Center of Attention

Repeated

          There's a certain amount of expectancy when it came to death. What had it felt like, Smallik had wondered. What had the world know death to be besides a figure hiding in the shadows with a scythe at his side? Smallik paced back and forth with his eyes gleaming with hatred for the unknown. For someone who wanted to play God, he hadn't known as much as he hoped.

Ogillitiy left just like he had done before, but I didn't dare get up from my own chair. My hands continued to grip my white coffee mug, fingers pressing into the ceramic like there was nothing else to do. Did I go to work? No. I was afraid that Boss would send me back out to the apartment building across the way. I would get shot again by Brokilna Sobe, and I would never seek the end of my journey. There was no reason to be a recluse, either. I was so close to the apartment building that my eyes focused exactly on the room I thought it to be. The windows were shattered from age, glass shards probably all over the entire balcony. I thought of dead leaves covering the floor or the way the door had been shattered by an axe.
I called Boss and told him I was feeling sick today. I had never once called off for being sick, and it was a surprise even to him. He was concerned and told me that they found another body lying on the street like the last. I knew that. He then explained they might have a lead but were unsure to follow it, and they definitely didn't want to if I wasn't coming into work. Great. I basically gave myself 24 hours to mope and then I would get murdered by Brokilna Sobe. There was a whole lot of point to it, however, but there was a part of me that now regretted becoming and Enforcer like Mom and Dad wanted me to be.
It was a long time before I moved from the kitchen table. My hands kept around the coffee until it was completely cold, and I locked eyes with the dilapidated building until the sun was burning my inner retinas. It almost felt the same when my wife passed away. I would look on into the distance in search for her face, but I would find absolutely nothing. I always did. I'm sure Mavara would have been better at dealing with this. She always believed in the strangest phenomena even if it was against the rules to do so. Mavara was better than me. That's why I wished she was here with Ogillitiy and not me moping around holding a damn cup of cold coffee.
I began to pace around the apartment. My feet would make patterns in the steel floor with dirt as I trudged up and down the hallway, and I continued to do so until my feet had hurt. The couch made out of wicker wood pressed every single weaved part into my aching back as my eyes had turned to the end table like I was a hawk seeking out its prey. I couldn't focus on anything. I had fear rising in my chest, and it was so hard to do anything. For once since I've been an Enforcer, I didn't have it figured out. I didn't know what to do.
That scared me.
Glass shattered in the kitchen. I whipped my head around to see two men, both hiding their mouths and hair with bandannas and anything black. I hopped from the wicker couch and stood stock still. They both had guns. As they shot the bullets, I flipped the couch so that they wouldn't dare hit me. One of them grazed my shoulder, and I yelped in pain. I was too old to be doing this, to be bleeding this bad. I dropped to the floor to catch my lost breath, but someone else grabbed me by my hair from the back. They pulled me into the barrel of a gun.
"And by the power of the words beyond, you will leave him alone." That sounded like Ogillitiy. I twisted my head around to see, and it was him. He had a blue glow surrounding a book he held tightly in his grip, one of the few that had paper with printed ink on it. He held a hand out towards all of them, and the same blue glow was there. It looked like Fae magic. I gulped.
"Vigmoah sincra nobliae!" he shouted. He shouted the language that had been on Sobollum's screen.
Ice shards had formed on the tips of his fingers and shot faster than any gun I've ever seen. They had pointed directly at the men's hearts, and they drew blood. The man that was behind me was stagnant. I pulled out my knife that was tied to my belt and stabbed him in the throat. His blood splattered on my face. I had many ragged breaths as I dropped onto the ground, and I held my knees close to my heart as I tried to cope.
Ogillitiy towered over me, slamming the book. "You didn't tell me."
"Tell you what?" I breathed. I had a hard time even looking into my son's eyes.
"You met with the Fae, then? The dead Center that walked the earth back in the 1600s?"
"Giartt Noginah..." I pulled myself up and watched as the sun was beginning to go on the path of setting. "Ogillitiy, how the fuck do you-"
"Not important." He grabbed me by my arm and pulled me up on my feet. He was strong for a 14 year-old. "Pack a few things immediately. We have to get out of the city before everyone figures out that the Center is you."
I stared at his work. Two dead bodies lied helpless in their own pools of blood like they were just discarded. The pupils... Half of the eye was gone. I turned my eyes to Ogillitiy and suddenly realized that he was the one who killed those two people.
"The hell are you standing around for?" he snapped at me. "Dad, go and get some clothes now!"
I had never seen my son the way he was before. His eyes held this intense anger, making the darkness of them even more brooding now that he was cursing at me. Ogillitiy had never once talked bad to me. His eyes would spark conversation only when he wanted to tell me stories that he made up in his head, and I never really knew him outside of that. Ogillitiy was the recluse. He was the one that would never stab another with ice shards like he just had done moments ago. I did as he told me and packed a few sets of clothes that lied discarded on my bedroom floor.
My room was mostly empty. It has been since the day Mavara had died, and I've never found the reason to change it. The beat up dresser was standalone in the room and there was a mirror that was fogged over. Stupid glass. Stupid lamps. I wanted Giartt to show up so I could punch him in the throat for telling me anything at all about being the Center. I still had no idea what that even meant, and my old, simple-minded self was definitely not putting it together. If my life was a puzzle, it be a thousand disfigured pieces right now. I walked back out into the living room and stared at the mess that both my son and I had made.
Ogillitiy didn't say anything to me, just led me out of the apartment and through the winding halls. We went down the staircase that I had gone down another morning in a different time, but now the stairs weren't swiping by my face. They were just ominous in the dark halls even though the sun had been setting outside the windows. When we landed in the lobby, the man at the desk was gone. The desk was shattered into two pieces, and anything that had been on it had cascaded to the center from the angle. I didn't even hear it. Was I too busy stuck inside my head to realize that something was wrong?
"Wait." I pulled on Ogillitiy and he gave me those eyes of resistance. "No, look. I need you to tell me what's going on. Giartt was acting the same way, aloof and just fucking weird. You're my son. You can tell me anything."
Ogillitiy took in a large breath. "I can't tell you anything. I can only tell you what I know, and I know that you're the Center. And my dad. The murders... Brokilna Sobe... Those are only the tip of the iceberg, and Enforcers aren't even aware that the Faes still exist."
"They do?"
He walked out the moving doors with my rough hand in his grip. He didn't respond. He just kept his eyes out on the street where cars whirred and went on. From chaos. There was a fire, a real fire, rolling from down the street. I had never seen a real fire. They were as rare as wood since fire had come from that kind of material. Only for a second had I watched it burn before my son dragged me into a car. I was shoved against the window, ones made out of hard plastic like I was used to. He piled in, talking to the driver in another language. Fae language. I wondered how he was even aware of that kind of existence, but maybe he wasn't going to the Center where he was supposed to be learning how to be an adult. I struggled to find my answers, and I struggled to hold on as the car swerved directly into traffic like nothing was wrong.
"I'd rather not die again!" I spat at the driver. He didn't turn. I imagined he had no idea what I was saying.
Ogillitiy adjusted his book. "Don't worry about him killing you. Worry about the other people like the ones that broke in to our apartment."
"Like Brokilna..." I muttered to myself.
"Foginna sivsai norti Dittas." Ogillitiy spoke to the driver. He then turned to me. "I told him to watch out for the Dittas. That's who's hunting you, by the way."
"And what about you, Ogillitiy? Are you sure you're not trying to kill me?"
He turned away, gripping the book that gave him Fae power. "I would never dream of killing the only parent I've ever had."