Suddenly, a soft and weak voice, like that of a girl, reached my ears. It was a thread of sound so fine that it almost seemed a memory more than a call. He had something broken, an echo of plea that did not belong completely to this world. It seemed to come from the forest, although I could not swear: at that moment, everything seemed like a dream made of fog and beats.
I was still for a few seconds, doubting, as if my body refused to decide. The air was dense, loaded with moisture and that smell of rotten leaves that one finds in the very old forests. My heart was beating with a force that I felt in the temples.
I thought that if I left without warning, maybe others would follow me ... or maybe not. Maybe they would laugh at me, or maybe they would forget instantly.
But if I ignored that voice, what if someone really was hurting her? What if they were torturing her ... or worse?
Each possibility was a blow to the stomach. The reason told me it was a trap, but something deeper - something that was not reason - I was advancing to advance.
Without thinking twice, I went into the forest. Every step was another crack in my own safety. It was immense, dark, and the trees seemed to close on me with each step, as if they breathe, as if they were a silent crowd that watched me from the shadows. The branches were intertwined as bony fingers, forming a roof that devoured the light.
At the same time, the voice kept calling me, weak but persistent, guiding me among the weeds like a distant whisper that I could not ignore. At times it seemed that it called me by my name, at times that pronounced meaningless words, in a language that I did not recognize but that it was familiar to me.
The ground created under my boots. Each creak was like a cry in the midst of silence. A crow grazn in the distance, and that sound was a blow of reality: it was alone. There was no one who could go if I fell.
After running several meters, I finally saw it.
A girl lay on the floor, her torn dress, her marked skin of bruises, being brutally hit by someone ... no, she was not a man. It was an angel. I knew by his white wings stained with blood, by the dim gice that emanated from his skin, for that mixture of beauty and horror that only a creature of heaven could have. He raised his fist once again, as if he were going to kill her with his own hands.
-Doter! -I shouted without thinking, the voice is leaving broken, but firm.
The angel turned to me with an expression full of rage, an impossible gesture to fit with the image he had always had of them. He released the girl as if it were a rag and, before moving away, he gave him a brutal kick in the abdomen. She fell unconscious, her small body shrinking on himself.
Then, he took out his sword. The metal shone like a piece of dead moon. With a perverse smile, he licked the edge covered with blood. His tongue toured the steel with a delight that made me feel cold in the neck.
"Wow, how rude," he said in a mocking voice, melodious and cruel. No one taught you that you should not get where they don't call you.
The angel pointed to me with his sword, mocking, and in a blink he threw himself towards me at a superhuman speed.
I barely kill myself to the side. The edge passed so close that I felt the wind touch my neck, an icy wind, like the breath of the tomb.
"You are not nothing without your wings," I released, more for a reflection than by courage, my voice trembling like a crystal.
His eyes turned on fury, two blue embers that crossed me. He roared like a beast and began to attack me without rest, unleashing a rain of cuts that could barely dodge. Each blow cut the air with a whistle, each step of his made the floor tremble.
That was when I remembered it: I had no weapons. Not a sword, not a dagger ... not even anything to defend me. I was completely unarmed, with bare cuffs in front of a creature that could cross mountains with a look.
The angel stopped for a second and looked at me, as if he noticed my despair. A crooked smile was drawn on his face, and in his eyes I saw something worse that I hate: fun.
Without giving me time to react, he launched again. I tried to depart, but it was too late.
His sword reached me. I felt an unbearable burning, a pain that was not only physical but also spiritual, as if something in my soul had been cut along with my flesh. When I looked at my left hand, I saw that three of my fingers had been cut from rennet.
The pain was unbearable. The blood dripped my mutilated, hot, dark hand, marking the ground as withered petals. A buzz began in my ears, the edge of unconsciousness. But I knew I couldn't afford to fall. I couldn't run away.
This fight would only end when one of the two stopped breathing.
And then, just when I felt my strength abandoned me, I heard it.
A voice. Gentle. Serena Female
"Don't fear ..."
He resonated within my mind as an echo, and although I had never heard it before, it turned out to me ... familiar, as if I had been with me all my life, waiting just this moment to speak. It was a warm sound, different from everything that surrounded me.
For a moment, I stopped paying attention to the angel. My mind was trapped in that voice, as if they had put a balm in the middle of chaos.
And it was enough.
When I focused again, I was already facing me. His sword shone, ready to cross my abdomen. I couldn't move. I didn't have how to defend me.
This is the end, I thought.
But just then, I felt a strange tingling in my left hand. I looked for a reflection ... and my fingers, which had lost seconds ago, were beginning to regenerate. The meat formed slowly, as if time backed up alone in that part of my body. Bone, tendon, skin. Everything was reborn.
The angel stopped, his face deformed by surprise. That pause was my chance.
The tickle spread through my arm, and I felt a heat, an unknown power that filled my veins. It was as if the voice had aroused something asleep in me, something I didn't know. My legs stopped shaking. My breathing became deep, firm.
-What are you? -the angel whispered, backing up just one step, but without lowering his sword.
I didn't know either. But now he had something: not just regeneration. He was certain that he was not alone.
The voice returned, clearer, as if I was next to my ear:
"Get up..."
And I got up.
The entire forest seemed to observe us. The trees creaked, the wind swirled around us, carrying dry leaves like blades. The sky, invisible between the glasses, rumbled with a distant thunder.
The angel smiled again, but his smile was different now, more tense.
"So you are one of them ..." he murmured. This will be interesting.
He raised the sword, and his wings were suddenly deployed, stained with blood and mud. A flash of light ran through the edge, and his figure became a blur that threw himself on me.
I also moved. I didn't think: I acted. My body seemed to know a language that my mind ignored. I dodged a descending cut, I turned, and with the regenerated hand stopped the second blow, catching the weapon leaf with the palm. The blood sprouted, but my fabrics closed instantly.
The angel opened his eyes, incredulous.
"That's impossible ..." he said.
I breathed deeply, more and more aware of that power that flowed in me, like an underground river. I felt that the roots of the forest could start, which could break the sky with a scream.
But it wasn't mine. It was her. Of the voice.
I turned my head just, looking for the girl. He was still unconscious, breathing weakly, his small body shrunk on the leaves. The angel blocked my eyes, as if I knew what I was looking for.
"You won't have it," he said, and in his words there was more than fury. There was fear.
The angel roared and launched a horizontal pit. I dodged it for millimeters, I felt the wind cut my face.