Visitors and tourists that come in every year like to say that the city streets of Kilder feel alive. Like the dense interconnected alleyways resemble the veins of a heart, to Korven, the only semblance of life in the city died long before she had been born–that's only if it ever existed in the first place. Now, the only similarity between a heart and Kilder is that one day a heart will stop, dry up, and wither away; only then will a heart resemble Kilder.
Those very void-of-life alleyways Korven had gotten used to, the alleyways that Korven wanders when looking for leads. When she has nowhere to go. When she's lost emotionally.
Except this time she isn't. Korven wanders these alleys, not because she has no leads to follow, but rather because she has a lead she doesn't know how to follow. Korven had spent her day looking into Sinxu, the correctional officer who held her at gunpoint, claiming to be trying to protect his brother by stopping her. However, Korven was not looking into Sinxu because of Sinxu, but because of her brother, Quyin.
Looking into Sinxu allowed Korven to research the early lives of the Wylin brothers.
Quyin, of course, is one of the many lesser-known Miracles residing in Kilder due to the lack of a 'flashy' ability, so to learn his current whereabouts, she had to find any surviving family members.
"Obviously other than Sinxu." Korven had joked. However, that joke had turned out to be quite a major limiting factor for her investigation, as the only Wylin family member who knew Quyin's location, residing in Kilder, and wasn't in active contact with Sinxu–who Korven wanted to keep out of the loop–was a cousin who had refused to speak on the phone, asking to meet Korven in person.
"This man is lucky I don't have anything better to do," Korven says as she maneuvers through garbage dumps, looking out for the address that the cousin had sent her.
"There is admittedly a major chance of this being a trap," Korven tells herself, unmoved by what should be a horrifying statement.
"At least I never have to worry about getting killed in a trap," Korven says as she stops trying to hold back a cheeky smile while her right hand grips the loaded handgun in her pocket.
"No one will be able to stop me from finding out my truth." Korven smiles,
"I am Korven. I see through the secrets of Kilder, and it is up to me to cut through them."
Korven turns another corner, deeper into an alleyway; every turn that would bring her closer to the cousin just adds fuel to the blaze of doubt raging in her mind.
"With where this address is, It's probably more likely that it's some sort of trap than the truth," Korven says, placing her finger beneath the trigger of the gun tucked away under her hoodie.
Korven circles around a man sleeping on the street, a man looking, another forgotten relic of the city. Korven tiptoes around him, worrying about his comfort so much that she doesn't notice she is right next to the arranged meeting spot.
"Looks like all the telltale signs of a trap," Korven says, in case she ever decides to look through this specific memory.
Korven looks around, trying to find the door that was in the picture that Quyin's cousin had earlier sent her.
"It seems that other than the man sleeping beside me, I am the only person this deep into the alleyway," Korven notes hyperbolically. Although truthfully, she had always enjoyed the silence of the forgotten parts of Kilder, the corners that people refuse to bring up when talking about the city.
Korven spots the door from the picture and walks towards it, the dusk moonlight illuminating its rotting wood. She opens it with her left hand, keeping the handgun tightly clenched in her right.
The door awkwardly glides into the house after Korven messes around with the rusted doorknob.
"Hello?" Korven asks the pitch-black room, the moonlight from outside partially illuminating just a mat.
"I knew it." Korven thinks, slowly pulling her pistol out of her waistband.
"This was a trap," Korven says, accidentally out loud out of habit.
Before Korven even has the time to react, the lights in the room turn on, the man Korven had contacted online standing in front of her,
"N,o no, sorry, I was expecting a knock, not you coming in with a handgun." The man says, actually more of a boy; Korven notices, looking anywhere between 16 and 19.
"Oh uh… sorry," Korven says, flustered by the ever-present cheerful look on the boy's face. Quickly placing the gun back into her pocket.
"Sorry, sorry, this isn't going well, uh, you are Yunuh, right?" Korven asks, her face, ruby couloured in embarrassment.
"Yeah… and I'm assuming you're Korven?" Yunuh says, returning the question.
Korven nods
"You're younger than I thought you would be," both of them say at the same time, hoping to break the awkward tension in the room. Both of them giggle at the coincidence.
Korven is the first to talk after the laughing dies down.
"Well, I guess so; it's very complicated, you know." Korven jokes.
"You told me you lived alone; you also live in quite a run-down part of town." Korven adds,
Yunuh smiles before responding, "So are you only here to call me poor?"
Korven jumps to defend herself, "No, no! Far from it, actually; from inside this place if pretty nice"
"Chill out, I was just joking," Yunuh says, laughing at his own joke,
"Please come in, sit down, I'm sure you have a lot of questions to ask about my miracle of a cousin," Yunuh jokes, gesturing for Korven to sit down on a shabby but tasteful couch in the middle of his one-room basement apartment.
Korven sits down while looking around at the rest of the apartment. She wouldn't have been able to tell this room was in the same neighbourhood she had just been walking in. All the walls were covered with shiny gold-coloured metal objects. Each object, when examined up close, had many flaws, either in the paint or the craftsmanship, but they were all placed next to one another, making the room look like an art museum. A Kitchenette being the only other piece of furniture in the room.
"Where does he sleep?" Korven thinks to herself. As she sits down on the couch, Yunuh comes and sits in front of her on the sofa.
"So, you wanted to ask about Quyin?"