"Tezznin. Tezznin. Tezz." The triumphant cry of a girl sounded in the living room where Tezznin was seated with her younger brother Kyle. Her eyes travelled from her brother to the door where her favorite niece was racing towards her in excitement.
"Nelly." Tezznin happily opened her arms to the girl. Nelly crashed into her and embraced her tightly. "Oh Nelly I've missed you." She confessed.
"I've missed you to." The girl said and pulled away, turned to Kyle and flashed a sweet smile at him. Kyle smiled and waved her. Nelly turned to Tezznin. "Tezz, I have so much to tell you." She announced, hastily checking her small bag. She brought out a small object.
"What's this?" Tezznin enquired with a frown.
"I don't know but he gave it to me." Nelly answered, now playing with the braid in her hair after dropping the object in Tezznin's palm.
"He? Who's he?"
"Oh it's my angel friend. He visits me every time I'm alone and he gifted this to me." Nelly said pointing to the shell-like object with a few shade of silver and gold adorning the stripy pattern in it. "I told him you had a necklace similar to this and he said he gifted it to you as well."
"Huh?" Tezznin was now staring oddly at the kid. "How? Dad gifted this to me." She added.
"Mm." Nelly's fingers played contemplatively on her chin. "I don't know." She shrugged. Tezznin put the object beside her in the sofa.
"Let's not talk about this angel friend of yours for now and just go to my room. I have a lot of goodies for you."
"Yeey." The girl jubilated.
....
Later in the day, outside the large black gate of the duplex, stood Tezznin and Nelly with the girl's father standing by a black jeep. Nelly was over joyed and would not stop blabbering on about how much fun she had. Tezznin shared frequent giggles and smiles as the girl swung her arms about.
"Okay Tezznin, it's time to go now but I hope to come stay longer with you when school vacates."
"Oh sure you should. I'd be delighted to hear all about angel friend and all his tales." Tezznin said with a hint of amusement in her voice, as though she could not believe she literally uttered those words.
"I have an idea." Nelly said gleefully.
"What's that?"
"Let's exchange something dear to us as a reminder of our next meeting." The girl proposed, sounding pleased with herself for her brilliant idea.
"Erm...what should we exchange?"
"Maybe we can exchange my shiny shell for your necklace." Nelly beamed. For a moment, Tezznin seemed to think hard about it but eventually gave in.
"Okay." Both Tezznin and Nelly exchanged their precious ornaments and bid themselves goodbye. Tezznin stood there, staring fondly at the girl as she walked to her father in the car and the car soon drove off.
.....
Days had gone by quick with Heracles only growing weaker by the day. His gaze was upon Nelly whom was playing happily with the other kids at the playground. He sat there on the bench a few meters away wearing a black hoody that concealed his pale and bony face. He stared down at his pale hands, forming them into tight fists and releasing them repeatedly. He had lost a great amount of his strength. His lips were dry with a few cuts on them. The flesh beneath his eyes had sunken in. A starving man was far better than he was now. He thought to himself with a light chuckle. As he sat there, his mind drifted off to a moment in the past. A moment he recalled vividly as if it was just yesterday.
FLASHBACK.
A slightly younger version of Heracles stood before a jewelry shop staring intently at the sign board beside him and wondered why it had to be here of all places. Why didn't Lord Asmodeus send someone else but him? He sighed. The Lord said the shop belonged to none other than Vincent Empusa. The one man whom was quite famous amongst his kind. Apparently, his wife bore the child Lord Asmodeus believed would set his son free. He scanned his surrounding for a moment and started for the glass door. The main agenda was to find a way to meet Vincent's wife and keep an eye on her. The lord said no harm was to befall her until her delivery. Once inside, he scanned around wondering where all the shop attendants were as he made his way to the counter.
"My husband is not here sir and his attendants are on a break today. The shop actually is not operating today so I suggest you come back tomorrow." A feminine voice announced, startling the man. He quickly turned to his right and found a very beautiful woman sitting in a chair with a box of jewelries on her lap. He certainly did not see her there. How could he not have sensed her presence? He thought with a frown. The woman must have interpreted his expression wrongly.
"I'm sorry sir if I spoke rudely or might have offended you in anyway but if you really want to buy anything you would have to come by tomorrow." Her voice sounded pleadingly.
