Silence Falls

“Then what were you going to do? How are you going to prevent them from remembering the name the military knows you as? OR is that your actual name bestowed by some buried military facility that hatched you in their labs to be some imposing weapon hellbent on eradicating all obstacles in their way?” Otep went off in a rant, hurling out a few unaimed theories on what Hermanni was.

“My, that concept is quite riveting. Otep! No one has ever labelled me a military experiment gone erroneous before. I like the idea, it makes absolute sense! Sadly, that is an ideology that I know is untrue. You see, I was not invented by the government, I was naturally born with my gifts. But that is not the rebuttal you should be seeking from me.” Hermanni advised her without having to pry into her mind.

Not liking him swerving from her cross-examination, Otep narrowed her eyes at him and set her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah? And what rebuttal am I supposed to be looking for then? Oh wait, I’m sorry! Is asking YOUR opinion of what I wish to know a stupid question considering that all YOU have to do is simply PRY into my mind without permission to know fucking EVERYTHING there is about ME?”

“I am behaving myself tonight, Otep, and have been since the last time you and I were alone. I am not spying into your mind as we speak, rather I am deciphering your expressions and body language instead. Humans have to do that sometimes, I’ve surmised.” Hermanni smiled briefly only because Otep wouldn’t return it. Crossing his arms over his chest, he got to the point. “What you seek is why you never deduced that those men that encroached into the mall that night were after me and me alone, not to arrest any liberated patients marooned to ramble through these swamps.”

“Wait, my expressions and fucking body language just divulged you all that?” Otep scoffed, not believing that she was that easy to interpret like an open book. If so, he’s been the first to ever have done it.

“No…not really.” Hermanni sighed in defeat, his shoulder slouching a bit as he lowered his vibrant eyes to his feet in remorse. “I kind of...maybe slightly...snuck in a peek.”

Of course he did! Rolling her eyes, Otep began to pace back and forth on the roof of the mall. She would reprimand him for this later, right now she wanted to know about what he was trying to tell her. “Fine then, answer these questions of mine since you seem to know me so damn well! Were those soldiers really here for you? Do they know what the fuck you are? Is that why they're here in this irrelevant town to begin with?”

Hermanni knew Otep wouldn’t rest until she got her answers. Neither was he planning to ditch her without them. But that didn't mean his answers had to be totally factual. Licking his lips, Hermanni explained. “Those men did not infiltrate these walls to recover me. They were appointed to look for missing patients from the facility which includes me too. They are reclaiming us and chucking us back underground where no one will recover us again. They have no notion as to what I am either. They do believe I am a very dangerous person, however, because of the mishap that came to...an innocent's life before I was tossed into the dark.” Shaking his head to himself, Hermanni advanced with his half-lie. “When I was a little younger, I met a lively young girl. We liked one another enough, but she was the apple of her parent's eyes. One day...when we were out together, she got hurt very greatly and expired shortly afterwards due to her mortal wounds. Everyone blamed me, so I ran away from home, but was caught looting sustenance from a local store. The men entombed me deep beneath the surface at her vengeful father’s insistence. If I am not mistaken, her father is still employed within this very government and despises me to this day from last I heard. In my absence, he gave me a unique codename paired with a legendary bedtime story that I hear is used to terrorize the rookies in their military.”

“Are you saying you are responsible for the death of a superior military ranked officer's daughter?” Otep grilled, stepping forward to get a better look in his eyes in case he was spinning a fallacy on her to keep the truth undisclosed.

“Yes, but it was not premeditated! We were close friends that trusted each other with our deepest dark secrets, mine being my powers as you well know. She showed no fear of me unlike the rest of you will, just mere interest to my amazement. She wanted to help me devise what I was capable of, because at the time I was also very inquisitive of my gifts.” Hermanni went on, his face devoid of emotion as he lifted his eyes to the dark abyss that was the swamps. “We never thought of the repercussions of pushing the boundaries to become transcendent, but the soldiers did later. One gift I used had expanded in size only to deliberately annihilate everything it touched. I was no longer in control. I screamed for her to run to save herself, and she faithfully did so. When it finally dissipated, I tried to locate her, believing she would be on the other side of death with me, but she was not. She must have stumbled over something when she ran for safety and could not get back up in time. She perished as a result.”

“Oh. I...I'm sorry for your loss. How did the father know that it was you that was accountable for her death?" Otep continued on, trying to sate all the holes in his story. She had to have everything, and if that meant she had to brush over the loss of his friend years ago like it was nothing than she would. There were more important things at stake right now which were their lives, not hers. Hers had been extinguished, they were still here.

“A few traveling civilians witnessed my escape from the scene of the crime. Her father jumped right onto the case, and never gave me even a millisecond to let my guard down to think clearly. He knew I would return soon enough to fulfill my vital need, seeing my family.” Hermanni gave himself a moment to turn his back to her. This half-lie felt too close to the heart to be regarded as deception. It still tore at his heart as if it happened yesterday. “They trapped me, and sealed me up in that cell you found me in.”

“There's one thing I don't understand about your story. He corrals his daughter's killer and locks him up for the rest of his life, but then why the hell did he start a boogeyman tale about you? What reason would he need to make up a story to intimidate his soldiers for? I mean, they would take one good look at you and know you weren't a hazard to them, you do know that right?” Otep pointed out, circling him to digest his appearance from the top of his head to the tip of his black combat boots. Hermanni may have treacherous powers in his arsenal, but his appearance wasn't at all an additional factor to it. Sure, he looked like he could be one of the most gorgeous male models in the world, but never the most gorgeous killing machine with powers!

“I was never very clear as to why he felt the desire to concoct a story that depicted me as a monster, though I do remember...when he would come down to see me that he would mumble things about how I was a monster for doing what I did to his child, how only a true evil could take away someone so pure as her.” Hermanni shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps those same allegations became his reality to him, portraying me to be an authentic monster to be feared of.”

Otep and Hermanni remained silent for a while. One was unclear if the other was telling the detailed truth to her, and the other was not certain if she believed his half-lie. Otep slowly turned around and traipsed away in deep thought, leaving Hermanni curious as to what she was thinking about, but not allowing his nosiness to spur him to take a snoop into her mind again.

Finally spinning around to face Hermanni, Otep looked at him with concern furrowing her brows as she said. “You say you're not a monster and yet Cris apprised all of us that this ‘boogeyman’ executed two groups of soldiers already. Why did you go and do something like that?”

Hermanni sighed before stepping forward, clasping his hands together in front of him.

“The first group I eliminated was simply because Cris, Connor, and the girls would not have stood a fair chance against their weapons and combat training. The second group had to be taken out because they again threatened that same group by cloaking within the expanse of tall grasses. Again, they did not stand a chance, especially with the added shroud from the tall grass and camouflage material the military presently dons. I had to dispose of them to protect them too.”

Otep listened closely, watching his eyes and the shortage of regret for his actions in them. Hermanni was something no one on earth has ever seen before, and yet from what Otep has witnessed his magnificent body contained the biggest heart she had ever seen a man possess, and she has been around a lot of men in her time! Once again, Otep found herself convinced that he was a dangerous man for certain, but not a threat to them. For this group of kids, Hermanni was their protector.