Children of the Archangels

CHAPTER 62: BERNAR

Luke might as well add mind-reader to his resume of powers because he always found himself lurking inside somebody's thoughts.

The Divine Blaze has a side effect, especially when used by a Nef to subside an enemy. The victim of the Divine Blaze may fall either dead or into a sleep-induced state, but the caster must experience the most painful memory the victim had to endure, through their own eyes, and with no deviation from the past.

Luke was now Jurgen. He was six years old. He was walking to school with his younger brother, but something was wrong with Jurgen's eyesight. The world to him seemed cloudy, as if he was viewing it through cataracts. His hearing was muffled like he was wearing noise-canceling headphones.

But the one thing Luke could make out was a golden bird high in the sky. It looked as majestic as a swan, but it had talons instead of webbed feet—a mixture of compassion and ire.

Jurgen's eyesight was like a hawk when he stared at the bird. The bird flew higher towards a bright light that revealed the tiniest micro fabric of a cloth that belonged to an entity hidden amongst a mist. The more he followed the bird the more of the greater image Jurgen could see, but it still wasn't enough. It was like trying to stand back and view the entirety of the Sistine Chapel one pixel at a time, and each dot only showed itself after hours of staring at it.

On occasion the hazy world around him would distract him. He'd see a woman from time to time cry on his shoulders. He'd see a man get frustrated and shake him awake as if he was sleeping. Some kid named Bernar called this woman and man mom and dad, and they always referred to Jurgen and him as brothers.

"Watch out for your older brother," his dad would charge the four-year-old. The parents worked long hours to pay for the best capsules they put inside Jurgen's mouth every morning and night. They were hardly at the house. Bernar would try to teach him to speak, but Jurgen always avoided his gaze.

All these memories flooded in as Jurgen and Bernar walked home from school. Parents who worked long shifts couldn't pick up their children, and this was Germany—a liberal westernized nation where violence was nowhere near as bad as other nations. It wasn't weird to see parents sending their children to school by themselves on foot while they went to work.

They always took the alleyway. It was a shortcut to their school. It cut five minutes from their walk and it wasn't scary. Graffiti was thrown up on the walls, but it showed men and women of different colors holding hands as the face of a new Germany.

And as if the wall art came to life, four college-age individuals were coming in their direction. One was black, another was Arabian, a third was white with ginger hair, and a fourth was Asian, possibly from Korea. The four stumbled after a Wednesday night that clearly wasn't spent studying.

When they spotted the two blond boys, one with blue eyes the other with milky white eyes, walking down the alleyway, they started shouting insults at them.

"Pure-bloods," the ginger-head boy said.

"Parents are probably racist, cis-gendered, sexists who spit on people like us," said the Korean girl who looked like she was cross-dressing as a man.

"Probably the type that tried to kick my mother out of the country because of where she came from," the Arabian man spoke.

"And look at the poor boy there," said the black woman pointing at Jurgen. "If that thing was my baby, I'd probably have it aborted to spare it such a miserable existence."

Bernar held Jurgen's hand and it was shaking. In the other hand, he held a plush toy of a black eagle with its wings spread. They tried to keep walking past them.