by Lola StVil
I slide down to the floor, curl up in the fetal position, and place my hands over my head to drown out the screams. It doesn’t work. For the next few minutes all I hear is my little brother’s cries. Then silence. Sam is gone. Again.
***
My memories are all played out now. I’m back to the present now and out of my head. The White Room happened earlier today. It broke me just like Bishop said it would. He stands before me making notes as he studies what’s left of my body.
“I see you decided to open your eyes and join us. How did you like the White Room? I hope you enjoyed it, as you are headed for yet another visit,” he informs me.
I hear the same machine I heard before. It roars to life and Bishop tells me it’s the sound the generator makes and that he needs it to fully operate the large device that runs in the White Room.
The Apprentice was here. I don’t see him but I smell almonds again. I close my eyes and think of nothing. I don’t think about being rescued or taking revenge on Bishop. I keep my eyes closed because I don’t care anymore. Sam is gone. I know that it was just an illusion to begin with, but it still hurts. It hurts more than anything The Center has done to me so far.
Hearing Sam laugh and call my name and then having that sound taken away from me is beyond cruel. I didn’t understand what true evil was until now. I don’t care about getting out of here. Here or somewhere else, it’s all the same to me.
I don’t know how Aaden stayed here for a year. It’s been days and I give up. Do you hear, Omnis? I give up.
Like some cruel cosmic joke, the moment I give up, help comes bursting through the door. I watch as Aaden and the rest of the team battle Bishop and his minions. I watch as if it’s a movie and there is nothing I can do to change the outcome.
In the heat of the battle, Aaden looks over at me, strapped to the gurney. He sees that my body has been burned and broken. He then sees that my wings have been cut off and placed on the wall. I know what’s going to happen even before Aaden does.
He’s angry; the kind of angry that turns his eyes full-on “demon.” His wings are now black as the night sky. The team sees this happening and tries to stop Aaden from losing his temper, but it’s too late. The Deed in Aaden’s hand starts to open. All The Noru are going to die.
Bex grabs hold of Bishop around the neck but he won’t stop the Deed from going off. The way a Deed works, once it’s open fully, there’s no stopping it. The box continues to open. Aaden’s ire grows every second. Death is guaranteed.
Bex, seeing that Bishop will not give in, hurls him at the wall and runs to try and stop the box from closing up by force. The twins try to get over to me, but Bishop’s underlings intercept them. Bishop gets up from the floor and starts hurling Powerballs at the team. The box is almost open all the way. This is the last I will see of my team; my family.
Suddenly Bishop stops what he’s doing, goes over to the box, inputs a code, and the box closes. He then grabs the blade from one of his minions and slices his own throat. The team and I look on shocked, not sure what’s going on. That’s when I see him.
He enters through the double doors of The Center with commanding, undeniable grace. He wears a long black utilitarian coat that’s fitted at the top and flows out at the bottom. He walks with poised certainty. Although we are surrounded by dangerous chaos, his movements are not hurried, but calm and controlled. And as our eyes meet, I detect something familiar in his chiseled face. He has the same perfect cheekbones, lips, and jawline as my father. There is no doubt in my mind; Malakaro is here. He heads over to me on the glass gurney.
He’s come to kill me.
I’m pissed off. It’s not that I’m going to die that bothers me, it’s not being able to fight on my deathbed. Even if I don’t win, I want to know that I at least tried to kill this murderous son of a bitch, Malakaro. And now he gets to finish what The Center started and I don’t get to so much as hit him?
He looks down at me; I fight to remain calm. I don’t want him to see the panic in my eyes. I don’t want that to be what he remembers about me. I want him to remember the scorn and hatred I have for him. I want him to know that I loathe him in a way that can never be undone. He killed my brother. My Sam. And I want him to see that while what he did changed me, it did not break me.
He places his hand on the side of my face gently and strokes my cheek with his thumb. Not sure what’s going on, I stay still. Malakaro leans in close and whispers something in my ear. Tears fill my eyes and run down the side of what’s left of my face. Malakaro then releases me from my restraints and gracefully takes off into the night sky.
Seeing that I am now free helps Aaden control his temper. His wings begin to revert back to their original silver color. As he rushes over to me, he sends a fireball towards the direction of the lab equipment where the Balance vials are being held.
“It’s gonna blow, move it!” Aaden shouts to the team as he scoops me up in his arms.
The team dives for the snowbank just as The Center goes up in flames behind us.
I look around and find that I was being held deep underneath a snowy mountain range. The snowflakes fall down from above and gently land on me. I expect them to hurt since everything that has touched me these past few days has caused extreme agony. I flinch, but the snowflakes prove harmless.
My body can’t cope with what has been happening, and now, without being injected with mixtures to keep me awake, it begins to shut down. I’m in Aaden’s arms when the darkness starts to roll in. He tells me he’s sorry it took so long. The team asks me what Malakaro whispered in my ear but I don’t reply. I can’t.
Aaden holds me close and says that I will be all right. He says that the Healers will heal my face and that I will be okay.
If only he knew how wrong he was…..
