Reflections in the dark

I held the old radio in my hands. The medical wing had been empties, and the academy evacuated. All had been done under my order, while my best friend, an angel like myself, had stayed to protect the humans. Now that I knew he was dead, there was nothing that could be done. I stood there in the silence, almost waiting for him, a medical specialists and fire user, to walk through the doorway. Silence is one of the heaviest sounds…Even when there is no true silence.
The humming of the machines, the steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor, the artificial breathing equipment and the slow hiss of the air tank. Even the drips seemed to add to the melody of life support, desperately as if to hush away the silence. Her pen scribbled louder, pressed harder against her clipboard than usual. The clear plastic curtain danced with the air conditioning, unaware of the silence. Somewhere down the corridor, Yana wailed for the bedpan. Her family, too tired to care for her anymore, had abandoned the grand old lady here, well into her last few months. Sitting to her side, wailing was the family member who knew her. He barely recognized the now old lady, who had drawn too much energy into the magical research she had been digging through. She lacked the strength to control time, and the magical energy had rebounded. All that was left was a shell, wailing in fear at the short time that she had left.
The vague, muted sounds of the small radio on the nurses' desk played on under her wails.
Classical music during the night, a gentle respite from the wailing living dead. The ward for the terminally ill and the comatose was never a happy shift to pull. It was hard on the soul, so very hard. Through it all, tender violas and harps played modest acoustic rest for the staff and for those who slept on. Her watch continued to tick, every second hammering against her heart. She looked at the time as she made her final observations.
She glanced up as a colleague ran past the observation window, carrying an empty bedpan for the girl who was but a child hours earlier.
As she prepared the next injection for her slumbering patient the commotion outside grew. She ignored it, her patient coming first in her attention, whatever happening outside coming much later. She stifled a yawn as she drew back the plunger. She wasn't a young woman, no; she'd been a nurse here for more years than she cared to count. She'd seen battle injured, seen the old come and go . . . but never had she known such a unique child come into their care. Finally rising from her position, she moved outside to se what the commotion was. Two other doctors immediately called her over, giving her the first view of her latest patient. He was too old for the children's ward, too damaged for the normal ward, too rich to let the media know and too loved by the colony's public to let go. His body had the marks of being electrocuted, the second one in a month which resembled this same marking.
He'd been lucky, and had side-stepped death. She looked at his body, the clothing burnt on the edges, and the electrical markings that looked like he got caught in an electric fence.
“This is a no smoking section..Director..”
I would stand there at the door, leaning against it, with a cigarette in my mouth. The smoke would drift out of the normally sliding door, as it was held open by my weight. I would gaze past her at the boy, a student at the Venturion Academy, who had been entered into the medical wing of the upper academy.
“sorry… I’ll try to hold back more..”
Turning away from her, I would let the door slide shut behind me, leaving another injured student in a near death coma. Was it that difficult to find someone to carry on the will of lightning? I had yet to find a student, a single inheritance for my art. A sight would come from my lips as I puffed on the cig one more time, then held it between my fingertips. It was going to be a long night of writing to parents once again.

