The Devil's Crown

LXVI Fortnight.

The time went by and with every second, with every spoken word between those two men, coming from different species. Helios saw the passion that he once had in the past. The passion was so extreme that he went out to seek the humans. The passion that he had towards their existence was re-ignited during the little time that they had together.

Neither wanted to ask anything personal. Questions like, how you got here? What are you trying to accomplish?

They both read each other’s minds that it was better to enjoy the current moment than unearth the old scars that barely healed.

“So all these years you have been there but never showing up?” Blake asked, Helios lost count of the number of times he asked the question.

“It was better to leave you alone,” he repeated. “Our existence was ought to cause you destruction.”

“You don’t say…” Blake mumbled as he eyed the chains.

The existence of one of them caused this much disturbance, the mere thought of the possibility of discovering more was…scary. The amount of pain that it would have caused was uncountable.

“W-Why didn’t anyone come to look for you?” Blake had to wonder.

Helios was silent for a second, Blake caught on that he might have gone overboard with the questions. “Y-you don’t have to answer if you feel pressured!”

“It’s quite alright,” Helios grinned, forgetting the numbness in his limps as his mind wandered back in time. “I gave the order before I left. If I didn’t return for a fortnight, they are to consider me dead and mourn my name.”

“Y-You did it because you were w-worried?”

He nodded weakly under the tension in his neck. “I expected the worse to happen, and I can’t risk my…my people’s lives.”

Blake’s eyes widened at the little piece of information randomly stated. “Y-your people?” he quoted.

Helios glanced over with tired violet eyes before he nodded again. “I hope that my dazed mind doesn’t bring misfortune on them.”

Blake noted the message hidden in his sweet words. *He fears that I might betray him* the thought brought him sadness for a moment. But there was nothing wrong with the fear that Helios has, there was no reason for him to trust the same doctor that drugged him and knocked him down.

He doubted that Helios would have said those things if he was in his right mind. His head dropped in regret at the way that his life has turned into.

“You don’t have to sulk about it,” said Helios. “I said those things because I wanted to. It’s good to have a company like this every once in a while.” A sad smile coated his face.

In it, Blake saw the longing that he has for his home, the life that has been stripped away from him. loathe towards the way his life has become, wishing for death wasn’t even an option. No one in this facility would allow him to die, along with his nature of living long lives.

“H-how old are you?” Blake asked. “I have heard that you live long lives is that true?!”

“I’m almost a millennium old,”

“Huh?!”

Time was needed to register the number by Blake. “Y-You have lived to see the time when humans and Elves co-existed?” the eagerness was taking over his voice at the possibility.

“Elves were still in some sort of contact with the small villages,” Helios narrated. “But even that soon seemed impossible and we retreated to the darkness forever. I was young back then. I’ve enjoyed watching the lives of the simple people, but I was soon grabbed and forced away as well. I only got curious as I grew older. I was blinded by the momentary kindness that I received and forgot the reason we moved to the shadow. I have forsaken my people…”

His voice faded into deep regret at the reminder of the foolishness. Because of his sin, he had no way out of here to get back to his people. The fortnight that he promised his followers has long ago ended. They must have already finished their mourning over him. A part of him longed to be remembered by his people but not as a traitor who forsaken them but as a leader who cared and remembered them through every breath that he took.

“Y-You didn’t!” Blake exclaimed interrupting his dwelling. “K-knowledge that’s not a s-sin! Wanting to see how the rest of the world worked is not a s-sin. I can’t imagine how you managed to live all these years while holding back on your own curiosity. If it were me…I would have definitely failed.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Helios smiled genuinely.

Blake smiled back at him before his eyes fell on the thick chains. He leaned forward and brushed his fingertips on the cold rough metal, his heart ached. “If only I could undo these chains…” he paused. “Can’t you b-break it? If you recover?”

“I can’t recover…” Helios said weakly. “Not now at least. I’m not immune enough against this.” He pointed to a yellow tube inserted in his flesh.

Blake hesitated for a moment but he swallowed down his fear and got to his feet. Approaching the needle in Helios’s arms. He halted his arm after raising it halfway and turned to ask for permission, the last thing that he wanted was to cause him more pain than he is already going through.

Helios nodded. It wasn’t as if he could feel his arms at this point, but the idea of a clear mind was seductive in its own way. Blake gently pulled the needle out of his arm, Helios released a weak groan already feeling the blood rush back into his arm.

Blake turned off the liquid from flowing anymore and returned to his place. “This is the only thing I can do for you.”

“It’s plenty, Blake,” Helios reassured.

Something in him ignited at the sound of his name coming out of him. Disgust eating away at his insides as the realization of what he took part in, the sacrifices that this poor being had gone through because of him and everyone here. He couldn’t live with himself anymore. Not after he talked with him, there was no sleep until he was free.

Blake could only think of one way to make this a reality.

“D-Don’t you want to go home?”

Helios blinked blankly at Blake. There was no need for an answer to that question.

Blake went to his knees right in front of Helios. If it weren’t for the chains, Helios would have stumbled backward. Blake gazed right into his eyes while placing a hand on his shoulder forcing the violet eyes on him.

“L-Listen to me carefully, a few days from now this f-facility is going to move somewhere else,” he skipped fastly over the words. “A-After J-Jake was a success, L-lord Shaw wants to take in more subjects. Y-you, don’t imagine what will happen to you to get the number of cells for t-the numbers of subjects arriving. The only way out of this is r-running away during the transportation. I’ll arrange for everything!”

Helios was left no time to react. Blake was already on his feet and dashed to the exit. Helios was left alone trying to digest what was just shoved at him. He didn't even know if he should have hope.

He exhaled snakingly before his eyes fell on the yellow tube that lay on the floor.

 He couldn’t help but smirk as he felt the movement in his own arm, regaining the sensation that he almost forgot how it felt.

*Jake* he quoted silently. *The boy that was here earlier.*

It was a relief to know that he was doing fine, watching him from here whenever the door opened made him observe he was not alone. A few days ago, the capsule was empty and the first thing that came to Helios’s mind is that he met his end…it was sad. But he was envious actually, his suffering ended with his death…

It was something that Helios couldn’t even wish for.

And there he was this morning standing next to Shaw, his expression sharp and tired. Helios felt his body jumping out as he felt his own cells in the boy in front of him, a sort of connection was formed between them now that they finally met. Helios was thankful that he was alive as he felt they were one and the same.

He wondered…if Jake felt it too.

Spark.

Helios felt his breath hiss as he felt the spark in his body, it didn’t hurt…it was…connection.

It took him a few minutes to recognize the long-lost feeling. The calling out of the blood between this kind. A bond created at the birth of family members, their blood is calling out for each other to form an unbreakable bond between them. Helios never had a family of his own…but he realized the feeling from when he was a child.

Nevertheless, here it was again calling for him. Jake was close by, that he figured with a smirk on his face.

“Why did you thank me…”

Helios barely heard the question. The effect of the drugs was subsiding slowly, and he could feel the things that he used to do again. With the trembling of the ground underneath him, the sounds of the men out there, he could almost hear their breaths. His sight probably got better too but there was no way to know inside this white room.

“Because you gave me strength, Jake.”