Monster of a Child

Three enemies, hidden among the rooftops: I don’t even have to look to notice their hatred, or the positions of all three of them. No, I could have found them with my eyes closed. Who are they? They aren’t after me. They might as well have been shouting out death threats as well as I could perceive, there is no way anyone who knew who I was would come for me like that. Each of them, radiating hatred and contempt, had a slightly different feel, but upon closer inspection they all had one focus.

 

I looked down to the boy. He was blissfully trotting beside me, grinning proudly as if his life wasn’t forfeit. Why him? He seems nothing more than an abused orphan who’s been nothing but taken advantage of for a good majority of his life, by his life. The only thoughts that were in his mind, for as long as I’ve been near him, were either about staying out of harm’s way, finding a way to get food through any means possible, and about me, his new friend. What could such a defensive mind have done to receive such ill will directed at him?

 

“So where are we going, Mu?” the boy asked, dusting off his pants. There was nothing to dust off, but it seemed more of an odd habit than any need to fix his appearance. He looked up to me.

 

What should I do? I’d rather this boy stay alive, but I don’t see an ending where he lives. I could make a preemptive strike; the first would be dead before the other two could react, and it wouldn’t be but a moment before death took the second… but because their goal was the boy, any action of the sort would leave the third an unobstructed shot at his mark.

 

“There’s this place I like to stay, my hideout that no one knows about… wanna come see it?” the boy asked, enthusiastic.

 

What do I do? I could defend him here, but that depended on how strong they were. No doubt that any warriors who would hide like they were (hiding without a hint of elegance) weren’t worth mentioning, and would do nothing but crumble before me. Even if all three were to attack simultaneously they wouldn’t survive, but there was a good chance their target would fall before it was over.

 

The boy, currently staring up at me, waiting for an answer with a pleading heart, had absolutely no clue as to his imminent end. Checkmate in two moves. I nod, giving him the ‘sure, I’ll go’ he was looking for. I allow him to drag me by the hand to an unknown destination.

 

This boy… he has no life here. There are people seeking his life, as well. Perhaps… perhaps I should take him with me. Only until he is old enough to live on his own, of course. Living with me would be dangerous, he would be surrounded by threats, by those after my life, but he would surely have a higher chance of living than if he stayed here, alone and hated. And I’m sure if he is going to make it through hell, he would rather have company.

 

We have, since our second meeting at the market, moved a great distance, but only now do I fully take in my surrounding details. I make sure to keep all three threats present at the forefront of my mind, but the sights were entirely too troubling to dismiss as irrelevant.

 

The first sight that forced me to start really taking in my environment was in an alley. There was a group of men who had cornered a woman, half naked, and seemed to be toying with her like I’d imagine a pack of hyenas with a frightened rabbit. Next, down the street ran a group of terrified children, each holding various, apparently stolen valuables (from items, to food, to weapons) as a large man wielding a large mace chased them. After that, I noticed something quiet disturbing. It appeared to be a man who had committed suicide by hanging himself from an abandoned looking building. He looked to have been dead for quite some time, going by his weathered clothes and degraded body. I watched as he swayed slightly with a passing breeze, a breeze that brought an odor that confirmed that he had in fact been rotting for a while. I turned from the sight, unable to look or smell it anymore. However, waiting for me on the opposing side of the road, was a group of men and women beating on an old man. For what appeared to be nothing more than catching their eye, they stomped him into the dirt, beating on him well past the point where he lost consciousness.

 

Just as I began to feel sick, I noticed the brothel. The building had large, open windows on the side of it wherever there were rooms. There were bars across each window: the bars were most likely to prevent the escape of their slave girls (bought from a trader, or captured). Two of the rooms were currently ‘occupied’, their activities open to the passing world. This was a sale’s technique some brothel’s used, its purpose being to lure new customers into purchasing time with one of the girls. Before we passed by completely, I noticed something hidden in the shadows beside the brothel; just away from the road and covered in filth, lie a naked woman. She was dying… from a fresh sword wound in her back. It seemed she came from this brothel, but for one reason or another had lost her usefulness or worth, and was disposed of. It was possible she resisted whoever owned her once too often.

 

All of these… shocking and disturbing sights of a corrupted town. Sights I had not seen in some time, and still never in such intensity (in broad daylight, at least). But none of these were quite so disturbing as the final sight on this road.

 

“Come on, Mu, it’s only a little further!” the child said, excited.

 

Yes… the most shocking and possibly the most disturbing sight I had ever seen was this child, leading me through it all. He did absolutely nothing in the face of these repulsive sights. Not that I had expected him to run off into a group of thugs to protect a woman he didn’t even know, but I had never met a person like this, let alone a child. One who walked through such horrors without ever batting an eye? His emotions… Even with those hardened by overexposure to the darkness mankind is capable of, I had never met anyone whose emotional stability didn’t waver, even if only for an instant. His emotions were completely relaxed, not even faltering when the woman being toyed with let loose an agonizing scream for help behind us. He was just a child, but this quality made him seem… Monstrous.

