"Now I get it" John was on the roof of the police station. He held an instant coffee in his right hand and a bottle of alcohol in his left as he looked at the city windows and the ads that were running all of them. The ads varied from food commercials to beauty, even pharmacy commercials, all trying to sell something to the public. An American commercial would run on a billboard, it was about selling a specific drug.
"Buy it today, and you can also start being smart. The future of you and your children lies at your fingertips." The commercial ended and started to repeat, and John clenched his hands, watching the commercial. His eyes were filled with anger and hatred, especially for the actress who was endorsing it in the ad.
John closed his eyes and remembered the scene from 3 years ago. It was a sunny day in L.A. from where he stood at the time. >>It will be soon 4 years<< it was just like yesterday, the blistering heat of the sun on the streets. He was going around to help pick up the corpses of the people who died from heatstroke, mainly beggars who were unlucky and couldn't find a place to hide from the burning sun that came in January.
>>There was this kid…<< A child only as young as five, he was just a damn kid. He stood there in the shadow of a building, having no Aporkon to use and protect himself from the heat of the sun that would cook a man alive in just a matter of hours. The kid looked with dead eyes at them.
>>If I had only noticed it faster<< John didn't think much of it, no, why would he have even thought of it, but it was so fast. The kid wasn't a normal one it was a half-blood it was one of those damn kids carrying the blood of the traitors but he couldn't hurt him.
>>If I had just killed him there at the moment, there would have been less death, but his eyes<< He started to bite his lips, causing them to bleed a bit. The memories of that day were never going to pass away. The scars will remain, and the mistake he had made, unable to have done a simple job and having defied the orders.
He crushed the guardrail, which he held onto with the gravity he unleashed. "IF HE HAD JUST NOT BEEN A DAMN KID" He blamed it on his mind and the child, no it was the fault that he was so weak-minded that he couldn't even end the life of a monster just because it was a kid.
"Stop blaming the kid when it is simply your fault for not being a cold-blooded murderer." It was Licht who said it. She had a cup of coffee in her hand with large dark circles beneath her eyes. The coffee seemed to have been freshly made, as steam was coming out of it. John glared at Licht, but she shrugs her shoulders, not even feeling threatened by him.
"Don't glare at me like that it is obvious that something happened between you and a kid, that's the most obvious thing with how you shouted the whole 'If he had just not been a damn kid!'" she made a bad mimic of John's voice as she repeated the sentence laughing to herself as she did it.
She leaned beside John on the guardrail, looking outside, seeing the buildings and the countless ads that were there. There wasn't much beauty in this city, all filled with the ads of corporations, buildings that went up to the sky, and bright lights where one would feel like they are on a drug trip, but a drug trip would likely be preferable for most as there they can feel happy in the end.
"Won't you ask about the kid I mentioned?" He asked expectedly. His eyes turned to look at Licht. No matter how often he saw her, the way she looked like a human was uncanny. If it wasn't for the wings, he might have long tried to confess to her, as she was a beauty.
"Why should I bother? I don't care about your private life. If you murdered a kid or if a kid did something to you then that's just your problem, not something that I will deal with" She drank her cup of coffee, it was in a tiny plastic cup almost comically tiny being just as large as her fingertip but the color of it was a deep black color almost pitch black.
>>Is she drinking poison that's masked as coffee?<< That was the first time that he saw such dark coffee, which made him doubt that she could even drink it. Licht looked petite; she was slim with a young face, and while her hair was long, going past her shoulders, the way she was built would make one think she was the sweet type, as she held a soft expression instead of a stern one. Even now, her expression is softer and easier, seemingly even happy, the way she had a soft smile on her face.
"You know you are a real piece of shit for a supposed Fairy" John decided to just shut off his filter. "I thought Fairies were supposed to be all nice, making children happy and not being tall humans with bitchy personalities" He didn't know, but he just couldn't hold it back this time. It had been three years already that he had been working here and seeing her.
