He should not be standing in this room. He should be at the station. He should be getting to the bottom of this but he couldn’t seem to abandon the form before him, who lay nearly lifeless, in the hospital bed.
“What happened to you? I wish you could tell me…”
There was no response from the one in the bed. He was so small, so fragile. His eyes had been closed, some merciful nurse had seen to that, but it didn’t matter. The man who stood in the room thinking that he should leave remembered how they looked when they were open. No one had reported a missing child. It had been two days since those eyes had been closed and he had been settled into the hospital bed but no one had been missing him. The woman hadn’t had any identification on her. The information that they had found had linked her to the name of a child who had died at birth, long ago. Soon the tests would return which would prove that the detective’s worst fears were confirmed. What if that woman had been this boy’s mother? Was there really no one who could say this child’s name and call his soul home to the frail body that barely had enough substance to rumple the sheets? The detective sighed heavily as he smoothed his hand through hair that was a little bit greasy from lack of a shower. He should go home and take one of those or eat, maybe sleep if he could.
How was he going to be able to look into those big blue eyes and say that he had found a way to offer justice for what had been done. Even when the body healed, would this one’s mind ever be able to understand that he had tried, that he wanted to give closure so that this boy could smile. He almost looked peaceful, almost. If he had been older, the soft furrow of distress that marked his brow would have seemed more commonplace, but in someone so young, it made the child before him feel even more tragic. What had he been like before? Would he ever be that boy again?
The detective turned as he felt a presence behind him. He thought he saw something dark out of the corner of his eye, as though someone had just left the room. Had someone been standing behind him? He stepped to the door and slowly opened it. It hadn’t been latched. He thought he remembered pulling it so that it latched behind him when he had arrived. Though his eyes found no one in the hall, he glanced back and forth twice to be sure, before he realized he must be mistaken. Perhaps it was only his exhaustion. He should leave.
He turned one last time to look upon the form in the bed. His eyes widened as he found they weren’t alone. Pale fingers gently smoothed dark hair from a troubled brow. Something was wrong with the man’s eyes as they gazed down upon the boy in the bed. Something was wrong with the far side of his face… his clothes which seemed to hang from him as though they were gently suspended in water and made of something only slightly heavier than smoke. Something was so very wrong with this person despite that he bore the same foreign beauty that the boy in the bed had. The detective was gripped with the wish to run just as quickly as he was the rush to step closer, so he chose to remain stone still instead of doing either. He saw the boy take a deep breath and finally the furrow relaxed so that he was only young again. The pale hand slowly withdrew and the dark figure straightened. Eyes that glowed like arctic ice finally rose and met those of the detective who was just beginning to realize he barred the only exit. Sumptuous lips pushed together as the creature squared off, shifting the most infinitesimal amount.
“Elia…” the creature spoke in a whisper that sounded like shifting leaves on a forest floor. His lips appeared to move purposefully as though he were unused to pronouncing the word, the name. He looked to the boy in the bed and let his hand stray back toward him, indicating the child who finally seemed to be peacefully sleeping.
“Elia, is that his name?” Could it be true? All the detective received was a gentle nod before the figure dissolved into shadowed wisps of smoke.
“Elia.” The detective said it again as he blinked in surprise before he stepped forward, more relieved to have some clue about the child than immediately worried about what just happened. ”Elia, Elia come back. I want to talk to you. Elia I can’t fix this without you. I want you to heal. I want you to be well. Please Elia, let me make this right.”
He would be the one to say that name if no one else would. He would find a way to make this better.
* * *
“Elia? Elia! Where are you darling? It’s time to go.” Maybe he hadn’t heard her at first. It was by no means late, but if they didn’t go now, dinner would be. Why wasn’t he responding? Had something happened?
“Excuse me, but are you this one’s mom?”
She wheeled around to find a blonde woman with a pleasant expression and a hand on each shoulder of the very thing she was searching for. He wasn’t meeting her gaze. He was dirty, as though he had been rolling on the bark and earth and she instantly scowled at the look of distress that crossed his features. Then he looked up and a smile bloomed upon his face. It was as though nothing but the dirt had happened, even though she had been sure just moments before that something was wrong.
“Mommy! Is it time to go home?” Elia stepped away from the woman who had guided him to her and into a hug that she returned.
“Thank you.” Sabyn offered a half smile to the woman who had returned him to her.
“It’s no trouble. My girls are pretty rough and tumble too so don’t be too hard on her. They play hard.”
“Yes, and apparently boys worse than girls.” She chuckled softly until she felt the slight flinch from the child in her arms and instinctively moved to smooth his hair the way she always did when she was comforting him. ”He’ll be fine after a bath and some food.”
“He… I’m so sorry. I thought… because of the long hair and… he…” The woman was nearly stuttering and was flushed when Sabyn looked up. She swallowed hard before she continued. ”He’s just such a beautiful child.”
“It’s alright. Really. This happens all the time.”
* * *
“Sir, might I have a word with you before you go.” The doctor pushed his glasses up and cleared his throat before letting his eyes rise to meet the steely gaze of the detective.
“Have you found something new?” The detective’s tone was far lighter than he meant for it to be. He was not looking forward to his return to the office. At least here he felt like he was doing something useful. He could justify his time spent by telling himself it was good for the boy. No one else even called him by name. He was close to finding out once and for all what that was.
