Their Villain, My Hero

Memories from the Past - The Beginning

Ever since I looked into this man's eyes, I knew my life is going to change... There is something about his personality that makes him special, unique... good... even though his past and appearance say otherwise. That depth of his gaze in which I had lost myself for a few seconds had hidden the key to my heart; a key that I, Laura Ellis, thought was inexistent. All my life I've been searching for it, but my hope of finding it slowly faded, until there was only a spark of it left. No matter how tiny it was, alike a particle, this man managed to rekindle the fire of desire in me. However, the circumstances in which we met were not exactly on our side, but the opposite. There were no vintage cafés in which we could've clumsily introduce ourselves, no accidentally bumping into each other and awkwardly laugh it off after, no normal encounters. I suppose the word "perfection" doesn't really exist in this world. No one can reach perfection. It's an illusion created by the human being in order to always have something to chase, a goal to accomplish, but also, this perfection, from my perspective, does not always have to be perfect. Maybe you think that a situation can be the most horrible thing that has ever happened to you, but in reality, as they say, some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost. To begin with, I was abducted in an unfortunate context with the wrong entourage. It might seem unreal, but it can happen. The Russians took away my freedom and forced me to work for their Secret Association if I wanted to stay alive. Since I am a good medical geneticist, outside the researches I had to do, my job was to take care of their injured soldiers in a prison-base in the Baikal Mountains, where there is no trace of civilization. I must say, I really missed my friends and my country, but in a way, I was able to get over those awful state of affairs easier than I imagined. The only moments of relaxation I had were the Wednesday evenings, when chess games took place between me and the general, a man of almost fifty years old with medical knowledge. Due to this fact, he saw that I was the only one there who knew a lot of things in this field, that I was one of the best doctors they had and he enjoyed having conversations with a cultured person. The general was a more educated man than others, who also knew English very well. I didn't see those conditions as a horrible matter, perhaps also because my childhood ended at an early age, after living with an abusive father and a careless mother. In the 26 years of my life, I never knew what it was like to feel loved, even after I moved to New York. I always told myself that a new beginning would help me forget everything, but it wasn't like that. My ex-boyfriend was very aggressive and toxic with me, I always went to work with bruises that I had to hide with a lot of foundation. To me, it seemed normal for him to behave like that, since my father did the same after finishing his bottle of rum. Mom and I have always been his punching bags that helped him get rid of the anger the alcohol gave him. Now, I believe this past just made me stronger. Nothing is accidental, everything happens for a reason.

The community was full of weirdos and creeps. I tried to avoid them as much as possible I could. Sometimes, when I was required to be around them, I kept hearing stories and legends about this Association that are pretty horrifying. Some of them say they use men sentenced to death who are turned into war machines. Others say they kidnap little boys from their families and keep them locked in dungeons where they train to become Russia's most feared soldiers. The stories had one thing in common. In all of them, those merciless soldiers were named "The Pure Ones" which of course is ironically absurd. I called them all insane, because it was way too exaggerated and perhaps they were just trying to frighten me. Yet, I felt grinded on the inside. They have left this mark of insecurity imprinted in my heart and there was only one way of curing it. In one of the chess nights, the courage to ask the general about these legends had found its way to me. He confirmed the existence of these men to me:

"Yes, The Pure Ones are real, miss Ellis, but what those fools told you is some invented crap! Every 30 years we have a new Pure One. They have always been our secret weapon, but we do not use death sentenced people or kidnap kids as they say. The Pure Ones are men that are born with rare fighting skills and the gift of intelligence. Their DNA is different, that is why they are so hard to find! We abduct them and keep them hidden while training them until an emergency occurs."