[ Later that night… ]
Somewhere, far in the distance, a rift cracked with blue lightning…silent, but it pulsed like a dying heartbeat.
Mark circled above the edge of the city's barrier wall.
Neon lights flickered inside some of the crumbling skyscrapers.The rest of the city lights blinked below like dying stars. The moon was bloated, heavy, veiled in the thick gauze of the unnatural midnight humidity that had become the city's norm.
Signs of the apocalypse were still visible all around, though everyone had learned to live alongside them. Life went on as normal as possible inside the city's barrier. Outside… it was a different kind of chaos.
His eyes scanned the border. A faint flicker to the west caught his attention. Movement. But when he blinked again, it was gone.
False alarm.
Beyond the perimeter…past the crackling force fields and rusted fences…there was nothing but black at the moment.
Mark was tired of hunting things that weren't there most of the times...and even more tired of knowing that the moment he let his guard down, something would be. The humans called his kind the 'guardians' of their cities.At least, that was the myth.
Because they didn't know what they really were. Most had no clue. They just knew that there were some cloaked Messiah posted at every city bastion, who protected them from the beasts… no face… no name…
Only some, like Father Gonzalez, knew their truth… their real existence.
Mark exhaled slowly, watching his breath freeze and then vanish. His patrol was done for the night. Not a single breach. Not a single shriek.
Technically he had finished patrolling hours ago. But he didn't want to go back.
Not yet.
He had a house. An envious penthouse in the heart of the city.
But he had no home…
Mark hovered above his roof for sometime, just below the clouds. Detached.
The wind was unusually soft tonight.
He floated above the roof's edge, arms crossed, cape fluttering slightly in the updraft.
Alone.
Like always.
With a sigh that didn't quite escape his lips, Mark finally descended.
The landing was quiet, boots barely touching the steel of the rooftop. A familiar vertical chime chute stood to the left, linking directly to his master bedroom three floors down. He hated using doors. Too human.
He slid down effortlessly, arms folded over his chest, gaze blank…until suddenly…
"Shit…"
His instincts screamed too late. There was a body that his legs hit.
A soft one.
There was no time to swerve. He collided with full force and a gasp and then…
WHAM!!!
The two of them tumbled. Once. Twice. Something creaked. Something exploded…pillows perhaps.
A lamp tilted and rolled off the table with a loud 'clink'...!
And then… thud thud of their heart in that utter silence.
Mark was flat on his back, blinking up in confusion. A faint vanilla lavender scent invaded his nose.
He finally saw those eyes.
Big. Brown. Opened too wide.
Staring down at him like he had grown wings and horns… well, that wouldn't have been surprising… but this was.
What the fuck!!!
He stared back. Until realization hit.
Arabella!!! Father Gonzalez's granddaughter!!
He jerked back like he had been electrocuted, shoving her away aggressively.
She let out a tiny squeak as she stumbled backward and immediately bowed in a flustered panic.
"I…I am so sorry, mister! Oh God, I didn't mean to…!"She looked back at the chime as if intrigued…" You've got a slide directly to your room! Wow! That's so cool! " She almost clapped her hands in childish excitement.
Mark sprang back up, shoulders squared,his red hair slightly tousled from the fall. And then his voice thundered through the room. "What the fuck do you think you are doing in my room?"
Arabella blinked again. Then slowly pointed.
First, to the neatly folded laundry arranged like color coded blocks on the couch.
Then to the polished furniture.
The spotless floor.
The dusted relics and re-aligned artifacts.
Even the decorative skull with one cracked tooth had been repositioned at a more aesthetic angle.
" Can't you tell? I have been cleaning the room!" she offered sheepishly.
Mark stared.
She rubbed her palms on her oversized shirt, standing there without any trouser ( maybe she had her shorts underneath but they weren't visible) and barefoot.
"I couldn't sleep," she explained, " I was strolling around the place,trying to make myself useful…but I couldn't find anything to do. Everything else was already spotless.And then I stumbled across this disaster of a room…so I thought…well…maybe I could just tidy this space. As a 'thank you'...for letting me stay. It looked like a battlefield, sir."
Mark narrowed his eyes. "I have maids for that,you know."
"Well clearly, they weren't doing their job properly."
She pulled out her phone and swiped with impressive confidence. "Look! I took pictures.To make a 'Before and After' collage . See? That was the state your room was in.How did you even walk through that mess? "
Mark blinked.And then his hands automatically fisted as he clenched his jaw. "That's because they aren't allowed in here. Not without my permission.And they know that rule.Too well. "
Her brows lifted. "Oh! I see!"
Silence fell again.
Then she stretched, arms over her head, shirt lifting slightly above her thigh.
He did not look.
He absolutely did not notice the faint line of skin or how her voice squeaked when she yawned.
"Well," she said casually, "I am done for the night. I should go. I have school in the morning."
School? Ah! Right! Even tough the word felt strange in his world, the girl in front of him was technically a child… still a teenager going to high school.
She turned and strolled to the door with a slight wobble in her step…half exhaustion, half walking like a penguin…towards the flight of stairs going to the floor below.
Mark stood still for a long time…saw her head vanish as she strolled down the stairs. .
Then, with a sigh, he pulled out his phone.
He opened an app he hadn't opened in months.
The surveillance feed.
He tapped until he found the guest room's camera. It showed her entering, slumping onto the Queen sized bed, bouncing once like a dropped ping pong ball…and immediately falling asleep.
And then she started snoring. Absolutely unbothered.
He stared.
A breath left him.
Not a laugh. Not exactly.
But something close to it.A scoff maybe.
He shook his head and whispered to no one…"She is going to get herself killed."
He found himself leaning on the windowsill. "Ah! Father! Ah! What kind of a troubled package did you have me delivered? "