Out of the Light

I flinched back, digging the back of my thighs into the wooden desk underneath the flaking window. Lythia quickly ripped a leg off of the deteriorating wooden chair in the corner, drew herself to her full height of 5’5” and edged towards the door. The thumping continued. She yanked the rotted door open.

A startled huff would’ve escaped my lips if my breath could be heard. It was a man, just a man, a man with no mouth.

Instead, there was a rusted, yellowed zipper in its place. Lythia raised the wood over her shoulder, as if to strike, and he cringed into the ground.

“Lythia, wait.” I yelped as I grabbed her arm and stared at the man. I could feel her furious eyes on me as I approached him. Always so violent and angry.

His dark hazel eyes widen and a faint whimper sounded from his throat. He was so small and pitiful. Blood was leaking from the zipper as his jaw clenched and unclenched.

“Shh, I won’t let her hurt you.” I reassured him as best as I could, which was hard because a sharp stabbing started behind my eyes. My hands were bloodying again, and I didn’t want to frighten him even more than he already was. He seemed to be in shock.

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So pitiful, just like Damian when I found him. It would be just like Damian, unable to fight, just something else to slow me down, endanger my life. We couldn’t help it.

But it hurt to see Damian treat it with such tenderness. Careful not to touch it, he mumbled to it in a soft, little voice. It hurt because tenderness was not something I could just dish out. Not in this world.

“I won’t let her hurt you.” I grimaced. So, I was the bad guy now? Damian was a living corpse, the thing of peoples’ nightmares, and I was the villain?

It was covered in tattoos, colourful ink painted across its smooth skin, remnants of another life perhaps. My head spun as I tried to read the letters on its knuckles, but I couldn’t. The letters wouldn’t form coherent words in my mind. Blinking hard, I gazed in disgust at the zipper that was its mouth. Blood was trickling from it.

“Lythia,” my eyes snapped to Damian, “some towels? Cloth? Something?” I quickly pulled a grey shirt from my backpack and shoved it at Damian, but he simply held out his hands, dripping blood over the musty floor.

I rolled my eyes as I dropped to my knees. I felt Damian crouch beside me as I reached towards its mouth. It cringed away.

“Oh please.” I muttered, grabbing the back of its small head, knotting my fingers into its matted brown hair and pulling him forward. I slowly and carefully wiped the blood from its chin.

I could just barely see swollen pink at the edges of the zipper. He was created, not a monster that came from this world. He must have once been human.

I gestured towards his lips, “Does it hurt?” He shrugged.

“May I?” he nodded and I grasped the rusted zipper. Carefully, slowly, I unzipped it, watching it come apart and feeling his warm breath as he exhaled through his mouth for the first time in who knows how long.

“Oh God, that feels so amazing.” I heard him mutter. I started a bit, not expecting him to speak. I watched in silence as he stood up and walked out of the room. I raised my eyebrows at Damian, who shrugged back and followed the man.

We followed him down the road. He walked with purpose, hurriedly, and in the distance I could see an old hospital.

“Lythia, what’s a Soulless?”

I took a deep, agitated breath before finally answering his question.

“There are three main, different kinds of natural beings in this world: The Mindless, bodies who wander, gazing up at the sky, their faces frozen in terror. You see, that’s the last thing you feel before you’re turned,” I rushed on as he opened his mouth in confusion, “What turns them, takes their ability to think and feel, are the Soulless. The Soulless are robots. They think, but not on their own. They are… programmed, if you will, for one thing only: to turn people into the Mindless. They can track, hunt, and turn, but that’s all. They don’t feel.

“The last kind is the Heartless. They think for themselves, ruling this world. They feel only few emotions: Hatred, satisfaction, and fear. Nothing else. If they find you, they will break you, Damian.

“And then there are people like me: The Helpless. We hide, we never see each other, and we live in fear and paranoia. I have never seen another Helpless, just signs of one.” I cut off, disturbed at what I am saying. I‘ve never had to admit it out loud. I’m a Helpless, a part of this strange and dangerous world.

“What am I?” I almost forgot I had been walking alongside him. I answer him carefully because what I say isn’t true.

“I don’t know, Damian. But for now, you will be the Lost.” I stare at him. I know what he is. I had thought about it over and over again. He’s a Soulless gone wrong. The Soulless are created, too. By a ruler, the Ruler. An indescribable being that is living his dreams of blood and disease, Satan himself who has created Hell. Someone tried to change Damian, who must have been something terrible in his past life. A mass murderer, someone with dreams of genocide, I don’t know. He must have had great potential, but was abandoned. But why? Why would they leave him and not finish what they started? And what scared me the most: Why is Damian so sensitive and so far the epitome of all goodness? I just didn’t understand.