Chapter 33: Promise
PLEASE Read and Review!
* * *
The baby giggled with delight as she bounced up and down on Ryan's knee. Her blue eyes disappeared as she laughed and her chubby checks dimpled. Ryan laughed along with her, but memories pushed their way into his mind and they took him on a ride back to the past.
He saw his back yard. The giant tree reached up to the blue sky and in its branches he climbed into a small wooden house. It smelled of new wood and rain. Pine needles and footprints made of dirt decorated the floor. In a box in the corner, army men, toy cars, and dinosaurs rested, awaiting the life that Ryan and his brothers and sometimes his sisters would give them. Light poured from the window above them and every once in a while would catch a shiny surface and blind Ryan momentarily.
He turned to face the latter and that was when he saw Kael. He watched himself help the five year old up into their haven, their safe haven. Why could they not have stayed there? Far from the problems of mutants and humans, far from hurt, and death, and pain. Why did Kael have to die?
The baby had stopped laughing and Ryan looked down into those beautiful, sleepy blue eyes. Eyes like Kael's. They were not dark and brown, but they were still the same. They contained so much innocence, so much purity, so much excitment that one looses as they get older. Ryan pulled the child to his chest and rubbed her back gently. He looked to the ceiling though not at it. He looked beyond it, to the heavens.
"Now I know what you want me to do," he said aloud. And he made a promise in his heart. He would not let the innocent suffer because of the sins of others. As long as he remained standing he would use his power to defend people. He had failed Kael, but he would not fail anyone else.