796

Another letter sent, another child removed from the academy. Another failure. I would sigh before leaning back in the warm, leather chair. Spring had finally come to the Venturion Academy, students were returning to the lower school, the dorms were becoming filled, staff was in full swing, and tomorrow the term would begin. The clean, white office had been taken care of, and the smell of cleaning tools still lingered in the air. It was a smell that one really couldn’t learn to live with, but couldn’t exactly get rid of on whim. Fingers would fold carefully behind my head as I leaned back a bit further, bringing my gaze to the ceiling. The room next door was beginning to fill with the council members, the twelve students who were elected to run the student body. Each of them was highly trained in their specific art, and was already being bred to become the next leaders of this society.
Coming down the hall, a familiar lab coat would move briskly across the slender, beautiful frame of a doctor. Slamming the door open, she would move into the office, then slam the door behind her before trotting over to the desk, and dropping a clip board onto it. The paperwork that had been completed, and neatly stacked to the side, had been sent flying onto the floor in disarray. I would slowly bring my eyes to greet her, while my body remained stagnant. She was angry. I could tell that just from the tone she was about to take. Anticipating her words, I would mouth along with her first few words. After all, I had hear them plenty of times before this, and every time was the exact same. It was always a lecture.
“how could you do this?!? Again!!”
Breath. An exhale. It would be deep and slow as my body slid to a position to face her. I would look down for a moment at the report. I had already finished my report to the family of this one. He was not the first, nor would he be the last. I would continue doing this until I found a child who was not only capable of learning my art, but worthy of being the single inheritor of it.
“Eight students. That is the damage you are doing.”
Uncurling the fingers from my behind my head, they would come to rest beside me on the smooth, leather arm rests. This would be another round of her yelling without giving me the chance to speak back. It wasn’t like I didn’t deserve it this time. After all, the child was only seventeen. He had been progressing well with his static work. He had learned it all on his own, without my intervention. I thought, or rather, assumed, that someone who had grasped the basics of enlightenment of thunder and lightning would be able to handle learning it. Unfortunately, this one had been a bit more reckless than I had anticipated.
“He asked for it. He said he could handle anything an “old man” could throw at him. Apparently his lightning was “superior” to mine.”
“Director! You know that he was just a human; he probably had less than three years dabbling in lightning. It hadn’t even been recorded until last fall that he knew the basics! How many years have you – “
“I trained for sixteen, worked for nearly forty to master, and am still a child in comparison to my master.”
I could see it all in my mind. Everything was being played out again. He had been able to use his skill with the warp, his primary, to move nearly instantly in front of me. The static from his strike had scrambled my entire system for a split second. I could see his arm draw backwards, and electricity move around it. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t about to let some little human punk touch me twice in a row. A quick breath, and a deep exhale was followed by a technique that I rarely ever used. The training facility had been reinforced to hold sparring strength of our students while protecting those who watched from above. The blue light swirled around my body, pressing outwards in a blast of solid electricity. I could hear his screams, smell his skin burn, and feel the energy press outwards as his entire presence disappeared from in front of me. Lightning Rondo, a technique for war, was not meant to be used here. I had lost my temper, a rarity for me. I let my eyes find the child, who had been plastered into a wall nearly eighty feet away. He laid there, lifeless, burnt, his body crackling with the remnants of the lightning which had carried him that far.
Turning, I would float over to the main entrance, the giant blast doors that allowed entrance. Thankfully, he had a fighting change. The medic team had been kept on standby.

904 / 1700

I would open my eyes for a moment, remembering all that had come to pass. Closing them, I would be taken back once more to the first winter at the academy, when the turf war was still in full swing. I had come to the Lower Commons in an attempt to make it a safe, healthy place for both humans and spirits to reside in mutual living.
Curtains were shut in front of the large, wall sized windows, which were frozen from the violent blizzard outside the large balcony that overlooked the academy grounds. It was unusual for the cold season to come that early. Snow was practically everywhere, and not on the figurative sense; if one had the bad luck to go outside, they would be taken off by the storm like pieces of paper.
With a pronounced scowl on his elegant features and his hands clenched on the back, the director was walking across the office. Beside the guards, no one else was in the upper level of the Academy, but the director and the echo of his steps on the floor. From time to time, he would stop and look upwards to the ceiling, as expecting something to happen. That was right. Without warning, the giant doors to the office opened as one of the newer additions to the group stormed in, looking ravaged and absolutely soaked from head to toe, holding an older man, with a white robe, a black box and looking, if possible, even worse than he was.
"- Here he is, Sir, I barely found him on this blizzard", the tall, fair haired human breathed out.
I would walk over to the man and look over him before returning my gaze back to the new footman of my own private militia and mafia.
"Good work, you can leave now, Arcathos. Get some rest, you have earned it".
Arcathos bowed in respect and left through the main door. The old man was left standing now properly in front of me, with his trauma from the road barely forgotten. It had been a long journey to infiltrate the corporation and bring this doctor down here.
"- Did my employee tell you the reason you are now here? I do not have time to explain it again”, I would ask him, not wanting to waste time. My words would be straight to the point, and with an air of stern importance.
"- Yes, , I was informed about the situation, and I think it is no time to be wasted", the cure is here.” said in a mild tone, pointing to the black package that he had been brought in with.
“that is good. Cruze, show the doctor where she is.” The door would open, and another doctor, given by the white coat, would enter. His glasses were fogged up from coming here. He had a normal, creepy smile. I would be bothered by it, had he not been extremely good at what he did with managing the academy medic staff.
The two would disappear from my sight as the doors closed. I would move over to my seat and sit down, reclining as the wall slid open to reveal the giant monitor. There was a news feed, with a woman talking about the storm that had blown in. It was one of those rare, winter beasts that happened to be capable of shutting down the operations of the city. If only it could shut down that damn spirit net as well. I thought for a moment before standing and moving over to the doorway. It would slide open, and one of the soldiers, a man whom I had saved from a rival gang, looked at me.
“Sir, is it okay for you to be moving? You are still recovering..”
I would smile back at him. It was nice that they were concerned, but there really was no need for it. “Yes, I just want to see her..”

