Heartless (0)

Heartless
It was one late evening when a little blond girl, aged between 7-8, ran quietly across the Ninth Avenue and entered one of the old houses that were lining the road . Inside she went smoothly though the corridors and soon reached a wooden door . After knocking twice a voice from inside called “Enter!” and the child went in.
The room was filled with the smoke of numberless cigarettes . The girl, however , made no emotion and came closer to the old and ugly man sitting behind the table.
“I wasn’t lucky today , Grandpa,” whispered the child and her light blue eyes filled with tears as she talked .
The man smoked soundlessly, not even glancing at the girl.
“But I’ll go again , tomorrow, and bring you twice the money ! I promise! So don’t punish me, okay?”
The man stood up and walked slowly towards the girl.
“I promised your mother to take care of you, yet, if you are useless in even collecting money from the rich , I can’t help you! This is the end, Heartless! Go to the dorms, pack your things and leave my orphanage at once ! You are no longer welcome here !”
Heartless tried to protest, but the man hit her, so there she was now – lying helplessly on the floor .
Suddenly, someone else knocked on the door and two other girls and an older boy came in. They saw Heartless, yet knew that they had no allowance to help her.
The man asked them what had they brought and after taking all the money they showed away , he said, “Well, Heartless, you should’ve done as well as Loveless’ s team . Then you’d still be one of us!”
But the little girl grinned and said proudly, “I prefer keeping my honor rather than stealing from the old and sick like all your puppets do!”
The man got irritated and shouted her out of his house. The girl turned and walked out as if nothing had happened , the other children staring enviously at her.
Just before the door she stopped and asked them without turning, “And for how long are you planning to be the Devil ’s dolls?”
Loveless smiled and replied quietly, “Sooner or later we’ll join your forces and defeat them once and for all!”
The other two exchanged a scared look , yet said nothing. The man was too angry to follow the conversation .
Heartless left the “Devil’s” orphanage and went to see the Royal Church , where all homeless people could stay for the night . At least she had heard so. She herself couldn’t enter any church before, because the Puppet Master wanted them to stay away from all sacred placed – he was a true Demon , after all!
But finally , the long-wanted freedom had arrived ! Of course , losing home was unpleasant, but fortunately it was spring , so there was time to live without worries until the first snowfall.
It was evening indeed, so the temperature stayed around +5 Degrees only. Heartless was cold , yet she was used to it already . Much worse was walking in the dark . She knew the streets well, and yet there was an unexplainable fear in her little heart .
The child didn’t look back – it wouldn’t change the situation, she thought .
Soon Heartless reached the Royal Church – the place she’d always wanted to visit .
The doors were half - open , so our little heroine dared to enter…but that was a big mistake, because as soon as she entered the doors behind her enclosed at once. She tried to open them, but it was useless. She wanted to scream for help, but something stuck in her throat . Terrified by this, she turned around and moved towards the altar , passing the wooden benches on both side the carpeted way, without even paying attention to the decorations. And then she saw something no human should ever see – behind the altar, a young man, all covered in red liquid , stood and hold in his arms a body , who reminded of a woman figure . Yet this creature had black wings and awful nails – almost little knives! Her face looked pale and the eyes were closed; yet two big and white animal fangs could be spotted in her open mouth. She looked like a beast , a nameless monster from the worst nightmares.
The men hold her, yet it wasn’t a hug. The moment Heartless had seen them he was piercing the monster’s heart with his long knife. Then, after killing his pray , the man dropped the disgusting body and cleaned his sword .
Heartless wanted to run away, but she knew that this man, probably not even human, was much faster and stronger than her. That’s why she just stood there and watched the youth ’s moves.
Finally, when he had cleaned his sword, he started to search something. Soon he found it, because he took from the nearby ground a large book and started reading it.
In the meanwhile the monster, whom he thought was dead, started moving and stood up. She (or even it) saw the enemy and rushed towards him. The man seemed not to be noticing her, so Heartless decided to save the man from the horrible death this beast wanted to cause.
There was a bloodstained sword lying before her, so she took it from the ground and held it like the man had. She didn’t know anything of her past before the orphanage, yet she felt at the moment that her hands were moving on their own.
In one second she’d crossed over five meters and attacked with the speed of a lizard the beast. It couldn’t even scream before her body was teased apart by the attack from an unknown enemy. The man turned his sight to the fight when everything was already over. He just stood and watched Heartless’ s soundless victory. The girl turned to him and smiled – she had no idea how, but she just knew that did the right deed.
The man understood the situation and said quietly, “Thank you.”
Heartless nodded and threw the sword away. She wanted to go now, even thought she had many questions , but something told her it’s better to keep away from scary adventures like this. So she started moving towards the entrance, but suddenly the man’s hand stopped her. She looked at him and saw sad deep blue eyes gazing friendly at her.
“I…I just want to know… Who are you? And why did you save me? No ordinary girl wonders alone at such dangerous places , even at the daytime. But it’s night now, and you’re so little…I mean , no offence , but what the hell are you doing here?”
Heartless had decided to start a new life the moment she had saved him. Now was a good chance to think something cool up, so that the man wouldn’t leave her all alone.
So she decided to mix her real life with a little imagination – her everyday life was mixed up anyways, so it couldn’t get worse!
“I’m Heartless,” she said.
He laughed and asked, “Heartless? What kind of a name is that? It is a name, right?”
“The Puppet Master gave me this name.”
“The Puppet Master? Are you a doll then?”
“Not any longer, since I escaped from the Underworld.”
Smile on the man’s face disappeared.
“Who are you, Heartless? Enough of the stories – tell me the truth !”
“My Master was the Devil – it is the truth.”
“Was?”
“Yes, I got tired of serving the evil .”
“So you’re saving people in trouble now?”
Heartless laughed, since to her mind their talk was pointless – after all, she was not a Demon! Her mother was an ordinary human, just like everybody else’s in the orphanage. True, nothing was known of her early past, but in these three years she’d spent by the Grandfather ’s side couldn’t change much! At least she hoped so in her heart. The Grandfather even gave her a new name – Heartless.
In the meanwhile morning had arrived. The first sunbeams crossed over Heartless’ s pale thin skin as she waked side-by-side with the young man and answered his questions. She had no idea, where were they going , as well as not her future plans. The man seemed to be an interesting personality – maybe it’ll be useful to stay around for a while ?
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