"Sorry to crush your dreams, did your mother tell you the old folklore of kind fairies granting wishes and us being just as small as an index finger? If so, then tell your mother she was, and they should stop confusing us with the Fae and no I won't even bother explaining that part of things even if we share of loving some corpses guess our ancestor might have been just a Lich with how we love them" She joked around with that trait of theirs.
It wasn't common for fairies to joke about their love for corpses. John made a disgusted look, as that wasn't on his card to hear that of her. "Oh, spare me from this talk, if I wanted to hear how you species love some corpses, I would have gone and watched those videos you can find online." John made the claim jokingly and even let out a laugh.
"Oh, look at it, when it is about fairies, you start laughing and talking seems you really hate me." She drank the cup of coffee with one sip, not showing even the slightest of bitterness on her face. She hummed slightly as if she had drunk something sweet.
"Fine tell me was the kid a fairy, if so what did the kid do you have been staring at me which means either you are thinking about how hot I've been and regret I'm a human or because I'm a fairy I'm reminding you of a trauma and I rather have it be the first one even if I hate your guts" She smiled at him even if it wasn't because she was happy of it.
John wanted to say something, but he shut up as he was caught red-handed. As tough as he looked, his face showed that she hit it right at it. "So it is the first one, you should learn to have a poker face or practice only showing expressions when you feel like it" She crushed the plastic cup in her hand "So tell me what was the kid with the way you hate fairies I assume also one, so I say that kid must have something terrible right?"
John looked up at the air. He thought for a moment whether he should tell her about it, it would be the right thing to do to tell this woman specifically about it. He thought about it, it felt like time was slow as he was thinking through it, but time kept passing, normally a simple difference in the moment for him and the world. A rush of adrenaline as he needed a solution for what his brain thought was a crisis.
"Just know that on the day I was sent to this place which I do say is better than whatever we have in America not as bad as there I was sent there because of a fairy kid because I didn't act fast enough to kill him," He said just enough but Licht was now curious.
"Him?" She seemed surprised, her eyes widening slightly as John got her interest now. "Are you saying that it was…a male fairy?" Her face was turning a bit pale, and her hands shook slightly as if she was starting to panic.
>>Her tone…she seems to fear something, but what of a male fairy?<< John doesn't know anything about fairy culture. He simply looked at the magic they might wield to be better prepared, but the way Licht stared at him was like she was having a nightmare. Her pupils became small, and the wings of her back were changing in their shade of color.
"Are you sure that it was a male fairy?" Danger. There was just one word that came to the mind of John, and that was danger. Whispers came in and out. Was it a hallucination or the doing of Licht? It felt tight around his neck as if he was being strangled. "You better answer honestly." Her eyes had a subtle glow to them.
>>Afraid…I'm afraid because of a fairy again<< He clenched his teeth as he started to change the gravity around him to reassure himself, feel safe, and show that she just can't push him around. It should have worked, no, he was sure it would, his ability was better, more unique and stronger, even if Licht could do some tricks with the wind, it was still just wind, simple air, what could air do towards gravity?
"Stop." A simple word and command, but a deadly one nonetheless. The air, it felt like it was being sucked out of his lungs. He tried to grasp air, but his lungs worked, he assumed, but no air was entering his body. He fell to his knees as he looked up at her. She wasn't looking kind or even annoyed; she was serious and meant it. She wanted to hear no lies and only the truth, and she was going to threaten him, not caring about the possible consequences that might come to her for hurting a human.
Death comes in many shapes and forms, and as part of the law enforcement, they are to be prepared to die at any moment. Death shouldn't come from one's ally. Was it a minute already? He was too focused on the lack of air that he couldn't count the seconds that had passed. "Breath," she said, and the air would flow back to John. He grasped it and inhaled it as much as he could, as if it were going to run away.
