Prologue
425 Words
The cold air pierced his face like little needles made of ice, he could feel his ears turn red and they started to hurt, but that didn’t stop his legs from pumping as fast as they could, running like he never ran before in his life, a tiny, precious figure wrapped in a pink and white, fluffy blanket cradled against his chest.
The further he ran, the more he started to forget why he was running in the first place, what he was running from or where he was going. Who was the child in his arms? Was it his? He couldn’t remember, but he somehow knew that his purpose was to protect her.
As the night was defeated by dawn, he reached the outskirts of a small village and stopped to look down at the sleeping face he didn’t recognize. ‘Aurora’, was written in hand-stitched letters on the blanket, one ‘r’ was slightly bigger than the other, as if the one stitching it was working free-handed.
The little girl stirred and woke up, opening sapphire blue eyes that seemed to look straight into his soul. Yes, he would protect her at any cost, he knew he promised it already, but right now, he promised it again, to her. Her smile told him that she understood every word.
Following his instincts, he crossed the road and knocked on the door of a small stone cottage. As soon as he heard movements inside, he pressed a kiss on the forehead of the little girl in his arms, before placing her on the floor in front of the door and hiding in the bushes, watching what would happen next.
The door opened and a small, elderly woman stepped outside, looking around to find the person who knocked on her door this early, before her gaze dropped down on the little bundle lying on her doorstep.
“And who are you, my love?” he heard her whisper while she picked her up and read her name on the blanket.
“Aurora, huh? What happened to you that brought you to me? All alone out here… Let’s get you inside…”
He watched as the old woman disappeared inside her home and waited a little longer to make sure Aurora was alright, before he silently left, staying away from her, but never too far. He would continue to protect her, even if he couldn’t remember what he was protecting her from.
- Writer
