serva me, servabo te
Save me and I will save you
* * *
I was born for battle.
I was the product of blood, sweat, tears, long nights in the dark, lonely fissures and cracked hearts. There was a rhyme that beat both within and outside of me as the machines took in the pulse that showed proof to my existence.
These were the thoughts in my mind as I stared at the ceiling.
I had been named after war. I was a warrior.
But I was scared.
The fear gripped me, threatening to stop my breath. Threatening with temptation of what it would be like to close my eyes and have nothing but darkness.
I had never been scared of the dark. I had spent too many nights in this lonely room with the light from buttons and the shine of the moon to be scared of a constant companion.
But I was scared of that vast overwhelming sensation of never seeing light again.
The pace of the beat increases, a staccato of music growing faster.
I waited for the door to open. For someone to come in and make sure I was okay. For anyone to take notice of my existence and see me. I wanted a hand to cover my forehead. I wanted someone to not be afraid to touch my head, even with its lack of hair.
I wanted something.
But I knew no one would come. I knew there was no one who could prove that I was alive. No one except me.
So- like I did every other night- I pulled the needle from my hand, untangling the other wires that were attached to me. I shivered at the coldness that touched my feet when they made contact with the floor.
It was always cold since the fire had entered my blood and rattled my body with its war cry.
It didn't know that I was a warrior already. I was born for war. And I had my own scream to reflect back to the darkness.
I look into the empty hall, moving quickly away from my room. It still amazed me how little others noticed me. How doctors and nurses always kept their heads down, too busy to reach their destination to be able to see what was in front of them. Not many people wanted to notice a sick child anyway.
The halls were my friends. Their faces showed familiarity, guiding me away from my miniature hell into whatever form of restoration I could find.
I was quickly growing out of breath. Maybe they would see me if I was lying on the floor. If I gave up. But the fear of that not being a possibility, and not being seen even if I really wasn't there, made me push aside the thought.
I knew this hospital. It was my home. I was born here. Treated here. I spent more time in the room with four white walls than the house I was supposed to be raised in.
I knew the pathway that led to the emergency room. The stairs that took me to the nice lady who always gave me sugar, even if I eventually threw it up. There had been an older man who saw me. We talked, and I had wondered if this was what it felt like to have a grandfather. But after a handful of weeks, his room was empty.
Under the lights I saw a figure in the hallway, sitting in a chair. He was bent down, elbows on his knees as his hands twisted into his hair. I approached him, wondering if he was crying.
He raised his head, meeting my eyes with a dark intensity.
"Little girls roaming the halls. Haunting this place," he murmured.
I continued towards him. His eyes followed me, tracking my movements. I intended to go past him, to let him go back to his thoughts, but his voice stopped me.
"I can't tell if you're real. Maybe this place got ghosts. You look like one."
I turned to face him, "I'm real."
He blinks. Maybe he hadn't expected me to respond. Maybe he really thought I had been a spirit.
"What's your name kid?"
I bristled at being called a kid. He wasn't an adult. Older than me, but still a child.
"I'm the God of War."
A soft laughter rises from his soul. He had eyes that showed pain. And I wondered why he was here. Whose room was he sitting outside of. I wondered at the loyalty that laid in this boy, when visiting hours were over and yet, he still did not leave.
"I'm a commander. Guess that makes you higher than me? But I'm also a dragon." The darkness was still there, in the back of his gaze, but a new expression was taking over the longer he looked at me. His stare grew intense as he slowly got up and approached.
Maybe he was a dream. Maybe he was a ghost because I couldn't believe that a stranger was willingly coming to me. There was a look in his eye that I knew I was too young to understand.
He lowered himself, bending his knee so that our gaze could connect.
I thought of the pictures I saw in my stories, of how knights bend their knees and heads to lower themselves to a King. How this boy was lowering himself in front of me, making it known that I was a creature of conflict and pain. I was War. And he was my loyal soldier. A dragon as he had said, lowering its neck and curing in his wings. Letting the fire stay within until I allowed for it to be free.
"Look at me." His tone is sharp, hand reaching out to grip my chin fiercely as he forced my eyes to meet his.
The medicine made me hallucinate and see things that were not real. It had strange men coming into my room and fixtures of light that stuck to my skin. It made me feel weak and yet overwhelmed when I met this boy's gaze. I saw stars all around me, flickers of the heavens opening up. The visions had never been pleasant until now, but in this moment, they gave me the most warmth I had ever felt in my life since coming here.
He took me in, eyes scraping along my body.
"You're sick?"
He was in pain, and the warrior inside me howled at this idea. It wanted to prove my namesake and take apart the reason for his torture.
"I'm dying," I clarified. Because I was. The doctors whispered, but anything spoken out loud could still be heard.
His grip on my chin tightens.
"Tell me your name."
I hesitated. Normally I didn't. I was proud of my name. Proud that my parents had given it to me. It had done its job in reminding me that I was a warrior, and I was born for battle.
"Ares."
His lips twist into a smile, the image so radiant that I had to blink and process why my heart had skipped a beat.
"You're a warrior."
I nodded.
"It's going to sound strange, Ares. I know you don't know who I am...but you were meant to walk down this hall. It was destined for our eyes to meet. My dad told me over and over till it was ingrained in my head to not let someone like you go."
Looking back, I wonder if I would have reacted the same way if my circumstances had been different. If I hadn't been a girl who was left alone with four white walls, and poison running under her skin. If I had been given a name that meant something other than chaos. How I would have reacted if my body had been whole, and didn't need someone to come and fix me.
His words made sense in my mind. Something clicked that he was looking at me. Really looking at me.
I stepped forward and touched his cheek. He leaned into my hand, face morphing into a dragon that I saw from my fantasy stories. I closed the distance, letting my thin arms wrap around him. Letting him pull me up, and be closer to him, as he stood with me in his arms.
My eyes felt heavy. My body was exhausted. I had walked too much, and knew I needed to go back. But my head rested so easily on his shoulder. It had been a long time since I felt any kind of warmth. I was tired of the cold, and I craved the comfort I knew he was capable of giving me.
His breath washed over me, crisp with mint.
"I got you little warrior." His hold on me tightened as he turned and carried me down the hall, "I'm here now," he whispered, his words reaching down, and branding to my soul.
Thoughts? I will be alt updates with this story and my other story 'In the Rise' (one week w/ this story, and the next week w/ the other story)