Apollo & Luna

The Hunter & The Hunted

Twenty-seven years ago, she had been an aging hustler at the backstreet of the Lotte Department store when she had found Alicia amongst the trash. Instantly besotted with the sweet child, she happily left her ‘profession’ and took on the role of a parent.

She had been working as a waitress when she had met her husband who was her former ‘customer’. He was a company employee with an eight-to-five job and a reasonable salary – the same sweet man who used to work for one of her ex-lovers.

Alicia had been growing and she had thought that she needed a male presence in her life, and so she had accepted her husband’s marriage proposal, and she didn’t regret it.

For seven years, their small family had lived well. Her husband, they found out was barren, and so, the two of them focused on raising Alicia like their very own since they couldn’t have any other children. She knew that her husband had loved Alice, their princess, as much as she loved the child she had adopted.  But then…

Alicia was special. Her baby was special – so different from them.

At first, she and her husband had been surprised but they accepted her exceptional gift. She and her husband took pains to shield Alicia from other people’s eyes so that she wouldn’t experience being treated differently. But then, she got injured and her daughter healed her.

And then…

She closed her eyes as she remembered that one night when everything changed. Their family was sleeping when a man came to their house – a strange man who was extremely strong and different like her child.

The window opened with a crash and the man and woman on the bed sat up in alarm, their eyes widening in horror as a burly man wearing what seemed to be armor entered their room.

“Where’s the child? Where’s Alicia?” he demanded as the couple scrambled to their feet, backing into the room near the door.

“What do you want?” her husband demanded just as the man held out his hand and a sword with intricate design suddenly materialized there out of nowhere.

Horrified, she had been rooted to where she stood but her husband shook her hard to come back to her senses.

“Go! Get Alicia and go!” her husband yelled as he faced the intruder.

Realizing the danger, she closed her eyes as she ran towards where her child was sleeping and grabbed her.

“Alice, let’s go!” she cried as she carried her and ran outside.

She heard her husband’s scream of terror before she went out and knew that the man had killed him. She knew he was gone, just as she knew that she and Alicia would be the scary man’s next victims.

“I know you can hear me, woman. Hand me the child if you want your life to be spared,” she heard the man’s voice in her mind and her terror increased. But she wouldn’t hand over her daughter to anyone. No way!

“Mom?” Alicia called to her and she increased her pace. She needed to save her daughter!

Without thinking, she screamed. “Fire! Fire!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, and just as expected, people started going out of their apartments in panic, creating a ruckus and she lost themselves amongst the crowd.

She bit her lip as she remembered how the same thing happened whenever Alicia used her ability. The same man appeared, and in no time, there was nowhere else for them to go, and nothing else for them to do but feign death by pretending to have perished in a fire she had started.

Even if she didn’t want to return to this backwater village where she had been branded a sinful woman, she had faced the people, ate her pride and decided to live here, quietly. She had made Alicia promise too that she wouldn’t ever use her power again. It was for her own safety.

But she did. She knew she did.

She had been awake when Alicia had opened the door to her room to check on her. She knew that she would go out, but she didn’t stop her. As a mother, she knew that her daughter, to defy her like that, there must have been a very good reason, and so Alicia did indeed have one.

The sound of the horse’s soft hooves on the dirt and the cart got her attention and she turned her vigilant eyes outside the window once more. Her daughter has returned – and she wasn’t alone.

She watched in silence as Alicia returned the horse to the barn and watched as she dragged a man from the cart.

“Alice…” she whispered with tears in her eyes as she watched her child struggle to get the man inside their house.

There was no mistaking that aura. Alicia had used her power. She must have saved that man’s life.

Biting her lips until she tasted her blood, she prayed to the heavens that everything would be different this time. It has been seventeen years, after all, since that horrifying night. Her daughter had grown into a fine young woman – a kindhearted one. She should be okay.

If not, she, Alicia’s mother would do everything in her power to save her again.

“Alicia…”

~

“You called Your Highness?” a huge man with blond hair and ice blue eyes kneeled before the throne which was hidden in the shadows.

“Yes,” a voice answered followed by a shuffling sound. “I felt her again, that child I asked you to fetch me years ago.”

The blond man’s eyes widened.

“But Your Highness, the girl’s dead. She and the woman who took her died in a fire almost two decades ago,” he sputtered in disbelief.

“ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?!” was the angry reply and the man quickly shook his head.

“Of course not Your Highness,” he answered hastily just as cold sweat broke all over his body.

“Find her! Find her and bring her to me. Do not ever fail again!”

There was no mistaking the hidden warning in that voice. The man knew that if he failed once more, it would cost him his life. All the man could ever do was nod and bow. His face set into a grim line, the man walked out of the mansion with a mission in mind.

“Alicia…”