The Green Guardian

Chapter 35: The Truth About Sam

        "Um, Faelyn, I don't think you should be walking around Seranet looking like that." Edger examined the fae skeleton in front of him.

Faelyn smirked. "Oh, hush, Edger. Mateo won't be able to see me, so no worries. He does not yet have his wings or full powers."

Edger nodded to show he understood. "True, but... no offense... I don't know how much longer I can look at your bony face. Let me give you a little touch-up." He backed away from the undead man. Magic wafted out of his open palms and circled Faelyn. A white light washed over his skinny body. By the time it left, he was no longer a skeleton but the man he used to be before he died at age thirty-seven. He was a life-like ghost.

Mateo and Faelyn were mirror images of each other. Mateo clearly took more after his dad than his mom. Only, because Faelyn was fae, his black hair was long. However, he shared Mateo's tan, soft skin. Unlike him, he did not have a goatee. His face was bare. Faelyn had pointy ears, and his wings were silky and white with a blue-green tint. He was also good-looking.

Faelyn patted down his blue-green vest and tan pants. "How bad is my son's condition?"

Edger cleared his throat. He nervously pulled at the collar of his shirt. "Um... He is definitely in a lot worse shape than his mom."

Faelyn's deep brown eyes widened. He stomped his brown boots on the grass surrounding the waterfall's pool. "Abigail? What happened to her?"

"Oh, so Abigail is her name." Edger had forgotten completely. "Well, let's just say she sacrificed herself to protect Mateo from the basilisk."

"What?" Faelyn clenched his fists. "She's not dead, is she?"

"No. Just unconscious. She's in Paperblank Village's ICU." Edger did not yell. He remained calm because he knew Ms. Brook–no, Abigail Brook–would recover. Mateo, though, was a different story. His outcome was not yet set in stone. Edger sighed. "Mateo is here because the hunter is after both him and Euphorbia."

Faelyn's bushy eyebrows narrowed. "You have not yet answered my question. How bad is my son's condition?"

Edger gulped. There was a moment of silence, and then he said, "Very serious. Nearly critical."

"Take me to him. Por favor," begged Faelyn. He flipped up the sleeves of the long, white shirt he wore under his vest. Then, he started to nervously tug at the red tie around his neck.

Edger shivered. "Okay, but you're not going to like what you see."

"I don't care. Él es mi hijo," Faelyn said.

***

Mateo was getting worse. Krysta had managed to put the mask over his nose and mouth, but he was slipping in and out of consciousness, like before. As a whole, he was lapsing into a coma–which, similar to when victims went brain-dead, was not uncommon for the forest sickness.

Maria could no longer hold back her emotions. Tears poured from her eye sockets and down her cheeks. "Mateo, you can't die!" she yelled. She could not raise a child all by herself.

Mateo did not move or respond to her comment.

Krysta hastily pulled his shirt off his tummy. "Oh my God," she said, at the sight of the worsening injury. "Kid, what on Earth happened to you?" If Mateo's condition did not improve by Sunday, she was going to have to incubate and put him on life support (that would be so hard for the family). Why couldn't Keegan just accept him? He was killing a twenty-one-year-old–someone who had been an adult for merely three years.