Hermes | Book 1

: 22 :

She was Life and he was Death; she was the Darkness and he was the Light.

Chapter 22

IT WAS raining faster and more heavily when that young woman with with the expensive looking clothes has awoken but there was nothing she could do about that little fact.

The only other item that she possessed other her clothes was a small forest green bag with a thin, long strap that she slung over her shoulders. She had taken a moment after she had initially awoken to go quickly through the contents of her bag, but the results were very disappointing.

Her bag contained a single compact alloy water bottle (the model, she found out, was very much her taste but unfortunately very much empty) and two bottles, one blue and one white, filled to the brim with red and white colored pills.

The pills smelt funny, like a mixture of antiseptic face cream, slate power and roasted cashew nuts, which made Asta close the bottle immediately and shove it back where she found it from.

When she had woken up on the cold metal seats of the empty, dark bus stop, the rain was only a drizzle and she had almost ripped the fashionable black jacket around her in sheer suffocation and ran outside to get the cold drops of rain on her burning face.

And then she stood outside the empty bus shelter in only her jeans and shirt, her long pin straight black hair lying heavily on her shoulders and her piercing blue eyes filled with an intense emptiness that was inexpressible in words, submitting to the rain as it grew stronger and stronger and stronger.

Submitting the fragments of what was her memories, submitting the dull ache at the mid point of her skull, submitting the dryness that conquered her throat and lungs, submitting herself to be flooded by the rain until there was nothing left of her.

Her voluminous dark hair and light clothes had long soaked in the torrents of rain that fell over her with a slight, numbing pain. But she didn't move until the rain had done all it could to the broken girl and when dark clouds drifted away until her ice blue eyes could see the shimmering sky, her lips lifted up to the smallest smile.

Her spindly fingers, whose fingernails were polished in perfection with glittering crystals, twisted her long hair and her smile grew wider as black liquid squeezed out of the thick locks.

Slowly, the black of the hair was squeezed out and left a colour of rustic red, resembling the dark hue of the life giving liquid flowing through her veins; her light blue shirt, the colour of the morning sky was in ruins with the hair dye all over it.

But she smiled through it all, that small insignificant smile that expressed absolutely nothing at all, even as she her thin body violently shook against the oncoming breeze that stole away the pale remnants of heat on her body.

Her face, pale with the cold, turned to the reflecting surface of the bus shelter and with shaking fingers, touched the inside of her left eye and brought out a thin transparent film. She did the same for the other eye.

Without looking down, she crushed the thin films in between the pads of her thumb and forefinger and let it fall on the wet ground.

Grey irises that had hidden cleverly behind the blue of the films she had disposed off, sharply stared at the reflecting surface with the unblinking demeanor of a patient predator.

The slight lift of her lips fell back down.

"Hey! Hey you!"

The woman on the metal surface jumped violently in time to her physical body. With the suddenness of prey turned predator, she twisted and looked behind her with wide frightened eyes.

A man in his late forties made his way with hurried caution towards her, his feet sure on the slippery ground.

She dashed into the bus shelter, slipping and stumbling but not falling, without a second thought.

"WAIT!" The man exclaimed, his face face becoming more prominent under the pale, but efficient street light.

From her secure position inside the shelter, she could clearly see the dark colour of his hair framing his long face, his every expression of concern and his silvery black rain coat.

Something, some tiny flash of a memory informed her snidely that the raincoat was one of the earliest and most cheapest models available. She put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from breathing too heavily and hoped that the raindrops on her face would mask the oncoming hurricane of tears behind her eyelids.

Go away.

Go away.

Go.

The man gently opened pressed the button to open the shelter.

She backed away further into the corner and curled herself up into the tightest ball she could physically become.

"I won't hurt you," said the man as he entered the tiny room. The speed of the tears leaving her eyes were making them sore. Her cries couldn't be muffled behind her fingers anymore.

The man stopped short. A stood there with unmoving thoughtfulness for a second. Then slowly he said, "Aren't you feeling cold, girl?"

The muffled cry of helplessness didn't stop, but the tears slowly receded from the grey eyes and her body acquired a stillness that was thought to be impossible in a human.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. "Are you lost?"

On hearing the last word, as though he pressed a trigger, she began sobbing hysterically.

The man took a step forward. At once she tried to move backward.

"Okay. Okay." He put his hands up in surrender and moved a step backward. "Listen," he said quietly. "I'm supposed to be taking care of this place here. It helps me get some good money too. You seem like a good girl, I don't want to hand you over to the authorities."

He noted the widening of her eyes. "You don't like the authorities?"

She shook her head vigorously, her dirty red hair moving along with her.

"I won't take you to the authorities. You can trust me." He offered gently. "I won't hurt you."

"Just go away," she whispered brokenly. "Just go away."

"My ma never taught me this thing you're speaking, girl. I can't understand you." He said shaking his head.

"Go away," she repeated with weaker resolve this time.

The man looked at her. "Are you lost?"

With tears, she nodded. The man realized that her hysterical crying had subsided considerably.

Raising his hands up in surrender, he took a step forward.

Other than looking at him with startling stillness, she didn't react.

"Listen," he said kindly. "My place is only a little away. Why don't you come and get into some dry clothes, hm?"

"Why do you want to help me?" The woman asked.

"I don't know what you are saying, but sure hope that you are agreeing with me." Now he was near enough to touch her.

She untangled herself and stood up slowly so that she was face to face with the man. "You will help me?"

"You can trust me." He said softly. He thrust out his hand. "My name is Clark, what's yours?"

The woman looked at the hand warily and then outstretched her grimy hand to hold his with as little contact as possible.

He was astonished at the freezing temperature of her hand.

And for the first time, she slowly spoke broken words of English. "Name- My-My name i-is- My name is Ath-"

Then she stopped.

The man waited.

"My name is Asta."