really an impulsive and stupid move for me. And everything just went south from there.

Can you blame me?

“You are no longer allowed to leave the premises unguarded,” my mom strictly told me.

“I'm so sorry,” I replied to her, deeply tortured by my conscience. I had been lucky enough to depend on the means of communication I’d instinctively brought with me. But the moment I’d told my mother over the phone that I got lost in the woods behind our mansion, she immediately called out all our helpers to search for me. It was really awful. It had been a disaster having people rescue you just for being stupidly impulsive.

Until now, I still felt my mother’s misery from a distance as I stood in front of her, swallowed by remorse.

“God, what would have we done if you didn’t have your phone with you?” I heard her saying. And for a moment, I began to imagine that fearful possibility and it instantly brought me to a feeling of extreme fright. Living in this kind of darkness is like being in a scary, door-less prison. I can’t help but just feel so helpless, not even allowed to move on my own course. I can’t even be left alone to fend for myself for that long.

And as this realization finally dawned over me, I felt awfully disappointed with my actions.

“It won’t happen again,” I reassured mom with a firm voice. As these words began to register to the both of us, mom instantly pulled me in for a tight hug and I tried to comfort her and let her know I was completely okay. I wrapped her distress into the warmth of my arms and uttered a genuine promise not to make her feel this way again.

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The next day, I found myself sitting on the couch inside my older brother’s room. He has asked for my presence this morning after finding out what just happened yesterday about me getting lost in the woods.

“You really have a knack of causing heart attacks to people, you know that?” he reprimanded me, and I felt him timorously prancing around the room with the sound of his shoes clicking against the wooden floor. He just got here last night after receiving the news about the incident from my mother. And as I waited for the moments to pass, I felt his imminent anger radiating at me from where I sat across the room.

“It’s over and done, Kevin,” I told him, sighing. “I’m totally okay. It was just a minor incident.”

“You call getting lost in the woods while totally blind and helpless, a minor incident?” he retaliated back, mocking, “Care to enlighten me, Sun. Please.”

Hearing him call me by my nickname, made me cringe in guilt. He only calls me that way when he’s really serious. And Kevin rarely gets serious when he talks to me.

“It just ended that way,” I tried to explain, “But it won’t happen again.”

“How in the world did you even end up lost in the middle of that godforsaken forest, Sun? It’s like almost a mile away from the mansion.”

I could not even answer him in all honesty. How can I even say it? Kevin would just find it ridiculously groundless and stupid that I deliberately got myself lost because I heard a girl singing. And knowing my brother, he would just sneer back and give me a long character reproach for trying to do such a reckless measure just for something like that.

“It won’t happen again, I promise,” I just ended up saying, denying to answer his question.

“So now you’re avoiding the subject,” he gloomed over me, “If that’s how you want to do it. So be it. But I’m not going to let you get away the next time this happens. I’m serious.”

I know.

“Mom kept crying yesterday,” I heard Kevin speak again, after a moment of silence. This time, his voice came out softer and more distant. “The last time I heard her crying like that was thirteen years ago already. And for the same reason, Sun, you keep doing that to her.”

I felt the accusation hit me real hard. He was right. Mom only ever cried that much when it’s about me. Thirteen years ago… inexact timeline. But I could clearly recall that year when I got sick and almost died. It even cost me my sight, but luckily I survived the tragedy.

“Sorry, Kevin,” I resigned in deep contrition. Thirteen years and I still feel like it was only yesterday. The cries and the pitiful words from my family… It felt terrible. As I continued to ruefully think about those tragic days from the past, I found myself humming the song I’ve only heard yesterday.

“What are you humming?” I heard my brother asked me after a while. He must have heard me murmuring.

I only smiled in a weary expression then said, “Just some song I’ve remembered. It got stuck.”

“It sounds familiar though,” Kevin remarked and his words instantly got me perked up.

“You know it?” I curiously probed.

“I guess... What do you expect? I’m a musician,” he told me, “I think I’ve heard it once or thrice before.”

“What’s it called?”

“I’m not really sure,” he said with a befuddled voice, “Can you hum it again?”

Remembering the ethereal voice that had enchanted me yesterday, I closed my eyes and tried to summon the tune through my lips. It surprisingly flowed out in a course of rhythm like it has been inherently imprinted in my brain all this time. For some reason, while closing my eyes and imagining, I was almost certain I could see colors surrounding me. And when I found the end of the sound closing just at the point where it stopped yesterday, I opened my eyes back to darkness again and waited for my brother to speak.

“The Nymph's Lament,” my brother told me, “I remember now. It’s a piece from Monteverdi's work.”

“Monteverdi…” I repeated to myself.

“How odd,” I heard my brother softly commenting.

“Why odd?”

“Because it’s a depressing song,” he just said. I was about to ask another thing regarding it but he abruptly dismisses the matter when he added, “Don’t sing it again.”

“Why?” I felt even more curious.

“Because I don’t want you feeling depressed,” he said, “Not when you’re going to have your surgery soon.”

And with that, the song was immediately buried back into the deepest corner of my memories. But the voice remained inside my head, haunting me even in my sleep. And it kept reminding me of that one windy day when I first felt my heart falling out of its place.

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