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The blood trail
lead out of the graves, faint in the moonlight. In the town
where everyone has been killed, the trail dripped through the
main streets, towards the church that headlines it all.
The big stained glass windows seemed like they were staring at
me as I stood at the front of the door.
The door was slightly open, a little peek of light coming
through the crack.
Walking in, I could see a few candles lit on the altar, the body
of Jesus and his cross obscured mainly by shadows. The blood was
everywhere, in the form of palm prints on the benches, in the
form of large puddles on the floor, in the form of splatters on
the walls.
And in the middle of it all, was the first Chosen, crippled,
some of his bones showing through his wounds. Around him, was a
cluster of marble chips and concrete shards from the floor. He
was smashing the ground with a sharp stone, digging fervently.
"Stop." I said simply, as I pointed the gun at him, and watch
him freeze from surprise.
Yet he only stopped for a second, before he went back to digging
again.
"Didn't you hear me?" I asked again.
"Just let me see her for one last time, and I'll allow you to
take me." He replied without even turning around. "That's all
that I ask of you. I won't struggle, I won't fight. All I want
is to see her one last time."
"See who?" I walked slowly closer.
"Just let me see her one last time, that's all that I ask." He
repeated.
And with that, he kept on digging and digging, pulling out dirt
and stones.
Watching him, I didn't know what to do. So I sat down on the
bench nearby, gun pointed at him, and waited for him to be
ready.
*
* * * * *
After a couple
of hours, a couple of clouds floating past the moon, a couple
more mounts of dirt from the ground, something began shining in
the moonlight. It was something made of glass, shining and
reflecting the moon's silver light in the church's darkness.
The candles had already long since burned out, and the tinted
windows reflected rainbows amongst me and him.
And in the moonlight, he pulled out something from the ground,
something big, oval. He struggled, yet his wounds seems to have
diminished his strength by a lot. He grunted and grunted, yet
the object kept slipping away him, the blood from his hands
trailing the slide, back into the ground.
After a couple of tries, I couldn't stand looking at him.
"Here, I'll help you." I said, as I stood up and walked nearer
to him.
"Thanks." He managed to wheeze out, his chest rising and falling
fast. He was exhausted, barely even able to sit kneeling on the
ground.
And with both of us pulling, desperately, at the slippery
surface of the glass object, it took more than a try or two
before we could finally get it out of its hole.
"T-thanks." The first Chosen said again, as we both sat near the
object, breathing hard and tired.
The object was oval, like a glass egg, and it was bigger than a
human being.
And in it, was a human being, encased forever, eyes closed,
sleeping, arms folded across chest, lying in between the clear
glass.
Looking at it, I was amazed. I've never seen something this sad,
and beautiful, at the same time.
The first Chosen looked at me, and with a weak smile, he let out
a sigh.
The person encased was a woman of about twenty-some years old, a
crown of flowers around her brown long hair, her face calm and
serene, quiet, a blue long dress covering her body. There was a
gold bracelet around her right wrist, waves of flowers carved
forever in its place.
Looking at her, I felt a sense of peace and tranquility.
"Thank you for allowing me to see her one last time." The first
Chosen said in his weak voice, breathing hard as he said it.
Looking at him, I didn't say anything at all.
"She's my wife." He replied simply, as he lied next to it, and
looked up at the starry skies.
*
* * * * *
He said that
they met in the forest, by a river somewhere. He was trying to
clean himself to enter the society of humans, she was running
away to escape humans themselves. And that's how they met, the
night the first Chosen's wish came true, and he became a human.
They both left, travelled, saw the places that they haven't seen
before, and settled on the foot of a mountain, a little ways
away from a village, a town. He worked with glass, melting sand
into clear sheets, forming statues, cups, anything people paid
him to do. She farmed in the small farmable lands around their
house, and they would often have more than enough for their
meals.
And then it happened, the plague that went around the world. She
went to town to buy something special for their anniversary, and
she didn't come back. He went searching for her, and in the
midst of piles of dead corpses, people moaning and suffering, he
found her. She was lying near a fountain, barely alive,
breathing with the shortest of breaths.
He took her home, he gave her herbs around the mountain, and
then prayed to God. Prayed to Lucifer. Prayed to the angels he
had worked for. For all the work and hardships he had endured as
a Chosen, all he was asking for was just a little miracle, to
save his wife, to cure her of her illness and pain. For every
sin that he had committed for the good of mankind, all he was
asking for was just a little help.
Yet the help never came.
And she died the night after she rested on her bed.
And he cried, cried, cried.
Then he remembered about spirit takers, Mistakes who would take
a living creature's soul for his own, and if he could only have
those powers, maybe he could take someone's soul in order to
revive her. Maybe that's all that's needed to open her green
eyes again.
And so, against everything he believed, and reverting the wish
he had worked so hard to earn, he went out, and with the
leftover senses he had for picking Mistake's aura, he found
them, and asked them, pleading, to become a Mistake, to become a
spirit taker.
The clan's leader felt pity for him, and after warning him of
the pains of being a Mistake, he transformed him, and made him
into a Mistake again.
The first Chosen went around the village that was nearby, and
with the leftover humans, he sucked all of their souls away,
storing them inside him. He ran home as fast as he could, and
when he arrived to his wife's bed, he blew and blew, giving her
all the souls that he had gathered, giving her all the souls he
had killed to obtain.
Yet it was too late, she was already too gone. Nothing he could
do would bring her back ever again.
And so, he cried and cried, again. |