“He’s going to be moved and I wanted you to be the first to know. You have seemed more invested in this case than anybody else. His care will be continued at an institution more befitting his condition.” The doctor looked as though he was momentarily struck with guilt.
“Moved but…”
“His condition is no longer repairable with physical care so he will be referred to one of our sister facilities that specialize in mental illness and disability as well as continued care until he can be sorted out.”
The detective’s brow creased sharply. ”You mean he’s going to a convalescent home where he’s expected to die. What happened to the other tests you were going to run? What happened to the records you were going to find, his birth certificate, something? What about his physical injuries? He’s just going to be left to rot in some place surrounded by death and you’re okay with never knowing what happened?”
The detective had become animated. It felt like something was afoot. Wheels were turning that he couldn’t see and he was becoming trapped in the mechanism of a machine that was too large for him to see the details of.
“It’s not a matter if that. He is a ward of the state. With no living mother or father he…”
“A ward of the state? This is bullshit!”
“This is not something that I recommended.”
“Not something you recommended but not something you’re fighting either! I thought the tests would give us some clue that he is still in there. He’s the only lead I have!”
“Keep your voice down and listen to me. I ran the tests and that’s why he’s being moved.”
“What?”
“He’s still in there and very much alive. He’s never been on life support, not this entire time. His body rejects all pain medications, all medications of any kind within minutes, hours at best, and he’s been physically healed since the second day he was here. Something happened that night you were here so late and he’s been physically perfect since. His birth certificate does list his legal name as Elia. It’s Elia Darkstar, which is different than his mother’s name. You were right about that much which is only minimally odd compared to everything else about him. There is a hidden strand within his DNA but everything, everything I did has been taken and if anyone finds out i told you any bit of this… They can’t take him from you though. You could go public with what you already have, so you stay with him. You may be the only one who ever wants him to wake up. You may be the only one who ever finds out what he is because I certainly won’t and I think you’re the only reason he hasn’t just disappeared into the system so someone else can dismantle him before he opens his eyes again.” The doctor’s voice had been nothing more than an impassioned whisper. His fists clenched as he went silent in an attempt to hide shaking hands.
That night… that night he had seen an apparition. He had since blamed it on exhaustion. It hadn’t happened. But the doctor said that something had happened. He had been told the boy’s name by someone who had known who Elia was. Could that person have done something to Elia, something that would explain what the doctor was trying to tell him?
He would follow him. The detective had sworn since that first night that he would be there when Elia opened his eyes for the first time. He wanted to know what his voice sounded like and he wanted to beg the boy’s forgiveness for not having found him sooner. Then the world caught up with him and he fought to find his voice.
“Is Elia even human?” Of course he was. He had to be. He was a child born to a mother, but his father… what if that apparition had been his father?
“I can’t tell you for sure. He is… more than human. Look at him. Look hard when you sit with him. Does he look like a normal human boy to you? I think… I think we stumbled on to something here, something far bigger than that serial killer. I think Elia is human, but also something else. I think I could confirm that if I had the mother’s body, but it was taken away before I could find more than that they shared the same DNA and were most definitely related, that she was his mother.”
“Why would the body be taken anywhere when I haven’t finished the case? It never should have been touched. I haven’t even scratched the surface of this. What if I can’t recover the bodies of the other kids that man killed? What will I tell that boy when he wakes up and wants to know what happened to him, to his mother?”
“Nothing. You tell him nothing because he already should know that she’s dead. He saw it before you did undoubtedly. You won’t have to tell him anything because Elia has all the answers. You just keep him in your sights. No matter what, don’t lose him if you want to know the truth. They will give him physical therapy and care for him like any other non responsive patient. So long as they believe that he still has ties to you they will keep things looking normal and try wait you out, and you, you might get some answers if you just stay with him.”
The doctor briskly walked away looking a lot more agitated than he actually was. The detective scowled after him. He knew it was a show. Anyone watching would believe they had argued, not exchanged information. There couldn’t be this much deception surrounding one unconscious child. There couldn’t possibly be anyone who would make Elia disappear, right?
He passed through the door and into the quiet room. There he was, as pale and frail as he had been the day the detective first laid eyes on him. He had an IV going to one arm that was taped at his elbow. His eyes remained closed. He looked almost peaceful, almost. There was a nearly imperceptible crease that marked his features in a vague feeling of distress. The detective sighed as he sat in the chair by his bed.
“How are you today, Elia? I hope you have been well. I have had a rather uninteresting day myself, right up until I got here. You know, I heard that they are going to move you because you’re doing so well. That makes me happy; that you’re doing well, but not that you are going to be someplace else. Don’t worry though, I’ll still come visit you each and every day. I’m going to have to start bringing my case files with me. You wouldn’t mind that would you? I thought not. I really wish you’d… you’d talk to me…” The detective’s face momentarily contorted in pain. When he continued, his tone was light. He hoped that somehow, some part of this was getting through. Elia had not known him before but he hoped that the sound of someone saying his name in a caring way would be enough. Then it dawned on him; the words the doctor had said quietly played in his mind as he sat, talking about… anything.
* * *
To be continued...
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