PETBE

I remember the stories Father told me about Lord Death. Before taking my soul from my body he would ask me a question.

What is your name?

Looking now at him I could see a clothed man, holding a white lantern with a burning white flame.

His sweet soft lips smiled at me, making me smile back.

His free hand now opened, offering it to me.

I took it without hesitation, feeling his surprisingly cold and yet soft skin against mine.

And then, his mouth opened and a whisper came out with the question.

What is your name?

I was ready to ask. To move on to see Nezha, Minerva, and maybe, just maybe my parents. Ask them if they are happy now.

But when I was ready, A voice screamed from behind me. My name.

Over and over again.

‘’Come back please’’ Mara begged me. ‘’I need your help,’’

‘’Mara?’’ I turned back to see a light awaiting me.

Lord’s hand tightened me with a grip.

‘’What is your name?’’ He asked again.

‘’I can’t go just yet’’I frowned at him. ‘’Give me more time please.’’

‘’What is your name?’’ He asked this time more eagerly.

I found strength to get free from him and started running. Running and apologizing to him.

And yet he asked about my name.

‘’I love her’’I screamed with tears falling from my eyes. ‘’And she has to know it. She has to know that I am sorry.’’

Waking up to my deathbed was not something that I expected to happen. Especially when my death bed was a medical table. Gasping for air to return to my lungs I could listen to my heart slowly returning. I could feel my eyes closing, I could feel my skin, my bones, my blood flooding to the veins.

And yet the bright light from above me made me feel that I was still dead.

‘’Oh,’’ A voice said with amusement. ‘’The experiment woke up.’’

Looking to the side the voice spoke, I could see a boy around my age with golden locks writing a few notes on a pad. His two eyes, one green, and one yellow, were studying each of the things he was writing. And then, he found me.

‘’Oh’’He pouted. ‘’Can you hear me?’’ He asked with a childish tone.

I managed to lift my upper body and noticed that I was completely naked.

‘’Where am I?’’I asked, feeling my heart racing.

The boy fixed his cream-white shirt and tapped his pad to his brown pants.

‘’To a laboratory.’’He said in a way I was supposed to know where I was in the first place

‘’Laboratory,’’ I could feel my face turning red.’’Can I have a robe?’’

‘’Sorry’’He shrugged. ‘’I do not have any.’’

I faced him up and down, noticing that he was wearing many layers of clothing, especially a medical robe.

‘’What?’’ I covered myself, I could feel my skin touching the skin and yet It felt that it was not my skin. My body, my voice, my mind.

Looking at my hands, I noticed that they were mine, my complexion, and yet felt wrong. Wrong that I had them. Wrong that I was alive.

‘’Who are you?’’ I managed to ask looking back at the boy but now the boy was a man. A man at the age of late twenties staring, expecting my body with his golden bangs covering half of his different eyes.

‘’ I am sorry’’He whispered with his slim fingers touching my skull. No, my hair. My bald skull.

‘’We couldn’t repair your hair.’’

‘’Get away from me.’’ I pushed him back and got out from the table, checking everything around. Medical tools, electricity, and machines that I had never seen before. I found a way to run, to crawl, to get out of the dark room.

I caught a breath as I heard the man ordering someone, some people to after me.

Metallic sounds kept approaching me and heavy breaths were near me. I could not see a thing from the darkness as I stepped to my hand turning back. I saw four soldiers moving their guns at me.

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‘’Please’’I said, feeling my body give up. ‘’Don’t’’

But then, one of them let out a bullet to my stomach. I could feel the pain, I could feel my body, my flesh, my bones changing, feeling the weight of the iron and yet, this small bullet shifted my entire existence. I could feel my flesh melting, my blood dissolving as it moved closer to the soldiers.

As I felt I was now taller than them, I saw them try to run. But it was too late. I could not feel my hands taking them, I could not feel my flesh touching them But I could listen to their screams. To their screams when I was burning them with my existence, taking everything that they had as mine.

When every soldier was gone, I felt myself shrinking.

And the man with the golden long hair clapped slowly.

‘’Amazing’’He gasped and I saw another one walking closer to him.

I could not speak. Not that I did not have a voice no. But I did not have a mouth.

The other man had a dark leathered outfit, something that none would wear by choice, especially the helm.

And then, my body slowly returned to normal but when I looked at my fingers at my legs at everything I could hear the soldiers’ screams. And yet the only yell I let out was mine.

‘’What am I ?’’I said with my throat slowly breaking. Looking up to the blonde man he seemed disappointed, almost bored. But the other approached me slowly. His steps were calm, not rational, and not intimidating as his knees got down slowly to be the same height as me. His cold leathered fingers traced around my face, inspecting it for any sort of wound.

''Fascinating''He whispered amused.

My eyes snapped, thinking the worst thing the peculiar man could do to me. I wanted to run again but my voice could not listen to the screams inside my head. My eyes were fixated on him, making my own heart beg for his attention. One glance of his mad me lose all of control. As if from the beginning of time, I belonged to him. I was nothing without him.

What would he make me do?

But instead, he asked me.

‘’How do you feel your body?’’

I was confused. How do I feel about it? As if my body had been stolen, I felt screams tingling in my blood. I could feel so many things that I hated.

And yet, I asked something else.’’Where is Mara?’’

The man kept looking at me with no reaction to his voice.

Then, the golden man replied. ‘’The hybrid wasn’t it? She is probably dead.’’

‘’She does not’’I disagree with him. ‘’She cannot die.’’ Spectres die. Vanish within the story while none will ever tell theirs. The girl never told her story. The girl couldn't die that easily.

‘’You have too much faith in someone like her.’’The golden man said with amusement. ‘’Tell me, aren’t you afraid of her?’’

So she is alive. I thought with my mouth curling a smile of relief. ‘’Do you know where she is?’’ I asked.

‘’Why are you avoiding the questions?’’ The man groaned.

‘’Where is she?’’

‘’Why do you care so much about her?’’ Golden man pouted and turned on the other man.’’She has lost it.’’

‘’I love her’’I admitted to the strange man with tears falling.

‘’See, she is insane, she should have been terrified-’’The golden man laughed.

‘’I am terrified of her’’ I finally answered. I was so afraid of her and I just wished I could see her once more. Tell her how sorry I am.

I Was not a child nor naive. Monsters are monsters. But what does it make them one? A sin. The girl has so many of them. And so did I. What am I now? What have I done?

The leathered man kept studying me and stood up. ‘’Merlin’’He called the golden man.‘’Give her proper clothes.’’

Merlin pouted. ‘’She is pretty.’’

‘’She is frightened.’’The man reassured

I curled my fingers as The other man sighed disappointed, giving me his medical robe and I wore it slowly, feeling a tingle of a finally fresh clean fabric around me.

I looked up at him confused and with the need to thank him. ‘’You are right’’The man said. ‘’The girl is alive.’’

A smile of relief curved to my face. And then it instantly faded.

‘’But she is in danger, she might die’’He offered me his hand. Soft and slim. ‘’Do you want to help her?’’

Help her?

‘’I want to find her’’I admitted to the leathered man, curling my hands into fists.’’Please help me.’’