 

“It’s right up here!” he announced, eager. We cut through a maze of back roads I would have never known existed from the main road.

 

Is this a child I really want around me? I’m in constant danger on my own because of this sword I carry; do I really want to add something as dangerous as a child who could kill me before I could sense murderous intent? He was still a child, but… the complete lack of emotions the boy boasted in the face of atrocities was inhuman...

 

The child stopped before a large, metallic door. I look around. This section of the town is dark, shaded by the buildings rising above us on all sides, and completely deserted. He turned to me. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a second.”

 

The child moved a broken crate, one of those wooden ones often used for transporting various goods, out of the way to reveal a small hole in the wall. He burrowed and disappeared into the wall, fitting in quite easily. The hole was small, but so was the boy. No average sized (and properly fed) 13 year-old could have made it through.

 

I was left alone… by both the child and his three pursuers. No, they hadn’t followed him to the other side of this door, it seems they retreated. I wonder… now that I’ve seen this, a void, darkness even, which lurks beneath the basic feelings at the forefront of his mind, I wonder if he really did do something to them. He is still young though, there isn’t much I could imagine him doing to deserve three stalking enemies, but now it is a real possibility. Had this child truly wronged them?

 

A noise sounds from behind the door, like a loud metallic clang followed by a hollow thud, and it opens. The child bursts out from behind it, beaming as he ushered me inside.

 

“Alright, it’s open!” he announces, proud. “Come on in!”

 

I looked around, standing just past the metal doors. It was a large room, seemingly a storage building. It was in ruin, and looked like it had been abandoned a good while ago. There were large crates scattered through the room, similar to the one covering the secret hole/entrance, all broken and emptied of anything of potential value. Also, crawling around most crates and up the sides of the walls were overgrown wall vines, thick but spread thin enough for me to see the walls they covered. As I followed the vines to the ceiling, I found the source of light for the otherwise dark, shut-off room. The ceiling, it had caved in a bit. About 40 feet off the ground, a large hole had been opened in the ceiling. Through the natural course of time, it seems, but it was enough to catch sun and light up the dark room.

 

“So, what do you think?” he asked, zealous. He backed away from me, to give me enough room to take everything in, and sat in a broken box. The box he sat in had blankets, pillows, and random articles of clothing stashed inside of it; he was using them as a makeshift cushion.

 

I looked around one more time, and noticed something different. The boxes almost looked like they were arranged… like it was set up a certain way. And the way the light flooded into the center of the room, boxes surrounding it, it looked almost artistic… what is with this child? He surprises me at every turn. I cannot deny that even though the place is in ruins, it has a comfortable, almost tranquil feel to it.

 

It is very nice, I told him. By the look on his face, he’s still not used to the way I talk, directly into his heart, through his emotions.

 

“Yeah, I think so too. You can sit down, if you want.” He pointed to a nearby broken crate. It, too, was filled with various cloths.

 

I thought for a moment. Should I really be here? I still haven’t decided whether I want this child to travel with me. Getting too attached now would only make things harder for him when I leave. I look to him, and he frowns. He’s sensing that I don’t want to sit down. He’s very perceptive; it only took him a second or two to notice.

 

“Did you not want to sit there? You can have my seat if you want!” he said, nervous. He hopped out of his own seat, but before anything else could be done I felt another’s presence. I turned to the metal door, the door the boy had left open, and in the opening stood a man. He was short, about two third’s my height, bald, with no facial hair whatsoever. His eyes were small and beady, reminiscent of a rat’s, and were a dark brown, almost black. He was round in the stomach, fat in the face, and had stumpy arms and legs. All of them weak features on an obviously weak man, but he had a confidence about him. That’s when I noticed the sword on his belt.

 

“Hiro!” the man shouted, angry. I turned to see the child standing straight, averting his eyes. He looked obedient, but it was obvious he hated this man. It was obvious even without my abilities. “You haven’t brought me anything in three days, Hiro! I know you must have found something in these three days to give me. So I’m waiting at the orphanage, waiting for you to return so you can finally get something to eat, and then I hear that just today you were eating on your own! Like it was nothing, you were eating bread and talking with this stranger!”

 

The child said nothing. His obedient stance held, and his eyes remained averted. “Look at me Hiro!”

 

His eyes lifted from the floor and met with the rat-like man. His fists clenched and his eyes hardened.

 

“That’s better. Now come on, it’s your turn to clean the orphanage.”

 

It took a moment, but he did begin walking towards the man. I don’t know what this little man held over him, but I could not let him go with this person. I haven’t yet decided against taking this boy with me.

 

“Wha-?” the child mumbled, surprised. I grabbed his shoulder, and moved myself between him and the rat-man. I gripped the handle of my sword, and took an offensive stance, ready to draw my blade at any moment.

