Both of my arms were attached behind me and to the wall when I finally got my senses back. I was panting. Sweat was dripping from my forehead. I hadn’t been unconscious. No, that wasn’t it. When I came back to normal, it was as though someone had pulled a veil from over my eyes.
I was just… me again.
“I remember everything,” I said, my voice dry.
“Drink this and I will know it is you,” said Gauss, standing up from his seat on the dead demon and walking over with the burning wine.
He put the tip of the bottle to my lips and I drank from it without fear. I gulped much of it down before he took it from me. Without having anything in my stomach, I could feel the tendrils of warm liquid running down the inner linings of my belly. I licked my lips.
There was no burn. No smoke.
Gauss, nodding his head, pointed to Deborah who was sitting up on her makeshift cot. Her eyes were wide open, her arms crossed over her shaking body.
“You did that to her,” said Gauss, dropping his arm.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my bottom lip quivering. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I don’t know what came over me. I-,”
Deborah jumped up from her cot and made for me. My face flinched as hers came close to mine. She wrinkled her nose a bit and then… and then… she pecked me on the lips with hers.
We stood there for a moment and I wanted nothing more to do than to ask her to do that again. There we were. Together. Demons most likely trotting on the soil above our heads. Her armor was broken and dried with old blood. I was half naked, still breathing heavily, and my arms were confined to the walls.
And all I could think about were her lips on mine.
“You saved me,” she said in a low voice, lower than a girl her age’s should have been but for some reason, something about that voice gave me goosebumps.
“That part is a little fuzzy,” I said, trying to recall what exactly I’d done.
“I saw the whole thing… you know,” she said. “I was floating just above my body, rising higher with every passing drop of my blood. It was you, Ira, who pushed that blood back into my body.”
“Yeah, that part I remember,” I said.
Deborah’s eyes would flick to me, then away, then back at me. I wasn’t sure if she was wanting to kiss me again or if she was disappointed that she owned me her life now. Either way, I was happy for her attention. However, the aching in my wrists brought me back to reality.
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Gauss must have sensed this for he brandished a small knife from his waist and cut the ropes. I let my arms drop lazily by my sides before gabbing each wrist and rubbing them. Deborah looked like she was about to walk away but instead chose to give me a hug. It was weak at first but grew with the passing seconds.
Over her shoulder I could see my mother raising an eyebrow at me, her blood-stained face giving me a half grin.
What the hell had happened to my life? At one point I’m preaching to the masses about the Almighty and the next I am half naked, bloodied, and getting embraced by a beautiful girl whose sole purpose was to fight demons. Oh… and I was half demon… can’t forget that detail.
When Deborah finally let go of me and walked back to her cot, things got serious in the cellar.
“Alright, we need to make a plan of action,” said mother in a commandeering voice.
“Agreed,” said Gauss. “What do you have in mind, commander?”
Mother scrunched up her lips as she thought for a few seconds. “If demons have made it this far, I think it’s safe to say that there are probably still demons lurking back in the Refuge.”
“I will go back and lead a cleaning party through the entirety of the Refuge,” volunteered Gauss but Mother was shaking her head.
“No, you started Ira’s training, you must see it finished.”
“You’re not saying…”
“I am saying.” Mother’s armor clinked as she put her hands to her waist. “It’s time you, Ira, and Deborah open the Stillness Chamber and do your training in there.”
“But commander, that chamber is of the utmost spiritual and holy! It would be the highest of sins for us dirty humans to walk inside of it.”
Mother scoffed, “Do you think the big man in the sky is gonna give a shit about us using the Stillness Chamber when the devil’s minions are running around Auracle murdering en masse?”
Gauss and I stared at mother with open mouths, most likely neither of us having ever heard her say a swear word before.
“Tell me, leader Gauss, if you were the Almighty-“
“Commander, I don’t think it’s right-,”
“Don’t interrupt me,” snapped mother, making Gauss flinch. “If you were the Almighty and demons were slaughtering women, children, and husbands in the streets. Would you give a damn if a few righteous warriors entered the Stillness Chamber for training?”
Gauss’ mouth was jutting open and closed for a few seconds before he said, “I, uh… no, ma’am, I wouldn’t care in the least.”
Mother smiled, raising her chest more into the air. “Good! Now grab your trainee’s and make haste! Every second is a murdered child of the Almighty!”
“Mother, er, commander,” I said, putting a finger into the air to interject. “What exactly is a Chamber of Stillness?”
“It’s the Stillness Chamber,” corrected Mother. “It is a place where only the most of holy warriors have been granted access to train. It is a world in and of its own where time is non-existent. A year in the Stillness Chamber is not even a second in this world. There, Gauss will have the appropriate time to make you the warrior you were meant to be.”
Before I could ask another question, Gauss interrupted by asking, “But commander, where will I find such a chamber? I’ve only heard of it spoken in stories.”
Mother turned to me and winked, “Ira knows exactly where it is.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, “I assure you, mother, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do, son,” she said, winking at me. “Now, Ira… Go home!”