Eli

Chapter 12

Eli

"Is it better?" she smiled motherly at her.

Eli nodded gratefully and for the first time since her travel had started, she smiled.

GOOD the woman signed and smiled back at her. Eli froze in astonishment and warily took a step back.

NO, PLEASE! The woman signed, aware of girl's sudden distrust. I APOLOGIZE, I DIDN'T INTEND TO FRIGHTEN YOU. She looked away for a while and then continued, paying attention to her posture so that Eli can easily read her lips. "I saw you in the hospital... when I found out you were deaf and that they were chasing you, I wanted to help..."

Could it be...? Is she...?

Even through hard coughs Eli didn't allow herself to take her eyes off her. Is she the same as me? Is she...?

For a few moments they were looking at each other. Eli bit her lip. ...deaf?

ARE YOU... Eli signed but halted for a bit, not believing that this was really happening... She swallowed nervously and continued...DEAF?

The woman smiled slightly. She turned away from Eli and her eyes become shrouded by bad memories once again. MY DAUGHTER IS.

Eli was observing the woman in awe when, out of blue, her head spined and she lurched back, trying desperately to hold onto something solid. The woman came rushing just when Eli was about to fall.

Eli felt a light touch on her forehead and before she passed out, she managed to catch a part of a sentence the woman said.

"... ed to get you warm..."

***

Garret

"Prince!" Stephan cried when he spotted the lone prince standing motionlessly with his head bend low in front of a gathered crowd of despair-driven people, with a red liquid soaked in his moon-white hair and red stain stretching along his temporal bone and another one along prince's belly. No, it can't be!

"Prince!!!" he cried again but his voice only got lost in the jumble of sounds. Argh... What the hell is happening?

When the knight finally managed to reach him, he breathed out with relief that prince's wounds weren't as severe as he had thought, but still the look at the defeated young lord made him feel uneasy.

"Stephan?" Garret said, not seeing the knight coming by.

"Prince, why are you standing there? It's not safe here. Let me escort you out of this commotion," Stephan insisted, reassuring himself again the red stains are really just squashed tomatoes.

Garret looked at the old knight and then back at the muddle in the street, leaving knight's plea without a reaction and with glazed stare. Stephan quietly followed his glance. The cries they were shouting at his prince were awful and devastating... The knight didn't need to ask what was happening in prince's mind, he knew he was already memorizing all of the hatred, pain and desperation burning in those stares, had taken it deep down to his heart and locked it, so it wouldn't ever disappear and would remind him of his downfall every single time he might feel happiness or love. However, this wasn't a solution nor a redemption, it was a way of self-punishment which led only to greater darkness and self-doubt. But what did it matter? The knight knew prince was already halfway through in this dark place inside his mind and everything that could have led him back to light had been taken away from him...and he was slowly beginning to forget how to resist the voices in his head...

Suddenly, Stephan remembered why he had rushed to the prince in the first place.

"Prince," Stephan began, "there was an accident."