CHAPTER 3 "About Each Other"

  “What’s your name…”

  The words of the fragile, sweet girl echoed in his head. The question hung between them, simple and unbearably complex. Dan looked into her bright blue eyes – still wet with tears, but no longer filled with the former terror. He saw gratitude, embarrassment... and a fragile hope. And in that moment, he understood. That aching, warm feeling that squeezed his chest when she took his hand and asked his name in a trembling voice... and when he thought beautiful... It was about her. Specifically her. Not about humanity in general, not about life as an abstraction. About her.

  "I..."

  Dan remembered everything. Everything since his arrival on this planet. Everything that had happened over four millennia, to him and to humanity: from the first civilizations actively developing in different corners of Earth, the first hieroglyphs carved on clay tablets, the first wars over territory and the emergence of the first statehood, to the launch of the first rocket carrying a human into space, the creation of the internet, and the advent of Netflix. He remembered it all. Everything, right up to the moment when the most ordinary and simple question, an act of initiating human interaction, a question he had answered mechanically countless times without a thought – left him stumped. Him – the Lord of Darkness. And now, standing over the trembling, fragile girl, holding her warm fingers and gazing into her ocean-deep, bright blue eyes, he had forgotten his own name for the first time in four thousand years. The vast, ancient mechanism of his memory had malfunctioned on the most elementary operation. Him — the Lord of Darkness, Commander of Death — paralyzed by the simplest act of human acknowledgement. Had he forgotten? No. He had lost the name. It had slipped away like sand through fingers, carried off by the unfamiliar whirlwind of feelings raging inside him.

  "My name is…"

  The girl waited patiently for her savior to speak his name. She looked at him, trying to hold his gaze, but embarrassment kept making her glance away. She had stopped trembling. Surprisingly even to herself, she felt calm and protected. She didn’t even notice she was holding the cold hand of Darkness itself, yet it warmed her. Thoughts raced through her head one after another:

  "How did I calm down so fast?"

  "Why am I not scared?"

  "He just… took down five guys without blinking…"

  "Aah! I gave him my hand?!"

  "Ugh-ugh! I can’t stand being touched!"

  "…No.., don’t let go…"

  The chaos in Dan’s head gave him no chance to recall the one thing that had been with him from the very beginning. His name. A name spoken thousands of times before. He felt like a student failing the easiest exam question.

  "Why? It’s so simple… Just a name."

  The seconds that passed while Dan stood there, trying to remember, stretched longer than the years he had walked the Earth.

  "Dan...," the Lord of Darkness finally remembered, — "My name is Dan".

  The girl offered a faint smile, still not daring to look higher than his chin.

  "Thank you, Dan..," she whispered, and his name on her lips sounded like an unfamiliar, tremulous melody. She carefully freed her hand from his icy fingers.

  He immediately felt how the warmth of her touch was instantly replaced by the familiar cold of emptiness.

  "I'm... I'm Seline," she muttered, already stepping back slightly towards the lamplight. — "Thank you... so much."

  She got up, leaning on his hand, took another step back towards the light, glanced towards the dark alley where her attackers had come from, and unexpectedly asked:

  "Dan... I...," she faltered, looked at him again, this time directly, with pleading in her blue eyes. — "Could you... walk me home? I live nearby, just three blocks away, but... I'm afraid to go alone."

  Click.

  It was as if something switched inside Dan. A moment ago, he still felt the fading echo of her clear voice, the warmth of her hand, the strange dizziness from hearing his name spoken. But the words "walk me home" acted like an ice-cold shower.

  Observer.

  His place was in the shadows, at a distance. Getting closer was a risk. A risk for her. His power, even sealed, was like poison. An inner voice screamed: "No. Politely refuse. Say you're in a hurry. Just leave."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Yes, of course."

  Dan froze. Deadening, deafening silence reigned inside.

  "What? What did I just say?"

  He looked at the blushing Seline, her face breaking into a timid but sincere smile of relief, and he didn't understand.

  "What is this feeling?"

  Before he could answer that question for himself, he mechanically turned towards the address Seline had named. His movements were smooth as always, but inside, everything was turned upside down.

  They walked in silence. But each silence was different.

  Dan felt like a stranger in his own body. He – the Lord of Darkness – had just agreed to a "moonlit walk" with a frightened mortal. Absurd.

  He only suppressed the Darkness within him more fiercely, pushing it deeper so as not to harm the girl.

