"Saving Destiny's Daughter"
by:
Virgilio F. De leon Jr.
Sarah could not help but notice him. It was as if a cloud of darkness hovered around him wherever he went. He was wearing his usual black around campus , people nowadays think that’s trendy but she knew that Carlo had been wearing black since the day he was born. A devotee to black as one student mentioned.
Shadow nudged her hand to break her train of thought. “I don’t trust that one” the wolf said as he pointed toward the black-clad boy with his nose. “He seems to be always up to something.”
“Come on Shadow , you know better than to judge a book by its cover.” Sarah said as her vision followed Carlo as he kicked a can hurtling towards the open field , the can made a plomp sound as it hit the ground 20 feet away. She heard a whistle blow. “That was some kick” someone behind her said.
“Oh hello, Patrick” Sarah said with enthusiasm. Patrick was in Sarah’s chemistry classmate and always had a soft spot for her. The only visible thing she wanted to be around with was the gray wolf. It wasn’t unusual for wolves to be tamed but this one seemed to have a very particular attachment to Sarah. Patrick was very curious as to what caused this bonding, recently he postulated that it was about pheromones, that Sarah is producing a pheromone capable of charming lesser creatures. Since he could not test this hypothesis in a distance he opted to befriend the lonely girl, only as he got to know her more and more everyday his interests became less and less scientific until he totally dropped it and just became interested in her. Period.
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Iris drew his gun out of thin air. His portal powers allowed him to store hundreds of weapons at at time with their accompanying ammo. This mission only called for one gun. From this perch over the tallest campus building he could see her talking to a pale , skinny , guy who even at this distance seemed to be so tense. It’s the shoulders Iris reminded himself. Tense shoulders give you away all the time. He refocused his power at her. Looking at her through the sight of his gun. Time to do the deed and collect the fee. He did sense that she had a great power within her but it was totally asleep , the wolf on the other hand had been awakened , his employers did tell him that the wolf would be a hindrance to his plans. He preferred to kill in close proximity to his subjects, he loved the look on their faces as life slowly drained away from them, but Shadow denied him that pleasure now. He was almost tempted to shoot the annoying wolf first but that would give him away and the target to flee to safety. No, he had to shoot her first , one in the chest ought to do it , the employer explicitly forbade him to shoot her in the head. He never bothered to ask why, you don’t survive much in this business if you ask too many questions. All he needed to know was what she looked like and her name and he would do the job.
A red glow, emanated from his kneeling body, sweat dropped from the side of his face unto the ground. He would use his power to make it look like a heart attack, she may look healthy but they would surely find a lone hole in her heart when they did the autopsy, with no bullet trace since the path it would create would be closed by his powers. He took aim and steadily pressed the trigger, sending one lone red bullet toward the maidens heart.
Shadow heard the crack of the gun first. A sound no one could have heard but him. The Art tower! The wolf thought. It could only have come from there. Beside him, somebody fell over, blood spurting forth like water. He heard her scream. It was Carlo sprawled on the road.
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“That boy!!! He was not there when I aimed”, Iris said to himself.“How could he have gotten there so fast?” And he came to the conclusion almost immediately. Another portal user. As fast a he was but inexperienced. His employers were not expecting such a complication. He was a bit disappointed in them and himself.
There was no time for a second shot since the wolf had already been alerted. And with a speed that had astonished Iris the wolf had found out where he was. The door to his right burst open. The wolf with its fangs shown and its fur bristling. It charged toward him at lightning speed and as it pounced he sprayed it with a deadly pheromone that brought it down but not before biting his left hand and dragging him along for the fall over the towers side. The Wolf had shifted his body so that all his weight would rest on the assassin. The wolf reasoned that at least this one won’t be bothering Sarah ever again.
Iris was smiling. Such a tricky thing this wolf had tried to pull. It had wanted me to die and with such deliberate intent too. He could not help but laugh at this whole thing. He had discovered another Portal user. A Powerful Murdering wolf all in a span of 2 minutes. The mission just got more interesting. It was so amusing that he was not in a mood to kill right about now.
