"I have been thinking of ways to apologize to you, but instead I just wrote pointless poems." Yoel muttered as they laid on the stone, holding each other tightly.
"Can I hear a verse?" Éloa asked, kissing his neck.
"And when I grow old and my face is full of wrinkles of metaphors, lay your hand on my chest. You shall feel two paradises within me that God has created just for you. And my heart is a refugee at your door, begging for a companion— drained and in tears." He recited while running his big, rough hands up and down her soft naked back.
"I also wrote a poem about you, but it's mean and untrue." Her hand traveled over his chest, her fingers sliding through his light mat of black chest hair.
He chuckled, "I want to hear your mean, untrue poem."
She cleared her throat, "we were joined by the heavens and separated by heterogeneous metaphors. He says he wants to be my salvation, he says that he wants to be my savior but I don't believe him. I resent to be another pastiche of his previous lovers and only the night can make me his woman. For only in the night that the sun is not divulging my secrets and in the dark you can't see my flaws."
Poignancy ripped his heart apart because her poem was not mean nor untrue. The poem was a box in which truth rattles, eager to escape.
"Éloa," his voice quivered like a dream-catcher when the wind blows on it, "you are probably going to hate me for this and I do not blame you but trust me I did this to save you."
"I can never hate you, my love." She raised her head slightly and stared at him with confusion. "Even if you scratch my heart, I will find beauty in the shades of red that I bleed. Because I know that out of my wounds stems of flowers will grow and you will make olive wreaths out of them for me."
He was so enthralled by her loyalty which made it harder for him to confess. He traced the constellations along the skin of her cheeks with his fingertips and covered her luscious lips with his.
"My lovely Goddess, I have conspired against you and your siblings with a team of anti-Automatons. I had to make love to you in order to distract you from going back to the lab while my team members—" he hesitated to continue for few seconds, "kill your siblings."
"What?!" She quickly grabbed the nearest clothing to her, his shirt, and put it on her and started buttoning it as fast as she could.
"I did it to save you! They would've eventually found you and killed you all but I made a deal with them to let you leave with me alive in exchange for your siblings' lives!" He grabbed her wrist to stop her from leaving.
"What an honorable knight!" She scoffed at his poor attempt, "I do not need you to save me, I can easily kill you or any human for that matter." She jumped to the ground and grabbed her sword that was lying behind the stone.
"You do not know how dangerous they are, Éloa." He quickly put on his pants, "they have been trained for years to shut down Automatons. We are your creators after all, your kind can never overrule us."
She pressed her sword against his throat, "I am going in that lab now to rescue my siblings, and if you dare to stop me, I will not hesitate to introduce my sword to your guts!"
When Yoel didn't reply, she lowered her weapon and started walking towards the lab. He came from behind her and twisted her right wrist so that she lets go of the sword, but she continued to hold it tightly. He felt a sharp jab in his ribs when she elbowed him and before he could even groan in pain, she quickly turned around and kneed him in the groin. He cried out in pain and disbelief as he fell to his knees. Éloa tried to knee him again, but he clasped hold of her foot and pulled making her fall on top of him. Her grip on her sword loosened as he brushed her hair hooking it behind her ears.
"I guess you'll have to kill me, because I'm not letting you go inside that lab." Assassinated by his stares, his eyes like spears impaled her heart for the world to see.
"My love was a rare treasure buried in your sands, but you didn't deserve it." She whispered in his ears before reaching down for the knife that was hanging from his belt in a black leather sheath.
She stuck the knife deep into his leg and pressed the button on the handle which made razors come out of the blade, cutting more of his flesh. With his eyes blinded by tears, his screams reached the firmament, but did not reach her empathy— for his choice was a flagrant violation of their love. Sins and lies leaked from his wound, their crimson color recolored the sand on which he lay. His traitorous hands reached out for her, but on his guilty palms, she only saw monochrome photos of her agony.
"Goodbye, my love." Exhausted from her aching heart, she turned around and slowly walked away.
She opened the heavy door of the lab by noiselessly turning the handle. A gust of cold wind blew, turning her non existent soul to stone. Walking away only made her miss him more when it was supposed to make her miss him less. But she silently embraced her pain and chided herself for allowing a human to fool her.
Like what a furious winter's rage does to trees, fear cracked her limbs and painted her face with lifeless colors when she heard Mega's scream, which echoed around the building like a broken note from a lute. The sound came from the slightly opened door to her left and she carefully peeked around the door to see a group of well armed humans.
"Please Demetrius, just obey them!" A helpless Mega begged, as one of the male humans held a gun against her head.
"Yes Demetrius, why don't you obey your bot sister?" The cruel man whom she assumed to be their leader smirked.
"Don't call her a bot, she's an Automaton!" Demetrius yelled.
"Bot, Automaton, Android, robot.... Different nouns, but they still describe the same inferior machines that are foolish enough to think that they can rule us." The man cocked the smart gun hammer with his thumb, "now, I will give you 30 seconds to attach yourself to the computer next to you and show me the recordings of your memory from when you kidnapped the president. If I don't know his location after 30 seconds I will gladly kill your friend."
"Demetrius, just do it it's not worth Mega's life!" Lilith pleaded.
Demetrius nodded and quickly hooked the USB cable to himself. He accessed his memory card and played a video from his memory, but it was not the same memory Éloa and the other had from when they had kidnapped the president. The video was from the night before they found a place to hide him and it showed Demetrius heading to his granary where he strapped the president in the same chair where she sat the day they were about to erase her memory. Lilith shared the same confused expression, but then she understood. Her older brother was indeed as cunning as a fox whose mind is a garden, full of deceitful seeds.
"I recognize this area!" The leader exclaimed before grabbing his walkie talkie. He dialed a certain number on the touch screen before speaking into it, "this is Cloyd, I need you to send me the nearest unit to Monts San Gabriel to an abandoned granary to fetch for our president. I will be sending you the address. Over."
"They are on their way. Over." Responded a lady with a heavy French accent.
A scream almost escaped Éloa's mouth when someone came from behind clamped their hand over her mouth.
"Shh," Yoel whispered in her ear, "it's just me."
After an eternity of struggling, she finally relaxed to the sound of his velvety voice and laid her head on his shoulder. That simple gesture relieved him so much as if he has been standing at her footsteps each glorious summer day, and she had finally agreed to let him dwell inside her heart. And to her, she felt so complete between his unloving arms, as if he was a missing needle that could knit her together with rapture.
They both silently watched as Cloyd connected his wireless camera to the computer before video calling one of the unit's agents.
"We are heading towards the granary right now, sir." Announced the agent as he drove to Demetrius' hideout.
They entered the place quietly by the back door with guns in hands, only to find the granary empty. It took the agents few seconds before identifying the faint, rapid ticking sound, but it was too late. Demetrius pressed his finger on his computer watch and the bomb exploded like his wrath. Rays of fire made the shadows dance even behind the screen, while their screams whistled in their ears leaving a loud sad ringing. When their wails settled slyly in their chest, they were heralded by the smoke in the air that this war is real.