  "Why?" – the question hammered in his head with every step. Why did I say "yes"? He analyzed the moment of decision – and found only emptiness. There had only been an instant, inexplicable impulse: Protect. Stay close. Don't let go. As inexplicable as her calmness beside him.

  He stole a glance at her. Moonlight fell on her golden hair and almost doll-like face. Seline walked close, head bowed, watching her feet trying to keep pace with her savior's wide stride. Only occasionally did she lift her gaze, trying to see Dan more clearly, but each time, embarrassed, she looked away. There was no trace of the earlier trembling in her body. Only goosebumps ran down her back when their hands accidentally brushed. She trusted him. Blindly. Irrationally…

  Her inner world was the complete opposite of the external silence. Despite the nightmare she had just endured and the presence of a man who radiated an invisible, ancient, inhuman power, she felt... absolute calm. As if an invisible shield had closed around her, shutting out all the world's horror. His silent figure walking beside her was more reliable than any fortress. "He is here. He is nearby. He won't let anything happen…," the thoughts pulsed in time with her steps, bringing waves of deep, almost physical relief.

  She stole a glance at him. Moonlight fell on his sharp, noble features, reflecting in his perfectly black eyes, the same as his coal-black hair. She remembered how trustingly, without a shadow of doubt, she had placed her hand in his palm. How she had asked him to walk her home... Heat flooded her cheeks.

  "God, I must look so helpless and ridiculous and...! And this… this torn clothing, and the dust...Aaaaah! How ridiculous I am…"

  She covered the tear in her grey hoodie with her palm.

  Embarrassment couldn't overpower the inexplicable trust. She believed him. Blindly and unconditionally. Even his coldness, palpable even half a step away, didn't frighten her; on the contrary, it somehow seemed to warm her.

  Burning, insistent curiosity:

  "Who is he?"

  "How wasn't he afraid of those thugs…?"

  "Why is he silent...?"

  She wanted to say something but worried she would sound stupid and clingy. Not fear, but excitement. The awareness of closeness with someone utterly extraordinary, who had appeared in her darkest moment to protect her.

  "Ah, if only I lived on the other side of the planet..., – flashed through her mind with unexpected clarity, and she surprised herself, — ...damn, we're almost there! I wish I could walk with him... forever ..."

  She immediately blushed, embarrassed by her own thoughts.

  Dan felt her gaze. He heard her even, slightly quickened breathing. He caught the faint scent of her perfume – something floral, mixed with dust. Every stolen glance, every gesture of embarrassment was like thunder in a clear sky for him, shattering the centuries-old silence of his isolation.

  "Why isn't she afraid?"

  "Why does she trust?"

  "How can she feel calm beside Darkness?"

  These questions mixed with his own shock at what he had done, forming a poisonous cocktail of confusion utterly alien to the Lord. He couldn't understand what feeling, or what magic, had compelled him to walk this girl home. He was experiencing something inside himself he had never felt in all these millennia.

  The silence was suddenly broken by a coarse shout:

  "Hey! What are we doing out sooo late?!"

  Three drunken guys stood by the wall near a bar door. One pointed insolently at Dan:

  "Babe! Come with us! Bored with this freak?!"

  "Again?.. And she lives here…", Dan thought without slowing his pace.

  Seline instinctively grabbed the sleeve of the Lord of Darkness's coat. He kept walking as if ignoring the drunken troublemakers, only slowly turning his head towards them. His gaze – dark, lifeless, the gaze of an apex predator – slid over the trio and marked their place in the food chain.

  He didn't want a fight.

  "S-sorry...," the guy rasped, stepping back and pulling his friends with him. They quickly parted, cowering under an invisible weight.

  Dan and Seline walked past the thugs, frozen in primal terror, their bravado dissolved into trembling.

  "You got lucky…", Seline thought, casting a glance at the former tough guys.

  "Thank you...", Dan thought, "I really didn't want to hurt them. It truly... brings me no pleasure…"

  Dan cast only a momentary glance at Celine, still clutching his coat sleeve. In his usually empty eyes flickered a confident promise:

  "No one will hurt her again" Dan decided unexpectedly even to himself, and immediately thought: "What?!... what is wrong with me… why...?"

  They continued on their way. The silence that fell over them again was now thick, saturated with their mute thoughts, broken only by the hum of cars. Their thoughts were about each other.