And then he saw her.
A girl. A girl layed before him. He looked
down upon her, she was silent. She appeared to be in her late teens,
early 20s. She wore a white t-shirt and denim jeans. Her red
hair was tangled in the hay. Her hands were pulled as close to her
body as possible, her legs curled up in the fetal position. Her eyes
were closed, her breath was quick and sharp. Omega knew it was cold,
he just couldn't feel it. He stood there with uncertainty.
His instincts brought him here, but they no longer were speaking to him.
He began to wonder if he was blocking them out somehow.
She was shivering, cold, weak. All he felt
like doing was watching her. Watch her lose what little warmth she
was generating in her failing body. His greed for human unhappiness
grew and he watched the poor creature suffer. She was dying, he was
living. He was better off then her. He held her life in his
hands, and he could just as easily crush her. His hands still clenched
in his pockets: rage, anger, hate. He felt no compassion and it made
him feel good.
He knelt down and sat on the ground. He crossed
his legs and withdrew his hands from his pockets. In the back of
his mind he knew he wanted to help her. But there was no room for
what he was now that he had become who he is. This logic spoke so
loudly to him that everything else seemed to be as it should be.
Just then, one of her eyes opened to peek out at
the cruel world. She spotted Omega almost immediately. She
was frightened of him. Her eyes told him a scary tale of how helpless
she felt and how vulnerable her position was. But when Omega did
nothing but sit there before her, she felt slightly calmer.
"W-W-Who are y-y-you?" She shivered.
Omega simply stared back at her. He made no
movement, he spoke not a word.
She curled up as hard as she could into a ball.
Omega could feel that she was so alone. So alone and now so scared.
There was a stranger before her, a man who could help her, or a man who
could make her situation worst. He did neither, but watch her.
Omega knew that she was going to act at some point and that action was
going to be the definition of why he came into this place. He waited.
He watched.
The girl was now crying. Silent tears, no
sobs. All her energy was going into keeping her warm, but her confusion
of this situation needed to be expressed and her body told her this was
the way to do it. She drew one clenched hand to her mouth and bit
hard into her fist. She was testing her reality, and it was real.
Too real was this nightmare she was in, and Omega's pressence only made
it more horrific.
"She will expire, she will die." His thoughts
had returned but not so directive. They spoke now of what he already
knew. "Just wait, she will no longer be with us."
Suddenly, she propped her broken self up to the
best of her ability and half-heartedly lept at Omega. He reacted
to her as if it were an attack. But her arms wrapped around him and
she positioned herself in his lap. Her desperation was to seek warmth
from Omega, no matter what the consequences. But Omega was cold,
he had nothing to offer her. She was better off on the ground, in
the hay. She buried her head into his neck, ashamed of her actions.
She didn't want to be anywhere near here, yet she was near death in this
lonely place. Her tears ran down her face and landed on his skin.
So cold were her tears. But Omega felt nothing.
Omega's hands hung in the air, unsure of what to
do. Slowly, he brought them around her fragile body. The voice
he had ignored for so long now screamed loudly in his ears. "Why
now!? You watched her died, now you have compassion!? Why now!?"
And just like that, that voice was gone again.
And with that, her body went limp. Omega felt
her last breath escape from her lungs and drift across his neck.
Her desperate grasp around him came loose and her arms lay on his shoulders.
Omega was alone, he now could physically feel how alone he was in his arms.
A tear of his own formed in his eye. What
had he become, what has his life led him to? He drew her lifeless
body to him, afraid to let go of her, even though he never had her to begin
with. No one was there to see him, but he hid his face. Afraid
to let his emotions be seen by the rest of the world. He cried into
her shirt, his sobs were muffled by his attempts to hold them back.
He was nobody, he was nothing.
His purpose was not to save her, his purpose was
to lose his last thread of humanity before becoming everything he had once
swore he would never become. With her death, his being died with
her. With this cry, his emotions left too. No longer was he
to be apart of the world he took for granted. He now was a lost cause,
a blemish on humankind.
Omega stopped crying all at once and sat with the
girl in his arms. He slowly lowered her to the ground and positioned
her the same way he had found her laying there. He stood up and placed
his hands back in his pockets. He wrapped his trenchcoat around his
body and walked out the way he came. From the barn he walked back
to the gravel road. From there he stopped and looked up at the stars.
Omega once looked up at the stars in astonishment,
wondering about their infinate knowledge. He know felt nothing.
Just lights above to reflect the path he was to walk on. And walk
on, he did.