The boy was breathtakingly beautiful. His dark brown eyes almost black, staring at everything as if about to devour it. As Helen looked at his full lips, she thought she wouldn't have minded if he took a bite at her. His severe jaw was made more evident by the short cut of his hair. But what captured her attention the most, was his lack of feelings. Sure, she had seen soldiers lose hope, but this was something else entirely.
The soldier moved smoothly amongst the whimpering women, as if he took no notice of their existence. Another bomb fell upon them, but he didn't as much as blink at the immense sound.
Some of the women let him through, others perceived wrongness and stepped in his path.
The soldier knelt next to a young woman with Latino features with a baby in her arms. She was crying tirelessly, cuddling her child to sleep whilst the world went up in flames.
Helen had no idea how a mother ended up in their bunker, but from her clothes she guessed she was also a nurse. Maybe she hadn't been pregnant before leaving.
The soldier extended an arm towards the baby, whispering some calming words into the mother's ears.
With the commotion caused by the enemy bombing, no one else noticed that the mother's eyes rolled behind her head and her arms relaxed to release the baby. Andre moved faster than she had ever seen her friend doing and snatched the baby in her arms before the soldier.
-I am sorry Madame, I need to bring this child to safety - he said with velvet voice. His eyes piercing through Andre.
-It is safe here with us, I can assure you - Helen stepped in.
The soldier eyes fell upon her marked arm and his mind flickered in recognition. - I am not looking for troubles, I need to complete a mission. -
To his benefit, he was the first immortal out of the nine they had met in centuries who tried to have a peaceful resolution before killing them, but Helen knew it was not bound to last. The rest of the nurses closed around them, not understanding what was going on, but wanting to protect them. The man emitted a powerful aurea of immortality, just like she had before her exile. She had always been surprised of how the mortals could not feel it, but maybe they did just a little.
The women she was surrounded by were the bravest of their generations. They had nothing to help her with with the exception of their own bodies and were using them to form a human shield around the baby.
The soldier looked at them with a frown. Was it a flicker of doubt that she perceived in his mind? No, that wasn't possible. Immortals did not feel.
-We are in the middle of a bombardment, it is not safe for a baby here - he argued.
-As opposite to with you, on the outside - replied Helen sarcastically. In this personality, her mask was a construct of hard feelings and courage. She figured if she had to be a nurse, she might as well by the stereotypical one.
The immortal rolled his dark eyes, now he was talking only to her and Andre. -Oh come on, is this part of the test? -
Andre shot her a warning look. The immortal was not yet a path-changer.
The people of the mist were careful in choosing their murderers (although not as careful as they thought if she managed to become one and failed). They send the immortals in the human world long before their mission. If they were unsure on their ideals they were subjected to small tests of faith, until their true mission was revealed. She hadn't been tested, but Andre was. Her test had been something on the lines of moving a very specific box from a house to the forest, but she had never gone into the details of it.
The baby had started to giggle and play with Andre's brown hair, unaffected by the chaos around him. He didn't seem too scared to be held by a stranger. Actually, now that Hellen paid more attention to him, he did not seem to be feeling much else. His emotions were burning fires, way stronger than like the rest of the people in the room.
-What the hell is he talking about Helen?- asked one of the nurses. She was young and fierce, hiding a nidle in her dress. For some reason she and the rest of the group had taken her and Andre as the head-nurses and were waiting for their command.
-He must have gone crazy from the war- she replied coldly. A shiver of satisfaction passed down her spine when he looked at her with childlike fear. -The baby is staying with us, but you should go back to the fight, soldier, or we will have to force you to do so. -
The soldier took a step back, his sight locked on Andre. He snapped his finger and a wave of nausea hit her like a gun shot. Everyone but her and Andre fell to the ground unconscious. The soldier bent over with hands on his knees for the effort that the magic had cost him. Immortals were not magical beings, but they could learn such simple tricks by using the spark of magical energy in their veins. But making an entire room fall asleep? That was way more than Hellen could have ever done even at her full strength.
The soldier was out of breath, but managed to lift a hand over to the baby.
-Now, I know you are both exiles, but this doesn't mean we have to be enemies. Give me the baby, I have no intention of hurting him. Just need to bring it to the forest. - his eyes were pleading. Andre froze.
-They will take him forever. - she replied, her brown eyes lost. -No one knows where the children end up. -
-What?- asked Hellen confused. Andre had never kept secrets from her. She had told her everything about her long dead child, her guilt in leaving it the first time, the joy of raising him. Hellen never thought she could be still hiding from her, after more than two hundred years of being inseparable.
Her words might have had no meaning for Helen, but they hit the soldier right in his chest. His eyes darted from the baby to Andre and viceversa. He mouthed something, but his words were covered by the sound of another bomb over their heads.
The soldier lost his balance for a second, and Hellen used that as a distraction to knock him out completely. A well placed kick in his chest and he was breathing heavily on the ground.
-We need to leave, this one has powerful magic - said Andre with the baby in her arms.
-We cannot possibly steal the baby! - argued Helen. Was her friend going insane? -Pretty face here is going to wake up and follow us! -
-If we leave the baby with his mother he is just gonna find them again now that he knows how they look like! -
Andre seemed like she wanted to scream. The nurses around them had started to stir, as if they were about to wake up. There was only one obvious solution.
-Give the baby back to the mum - ordered Helen. -And give me a hand to lift this idiot up, we are taking him with us. -
ČTEŠ
Immortal Tales #Wattys2020
Fantasy*Completed - in revision* "Traitor by choice of your own, enemy by nature to the others. Your path has been rewritten." Path-changers are immortal souls roaming in the world as the executioners of the magical beings of the mist world. They have no...
