it all ends with us: ruins

021

Chapter Twenty One:

"It has always been you, it will always be you."

Atlas was in shock at the revelation her mother just made. A heretic. A combination of two creatures that were made in competition to show off power. Greed and Sloth. Her mind raced at the idea. She tried to wrap her head around it but she was refusing to accept the fact. She refused to believe she was a descendant of the vilest creatures on the planet. It chilled her bones to even think of it like that and the young girl sipped on the coffee trying to keep the bile down.

"My nightmares, they are-" Atlas starts.

"The cry of the Banshee inside of you." Gaia finishes.

The two had abandoned their food once they started getting caught up in the story.it was rare for Atlas to not have an appetite but at this current moment she had felt like throwing up.

"Why have you never told me this before?" She demanded in anger.

"To protect you." Atlas scoffed.

"I had the right to know." She states.

"You promised you would not get angry." Gaia says softly.

Atlas sighs at her mother's words. Guilty that she even snapped in the first place.

"It comes from your side of the family?" Atlas asks.

"Correct. It skipped past me and my siblings as well as my parents." Gaia informs her.

"I'm the only one in this condition?" Atlas spits out, angry to be cursed in such a way.

"No, I did not say that." The young girl peered up with her big eyes. Curious on who else had the same fate.

"Two of my cousins had the same condition."

"Had?" The girl questioned.

"They had passed, of old age." Gaia hesitated when saying that statement but it went unnoticed by Atlas.

"So you know no one else out there like me?" She had wanted to ask more about her condition but wanted to ease her way in first.

"Unfortunately not my dear." Gaia consoles.

The two sat there once again. Silence had drowned them out, now only consumed with thoughts. Atlas pondered on her first night at the astronomy tower with Theo. She had noticed her hands turned red when focussed on taking away his pain. She ignored it at the time but now she was more curious than ever.

"This siphoning power. It works more than just with magic, no?" Atlas asks.

"I am not sure the full extent of it, but I assume so. Why?" She questions her daughter.

"A couple of weeks ago. Theo, you remember him right? He had been covered in bruises. It pained me to see him like that and I screamed in my head about wanting to take away the pain." She explains.

"And it worked?"

"Well he seemed to be in less discomfort." Atlas admits and her mother hummed in response.

"I wish I could tell you more but I am afraid that all my research ends here." Gaia ends her talk.

"So there's no cure?"

"There is a potion to keep the banshee powers at bay, but it requires you to take it every week and the taste is foul." She explains to her daughter. "I usually slip it into your food and drinks but since you started Hogwarts I have been unable to."