 

“H-h-hey, what are you doing?!” he yelped, astonished. “H-Hiro! Call her off, or it’s your usual punishment!”

 

Punishment? Before I could turn to the child to see his reaction, he jumped in front of me, his hands out in a protective manner, protective of the one threatening him. “Please… don’t hurt him.”

 

I couldn’t understand it. Why was he protecting that slimy, shrunken man? What was this punishment, and how powerful was it to have such a strong hold over the child? My grip on my blade loosened, and I felt my eyebrows draw together in confusion.

 

“That’s more like it! This has nothing to do with you stranger,” the rat-man asserted, smug. “Just go about your business! Come, Hiro.”

 

The child stood his ground for a moment, staring me down, before turning and running towards the man. “Good boy,” I heard the rat-man mutter, patting the child’s head. They turned to leave, with the little man turning to glance at me warily every few seconds.

 

What do I do now? Should I follow them? Should I rescue him? He’s still dangerous; do I really want to draw attention to myself in this town for the sake of a child I’ve just met, a child I might not even see again?

 

As I’m measuring my options my sword begins to shake, almost throb in its sheath. “Mind hearing my opinion?” a man’s voice calls, relaxed. I grab the sheath with one hand and the handle with the other, pulling the sword out slightly so that the blade is just barely visible. A blue mist begins to pour from the blade; first pushing out as far as it can, then pulling together beside me. The process takes only about 5 or 10 seconds, but when it’s done the form of a light blue tinted transparent man is floating beside me. He stretches, making a groaning/grunting sound as he does.

 

His name was Akito. His feet weren’t there, everything past his knees turned into a vague blur of blue, but it seemed that he was slightly shorter than me. He was thin, with long, spider-like limbs. His chin was pointed, like an arrow, and his facial hair was barely noticeable; he had a light beard, an almost non-existent mustache, and his eyebrows were thin, almost unnoticeable with a short glance. On the left side of his face was a large scar, running from above his hair line down to his collarbone, where it continued down, lost underneath his kimono.

 

He yawns, rubbing at the corners of his eyes as he does. “Okay, so about that little Hiro,” he started, calm, “I think you should just leave him here and let us go about our way.”

 

Blunt, as he always is. Though, as he has told me before, you can afford to be blunt when you are nothing more than a ghost living in a cursed sword.

 

I can’t talk, I lost my voice long ago, but I don’t need to. I don’t even need to use my ability to communicate with him. Being a resident of the sword I own, the sword I have a contract with, he can hear what I’m thinking. He knows what I’m thinking, and we communicate that way.

 

“Yes, you could help him, bring him with you, but you already know the dangers of that: to both him and you.”

 

His views are often like this; strange, but with an oddly logical view point. His words always make sense to me, but I can only agree with him about half of the time.

 

“If you leave him, chances are he’ll grow up and live life as a criminal while you live somewhere else, doing whatever it is you’re doing. If you help him, chances are you will both die. Some things just need to be left alone to take their natural course.”

 

Yes… once again, he makes sense. This is just a natural thing: people who live in places like these grow up hard, and live like criminals. As a natural course of events, this child should become a criminal. But… the one problem with him, the one thing Akito can never take into view is emotion. That ‘right and wrong’ factor. His views can be simplified to “What is best for me first, and then what is best for any others involved”. In this case, I cannot listen to him.

 

“I’m telling you, you will regret it if you help him. Besides, what will helping him really do? He’s already been tainted by this place, you’ve seen that darkness in his heart. When he grows up, he’ll become a monster. He will be one of those people with a need to hurt and kill people.”

 

He’s probably right. We’ve both seen the type of person that child could grow into. It’s definitely not a good thing to happen to anyone, and it is never good for anyone close to them. But, the one thing I’ve noticed about those people is that they’ve never had a light. They’ve been lost in darkness since they were children, and they never had someone who genuinely cared for them. How differently would they turn out if they did? If that boy grows up with someone like me to help him… perhaps he can know there is more than darkness in this world.

 

“I’m not sure that’s a gamble I would take… just take into account the affect hiding his entire life will have on him.”

 

It’ll have a better affect than his current life has on him. Of that I’m certain.

 

“Alright … well, you’ll do what you’ll do. After all, I’m just the voice reason, there’s no reason to listen to me anyway. Just remember that when this all goes south, I’ll make sure to tell you I told you so.” He yawns and stretches on last time, and his body begins dissolving into mist. As the mist begins to pull back into my sword, he speaks one more time. “Well? You have a child to save, don’t you? Get to it.”

 

­­When all of the mist makes its way back to the sword, I sheathe it again. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I concentrate. Concentrate on the feeling of that boy, the feeling of his heart. His heart has a very unique feel, so it’s only a matter of moments before I find him. He’s not too far away. I open my eyes, grip the handle of my sword, and head off in his direction. 

Author's Note

nananananananana-BATMAN!