{I"m… ALIVE!} - Kyon"s consciousness shouted out loud. A single coherent thought throbbed in his head — revenge! Life in that fragile body was provided with the only desire to take revenge, destroy, trample upon the one who had driven him to that terrible state. It seemed that his vital force emanated from his very soul.If he had not reached the 2nd stage of development, his body would have fallen apart. And if it were not for the modernization of his nervous system, which had increased the resistance to the stress of all the organs and the whole organism, then he"d definitely stand no chance.
The bony hand of death, which had squeezed Kyon"s heart, reluctantly let go, allowing it to make an uncertain beat and another one, and another... In the next moment, the boy"s heartbeat in a furious rhythm, striving to break through the ribs, which were not particularly intact. He took another convulsive sigh and his body shuddered in the attack of pain, piercing to the very marrow.
It was scary to look at that once handsome young man: blood vessels burst of tension in his eyes; his hands looked like flat pancakes with shattered bones as a "filling"; his right leg was turned out unnaturally; the whole body was covered with dried crusts and stains of still fresh blood…
Kyon scanned his body. He found out twenty-eight fractures of various degrees of severity, internal bleeding, a failing kidney, lack of the most part of the teeth. Brain hemorrhage, contusion, and concussion... His lungs and tendons torn, his joints fractured.
Kyon slowed his heartbeat to 25 beats per minute. He hastily "patched" the torn vessels, stopped the internal bleeding, sent all the proteins and energy from the recently eaten sausage to the healing of the most dangerous injuries. He isolated the damaged kidney, pouring into it a part of Synergy so that it wouldn"t atrophy and lose its function, he"d restore it later. He could survive on that for quite some time.
His incredible will to live must have amazed the heavens because the sky got overcast with thunderclouds and let out tears, was.h.i.+ng up his body.
The time inexorably flew by, the early morning was approaching. A slightly cold rain came in real handy, it filled his mouth with water and saturated the drained organism with vital moisture.
As soon as the servants noticed the crippled, barely alive Kyon they would surely throw him off into the cesspool, from which he would never get out. Therefore, he had gathered all his willpower and slowly, carefully, with gentle light movements crawled to the wall, not forgetting to grab with his mouth the sound transmitter that had fallen from his pocket and was lying nearby.
The place, where he found room for himself, was safely hidden by dense thickets of bushes with a stone-paved path nearby and a little bench in the distance.
If a gardener fancied going around the hedge to trim it, he"d find him lying right there. Although it was unlikely that they engaged in plucking shrubs every day.
In the morning, the first servants came to the park. They didn"t notice any traces of blood because the rain had already washed away everything but they found some suspicious elements of black clothes, lying around for some reason against the wall, and carried them somewhere away.
The servants set about their work, not even suspecting that a half-dead man was lying in the pose of a broken star behind the nearest bushes.
The whole day flew by in the blink of an eye, the evening came, and the night, and the morning again. Kyon was desperate for some energy. All the nutrients that he got from the sausage had expired, the recovery began to decline.
Kyon moved his head to the sound transmitter and dialed Marina"s frequency with his tongue.
Fortunately, the girl was good enough to answer his call. She could hardly make out that he was wheezing to her with his lisping, barely audible voice: if she had not recognized his frequency, she would not have even guessed who was calling her.
Yielding to the boy"s plea, she took some food and water and alone, without telling anyone, sneaked to the corner of the area, where she looked around stealthily and pretended to drop something. Under that "plausible" excuse — Kyon involuntarily cringed at her fake-nervous "Oh, how awkward I am!" - she crawled into the bushes and almost screamed, that time it sounded way more natural.
Her emotions were hard to describe. Shock, horror, disbelief! All the colors suddenly disappeared from the girl"s face, leaving only fear, despair and a strong desire to help the dying by all means. While she was looking at him, the boy with obvious difficulty managed to convey to her two main requests: "don"t tell anything to anyone" and "take care of me."
So began the double, "behind-the-scenes" Marina"s life. She spent part of the day near the rookery of the young man, imperceptibly spoon feeding him liquid food and water — like a wounded chick. Sometimes she brought in medicine, ointment, and infusion, she bandaged his wounds and even put a crooked splint on his broken limbs, all in all, the girl got into the role of a nurse-mother-hen, looking after the wounded "warrior".
When his vocal cords got slightly recovered and Kyon managed to express his thoughts more or less intelligible, he asked Marina first of all to un.o.btrusively forbid the servants to cut those very bushes, otherwise, they might notice him. He also had to explain to her the situation with Juno, who he was and what he was like in that estate. There, only death awaited him, therefore her care was vitally important for him, and when he recovered he"d start thinking over his next move.
Marina put herself through h.e.l.l worrying about the guy. Flitz had forbidden her to even talk to boys before, but that one turned out to be an exception... She really liked him. The more she did for him, the more she became attached to him.
The girl told Kyon the details of that strange meeting with Juno at the entrance to the mansion. It turned out that she looked like the young mother of the little demoness, Diana.
Yuno"s mother, since the disappearance of Jurich, plunged headlong into the work on the plantations, therefore she rarely came out. Not everyone remembered her anymore.
