Year 2033, February
16:00 P.M
Somewhere in Yellowknife, Canada
. . .
I managed to settle under a bridge far away from the eyes of the people I hated. My dress was still stained with blood, and my hair was straggly and hard like wires. There were a few people staring at me when I sat down but they ran away from that underside of the bridge.
Being alone under the bridge was a good feeling. It was something I'd embraced a long time ago.
"You need to change your clothes, Ava," said my Aegis in my head.
"Shut up..."
The blanket that I'd brought with me gave some needed warmth. "I want to sleep..."
"You're a young girl. You should take care of yourself, Ava."
"Isn't it too late for you to say that?"
The Aegis made some static sounds in my mind and I no longer heard its voice after that.
I closed my eyes. "Good night, Papa..."
A nostalgic dream swept me inside it.
. . .
I remembered the memories of when the army's base collapsed about two years ago. The ceiling had my body crushed under it and I stayed that way overnight. My body healed itself, and after I forced myself out of the situation I was in, it was already morning.
Sunlight greeted me and I shielded my face from it. I noticed my crystallized half and my dark eyes instantly.
"Papa!"
I searched the rubbles for any sign of my father, Hope, but he was nowhere to be found. I dug really deep into the base's remains and all I saw was just more rubble. There was no Hope.
"Papa..."
My chest was in pain.
The pain of losing someone very dear to me was hard to bear. I continued my search that entire day and the result remained the same. The sensations I felt back when I was beside Hope crept inside me.
Aversion filled the void in my heart. Intense loathing blinded my senses.
Repugnance out of nowhere struck me, and enmity started to overcome my sanity.
Feeling lost and despair, I dragged myself to the island's port. Hatred slowly overwhelmed me.
"Hey, kid. If you want to get on the ship--"
I sliced the workers at the port with my crimson blades and sneaked into a departing ship. It was a rough journey as I fed my stomach with whatever edible food I found in the cargo area. The ship arrived at Nunavut, Canada and I made my way into its streets.
The people there were corrupt.
Soldiers forcing a bunch of men to work harder as they pointed their gun at them shamelessly. Women were brought out of their homes by a few soldiers into their trucks. Poverty was very apparent when I walked down the streets.
I hated all of them.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
"Ava," a voice rang in my head. It sounded like a machine.
"...Aegis."
"You catch on quick. Ah, I'm different than the others in a sense that I can communicate with you like this. My special trait is my personality. You could say I'm conscious of what's happening."
"Shut it... if you could cease this ugly left arm of mine..." I said.
"Oh, absolutely. Your eyes?"
"Leave it. I can see better with this."
"Yes, I enhanced your eyesight."
"I hate you. You took everything away from me..."
"Technically, I'm helping you for the most part."
"Most part doesn't make it any better, Aegis. Shut yourself..." My anger was wrenching my heart and I let it be. It was assuring in a way.
I entered an inn and approached a woman.
"Excuse me, Ma'am. Do you have any food to spare?" I begged from an attendant at the inn and she led me to the kitchen.
"I can work too," I said.
She frowned at my eyes. "Are you okay, kid? You should go to a clinic to have your eyes checked."
My Aegis leaped onto the opportunity. "See what I told you, Ava?"
"Don't tell me what to do, Ma'am... Just give me some food."
"Now you're being rude," scowled the attendant. The kitchen staffs seemed to look at me the same. They had the eyes that looked down on poor people.
Blood boiled inside me.
I hated them so much.
Disgust.
Contempt.
Rancor.
The world I lived in was unfair. It took away everything from me.
I raised my right arm and spikes sprouted from it. The entire kitchen was painted in the blood of the kitchen staffs as I took a chocolate bun they'd given.
"Thank you, Ma'am." I walked my way out of the inn when people started to scream their lungs out. It hurt my ears.
I hated them.
"Ava, you don't have to do that," said Aegis.
"I despised them."
"I pity you actually."
Those words made me winced and I formed a short blade and stabbed myself in the chest. Strangely, it did not hurt.
If I killed myself, perhaps I could meet Hope again.
"Ava! What are you--"
"I don't need your pity... and it was not painful enough." I stabbed myself a few more times as the wounds healed. People ran as they saw me.
"It's not enough... this pain is nothing. Why I don't feel anything?" The questions lingered for some time.
I brushed off the idea of killing myself and focused on one goal. And that was to get at Alicia and Bart.
For two years, I'd been living on the streets and depended on any food and drink that I could scavenge from garbage bins. I'd also been hunting a few high-ranking soldiers that I heard of. However, none of them was useful to me as they didn't possess any info on Alicia and Bart.
Thinking about those two people always heightened my killing intent.
. . .
"There's someone here, Dad."
A girl's voice woke me up and my crimson tendrils sprang into action like snakes.
"WHOA! Dad, look!"
I opened my eyes to see who dared to disturb my sleep. There were two people; one of them was a young girl presumably my age, and the other was certainly her father. He didn't look happy to have me there.
"Freda, get away from her." His hand was pulling at Freda's arm.
I watched them debating whether they should run away from me or not. The daughter seemed to have a desire to stay.
"Dad, this is our place. We cannot just go away like that," said Freda with drooping eyes.
"That girl is not human," replied the father nervously.
From the looks of things, that bridge supposed to be their home. My tendrils reverberated as if it shared my excitement of wanting to get rid of them.
I hated people.
"Er, we'll just head over there. We promised we won't disturb you or anything." The grey-haired father in his dirty coat grabbed his daughter and moved over to the other side of the underside of the bridge. From there, both of them glanced at me as they minded their own business.