Chapter Twenty-One:
This Girl, Pryor
I drift in and out of consciousness. I have no real concept of time or how long I’ve been in the trauma center. When I am awake and aware, I hear a beautiful song fill the air with a haunting melody. I’m not sure who’s singing, but I want them to sing forever. Aside from the song, I hear other things. Things I don’t care about: bits and pieces of conversations around me.
“As you know, they have torn her wings from her. That was enough to horrify myself and the other Healers on staff, but once you brought her wings for us to take a look at…what we found was even more disturbing.”
“Just tell us; what have they done to her wings?” someone asks.
“Silver, stop snapping at the Healers, they are trying to help,” a female voice says.
“Sorry, Bird, I just…”
“I know. Me too. But let’s hear the Healer out,” this “Bird” being replies.
“As I was saying, we took a look at her wings and every bone inside them have been smashed.”
“So that’s it? Pry may never fly again?” the male asks.
“Fly? Silver, she has a fractured skull, a severe infection from the incision they made under her chin down to her abdomen, portions of her spine have been removed, and her right leg is broken in two places. Fly? This girl will be lucky to walk again.”
“I don’t give a shit what you have to do; you just fix her!” He rages at the Healer.
“Silver, please.”
“Bird, I can’t do this, okay? I can’t just stand here and—argh!!!!!!!!”
I hear the sound of heavy objects hitting the ground.
“Get Silver out of here, now!” someone says.
“Bex is right; you need to take a walk,” the female known as Bird replies.
I’m guessing they make him leave because I hear the sound of footsteps getting farther away from me.
“I’m sorry. I am not trying to upset your teammate,” the Healer says.
“It’s not you, it’s just…it’s been hard on all of us,” a different male replies.
“As a fellow Para, I understand your frustration; I do. But I want to be realistic about the situat
ion. In addition to what I said to Silver, there are other things wrong with the First Noru.”
“Okay, what else?” the Para asks, sounding pained and haggard.
“Her collarbone and both wrists have been broken. And even if we are able to reconnect her wings, they have severed the connection between her shoulder blades that control them.”
“Please do what you can; she’s not just the First Noru to us, she’s a friend. We need her—desperately.”
***
Again, I’m not sure how long I have been in this bed, but the pieces of information I gather from the rare moments I am awake aren’t all that encouraging.
“The more time goes on, the more difficult it is for them to put her back together,” a Healer surmises.
Ha! Put me back together? Silly Healers. I’m broken in places they can’t get to, let alone fix. “Put me back together?” Ha!
“What happened when you tried to attach the wings?” someone asks.
“I told you, Silver, first we have to create synthetic bones to hold up her wings, since all of hers were destroyed. Then we will see if reattaching is even possible,” the Healer replies.
“It’s already been four weeks! How much longer?”
“As long as it takes. If she wasn’t a Noru, if her parents weren’t a First Guardian and a council member, she would have been dead by now.”
“Well they are, so you remember that,” he warns.
“There is no need to threaten me,” the Healer replies.
“If she doesn’t make it, I’ll do more than threaten you. So you make sure she survives this. And do not tell anyone outside of this team that she is here,” he warns the Healer again.
“Yeah, yeah, I already got that speech from the Para,” the Healer replies.
“What did he say?”
“Oh you know, the usual. If any Healer dares speak a word about The First Noru’s condition, he’ll shove our wings down our throats and gut us alive.”
***
From yet more stray pieces of conversation, I gather that I have now been in the Trauma center for nearly two months. They were able to reattach my wings but it took another two weeks to get me to communicate with them. By the time my wings are fully functioning, I have spent a total of twelve weeks in the hospital.
“Why can’t you regrow her wings like you guys did my fingers?” someone asks.
“The bones of angels are far more complex than that of humans.”
“Okay, fine, but her wings are back where they belong, she can fly, and her wounds are slowly closing up. So why isn’t she talking? Why doesn’t she say anything?” I hear someone say as I open my eyes. It’s a human boy speaking. He’s the voice I heard singing to me. I so wish he’d do it again.
“She’s slowly on the mend physically. Mentally, she is still very much in shock. She’s distancing herself from everything that’s happened to her,” the Healer says. The human looks back at her with deep regret and misery. He can barely stand to look at the bed where I lie.
I am mostly awake now although I’d rather not be. Whenever I open my eyes, someone is there, sitting beside my bed. I know them from my life before the torture. But know I can’t really put together who they are.
There are two sisters who are always looking down at me, worried. I don’t know how I know they are sisters but I do. I also know that the human who comes to see me feels close to me, but I’m not really sure what our relationship is. There’s a Quo who comes to visit me also. He has a nice smile but his eyes are sad. Then there’s the Para. He’s tall and handsome. But he looks so serious.
And finally there’s the half demon. He is always there, no matter what. When I wake up he’s the first face I see. He’s also the saddest. But his sadness is different, more personal. It’s as if he is somehow to blame for what happened to me. There’s guilt in his eyes. Yes, deep-rooted guilt.
***
As my stay here nears three months, the Healer begins to see far more progress. Although I have not spoken a word, my body is showing signs of coming back to life. How ironic that the more alive I am, the more I wish I were dead.
