Hellbound - 001/Henry Creel/Peter Ballard

013

Henry Creel

Even as a child, I knew what fate had in store for me. Even before discovering my powers, I knew I was different.

I was nothing like my cookie cutter perfect sister or my lovestruck parents. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I knew that I was no human, I was a monster.

I was and will always be a monster, unworthy and incapable of love. I was sentenced to a heartless life since my first breath.

I had accepted my fate, I had no foolish hopes hidden deep down in me. I had no heart and I had come to terms with it.

Then, on a boring Thursday in December she waltzed right in my personal space and changed everything I knew about myself.

I was cold, heartless and ruthless. I took away lived with no remorse, I was the perfect weapon that Brenner designed me to be.

That was up until she gazed upon me with her enchanting eyes and pure smile that purified even my darkest corners.

I was transformed for her, I had a soft spot that almost cost me my life too many times.

It was the beginning of my demise.

We were both children when we met for the first time. I was barely 13 and she was 9.

I was her senior and Brenner would tell me to keep an eye out for her, to be her older brother figure. To be by her side.

Years later his words backfired and now I'm nothing close to a brother to her, brothers don't think the way I do about their sisters.

"Hi, I'm Ev- Five. Nice to meet you." Her hand was outstretched, offering me a kind handshake.

I was perplexed. The other children didn't bother to come near me. They ran away screaming when I entered the room or spoke to them. But Eve was different, braver than them.

She entered the rainbow room and immediately locked her eyes with me, locked my heart in that handshake and took it with her.

"I'm One." I gave her my hand, and I gave her my everything too in that moment.

Later on we would develop a friendship that Brenner was highly disapproving of. He hated the sight of us, he hated my influence on her, but most of all he hated that she made me human.

To fix what he would call 'a catastrophic predicament' he would go on to erase her memories of me, and the past few years of her life. He restarted her life.

But he was not so kind with me. He let me have those cursed memories as a punishment.

He knew that me watching her from far away make the same mistakes that I guided her away from would be worse than a bullet to my head. He knew that it would be the worst kind of torture for me. It would make me into his weapon again.

I had to watch Eve introduce herself to me again, even though I was just a guard that time. I got to watch her grow up again and discover the world for the second time in her life, but I wasn't there to help anymore.

Now, as I watch her peacefully sleep in my arms I wonder if it's time to tell her the truth.

Since the first day that she re-introduced herself to me I've been battling the urge to spill out everything, but each time I stop myself before I come close to confessing.

Would that fuel her rage for Brenner? Or would it unlock the memories that might not have been lost? Would she be enraged with me for hiding such an important secret from her?

I tuck away the strands of stray hair from her face, placing them behind her ears.

She readjusts herself against my chest, our legs a tangle and our breaths synchronized. Her arms are thrown over my shoulders, occasionally stroking the skin there unknowingly.

I look up at the sky, the stars littering the total black of the night and wonder if this is real. It feels too good to be real, too serene, too much like paradise.

I would dream of this moment in my room for years. I wondered how her skin would feel against mine, whether she would back away from me like a scared animal just like all the others. And in some rare occasions I would fantasize her lips against mine. The thought made me shiver, but I pushed it away as always.

Eve would never touch me like that.

I fight back my heavy eyelids and the allure of sleep. I have to stay awake in case of someone spotting us. I have to stay awake to protect her but she's like the lullaby of a loving mother, tempting me into a deep sleep.

"No." She murmurs in her sleep and I turn my head to look at her again, her eyebrows are slightly furrowed and I can't keep myself but speculate about what she is dreaming of.

Suddenly I have no desire of sleep in me.
Is it a nightmare? Who is she dreaming of.

"No, please." Her voice almost breaks, and my heart shatters in a million pieces at the tone of despair that coats the words.

"Eve, darling." I gently shake her, hoping to wake her out of the dream.

"Wake up." I stand up to my knees and stand above her, shaking her more vigorously.

Her head starts thrashing like a fish out of water and I grow more and more worrisome as she fights through the nightmare.

There is nothing I want to do more other than protect her from the cruelties of this world, but right now I can't save her from her own self and I feel helpless.

"Eve, please." I give her a rough shake and she finally awakens.

She shoots forwards, her eyes wide and her inhales sharp. Her hands wave around until they grab my arms, steadying herself.

She spins her head left and right before making eye contact with me, and finally calming down.

She closes her eyes, feeling the memory of the nightmare recede.

I envelop her in a hug, cradle her head against my chest and lay my forehead on her hair, smelling the remnants of the lab shampoo and the aroma of wilderness clinging to her hair.

"Henry?" Her voice is shaky, still terrified from wherever she saw in her dream.

"Yes darling?" I rub my hand along her back, trying my hardest to calm her down.

"I don't know how to explain this," She fumbles with her words. "I, somehow went somewhere in my sleep. I was in a dark place with a red sky and weird creatures before you woke me up, and they were about to attack me."

"It was just a bad dream." I reassure her.

She lifts her head off my chest and looks deep into my eyes making me shiver.

"It was not a dream Henry, I was there, I went there somehow."

I try to understand what she's saying, but I find myself getting more and more confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I was in this place, it looked like the forest we are in right now." She stops and looks around. "It was identical, but the sky there was red and there were all these weird creatures there and slime covering everything."

"Are you sure that it wasn't a dream?"

"Yes." She nods her head frantically.

"Well fuck." I allow myself to curse for the first time in front of her.

Looks like we have another issue on our hands, greater than I would had ever imagined, Eve can teleport through universes.

A.N. - Henry is such a sweetheart. I loved writing this chapter and his point of view.

Are you ready for some upside down action?