33
Flat-lining heart monitors filled the hospital with a permanent shrieking noise. Nurses and doctors rushed to and fro, their faces tense and their eyes wide in panic. Unattended phones kept ringing. Voices cried out in agony.
Elvira tightened her grip on the small hand. It served them right. They hadn’t been there to help her deliver. She’d been neglected – abandoned. She hoped the whole hospital burned to the ground.
The child walking beside her looked up, his eyes big and innocent. An hour ago, he’d been an infant. Now he walked by himself, the size of a toddler.
“I’m scared, mother,” he said, speaking for the first time.
Elvira just stared at him. The fuzzy hairs on his head had grown into white-blond locks, and the baby-blues now shifted in a more defined turquoise color. It was strange to hear her son’s voice for the first time. He had cried when he first came out, but hearing him speak actual words was something else entirely.
“D-don’t worry, okay?” Elvira said and crouched in the midst of all the chaos, hugging him tightly. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Those were words she needed to hear as well – words that she had needed for years. Still, it felt like a hollow promise – a phrase spoken out of worry rather than comfort.
“What’s my name?” the child whispered, his mouth close to her ear.
She hadn’t thought about that. Her mind had been too exhausted the last few weeks, and she’d wanted to put him up for adoption anyway. But now, talking to him for the first time, she felt protective of him. She wanted to give him a better life than she'd had.
“Your name is… Evan.” Elvira wasn’t sure where that had come from, but the boy just seemed like an Evan to her.
He nodded thoughtfully. “I like it.”
The boy raised his arm, spreading his fingers wide. He swept it back and forth across the ward. Suddenly, the continuous noise from the heart monitors turned into steady beeps at regular intervals. The stress washed away from the faces of the hospital staff, and surprised but relieved smiles crept up on their lips.
“We should go,” the boy said and tugged Elvira’s arm.
She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but her body ached, and her muscles were drained. Getting out of here seemed like a very good idea.
“Mom?” Evan said as they stepped into the elevator. “Promise to never take me near the sea.”
“What’s wrong with the sea?”
“There’s a great dragon hiding in the depths.”
“I… uh, okay. I promise,” Elvira said, and the boy smiled.
It was a strange request, but he was a child, and they had vivid imaginations. The doors of the elevator opened with a ding!
“Hi there,” Lucy said.
“Where have you… I had to take myself to the hospital…” Elvira mumbled, but Lucy ignored her and knelt in front of the boy.
“Evanthos,” she said touching his cheek.
Evan’s face grew hard, and he slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch me, hell fiend.”
Lucy giggled and stood up. “I’ll take it from here.”
Elvira blinked. Lucy had the exact same turquoise eyes as the boy. But something else lurked below the surface – a dark cruelty of some sort that Elvira hadn’t seen before. Perhaps, next to the boy’s perfect innocence, she finally saw the truth.
Her fingers tightened around Evan’s hand. “W-what?”
“You’re tired,” Lucy said. “Get some sleep. I’ll take care of your son.”
Her roommate was right, but for some reason, it felt wrong letting him go so soon after his birth, even if it was just for a little while. Elvira shook her head. So many things no longer made sense, but one thing she knew for sure was that Evan needed to stay with her.
“Thanks for checking up on us, Lucy,” Elvira said, her voice weak. “But Evan is my son...”
Finally, Lucy turned away from the boy and looked at her roommate. She tilted her head to the side. Her pupils dilated, and apart from two thin halos of turquoise, her eyes went tar-black.
“You’ve just been through childbirth,” Lucy said softly, but her words all seemed dangerously sharp. “It’s normal to be confused and tired. Just rest a bit. I will take care of your son.”
“I… I…” Elvira took a deep breath. “No! I said I’m okay.”
Lucy’s pupils returned to normal, and her dark eyebrows rolled up in surprise. Elvira held Evan’s hand tightly as her roommate’s face grew hard. Lucy crouched next to the boy and held out her hand. Elvira felt like pulling her son away, but Evan unfolded his tiny fist, like a flower opening for the spring sun.
“By the power in me and all that is holy,” Evan said calmly. “Return from whence you came...”
Lucy’s lips parted, but no sound came out. The light in the room flickered, and then she was just gone. Eyes wide, Elvira stared at the spot where her roommate had stood a moment ago. Nothing remained.
“W-what…?”
“She will be back,” Evan said.
“How can you talk like this? How are you like this?”
Evan looked hurt. He turned away, peering at the patients. This place was ridden with disease, old age, and pain. It was as if the small boy could feel their suffering – as if it belonged to him as well.
“Hey,” Elvira said and knelt down. “I didn’t mean it like that… I’m just so confused…”
Evan didn’t answer, but after a few moments of silence, his eyes returned to her. Gently, he touched her cheek, and for the first time in years, the dark clouds in her mind parted, letting through the sunlight and a thin strip of turquoise sky. The muscles in her cheeks ached with disuse, but she was smiling again.
“I know you’re tired,” he said. “But I need to help these people.”
Elvira nodded, and together they walked over to a man in a wheelchair, whose legs were nothing but sacks of wrinkled skin and bones. Without a word, Evan put his hands on the man’s knees, and at that moment a beam of sunlight cut in through a window, bathing the boy in golden radiance.
The man gaped. His hands trembled as he reached down and touched his legs. Then he pushed himself out of the wheelchair and took a few unsteady steps.
“H-how? Oh my god. How?”
“Go,” Evan said and smiled. “Walk.”
Mouth still wide open, the man straightened his spine and walked across the ward. He turned back several times but never stopped moving his legs until he stepped outside of the hospital. Then he turned his face toward the sky and held up his hands.
Elvira sniffed, unable to keep the tears of joy out of her eyes. Without hesitation, Evan pulled her along to the next patient – a girl without any hair, whose eyes were sunken and empty.
“Your son has a gift,” a woman said behind Elvira.
“Who are….?” Elvira stopped herself when she noticed the orange hospital scrubs.
A set of sky-blue eyes met Elvira as she looked up. There was something about the nurse that made her feel lighter inside, less tired, calm. The woman nodded, her platinum blonde ponytail bouncing.
“Helping people is my passion,” she said. “The world needs your son.”
Elvira nodded slowly. Together they watched the color return to the cheeks and eyes of the hairless girl. She didn’t say anything, but instead stood up and hugged Evan, the heavy weight of the disease gone from her small shoulders. The two women’s eyes met again, both smiling broadly.
“What’s his name?” the nurse said.
Elvira filled her lungs with air, which was a bit hard with all the pride already in her chest. “It’s Evan.”
“He’s a special boy.” The woman nodded. “I’m Raphael.”