The angels who come to visit me want me to sit up, make eye contact, and move my lips. All these things require far more effort than I care to make. There’s a heaviness inside me that weighs me down. It makes even the simple act of blinking too daunting. So doing the things they want me to do is simply impossible.
I know they are here with me, but it’s like they are thousands of miles away. It’s as if I’m looking at them through a telescope. I can see them but I can’t reach them or connect because they are too far away. Or maybe it’s me. Yes, I think it’s me. I’m far away from them, from my team.
I know I’ve been rescued, but I’m still in hell in my mind. I see the sunlight streaming through the window but I can’t feel the warmth from the sun on my skin. I know my wings are now reattached to me and that they work, but I can’t process the fact that they are whole again. I can’t process that I too am whole again.
Am I whole?
How could I be if I can’t be present? The angels call my name often, hoping for a response; so does the human. I don’t reply. It’s not my body--I am healed, or at least my body is healed. I don’t reply because I can’t find the desire to talk to them or anyone. What I want more than anything is to slowly fade from view.
I want to not be here anymore. I want to stop living and all that comes with it. I want my wings, skin, fingernails, hair, veins, and bones to stop existing. I want my eyes to stop registering images and fade to black. I want the delicious feel of nothingness to surround me and reach inside the deepest part of me.
There’s a sadness that injects itself into my soul and spreads throughout the shell that is my body. It coats the spaces between my eyelashes, under my fingernails, my toes, and the lining inside my lips. Sorrow, misery, and melancholy form a haunting refrain in my head and play on repeat.
There’s only one thing I know for sure as I stare out the window: I will never feel happiness again. I will never feel anything other than this hopeless despair. How long will Omnis keep me in this misery? Why didn’t he let me die in The Center? Why won’t he let me die now?
They have filled my room with framed pictures from someone else’s life: some girl with red hair like flames and purple eyes. Pryor did things. She flew in the air. She laughed. She had a baby brother. She had concerns. She had hope. She’s gone now; long gone.
I’m left here, trapped in the body of a girl I can no longer connect to. They are sad that she’s gone. They want their old Pryor back. Every day they try a new way to reach her. The twins read to me from what must have been my favorite books. The human being shows me photo albums of the girl with my face. She’s having fun with him. In the pictures she’s carefree and hasn’t been tortured. I hate her.
The Para comes to my hospital room and holds my hands. He tries to warm them up but he doesn’t know the cold is coming from inside me and that I will never again be warm; silly Para. And then there’s the half demon that comes to see me every day. He’s the first here and the last to leave my room. Most nights he sleeps on the chair across from my bed.
The half demon is the most distraught of them all. He misses the Pryor girl he knew. He wants her back more than anything. He’s never going to get her back because she’s not here. She left me in her body but she’s truly not here. I sit on the windowsill waiting for death and find that once again it has missed its appointment with me.
I don’t know what time it is as I don’t care enough to turn and read the clock in my room. Time doesn’t matter all that much; nothing does. I can tell a chunk of time has passed by watching people from my window.
There’s a human crossing the street, running for the bus. She is always running for the same bus. She runs to it and later she runs from it and goes home I guess. I wonder why she bothers running. I wonder how long it will take her to realize everything is meaningless and that sooner or later, death will claim h
er.
She’s so lucky.
There’s a spider that sits across the room and every day she travels and returns to check on her eggs at the center of her web. She does her job dutifully. Pryor had a job. She was supposed to be strong and protect her team and family. She failed spectacularly.
The spider is smarter than that Pryor girl and probably stronger.
Somewhere between the human running to the bus and the spider’s return to her web, the half demon sits on the windowsill beside me and speaks to me. From the sound of his voice he really liked Pryor. He may have even loved her.
Silly half demon…
“It’s been nearly three months, Pry, and you have yet to say one word to us; to me. Please, say something. I know you’re in there. Please talk to me,” he says, heartbroken.
I continue to look out the window in search of the human who should now be running for the bus. I can’t find her.
“I know what you’re going through; believe me. I know you want to die, but you are not getting away that easily. There’s a list of things I want—need to do with you. There’s a lake in Tanzania that turns the animals into statues. I figure we can take Randy there and freak him out.
“Also there’s a small village in Russia where every year these like eighty-year-old ladies with blue hair gather, strip naked, and run—voluntarily--into a frozen lake. The look on their faces when they first hit the water is priceless. And the crazy thing is they are actually having a good time. And then we can stop off and see blue lava flow in Indonesia; it’s so bizarre, but really beautiful…
“Okay, Pry, the thing is there are lots of places I have thought about going with you. There’s a million moments I want us to have together. But the one that matters most to me is the one where you wake up in my arms.
“It kills me to know that you are here but your mind is still somewhere lost in the darkness. I know that place. You won’t survive there. Please, come back. The year I was away from you, I’d find myself missing you and I thought nothing could be worse, but I was wrong. Having you near me but not being able to reach you…that’s a hell even a demon like me can’t face.” His voice is thick with emotion and he strokes my hand.
