Onyx
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I felt myself cry out again in stress. Seeing that dagger to his neck, my eyes flashed like I was witnessing a pain worse than my own.
The boy looked at me with concerned eyes. He was just a younger child, terror like this was completely unfamiliar. I felt helpless as I tried to find a solution to this.
I couldn't kill his family, he wouldn't know how to cope. I knew how much his family meant to him. How could I kill another? The pain was beginning to be unbearable. I felt blood trickle from my own neck, even in the water, the salt stung within it.
I looked down, why was I injured? The boy was the one bleeding, right? Why was I suddenly bleeding.
The deeper my father pressed that dagger, the more I bled. "Dad," I called, trying to understand what was happening, maybe he'd stop.
My father looked at the blood trickling from my own neck and looked down at the boy in his arms, who was now healing, completely fine. He started spewing extreme cusses and yelling "shoot shoot. No, not this. Dang it son! This is how you repay me by using your powers like this?"
"I- I'm not trying to. I'm not sure what's happening, dad. Let's go now, okay? I want to go home. Let's just go to shore, okay? Can we leave?"
My desperation fell on deaf ears however, he seemed to spit at me even from under the water, his words coming out like a rabid dog. "You're trying to connect your soul to him, son? Well fine. You can't do anything to connect to him if he isn't alive."
The sight I paid witness to haunted me for life, I let out a guttural scream, a mere boy, as I watched my father then slit his throat.
The world seemed to cave in on me. Suddenly the depths seemed nothing in comparison to the deep shock and despair trying to settle into my bones. My pain swirling stronger than I could even process.
I screeched out once again trying to get to the boy, I pulled myself across the sand with a desperation, please please please, let me take the pain, not him.
I scooped him up in my arms, the water boiling around us all enough to burn everyone present. The shadows and red acid beginning to make even my father, a creature adapted to it, start to form welts.
The sounds of his tribe slowly succumbing to pain, some scrambling away, his parents trying to reach their sweet son fell on deaf ears as I clasped him.
He lay lifelessly in my arms, just maybe 8 years old. Tears of acid dripped from my eyes, burning down my cheeks. "Hey- hey- wake up. Wake up please?" I sniffled, unbeknownst to me, a storm had begun to form all around us, my powers pulling the tides to my heart.
"We were supposed to go hunting for oysters together... C-can you hear me? Wake up? Let's go play, okay?"
My father, distressed by the sheer intensity of my powers, tried to back away and head to the surface, to weather the storm. Abandoning me and the boy there.
I didn't register how bad it was then, my mind only fixated on the boy, wishing to do anything. He can't be dead, right? He can't be no... he's just injured... "I'll heal you, okay, so wake up!"
I tried to pour all my powers in my state into healing him. I can die, I was just a tool anyway. I hadn't known happiness since I met him, let me connect to him. Is there still life in there? I focused on putting my hands above his neck and his heart, squeezing my muscles and straining all my energy as I let out a guttural sound again.
I hated my age right about now, because I needed to save him but my powers were still unstable like a child's. I wanted to do anything and everything, pouring all my remaining energy into trying to save him... finally the boy seemed to twitch slightly.
I exclaimed in surprise and joy, he's still there, I can save him. I can. I let my powers run completely rampant, til they completely surrounded us. The water turned into a whirlpool with us at the center, no longer did I hear any other noises aside from the swirl of the storm and our own.
Even lightning seemed to find its way down here, shadows, ash, acid, all making one big explosion.
Finally when I had exhausted my remaining power, I collapsed by the boy. "You'll be okay now, right? Right?" I tried to look at the boy, who was groggily getting up. The waters stirred but began to calm from my dying power. He looked at me, he looked concerned, then fear washing over his features.
He weakly tried to get up, calling out. "Mama, papa?" His voice was met by silence. He tried to imbue his powers into his communication to cut through the water. Again, silence...
Then as I weakly lay there, my strength fading, I saw his eyes settle on something... his face contorted into an expression of shock, disbelief, terror, all in one. "Mama?" He called out again. "PAPA!!" as he tried to pull himself to them. I turned onto my belly to see what it was that had him in such terror.
Just a distance from us, in front of me laid bodies, many. My face must have frozen in a stone look, the blood draining from my complexion as I realized, that was his whole tribe.
They lay there lifelessly, burned with acid. Acid? My acid? No, please no. I didn't have enough powers left to heal everyone again. Did I do this? How could I do this?
The boy tried to shake his parents awake. Screaming their names as I had his. "Auntie?" He called turning around. "Someone? Please help! Help, help, please."
However, no matter how much the boy called, no one was there.
He turned back to me, the only one remaining. "Opal, what happened? Why is everyone like this?"
My strength fading from me, I didn't know how to explain. I was struck with a reality too tall for a boy my age, for either of us. "I- I just tried to save you. I didn't mean to-"
He looked at me, pain twisting his features. "Bring them back!!!" He demanded. "Bring back my parents Opal. It will be okay, just bring them back!" He said in a desperate voice.
I sputtered blood out my mouth. He looked down at my neck. "Opal... your neck..." he looked even more terrified as he pointed to my neck that was now in the state his was earlier. "It's fine," I barely managed to communicate before I tried to turn to use my powers and direct them as his tribe, towards his family.
However, I couldn't do it. I tried and tried and nothing came to the surface of my powers, it was like I'd emptied the life out of my vessel, my body instead insisting to use its power to heal myself. I didn't want to heal myself. I just wanted to fix this.
The boy, frustrated, scared, and mad about this situation, tried to exclaim. "Why can't you heal them! Isn't that one of your powers?"
The boy seemed to collapse, he wasn't doing too well. I felt extreme guilt. I couldn't even heal him properly, his body now caving in on itself. I feared losing him too. He looked like he'd lost too much blood, using his voice making him cough and sputter more blood til his vocal cords were all but gone. The life draining from his complexion as much as my own.
"I'm... sorry." was the last thing I managed to say, as my mind slipped from me. My world going completely black. The last voice I heard was the boy saying in an angry, upset, low tone. "You're just an angel who fell from glory."
My head seemed to swim in the shards of that memory for eternity. Replaying it in repeat, the one thing I never got over in my life. I thought I would stay stuck in this void of my past forever, I wouldn't complain, I deserved it. Then, I heard a voice. Abyss? The sound reverberated through my darkness, calling to me.
"Get a hold of yourself!!!!" He called. I snapped awake, panting. I couldn't feel my heartbeat, the pain still searing through my entire body. I then tried to focus, on the face in front of me. For a split second, I thought I was seeing the boy. Then my vision focused again on Abyss, who was looking at me with fury mangling all of his features. I knew now, I had broken something.
I had messed up. Abyss looked at me not with the same softness that had been growing in his eyes, but a bitter cold loathing.
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