(IM)MORTAL

10

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THE TENTH CHAPTER
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༶•┈┈୨ MARIA, FOR THE first time in fifty-two years, felt like she was dying

(again)

         as she lay in bed, a hand to her chest, trying to remember how to breathe. Her lungs were like dry-rotted rubber, unable to stretch all the way without snapping.

She could not breathe, but she knew why.

It was him.

         He could not breathe, wherever he was,

(and, by all the gods
of all the religions,
she wished she knew where)

         and thus, neither could she.

It would pass, this feeling, as it always did. Her body (and his) would heal. It just needed time. Extra time, due to the silencers strapped to his wrists.

They stifled him. Choked him.

Gold-painted steel only allowed his magic to be used on its terms. The manacles tamed him.

But he owned his power; his power did not own him.

         But her grandfather

(no, the Professor;
he was never her grandfather)

         had made it this way. For safety reasons, she was told; because he could kill her, kill himself—but Maria knew it was because Chaos was a sacred power; something a human could not, should not, ever handle, and giving it to a child without any knowledge of it, of being unable to train him . . . Well, that was a recipe for disaster. Thus, they had to invent energy-sucking handcuffs to contain something they could never understand, imprisoning a child whose only crime was existing.

Maria shut her eyes, breathing. Her second hand joined the first, pressing her chest, feeling her erratic heartbeat; trying to breathe.

Heal, she commanded. Heal him, so I may heal.

But nothing worked.

Shadow was not healing.

         Something was wrong.

(So wrong.)

         Her eyes found themselves drifting out the window, mesmerized by the pink sky. She distantly marvelled at the pretty sunset.

But the four chirps of a small clock corrected her.

The sky was pink, but it was nowhere near sunset.

And then she knew.

The demon.