"I should have killed them..."
"Ava, they did nothing to you," stated my Aegis.
"What of it? I despise everyone..." That was true. I only love my Papa and no one else.
I closed my eyes again in an attempt to fall asleep, but the young girl, Freda nudged my shoulder. My crimson tendrils were all pointing at her delicate neck.
"I-I don't want to hurt you or anything! Um, you must be hungry!" said Freda. She handed me a flimsy slice of bread and smiled.
"Go away..." I kept threatening her but she did not budge. She was very persistent.
"Uh, it's okay if you don't like it. But I have a--"
"GO AWAY!" I shouted. My eyes shone bright red.
The tendrils split into smaller, narrow spawns and Freda quickly made out with her life. Her father hugged her and said something before they ate their foods. The flow of the river was all I heard for a few minutes.
My Aegis shot down the silence with its usual advice. "But you haven't eaten the past few days, Ava. I need sufficient protein from you to create these crystals. You're thin as a stick."
I sniffed away the dust around me and rubbed my nose. The underside of the bridge felt stuffy somehow. "Shut it... I just want to sleep." It was quiet. "Good night, Papa."
Oddly enough, I was thrown into a dream that I had always wanted to experience again.
. . .
My eyes were greeted with sparkles and yellow light for a few moments before it was cleared. I smiled at the sight.
I was sitting on a chair far from the front door in a small, red, brick house. I looked at the window and clearly, it was nighttime. Hope was there, coming back from work in his black coat. His blond hair was trimmed short and combed sideways. When he saw me, I ran to him and threw my arms around his waist.
"Welcome back, Papa!"
"Haha, Ava. You know you're too old to call me that," said Hope. He returned my hug and proceeded to sit at the dining table. He adjusted his white collared shirt. "Hmm, I'll prepare dinner. What do you want, Ava?"
I already have my seat beside him. "Anything! You always make good food, Papa."
He grinned and rubbed my head as I laughed. "Alright, just stay put. I'll make something quick. What... do we have?" He searched the fridge and I waited patiently.
The sound of Hope using a knife on the cutting board made my body swung sideways in rhythm. He poured the ingredients into a wok and sprinkling sound filled the kitchen.
Before I knew it, I was in the kitchen at Hope's side. He noticed me and drew his eyebrows together.
"Ava? Need something?" he asked.
"No, nothing." My fingers clutched onto his shirt and he frowned. However, he let me do my thing as he finished preparing dinner and served the meals on the table. I sat next to him.
"Okay. We have fried fish, stir-fry and, er, sushi? Wait, I made this?"
I was holding my fork and knife. "You pulled it out of the fridge, remember?"
"Oh, really? Wow, I must be getting old."
"You're still young, Papa," I said, my smile reached my cheeks.
"I Hope so."
"Ah! You said it again!"
"Ohhhhh. I thought you didn't catch that pun!"
Hope divided the stir-fry into a small portion and put in on my plate. He took the rest, and also the fried fish.
"Waaait. I want that fried fish too, Papa!" I scowled.
"Er, I thought you wouldn't be able to finish it."
"I can!" My knife swiftly sliced a small part of the fried fish with my fork stabbing it to be put on my plate. "That's how it should be!" I looked back at Hope and he was smiling.
Hope's smile made me happy because it showed that he was happy too. "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Ava. I got my off day tomorrow, and for the rest of the week. So, I was thinking."
I put a forkful of fried fish into my mouth. "Yesh?"
Hope pulled out two tickets from his shirt's pocket. "Let's watch some movie together! Oh, and after that, we can go to the mall that I've always talked to you about. You know, the one with that weird criss-crossed pattern on the outside."
I nodded at his suggestion. "Great! I can't wait!"
Hope rubbed my head with his left hand and I chuckled. "Let's go to sleep early. We have a lot of things to do tomorrow. We need to get up early."
My smile faded. I looked at Hope. "No! Can we stay a little bit late today?"
"Hmm, why? Is something wrong, Ava?" Hope's puzzled face made my eyes shed some tears.
"NO! DON'T GO YET! STAY WITH ME!" I yelled.
"Whoa, Ava, I'm not going anywhere. I mean, I need to finish this food first. And--"
"PLEASE! Stay with me..."
Hope sighed. "Alright, alright. Ava, you're too old for this."
After we finished eating, Hope raised me into the air and carried me at his back. "I'll read you some bedtime stories. But as I said, you're too old for that."
I hugged Hope tightly, not wanting to let go of him. "I love you, Papa..."
"Ava... I love you too."
We went into my bedroom and Hope put me into my bed. "Okay, Ava. What story do you want--"
I wrapped my arms around Hope's neck. "I don't want to sleep yet..."
"Ava--"
"Let me be like this, for a while."
Hope was silent for a moment. "Okay, Ava. But let me just find a storybook... wait, where did I put it again?"
"I don't want a storybook, Papa."
"Okay... okay." Hope hugged me and I kept repeating the word 'I love you, Papa." He replied 'I love you too,' each time.
Hope's voice was fading into the background. A screeching sound embraced me instead. When I realized it, there was only pitch black in the land of darkness.
"Papa... don't leave me..."
In the end, it was only a dream. A punishment for what I have done in the past. It was my sin. I tasted happiness for a bit and despair pulled me out of it again.
It was my desire to be with my father again, to be with Papa.
And if I could, I wanted to die just to meet him yet one more time.