Chapter 2157
But now, he had something he wanted to record
Ayden sat quietly on the hospital bed, his head tilted as he watched Wayne scribbling away, "I've got a journal, too."
Wayne didn't look up, ignoring him.
Ayden spoke again, "I remember now, it's with you, isn't it?"
Wayne's writing hand suddenly froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ayden's bruises darken, a fresh livid mark strangling his neck, old whip scars on his arms turning raw and red, splitting open to reveal the bloody flesh beneath.
"Mom..." Ayden's eyes brimmed with tears as he stared at Wayne, "The journal was her indictment, but it became the chains that tethered you. I'm sorry."d2
Wayne's eyes began to turn red. The monitors attached to his wrist started to emit a piercing alarm.
Within moments, Penn rushed in from the lab..
Wayne was experiencing a brief episode of spontaneous asphyxiation. The struggle lasted into the night. Finally, Wayne calmed down.
Penn sat across from him, his hair damp with sweat, "Wayne, what did you see? Who spoke to you?"
"The journal," Wayne lay pale on the bed, his large frame sinking deep into the mattress.
Penn was momentarily taken aback.
"I remember when he first appeared," Wayne said, not looking at Penn, but staring into the void, his eyes filled with tears. No one had ever seen Wayne this vulnerable.
It was as if he had been transported back to that significant day, the day he uncovered the truth about his origins.
Wayne, a golden boy, suddenly turned into a monster born of conspiracies, trampling on his mother's hopes.
Wayne hysterically confronted his grandmother, but her response was a slap across his face, then she gripped his shoulders with a cruelty he had never seen before, "Fine, if you give up being the heir to the Silverman Group, Maddie Fuller becomes nothing but trouble in my eyes. I'll have her removed from the company at once! If you don't want to be the heir, there are plenty who will beg for my support. I'm not bound by the Silverman name; I have no obligation to keep the heir within the family! Remember, Wayne Silverman, if you want to protect everything you hold dear, you can only be Maddie's son! Otherwise, my boy, you'll doom us all!"
A buzzing filled Wayne's ears. The world and everything around him seemed to twist and contort.NôvelDrama.Org: text © owner.
The weight of the journal crashed into his mind, splashing thick, dark blood everywhere. It flipped open on its own, each page echoing Ayden's cries.
Wayne's face burned. The words turned into invisible chains and shackles, weighing heavily upon him.
He looked at the once-kindly grandmother in front of him, his fear a boundless ocean engulfing him completely.
That night, the boy first appeared before him.
Clad in tatters, his feet scarred and bare, he stood behind Natalie Stein, looking at Wayne with pity, tears rolling down his cheeks.
He was holding the journal, his mouth moving silently.
Until just a moment ago, Wayne finally heard what Ayden, standing behind his grandmother, had been trying to say all those years ago.
Ayden was saying, "I'm sorry."
When Ayden first appeared, Wayne's mind quickly processed the scene, making him forget that moment, forget Ayden who had appeared at the very beginning of the story. He hid him in the deepest recesses of his consciousness.
Until Wayne's body and mind were continuously struck with repeated trauma.
The things locked in his subconscious started to break free, turning into one nightmare after another for Wayne.
"Remembering is a good thing," Penn gently patted Wayne's hand, "It means you're starting to heal. Finding the source is the only way to put an end to it."