“Just kill it already!!!!! Can’t you see it?” Out of a corner, someone was standing behind the monster, a shadowy figure holding a long scythe with effervescent, glowing stones. There was an inscription on the scythe. Weirdly, I knew the scythe was friendly. What was that? Who’s there? I felt the perpetual glow push me out of my drowning state, a gentle strength skipping the deadly precipice. Something or someone was waiting for me to do something. Who? The wispy arachnid had its separated hairy child wrap itself around my neck, raising me four floors up into the air, dangling and stuck. From above, I could vaguely see a roofless room that had yellow chalks at the chalkboard. A basketball. There were scribbles on the tables. It was time, and I was fading out.. what was the point in struggling. And bending to breathe. And growing up. Let go, the mountains are beyond deers.
“Are you kidding me?! KILLLL. IT. Are you REALLYY DUMB OR STUPID???” There was this tiny girl in bangs, mad kid racing in a few feet away from the creature, just breaking in to my death scene, rude impudence fueling the all-knowing to taunt and batter by shouting. Worst, not the least helping. Again, reminding me why bold caffeinated Emma Chamberlain social media chatterboxes had produced daredevil good-for-nothings chowing down breakfast eggs and hash from their mother’s pan. JUST as I was about to die and nearing brain dead to do anything. Tight at the neck already. What the fuck! The monster was clamping the daylights out of me, not affected by the little bitch. Big monster didn’t even see or recognised that there was another annoying midget, conveniently prepared for succulent monster grub.
The glow was warming up to me now. There was a kind of rousing wickedness coming forth from inside my head. My right hand unbelievably started moving on its own, fighting the chokehold, the internal strength impervious and masculine, twisting and gorging out from the squeeze. The aggressive reflex shifted the tipping balance to an active influence and was answering fear in return. A thrust of wind, icy with a force and carrying a flow from a source within my right palm, blew and tore wide open the chest of the beast, grabbing the giant beating heart and bursting its core through the grip of my hand. From the chilly blast, flesh deformed till all the blood insides spilled out, dripping on the broken tiles. Complete, like I had done the act before, the confidence from a prior knowing. The heat inside me sent out clear signs again gesturing that I should have done so, and not fail cower away to the toilet hole I wanted to mark as my grave.
I fell to the ground first, one leg hitting a cement beam, letting out a scream and recoiling into a fetus. Gasping away, I saw my brother collapsed beside me. He had fainted, and he saw the whole deal of monster and my hand killing it. I brought my hand up to my mouth, not touching, merely plain searching for the innermost soul to gather the course of my hand. What happened? I’ve done something I didn’t think of doing. But it was familiar and sure by the hand. Am I an Avenger now? My knees felt rather jelly, and it was despicable to be an Avenger. I might be evil, just as I’ve felt myself wanting evil earlier. I burrowed out the throbbing heart, not even half wincing.
I managed on my feet, and looked around. That crazy kid, about 10 I believe, stood in front of my brother, a meter ahead. Her eyes were scanning and patronising. Leaping inwards, she sat on one of the fallen broken sinks, her cherubic cheeks got up close to mine, smelling of sandalwood. “Is this your first?” she began her inspection of my physique.
“What are you talking about??” I yelled back, alarmed at the girl, pain shooting upwards at the leg. Finding bruises and cuts amid the possible fractured ankle on my starving, heavily sleep-deprived body throws daunting tolerance and niceties out of the window. Snorting, she let out a sigh to confirm her disappointment, mouthing the words unwaveringly. “You’re a Seer Actinium. YOU ARE supposed to be able to kill hoards of these Numens. They are once humans though.” She dipped her finger into a blood puddle, wiped the finger with her handkerchief and continued.
“Some humans turned to Numens, some didn’t when Bermuda came. Some like you, became a Seer and had powers. Mortimer sent me. You’re a level 9 and we don’t see them often. We’ll be seeing you soon. You will be needing us.” She took a piece of mirror shard, going around in a slow, careful examination of her face at her reflection, absorbing her appearance upon angles, fair that nothing fazed her and bored she had to find ways to amuse herself.
I had to ask because this sounded now a ridiculous conspiracy. “Are you saying that I’m the Avenger now and the monster, the monster that I’ve just killed is called a Numen? Numen used to be normal people?” Sweat was still slick on my face and there was fresh blood on my clothes and across my body. “Uh, if you could say so, pretty much yeah. ” Little crazy girl was checking her scythe now, the stones had stopped radiating red, quietened to a black, the scythe inscription also an insipid grey. The heat I felt from the scythe had dispersed from back then, and it was just this petite girl extraordinarily holding up the adult, oversized weapon to her level. She tucked the scythe behind her back on a mount. I propped up my little brother against a knackered wall and felt my own tears brimming over Ken’s pale face. He became lighter and was now bone thin where he used to be a little overweight. Mom and Dad used to tell him to run laps outside instead of playing computer games and snacking on chips.
“Oh. I’m just like you but I have a scythe, and I’m only the keeper.” She retorted back, sardonic to affirm the importance of doing one’s job as the whatever slayer, and to imply I only had one job to do right. “Why do you know nothing at all? You don’t even know how to land.” The insult revealed, insinuating a response. Ken did not wake. He was lifeless, but breathing I could tell. He might need proper treatment and help. “Fuck, how old are you? You seem to know a lot of things. Are you from an organisation? Do you have any medicine or know first aid or a doctor?” I started crying and hollering out in panic, murmuring too, and shaking. “Please, my brother might be dying.” Breathe, I had to. Think, think, think. What, I was so enraged, at the girl’s lack of emotional regard, knowing we were both hurt and Ken might be seriously hurt.
“He’ll be fine. Just leave him be. You’ll need to treat his wounds though.” Scythe girl lashed out impatiently, her pitch higher than it was. What’s with her?
“Here, give him this.” She threw over an envelope reluctantly and I bent forward to pick it up, opening it to see that there were a bunch of dried brown leaves. “They are healing leaves, you will make him eat.” She was walking away from us. “You don’t need water for hours when he has taken the leaves….”, Then all at once her presence was diminishing from the corporeal in a turbulent whirlwind, dissolving her talk and babyfaced features along with her scythe till it was out of sight. What remained was a light breeze. There was the sound of her scythe with the bowed, irregular contours hitting on the cement spot where she left.
I had a lot to process. I stared at the toilet divider, now already damaged and exposed, for awhile. I stared at my hands for that moment of truth again. A long while, and nothing. I waited. I rummaged my bag and did the bandages for our injuries, which fortunately did not require surgery or emergency aid. There was some water at the sink so I did my best to clean us up, wobbly limping on the side. I did have to walk slower than usual since my ankle twisted. There were several neck bruises and small cuts on my arms and Ken’s but they were minor.
An hour later, I heard Ken stirred and he had kicked against a hose getting up. I ran over to check on him and he hugged me in relief, both of us in pain, wildly afraid and in tears again. Jitterbug, I stuffed the healing leaves into Ken’s mouth, forcibly had him swallow it down which he did. I utter to him in that sweet tone Mom had always, deliberating the new might. “Ken, I’m a Seer. Watch me.”
To be continued.
- Vander