"ARE YOU CRAZY, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" John wasn't thinking rationally at the moment, as this was something that he could never have expected. "NOT ONLY WERE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME A COLLEAGUE BUT A HUMAN YEA I DON'T LIKE YOU BUT I THINK YOU HAVE MET FAR WORSE THAN ME" He shouted it all out, but she didn't seem to care the slightest about what she did.
"Oh, stop complaining." Water appeared seemingly out of nowhere, splashing on his face. "Even if I do dislike you, you are better than most people, at least no, you are more humane than other humans." All the anger or even hatred that was once in her eyes was gone with that sentence, replaced with sadness, a faint smile.
"Do you think that will make me not report you?" He tried to sound threatening, but he didn't dare. He could be killed easily and likely be disposed of if she wanted to; she was nothing more than a monster. A monster who was let into society for their beauty. She was more like an animal in a zoo, even if it seemed like society accepted her, she was the animal that the keepers trained, being only above wild monsters but still below the humans.
"If you wanted to report me, would you ask about my opinion?" It sounded like a question, but it was more like her way to say that he won't report her, even though she had almost killed him. He grinds his teeth, but he would hear her having a subtle laugh with a smile that made her seem innocent, as if she had not tried killing him, and most importantly, that was a real laugh.
" I sometimes can't tell if you are innocent or just mentally ill," even though it seemed insulting, John could pick up from her voice that she didn't mean it in a bad way, at least the last part. Rather, she found him odd; he could see it on her face, but he found her the oddest of all.
"If you answer my question honestly, I won't report it." He was now curious, would she be honest with him? The honesty was a test on his part; he wanted to see if she could be honest with him. It was foolish, it was irrational the way he acted. She tried to kill him just to get an answer, but he couldn't help but test and see. There was a reason for her reaction; the mention of a male fairy made her react this way. It was something deep, but that wasn't what he was curious about.
He always assumed that monsters might be different; he watched her closely over the years, analyzing her mimics and the emotions, but she was no different. "Why are you faking your emotions? That is what I'm curious about, why do you fake your emotions like everyone else?" He wasn't curious about the reason why she almost murdered him; he felt offended and, honestly, a bit fearful, as he could have suffocated just by a simple command.
"You and everyone else lie with your mouth, as naturally as you breathe. Every time it was a mere act, so tell me why are you faking these emotions?". Since John was young, he had seen the way everyone lied. The emotions they showed often felt more like an act, as if they were trying to mimic them, rather than feeling them. Be it humans or monsters, there was always this mimicking; sometimes their emotions were more intense, like a burning flame, and they would act upon it. It was rare, but it happened, which is why he wonders even more why it is so rare to happen and why they never show their true emotions.
Anger, hatred, annoyance, those were the common emotions that ever felt and what he would see in others to feel."What a weird human… I endangered your life, almost killing you, but here you are acting irrationally. You shouldn't have asked me any questions; you should have just reported me, and it would all have been done. Even if I had killed you, they would have noticed it either way, giving it time, but here you are asking me such a question."
She let out a sigh, "Emotions are something everyone loses, or that is what I thought. Sensation is dulled, and the feelings deluded into being a shell of our past of ours as we had to become ruthless to live on. You are what I would call an anomaly, your emotions are bright, your energy fresh, and the sensation you experience is heightened and stronger than any human could feel today.
"Never become like the others, your eyes are good. That you can tell between the lies and truth of emotions shows that you are not like the others…in a good way of course" She moved her finger and a cup of coffee appeared, John wondered if she originally had picked up a second one for him and would have offered it to him if he had not revealed there having been a male fairy that he had seen. The coffee was flying at his face, he looked at Licht, and she made an expression that was just saying he should take it. He grabbed the cup, and it was warm, surprisingly, it was quite warm, not hot enough to burn him, but pleasant enough.
"Come back after drinking the coffee, as the others will nag you otherwise." She left John alone with these words as she went down. John was now left with a mind filled with thoughts and questions. He touched his throat. Should he or should he not? That was a question he was now wondering if it should be done or not.