Marina had noticed before that some servants bowed to her reflexively and then looking closer winced, puzzled; all the girl"s questions got vaguely dismissed.
However, in the mansion, things were a little different. There, any guard knew what Diana looked like. Anna and Dinah were completely amazed to see the girl. Some servants bowed to her scared but quickly realized that it was not Lady Diana, just a girl who looked like her, and still, just in case, they treated her with respect.
Juno, having heard the story of the unfortunate girl and her "serving" Flitz, immediately sheltered her, promising that the old man would never touch her mother"s "double" even with a finger - otherwise he would deal with her personally. Thus, Marina unexpectedly raised her status from the position of a "suckretary" to "a good friend of the lady of the house", which was, of course, a much more pleasant "duty".
One day, Kyon told Marina that Flitz"s weakness, in his humble opinion, lied in Juno. Awareness had crept on the girl. She piously became convinced that Kyon had invited her there with a sole mission to save her, after all, he must have calculated everything! Her soul was filled with an overwhelming feeling of grat.i.tude and admiration.
Every early morning and late evening, Marina sat on the bench, behind which were the bushes where Kyon nestled down in his shelter. He"d changed his primary habitat so that it was more convenient to communicate with her and take food while she was sitting and reading a book without attracting attention.
Day after day, cell by cell, Kyon restored his body — restored the life of his kidney, restored the neurons, overgrew all internal injuries, restored his eyes, his broken nose, sprouted tendons and also healed joints. Only bones and teeth were left. An ordinary person cannot restore them, but with Synergy everything is possible. He asked Marina to bring him cottage cheese and milk: his body needed a new supply of calcium.
During one of her visits, the girl solemnly demonstrated to Kyon his black clothes that she"d found, got washed, ironed and carefully mended in torn places. When the servants picked up the elements of his wardrobe, they did not dare to throw them away; you never know who of the gentlemen might have an urge to get undressed and run around naked in the light of the moon; so they whipped Kyon"s clothes into shape and put them neatly folded in the linen closet.
The anxiety, which had frozen the girl"s heart, finally let go: her friend from the bushes was getting better. His voice was already strong enough to please her with all sorts of interesting stories from time to time. Marina often told him about Flitz, how they lived, what they did. About her sad past, how her family was killed, and the house was burned. Flitz, in fact, had saved her from starvation.
The old man kept thinking of recovering his seed so that she"d give him a child. He"d had his illness for as long as he remembered himself, and had even come to terms with it in some sense, but after she appeared in his mansion, he, little by little, wanted to get healed. His desire got acc.u.mulated and now he was making every effort to find a cure. Somehow, Marina was touched by his dream, which he found thanks to her.
Despite his poor character - greed, hypocrisy, l.u.s.t, and anger; the girl still noticed his sincere kindness to her. The rare tenderness that he gave her, like some caress, a hug, a look filled with love, a gentle kiss in the morning, combing up her hair, all that penetrated into the deepest corners of her soul.
Not a day pa.s.sed that Marina did not mention, at least something, about the former master. Now, with an embarra.s.sed smile, she told Kyon how Flitz took her to the store to buy new clothes for the first time, then, with an animal longing in her eyes, she told him how that very evening he tore off that unfortunate dress from her. She told him that she wanted to get in touch with him somehow so that he would not suffer the grief of her loss, but she could not find the courage.
Kyon wondered why she was so worried about someone who she hated so much? But did she hate Flitz at all? He had previously formed an opinion that the girl could not stand the old man, that she was afraid of him, that she hated him, but it turned out that behind the veil of her fear there was something else hidden... At the moments of such revelations, her voice sounded with pity, sadness, and anxiety - all the feelings far from hatred. Vague suspicions crept in his mind that Marina didn"t despise the old man at all... She became attached to him. His rare demonstration of kindness and promises to make her the mother of his children touched the strings of the girl"s soul. However, whatever that feeling might be, it wasn"t unequivocal, by any means: despite all her grat.i.tude, appreciation, and respect, she was disgusted by his abuse towards her and his decrepit old body, which she had to endure night after night in herself and for herself.
Kyon was astonished, baffled, marveled and angry at the strange girl, and with all that, his soul was filled with warmth every time he saw the blonde. Without her, he would have died... Her kind word, care, inept but very diligent medical a.s.sistance, a well-timed blanket, (to sleep on the gra.s.s, it"s not like grilling under the sun at the resort, it"s the easiest way to pneumonia) food, water, and above all the realization that all that together was something more than just "the good deed of a h.o.m.o erectus." The guy understood that he was incredibly lucky to meet on his difficult path that girl whose kindness can be wrapped up like a warm blanket and who could heal the whole world, not just his bony little body. Apparently, her past, the loss of parents and brother had left an indelible mark on her soul and character but instead of getting embittered against the whole world, she got thoroughly imbued with the best feelings of humanity: compa.s.sion, mercy, love for all living things. And, as the practice had shown, for the half-dead, too.
{I will definitely pay you back… And Martha from the mine, as well. I don"t know how to do it, yet. Marina, just see it come.} - the guy had made up his mind.