ashestohope
"ðð§ ð°ðĄðĒððĄ ðĄð ðĶððĪððŽ ð ððððĨ ð°ðĒððĄ ð ð°ðĻðĶðð§ ððĻ ðĶððĪð ðĄððŦ ðĄðĒðŽ ð°ðĒðð, ðð§ð ðĒð§ ðŦðððŪðŦð§, ðŽðĄð ðð ðŦðððŽ ððĻ ðĐðŦðĻðððð ðĄðĒðĶ."
. . . . .
He was barely twenty-two years old, too young to be called a man.
While he was still learning to walk carefully around the shore, life in a flash pushed him into a raging ocean with no experience of survival and a newborn child in his weak, quivering arms.
Inside it, at every inch -- demons, hundreds of demons cloaked in human flesh were silently waiting for him, their hands burning with an ache to be stained in blood.
And the worst, cruelest truth was; they had been waiting for him but never for him. The child, the small life in his arms.
Her breath. Her blood. That was all they wanted.
He knew he was nothing, absolutely nothing before them --- just a simple boy with simpler intentions and the simplest way of seeing the world.
He had every intention of walking away, of leaving her behind and forgetting she had ever existed. It was simple. It was the plan. Until she opened her eyes and lifted her wide, teary eyes to look at him and in those eyes of the newborn, lived an innocence so heavenly pure that for the first time, every sacrifice, even dying to protect her seemed worth it.
After all, in the end, he had become her ððððĄððŦ, her baba.
He fought every single one of them, not as a warrior but as a young father. As he forgot everything; his fear, his pain, his life. The only thing that he could remember was her crying little face, buried in the crook of his neck.
But for how long could he keep her and himself safe from them?
He knew he needed someone strong. Not just strong. But Stronger. Stronger than them, than those men.
Perhaps, a man. Or many.
Or maybe, just maybe, a woman, only.