The Morningstar Brigade

Chapter 14

Meddy exchanged a confused glance with Daken and then slowly made her way over to the door. A sense of overwhelming dread had been replaced with an uncertainty whether she wasn't now hallucinating. "Hello?" she called, moving her left hand to the doorknob and carefully beginning to open the chamber to the outside world. Her right hand remained firmly wrapped around her scalpel. "Is anyone out there?"

"Well, it's about time you invited me in," a dishelved young man in a misfitting Brigade uniform said as he casually slid into the room. "You know, I never realized it before, but fighting Nephilim sure is thirsty work, isn't it?" he noted, placing his hands behind the back of his head as he surveyed the cupboards of medicine for anything that looked like a beverage. "Don't worry, no need to bother. I'll grab something myself."

Daken and Meddy watched the odd would-be Shepherd in stunned silence for a moment as he flitted around the infirmary in search of a drink. They waited, sure their strange savior would introduce himself in some way, but instead found the boy completely oblivious to their presence. Finally, Daken could take it no longer. "Hey, who the hell are you pal?" he barked.

The Shepherd glanced over at Daken, as if surprised at the question itself. Then he chuckled and scratched his neck bashfully. "Oh. Right. You guys." He quickly shuffled over to where Meddy and Daken stood, their eyes never moving from his bizarre visage as he nearly did a little jig to make his way across the floor. He made an overdramatic bow and then extended a hand towards Meddy. "Morningstar Brigade Shepherd Candidate Isaac, at your service."

Isaac didn't look like the other Shepherds-in-training that Meddy and Daken often saw walking around the Keep. He barely looked like he belonged on Eden. Where most members of the Brigade took pride in pristine, strictly maintained uniforms and carefully cropped, combat-ready hair, Isaac looked like he had thrown himself into a pile of laundry and wandered out. He wore an inside-out white shirt bearing the Brigade's golden emblem beneath a grey button-down carelessly thrown over it. His pants were the slick Brigade-issue black, but were torn on his right knee and patched on his left. His hair was a spiked messed of sandy brown and his flashing eyes were a mischievous, heterochromatic hazel and blue. A sharp white set of teeth arched across Isaac's face, his lips always on the edge of a snickering, but light-hearted, curl. Meddy and Daken couldn't tell whether he was laughing with them or laughing at him, but one thing was certain: He liked to keep people guessing.

Meddy eyed the extended hand skeptically. It was covered with blood.

Isaac glanced up and laughed sheepishly as he realized his error. He quickly scanned his surroundings for some kind of towel, but upon failing to find one, he simply shrugged and wiped the crimson palm off on his pantleg. Then he re-extended the hand.

"Chief Medical Officer Medala. Thank you for your assistance, Shepherd Isaac," Meddy said, attempting to maintain a semblance of professionalism while her hand uncomfortably squished against Isaac's.

"Oh, yeah, that? Sure thing," he said with a laugh, glancing back at his handiwork. "Honestly, it was kind of fun. Nothing gets the blood racing like waking up, pounding down a glass of O.J., then decking twenty guys while they scream nonsense at you."

Daken looked the scrappy Isaac up and down. "You really did all that by yourself?" He scowled. "And wait a minute; the order went out for every last Shepherd to move to defend the front gates. Why are you still back here?"

Isaac shrugged. "I slept in. Kill me."

Meddy checked her watch. "It's... it's four in the afternoon."

"Listen, I need my beauty sleep. Do you think I just wake up like this?" he asked, pointing to a head of hair that more closely resembled the damage caused by a localized tornado than by any kind of intentional grooming.