690 / 2,390

Moving down the hallway, I would take the elevator down to the medic wing. A resounding ‘ding’, would echo in the small chamber as I reached my destination. Floating over to the single room where she was being held, I slid the door open. White, worn out candles were the only source of light on the wide bedroom. A closet and a mirror were against the left wall and the right wall was half covered by a window that looked down upon the training arena, but was nearly hidden by the black and purple curtains that hung there. Near the window, there was a desk and a chair. On the desk were several books, notes, and pencils, all in a neat order. She was a clean freak, and obsessive compulsive beauty who loved order over chaos.
The candles were reflecting trembling shadows to the big walls, covered by a couple of paintings. Those paintings were in fact small versions of their full size counterparts, works that the resident of the bed had painted.. On the first one, there was a younger couple, right after the opening of the academy, in his white suit, with the academy seal on the left side of it. On the second one, there was a beautiful woman, with long, black hair, dark hazel eyes and pale skin. The bangs framed her face in a perfect way. Her upper lip was slightly bigger that the lower lip that gave her an innocent look, though her gaze showed confidence and wisdom. She was dressed in a white veil dress, wearing a silver head piece on her forehead with small emeralds inlaid on it and a silver necklace. What many failed to notice was the necklace held the symbol of the academy. This young lady, a nurse who had been here for far too long, and had been a close friend of the director, had married him in secret. It was taboo for a human and a spirit to date, let alone get married down here.
If the commissioner had found out that I had married a human, he would have probably hunted her down, and used it as a reason to attack what I had spent so long to build. I could feel the anxiousness rise in my chest as I saw group of doctors surrounding her bed. I had full control over everything that had ever happened in my life. I had nearly lost my own life when she had been captured by the rival mafia. I could hear the doctor as he pulled a needle out of her arm. It would be interesting to note that I had an unnatural fear of needles. It was something about them that really made me shiver. I could think back to all of the battles, the combat, the fights in hell, the training in the heavens, conquering the past, and the present, all of it didn’t matter right now. The only thing that was important was that this doctor might have the cure to save her.
“I’m sorry.”
Those two words silenced the entire room as the old man stuff. I looked at him with absolute disdain. Did he not understand what it took to get him here? If that stupid human hadn’t kept me out of the city, it would have been much easier to get this doctor here. Even my own medical staff were unable to figure out a cure to her illness.
“it is too late for her, it’s terminal. If you had got me here a few days ago there may have been something I could have done to save her.. I’m sorry.”
Turning, the door would slide open as I fell against the wall on the other side. The lingering effects from battle had left me in this state. The bullets they were using had become more potent. Normally I could shrug off this damage, and be better in a few days. This time, there had been nerve damage that was taking longer to heal. Even returning to the upper realm had been unable to cure it. What normally would have been a three day turn around had turned into a month long recovery process. This could be seen by the fact that my right arm was in a solid cast. No one outside of the academy’s upper ranking members knew about this fact. It would have been a primary time for them to capitalize on my condition. I would be unable to protect the people here, let alone fight a massive group of humans in this terrain.
It was a miracle that I was letting that doctor live. After all, he had done his best. The person at fault was that commissioner, the narcissistic ass of a human who hated all spirits. He grouped s in together, and failed to understand the difference between angels and demons, between kami and oni. His narrow minded ways was going to cost me someone dear, a human who had started as an employee, and ended as my wife. The door would slide open, revealing the doctor, and my own medical staff.
“Sir, she requests you.”
Moving through them without regard, the door would wiz shut behind me, leaving me in the pale lit room. I’d move over to her side, lowering myself to sit on the bed while gazing down at her. I had a feeling, in my stomach, unlike anything I had ever felt before. I didn’t understand it, or where it was coming from. It was painful, a fearful feeling. Even the damage to my body from combat paled in comparison to this pain.
“don’t be afraid.”
My eyes would snap open. It was all in the past, all fragments of memories which brought back a sense of emptiness. The only one I had left from my past life was a giant demon who was bent on bringing the world under his control. A deep breath would come from my lips again, and I wondered if it were even possible for me to begin to rebuild this world. The lamps around the office burned brightly, and although I had considered finding the backup generator and attempting to power it up, I hadn’t even begun to unlock my previous home here. There was still so much to do just in my office that I had over looked the really important things again.
And so I sat there, in the flickering light of my office, in a cracked leather chair which was now covered in a blanket. It was warm, comfortable, and gave me a sense of home.

1,158 / 3,548
+3 texp (4 posts, 2 rps)