The Dark Guardian

Chapter 5 Black Heart Beating

        

I watched him for a long time. Too long, until my back grew stiff and my feet ached from standing in one spot.

He was dirty, so dirty that I could barely make out his features. Long matted hair covered his eyes and the rest of his face. The wolves had grown silent as the morning sun shown through the measly little cottage window. With the stiff back now causing me pain, I finally took a step forward in the stranger's direction. His breaths were deep and slow. Some of the wolves lifted their heads in a lulling manner, their eyes peering up at me as my shaking limbs brought me nearer to the fallen figure. I tried not to make eye contact with them, fearing it would only provoke them to begin howling again. But no, they were silent as I moved, their feral eyes almost pleading me to aid the man. As I grew more near, the larger wolf lifted himself and took a few steps back so I could properly see the man's injury. The animal let out a haunting moan that lingered in the air, my heart ached with the sound, it was a deep painful moan and I nearly turned to comfort the beast. But the man before me left me with far too much anxiety to even think on giving comfort to another. His face was covered with the dark matted hair. It was long enough to fall far past his shoulders and even I thought that was strange, but then again I knew nothing of styles and trends especially in Germany. I allowed myself to knell beside him, though with my nerves, it took much longer than it should have.

"Sir?" I whispered, not wanting to startle him awake. The man was immobile and his bulky chest continued to move slowly as he respired. I lifted my trembling fingers up toward the cloth that had been covering his body. The part that lay over his left breast was completely drenched in a dark liquid that I had decided was blood. Though I had never encountered black blood before, my mind insisted there was some kind of medical explanation for such a thing. If anything that thought kept me sane enough to lift the cloth with the very tips of my fingers, careful not to touch what I could not see.

Maybe the liquid was blood mixed with dirt and that would explain it's black color? I asked myself but even with the soothing ideas, I found my eyes squeezing shut and my lips quivered as I pulled the cloth away from him.

"Just look, Lur." I muttered to myself as my chin veered off to the side hesitant to look upon what I had just exposed. The wolf moved over my shoulder and a deep whine came from him, but it almost sounded hopeful now. I found myself looking at the animal instead of the man's wound. The wolf did a little dance for me, like a dog does when you ask if it wants to go for a walk. Then it's tongue grazed my cheek before the beast rested its snout on my shoulder and its yellow eyes focused ahead on the man.

"He's unconscious..." I said to myself but my eyes were still fixed on the beast. "Ok..." I whined, knowing that I had look. My head tilted back towards the man and my narrowed gaze fell over his greying body. The first detail that caught my attention was his chest. The skin was a dark shade of grey, unlike any complexion I had ever seen, but that was a small detail compared to what was growing under the surface of that grey skin. Dark coils covered every part of his body, they were spidery and slender like the thin coiling roots of a young tree. Then in the middle of his chest, at the very core of his body, I could see his heart. It was dark, more than dark, it was black and all the tiny coils met each other at this core point as it does for all living beings. It was the source that pumped life through him, a blackened heart.

"It may be a genetic mutation," I mumbled, sounding far too scholarly for my own good. A circular hole was punctured under his left breast and black liquid oozed from it, dripping down his side and unto the cloth.

Black heart equals black blood, that kind of made sense.

"Ok, so he has black blood..." I began in an almost calm tone, but then I realized I was beyond the point of being composed or being freaked out. I was in some kind of dream state. This could not be real. For a moment, I felt the breath inside my lungs cave, then my heart plummeted back into that frantic rhythm that I so hated.