The Zombie Reaper

Silence slipped into his quarters and locked his door before he slipped the gloves off his hands and offered them to the room. The young Nzombiy girl shot out of the darkness and gripped his hands, desperate for the contact of bare skin. He honestly didn't expect her to be able to speak coherently for another two or three days at least. She was making amazing progress though. Her eyes had began to take on a light of lucidity again. She was also able to hold down food which was a good sign in his opinion.

After all, it wasn't often you found a Nzombiy so deprived. Whoever had done this had wanted her to die. They had been planning on it. That made it difficult for him to get her back to her father. But that didn't mean that Silence was going to give up. He was nothing if not determined. He would be dead if that weren't the case. Some days he honestly wished it was.

Kneeling down in front of the girl, he gently cupped her face. "That's enough for now," he insisted gently, running his fingers through her hair. He had had her washed by some of the companions of the other Honored Fathers when she had first arrived and from the looks of her, she would need another bath soon. Usually, such a thing was a duty the Father's chose to take unto themselves, but considering the conversation he had had earlier, he would prefer not to have Lynuel's fist meeting another part of his body.

His jaw ached at the memory of the solid hit that had landed there. He could never fault Lynuel for being physically weak. He would give the boy that. Emotionally and sometimes even mentally, he was a little ashamed to say, was another matter entirely. Even Lynuel had begun to notice the fact that there were days when he acted more like a child than the young adult male that he had grown to be. Perhaps this girl was just what he needed to change that attitude.

Pulling his hands away, he covered them once more with the removable gloves. Silence stood up once more and had to hold himself back from allowing her to touch her once more as he started moving around the room and gathering the food that had been left for him around the room. He could never understand why they couldn't just make his life simple and leave his meal out in the open. He had a feeling that it had something to do with the councilor... whichever one it actually was. Despite what the councilor thought, Silence knew a lot more about the man than the other realized.

Enough to know that the form he took was never his true one.

Rubbing his jaw, Silence created a plate of food before he set it on the ground for the girl to eat. She had at least managed to take on some human-like mannerisms. Eating now was more normal for her now. She ate now as if she was actually a normal human being. Well, as human as she could ever be. She was humming softly now, some kind of lullaby or hymn as she slowly ate around the plate. Joquay would be glad to know that she was not only alive, but safe now.

It was simply a pity he would not know for several months yet. And more than that, the man wouldn't even be able to communicate with Lynuel, someone he knew that the priest counted as a close friend. A part of Silence wished that he could change that, but he knew better. For him to try and leave would only make things worse for all of the others. The councilor would know if he left. The man seemed to be able to monitor him wherever he went.

Silence gritted his teeth and his hands clenched into fists. What he wouldn't give to turn the clock back twenty years. He had been a fool than. He had made the mistake of thinking that he could make a difference in the world. He had thought that he could do something good for his people. And because of that foolish, idealistic hope... his life had become a living hell. A nightmare from which he could never awaken.

And even if he did wake up, what would he find? He had a feeling that the world he had left no longer existed. At least not for him. The world had a bad habit of moving on even when you wanted it to stay the same. And his world had long since let him go. It had forgotten him. After all, to them, the man he had been was dead. And it had to stay that way. It would only cause him more problems to try and bring himself back to life.

Honestly, he just wanted to be free again.

Something rubbed against his leg and Silence jerked as he looked down to see that the girl was offering him the remains of her meal. There was something so tender and even innocent in her big amber eyes that made a smile touch his lips for a moment as he reached out and took her offering. "Thank you little one," he murmured. He lifted up his mask enough so that he could eat the piece of fruit. He had almost forgotten what the stuff tasted like. He was too used to eating only meat and bread as necessary.

Lowering his mask back into place, he carefully arranged the blankets and the pillows on the bed that dominated the room. "It's time for you to get some rest," he insisted gently moving back to the girl. She pushed herself carefully and staggered forward, biting her lip as she made her way across the room, gently swaying from side to side. Her knees bumped the side of the bed before she actually climbed onto it and curled up inside the circle of blanks and pillows that acted like a nest for her. "I'll see you in the morning," he promised.

The girl sent him a smile before she curled up into a tight little ball and closed her eyes. As he watched her breathing begin to slow, he couldn't help but wonder if she would hate him when she learned the truth.