The girl with the ocean hair and the honey-tainted eyes walked before Noah, her back facing him, exposed to any attack from behind.
Noah could put a needle in between her shoulder blades, in the blink of an eye, without anyone noticing: a quiet, perfect, painless death. She would sink down to the floor to an eternal sleep. Then, hours later, when they would find her, the flies would have already helped themselves with her remains.
He would do it, just to test his skills, if he really wanted to.
But for the first time since he left his home, the boy wasn't up for taking anyone's life for no reason.
"Hey" , she spoke first. Her voice was still raw, remnants of her cries in the bathroom. "Why did you help me, back there?"
Right. That's why he didn't want to kill her. When Noah saw Hitori for the first time, sitting in that chair, like she materialized inside the class out of nowhere, he saw right through her.
What she had done.
"Because you're like me" , he replied. "You killed someone precious to you, am I wrong?"
"I--" , the girl's lips parted, trying to utter the words that were kept deep down inside her heart for so long, alas they wouldn't get out. She closed them again. She turned to face him. Her left hand reached for the bridge of her nose, pinching it, shutting her eyelids tight, then slamming them open and looking him straight in the face, glaring.
Noah knew exactly how she felt, because he has been taught to read body language.
Tired, extremely so. Suspicious of me. He thought.
"How did you know this?" Her voice was sharp. She was a totally different girl from the one who was on her knees, crying, begging for the world to stop turning, moments ago.
"If you are an ally to that girl, then you better leave, or else you'll know what will--"
"It's the eyes" , he interrupted, not a hinge of fear in his features. "Our eyes betray us. If you speak their language, you'll discover the person's deepest secrets."
The boy's words seemed to conjure a fog of silence between them, one where he couldn't guess the girl's feelings, couldn't predict what she would say next, couldn't speak before she did. She froze her expression, perhaps deciding how to react.
Noah realized that this was the longest he spoke to a being other than his own parents. It was scary, it was unpredictable, no matter how good he was at interpreting body language. And this human, he thought, was different from the others. She had a strong presence around her. She carried burdens heavier than anyone else, she pretended to smile, when deep down, she hated herself. She gained happiness, when sorrow was eating at her heart. Noah saw it. The way she always kept her distance when talking to others, the way she hid her arms behind her back, signs of uninterest, the way she wouldn't look at her new classmates' eyes, signs of anxiety, of discomfort, of someone hiding a huge secret.
Finally, Hitori showed the slightest hint of a smile.
"Could you really heal her? if...if she didn't disappear? Can you revive the Dead?"
This time, the girl's tone changed, and it triggered something inside the boy, something that wasn't particularly unpleasant. It was a good feeling. But no matter how much he wrecked his brain, Noah couldn't find a word for it.
He nodded. "I can. I mean, I could.."
Her smile got wider. She is relieved, he realized.
YOU ARE READING
The Voodoo Doll
Fantasy[COMPLETED] Noah is a boy who was raised by demons all his life. He has the ability to commit perfect crimes by using voodoo dolls and killing with them. He was taught ever since he was young to show no mercy to his enemies. Yet, because of his unu...
