DarkStar

3

He should not be standing in this room. He should be at the station. He should be getting to the bottom of this but he couldn't seem to abandon the form before him, who lay nearly lifeless, in the hospital bed.

"What happened to you? I wish you could tell me..."

There was no response from the one in the bed. He was so small, so fragile. His eyes had been closed, some merciful nurse had seen to that, but it didn't matter. The man who stood in the room thinking that he should leave remembered how they looked when they were open. No one had reported a missing child. It had been two days since those eyes had been closed and he had been settled into the hospital bed but no one had been missing him. The woman hadn't had any identification on her. The information that they had found had linked her to the name of a child who had died at birth, long ago. Soon the tests would return which would prove that the detective's worst fears were confirmed. What if that woman had been this boy's mother? Was there really no one who could say this child's name and call his soul home to the frail body that barely had enough substance to rumple the sheets? The detective sighed heavily as he smoothed his hand through hair that was a little bit greasy from lack of a shower. He should go home and take one of those or eat, maybe sleep if he could.

How was he going to be able to look into those big blue eyes and say that he had found a way to offer justice for what had been done. Even when the body healed, would this one's mind ever be able to understand that he had tried, that he wanted to give closure so that this boy could smile. He almost looked peaceful, almost. If he had been older, the soft furrow of distress that marked his brow would have seemed more commonplace, but in someone so young, it made the child before him feel even more tragic. What had he been like before? Would he ever be that boy again?

The detective turned as he felt a presence behind him. He thought he saw something dark out of the corner of his eye, as though someone had just left the room. Had someone been standing behind him? He stepped to the door and slowly opened it. It hadn't been latched. He thought he remembered pulling it so that it latched behind him when he had arrived. Though his eyes found no one in the hall, he glanced back and forth twice to be sure, before he realized he must be mistaken. Perhaps it was only his exhaustion. He should leave.

He turned one last time to look upon the form in the bed. His eyes widened as he found they weren't alone. Pale fingers gently smoothed dark hair from a troubled brow. Something was wrong with the man's eyes as they gazed down upon the boy in the bed. Something was wrong with the far side of his face... his clothes which seemed to hang from him as though they were gently suspended in water and made of something only slightly heavier than smoke. Something was so very wrong with this person despite that he bore the same foreign beauty that the boy in the bed had. The detective was gripped with the wish to run just as quickly as he was the rush to step closer, so he chose to remain stone still instead of doing either. He saw the boy take a deep breath and finally the furrow relaxed so that he was only young again. The pale hand slowly withdrew and the dark figure straightened. Eyes that glowed like arctic ice finally rose and met those of the detective who was just beginning to realize he barred the only exit. Sumptuous lips pushed together as the creature squared off, shifting the most infinitesimal amount.

"Elia..." the creature spoke in a whisper that sounded like shifting leaves on a forest floor. His lips appeared to move purposefully as though he were unused to pronouncing the word, the name. He looked to the boy in the bed and let his hand stray back toward him, indicating the child who finally seemed to be peacefully sleeping.

"Elia, is that his name?" Could it be true? All the detective received was a gentle nod before the figure dissolved into shadowed wisps of smoke.

"Elia." The detective said it again as he blinked in surprise before he stepped forward, more relieved to have some clue about the child than immediately worried about what just happened. "Elia, Elia come back. I want to talk to you. Elia I can't fix this without you. I want you to heal. I want you to be well. Please Elia, let me make this right."

He would be the one to say that name if no one else would. He would find a way to make this better.