"No, no. Sorry, I mean you've done nothing wrong." Heracles explained. It occurred to him that something about the way she looked and spoke made him want to listen to her speak for a long time. She was without a doubt very beautiful with a radiant and fair complexion. Her green eyes stared intently at him, as he stood there glued to the floor. Something was hovering there in his chest and it felt foreign yet genuine to him. There was this air of sincerity and beauty around her that made her interesting to him. His eyes scanned her thoroughly and finally settled on her face that displayed a million questions over it and sighed.
"From what you just said I suppose you are Vincent's wife." The woman smiled, allowing her deep and fine dimples to suck in.
"Yes, I am." Heracles subconsciously caught his breath at her smiling face and felt a wild parade of admiration in his chest. She was even more beautiful when she smiled. How lucky Vincent was to have a woman as this as his wife. He found himself thinking. What the hell? He thought with a frown. Why was he suddenly thinking like that? Her eyes were still glued to him. He tried reading into her thought but found he could hear nothing. Her thoughts were concealed. It would have been very nice to actually be able to tell what she was thinking of. Did she think of him as handsome as he thought her to be beautiful? Once again, his mind was drifting off to places and he abruptly shook his head to clear it all away.
"You don't seem to be from around here, are you?" The woman suddenly asked after observing him for a while. Heracles' lips parted but his lips and throat suddenly felt dry as though it had run out of moisture. What was going on with him? His mind was now running wildly with his heart thumping hard against his chest. He looked at her; afraid she could see through him and shrank back a little. He opened his mouth and tried his best to say something. The last thing he wanted was for her to think of him as weird.
"No. I'm actually from a long dynasty of royals."
The woman stared blankly at him, unsure what he meant by that or if she had even heard it right. "A long dynasty of royals?" She questioned with a funny look over her face- one that said, 'Are you serious.' Heracles found it amusing and chuckled.
"Yes. I am Heracles by the way. You are…?" He offered his hand for a shake.
"Gaia." The woman replied and took the man's hand. It felt entirely overwhelming to Heracles when an electrifying sensation raced through his hand. He suddenly let go of her hand and moved away a few paces. Only God knew what was going through his entire being. He saw the look of surprise over the woman's face and thought it wrong of him to have abruptly let go of her hand like that. After all, he initiated it in the first place. He looked around a bit, trying to find a way to make it up to her.
"Uh… You mentioned I needed to come back tomorrow, but I was wondering if you could show me a few of the jewelries you have available so that I can have my pick for tomorrow." He proposed, silently hoping Gaia would at least say yes. Gaia stared for a while at the man and nodded with a smile.
"Sure." She said and placed the box on her lap to the floor and rose. "This way." She gestured and soon, Heracles found himself following the woman. She showed him a few jewelries and briefed him on them a bit.
"This one is actually one of a kind. It is made from a very precious stone that is only found in the southern part of this country. The females of royal families to announce their status in marriage used a similar design in the past. If you found any female back in the day wearing this, it meant she was already taken." Gaia explained.
"That's interesting." Heracles found himself nodding thoughtfully. Of course, this was general knowledge to him for he had lived longer than any human could. It was mainly fascinating to him that a human such as her still had knowledge of things like these. He was now looking at her from a different perspective and admired her sense of intelligence too.
"Oh yes it is." Gaia smiled at him and proceeded to the next one. "This one looks very simple yet very classy and has a unique feel to it." She explained, picked up a necklace and showed it to the man. It was a very simple design that had three red stones embedded in the center. "For a man like you, you could express your love to your woman by gifting her this."
Heracles noticed how her voice died down at the mention of woman and wondered how great it would have been if were her.
"Or maybe for you." He blurted without realizing it.
"I'm married Heracles." Gaia said with a look of doubt over her face. Heracles shrugged.
"I'm sorry if you felt uncomfortable by what I said, but I only said what I thought was right. You will look great wearing it." He explained and gently pulled the necklace from her grip. Slowly, he inched closer to her and put the piece around her neck and pulled back to have a proper look at her. The man felt mesmerized by the woman before him. She was one hell of a beauty.
"You're beautiful." He whispered. A blush crawled to Gaia's cheeks but she abruptly backed away a few steps.
"You should go now Heracles. My husband must be on his way here." Silence reigned with the man only staring intently at her. Something about her was drawing him closer to her. She was alluring without effort and he needed to move away as far as he could before he ended up doing something he would regret. Slowly, he turned to the exit and neared it, but before he would take the first step out, he turned to take one last look at her. He shut his eyes and pressed his hand that was holding the door's handle into a tight fist and released it just before it could break and walked out of sight.