He liked the feel of the wind as he plummeted down but he had other jobs to do and this one had to be finished. There will be other times to deal with the other Portal user and this wolf. Iris blinked out of existence and Shadow fell down quite magically on an old discarded bed mattress where Sarah had found her later. Pride hurt but physically well. Shadow had lost the scent of the assassin but it will be forever stored in his brain. He would know him.
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The lights hurt his eyes. He hated lights shining directly above him. His eyes refocused on the pretty face in front of him, then he remembered her and what he was supposed to be doing.
“I didn’t know asking you out could be so life-threatening Sarah.” , He started, his voice a bit hoarse as he spoke.
Sarah watched over him the whole night and was obviously at the end of her strength. She managed a weak smile for him. He did have a morbid sense of humor after all.
“You’ll be ok. The Doc said that the bullet missed a vital artery, only by an inch. I mean if you moved a bit closer you could have been dead by now.”
Carlo touched his bandaged shoulders. He knew that the bullet passed just below his scapula, very easily breakable bone and very painful or so his teachers taught him. And Sarah was right, a little it closer and that stupid little thing could have hit his axillary arteries. Very messy, he has seen a guy stabbed there once when he stayed in Tondo, didn’t even get the chance to bring him to the hospital. The thought of blood calmed him somehow, but he wanted it , he wanted blood on his hands for whoever tried to do this to Sarah. Look at her he told himself, why would someone want to kill a sweet soul like her? Unless Sarah had a secret life that she wasn’t telling anyone but as far as he could tell, Sarah lived in a big ass house with no one else but her wolf. Has very few friends , one of them was Patrick who just entered the room with a tray full of food. He set it down on the table beside his bed and with tears in his eyes sprang to hug him. “Oh thank you for saving my best friend! I didn’t know what would have happened if you weren’t there to take the bullet for her.”
“Hey buddy , if I didn’t have injuries I know what I could do just just about now….” Carlo said with a snarl and with that as if Patrick came to his senses pulled back and composed himself. Sarah giggled. “I’m extremely sorry about that , I mean Sarah has always been very good to me and I really do….care for her. So I didn’t want anything like that happening to her.” Patrick still held that reverence for Carlo as a worshipper held reverence for a saint.
“It’s ok really” Carlo said trying to get up. It was Sarah who gently stopped his rise, her hand on his naked chest.
“The doctor said for you to rest. Besides, you cant do much with your injuries for awhile so why don’t you let me take care of you.”
Carlo looked at Sarah’s soft looking hands on his scarred chest. The girl flushed and took it off. Carlo stood up and revealed that he had a lot more scars on his back than on his chest. “Where are my clothes? I can’t go out just wearing my boxers now can I?”
Sarah went to a drawer and handed his neatly folded clothes to him. I bought you a new polo, the other one was too bloody. “Looks nice” he told her and promptly dressed up. Sarah and Patrick could only watch as he put on his new blue polo, Patrick cringed a bit knowing how painful his injuries were but he didn’t seem to mind. Sarah was sensing power from him. She could not tell what it was but he was using it right now. Carlo was focusing his portal powers to block the nerve impulse transmissions so as to deaden the pain. It always worked.
He was on his way out of the door when he stopped and hesitated. He turned toward Sarah and took something out of his front pant pocket. It was a folded ticket. The design was that of fleeting ghosts, spirits rising vertically as if to reach heaven. “The Spirit Room” was the lone print on it. Sarah has heard of it but she was never been invited to it ever.
“Be there.” Carlo said without any inflection in his voice and turned to go out of the door. Sarah was left with more mystery about this man who saved her. She smiled.
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Authors Note:
While we were still in Medical school , my friend Anne showed me a story about Sarah entitled Daughters of Destiny. I found it interesting and encouraged Anne to write more. This was supposed to be an ongoing collaboration where Carlo and Iris , both portal power users from the stories I wrote would meet with Sarah.
My friend Anne is now a Pediatrician and after reading this and passing her diplomate exams the writing bug bites her again. I hope it bites her hard.
Original Concept: Daughter of Destiny" and Characters Sarah and Shadow by : Anne Marie Joy Tablarin
Original Characters : Carlo and Iris from June’s Multiverse
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