His body was getting dragged mercilessly. Every rock, every grain of sand, and even the shrubs were tearing away his skin. Blood oozed out through the cracks on his back and got mixed with the soil underneath.Soon the soldiers entered the forest of the forbidden to cut their path short and the moment they did, the invisible wall that had crippled Damianos and Nicholas was lifted.
"Damianos look! The wall is vanishing. Look! my hand is pa.s.sing through it!" screamed Nicholas, to which Damianos immediately responded by flapping out his wings.
"What on earth!" screamed Nicholas and fell on his back.
"What... what are you?", his voice stuttered.
"A guardian angel," said Damianos with a normal voice as if he was telling about what he ate in the morning.
"You are like Balthazaar!" exclaimed Nicholas.
"Like who?", asked Damianos in surprise. He didn"t expect in the wildest of his dreams that Nicholas knew about Balthazaar being an angel.
It was then that Nicholas realized the slip of his tongue and help his words back, "Erm... nothing."
Deciphering his reluctance, Damianos didn"t press further as this was not the time for an interrogation. He rose up in the air and crossed the divide and landed on the other side. But his flight was tumultuous. He landed with great pain on the other side as his broken bone hadn"t been healed yet.
"Argghhhhhh"
Groaned Damianos in pain as he landed.
"Is he hurt like Balthazaar?" thought Nicholas and yelled from the other side,
"I can help you with it. Just wait for me."
He ran back as fast as he could and kept whistling a tune which his horse was familiar with and lo and behold in a couple of minutes he could hear the neighing of his horse.
"That"s my boy," said Nicholas and swiftly rode his horse towards the divide again. Helping Damianos was the only way in which he could possibly hold back Morpheous from meeting Nicholas because till now nothing had worked.
The moment he raced towards the divide, his horse started becoming reluctant to inch further.
"Hiyaaahhhh"
"Hiyaaahhhh"
"Come on my boy, jump over."
"Hiyaaahhhh"
But no matter how hard he pulled the reins, no matter how much he patted and encouraged him, his horse didn"t budge. Out of wits, Nicholas looked at Damianos and yelled,
"Help me out here Old man!"
Damianos closed his eyes and didn"t say a word but the moment he did, Nicholas"s horse started neighing loudly. It started moving back from the divide. Nicholas couldn"t understand how to control him, but then all of a sudden, much to his surprise, his horse started galloping ahead at a lightning speed and jumped the divide in one go.
"Aaaahhhhhh"
As Nicholas landed on the other side, he immediately got down and took his horse close to Damianos and said,
"Trust me when I say this, it might sound weird but it will help you." He then lowered the face of his horse and made it lick the burnt and broken wings of Damianos.
Damianos didn"t say anything for a moment but then he asked, "Did you heal Balthazaar like this?"
Nicholas chose to remain silent and kept patting his horse. Little did he know that every angel and their power was different. Horse"s saliva worked for Balthazaar but not for Damianos.
"Try now," said Nicholas, and Damianos lifted himself up in the air again, but the same pain came back thrusting towards him. He could bear it for some time but not for long and he knew that very well. The fastest means to reach the kingdom now was to ride Nicholas"s horse.
So looking at him he said,
"We got no time for trial and error. Let"s ride."
And thus galloped a man and an angel together with a mission to save a mortal who probably had given up on himself.
.
.
As the soldiers started crossing through the forest of the forbidden, the gra.s.s underneath started surrounding the body of Morpheous as if they were climbers. The fallen leaves started gathering together like a rug underneath to protect the body of Morpheous.
But he was completely unaware of everything that was happening to him.
That grotesque sight of death, that blood was the only picture that was etched in his mind. The dying words of his friend, the last revelation from the mouth of the innocent soldier was all that kept echoing inside his head.
It was a constant ringing that reminded him of the monster that he had become.
Closing his eyes, as the tears trickled down his face he remembered the face of Eva.
"How can I dare to go in front of you?"
"Would you even look me in the eye?"
He then remembered the last that he had seen of Nefeli and Leonidas - working near the pond, trying to help their fellow beings.
"How can I go back to these people?"
"I do not deserve to be alive? I do not deserve any mercy."
"Hiyaaaaahhh"
The soldiers made their horses gallop as fast as they could to reach the common grounds of the Kingdom and when they did, they mercilessly threw the injured and barely alive body of Morpheous on the bed of sand whose each grain had been heated up by the scorching sun.
But that man didn"t wince in pain. He had accepted his fate. He was ready to take any punishment that came his way. He hated Nicholas for burning his village but today he felt that he was more barbaric than he was.
He was supposed to be the protector, yet here he lied on the ground, feeling nothing but shame and loathing for himself.
Taking a deep breath he opened his eyes,
The sky looked bright again...
Everything felt warm...
But in the next second, he could feel the air freeze around him.
He couldn"t breathe or speak a vowel on his own, no matter how hard he tried. His chest started to tighten and he could feel every vein pulsating restlessly in his body. Slowly light became brighter and brighter, till he could not look at it anymore.
He could sense that his time had come.
G.o.d has chosen to punish him for his deeds.
But little did he know that it wasn"t G.o.d, it was the tiny lavender-colored flower.