I'm back, with Chapter Three!
Note: The character Sauron in this story is my OC. The only thing he has in common with Tolkien's mega-awesome Dark Lord is his name. Other than him and Trissa (who is deceased), I own nothing.
- 3. Eve and Sauron -
A young boy, who couldn't have been older than ten, if he was even that old, lay in the dirt, trying to push himself up. But his thin, frail arms wouldn't allow it. Eve gasped. This child was in worse condition than Auto! His small body was barely more than a skeleton, his skin covered in dust and dirt and bruises. He seemed to have fallen in broken glass at some point, as his body was covered with cuts, nicks and scrapes. His long black hair was matted and tangled, much like Auto's, his eyes barely open. There was no doubt about it, this child was on the very brink of death. There was no telling how many diseases he had or was carrying. She noticed one of his hands was holding a tattered, faded photograph of a man and woman holding a baby.
The same photograph Auto wore around his neck.
As if the child sensed their presence, he lifted his head, looked straight at Auto, and gasped out the one word that stopped Auto's heart and froze his blood.
"Father?"
For a moment, Auto just stared at the boy, a look of shock and amazement on his face.
"Auto..." Eve placed a hand on his shoulder, but Auto was lost in his own thoughts.
"I-it can't be.." he said softly to himself. He walked slowly toward the boy, as if in a trance, while unseen shards of glass and metal on the ground lacerated his bare feet. Auto knelt at the boy's side, staring in disbelief at the photo in the child's hand. He knew there were three copies of that photo. He and Trissa had had two, and the last time he'd seen the third was the night Trissa died. She had hidden it in the folds of Sauron's baby blankets. Auto noticed a small note on the back of it.
To whomever finds this child: He must not lose this note.
To Sauron: Only your father will recognize this symbol.
Beneath it was a hastily drawn sketch of a dragon with one flawless angel wing and one broken, tattered bat wing and two bands around its front legs. On each band was a single rune that he and Trissa had created that stood for the two of them.
Auto almost started crying again as he looked the sign of their love. They both admired dragons, so they made one to represent their marriage. The beautiful angel wing stood for Trissa and her luxurious, wealthy upbringing. The broken, tattered bat wing was Auto when she first met him, when they were both children, and poor Auto would be kicked or hit or spat on by the other rich people when he wasn't fast enough at cleaning messes that they had made on purpose.
Yes, the photo was indeed the third and last copy besides his own. Which meant this chile could only be...
"Sauron?" Auto asked. The boy struggled to nod his head. Carefully, Auto lifted the boy into his arms, making the child wince as he touched some sensitive wound somewhere. The boy's head fell over onto Auto's shoulder and he let out a soft moan. Auto laid his staff down at his side and wrapped both of his arms around the scared, injured boy. Small tears formed in the little one's eyes as Auto held him. At long last, he felt the confort and warmth of his father's embrace, something he'd thought he would never, ever feel.
"Oh, ma Sauron, it's been so long! I-I thought i'd never see you again, my son!" Sauron made to reply, but instead ended up coughing and hacking. He turned his head to the side as a stream of thin, bloody bile fell to the ground. He then released his tears into Auto's shoulder. Auto held him tighter and looked to Eve.
"I cannot get up. Please, help us." Eve nodded. She picked up Auto's staff in one hand and wrapped her other arm around his waist, using her augmented strength to help hold him up. As quickly as Auto could limp while holding Sauron, they returned to Auto's trash-heap-shack. She helped Auto carry Sauron into a back room that she guessed was meant to be e bedroom. A long, low woooden box filled with blankets and cloth sat in the center. Auto laid Sauron on it, rolling up a blanket and placing it under the boy's head. He then cvered Sauron with another one before taking his staff from Eve and leaning on it as he watched his son sleep. Eve was just glad to see that the child wouldn't be left to die.
Auto left the room, only to return with a bowl of water, a jar of Eve-didn't-know-what, and some cloth he'd torn into strips. He sat down and began to meticulously clean Sauron's wounds. When he finished, he opened his small jar and gently rubbed some of the contents into the wound. Sauron winced, but was otherwise still. Seeing that there was nothing left that she could do, she silently let herself out and went home.
When she saw him the next day, Auto was sitting on an overturned crate in front of his shack (I'm just going to call his trash pile a shack from now on), with a large pile of black fabric about his feet. In his hands were black string and what looked like an animal bone of some sort. He was trying to attach the string to the bone somehow.
"What are you doing, Auto?" she asked.
"Trying to thread this Eru-forsaken needle." was his answer. "It's not working very well."
"I see that." She had expected he would be doing this. "Here." she said handing him a needle, threader, and spool of black thread, "use these instead."
"Thank you." Auto took them, threaded the needle, and began meticulously stitching the fabric in his hands.
"What are you making?" Eve asked after watching Auto sew for a bit.
"What kind of father doesn't provide his son with things to wear." Auto replied, continuing to stitch. "Though I'll never be able to provide what his mother could have." he added dejectedly.
"Oh, Auto, I'm sure he'll apreciate it just the same." She tried to sound reassuring, but she was doubtful since Sauron had seen his mother and father dressed in very fancy clothing in their photograph. Even the blanket he was wrapped in looked expensive.
"I know. I just...I just wish I could give him...everything I never had." Auto's voice became softer and sadder, and he put down his sewing and just stared down at his dusty, bloody bare feet. He hadn't bothered to bandage them, being more worried about Sauron.
Eve wanted to say something to try and help, but before she could, her wrist messager pinged. She groaned. She really didn't want to leave Auto like this.
"Go." he said, "What they need is probably more important than me. Thank you, though." And he returned to his sewing.
It was several days before Eve was able to get away and go to Auto's again. When she got there, she could hear two voices back behind the shack. When she got to the back, she saw Auto and what had to be Sauron headed back from the creek. They must have just bathed, as Sauron's long black hair was still so wet it shone in the sunlight. He was clothed in long, ground-length black robes that made him look like some ancient mage or lord of a great kingdom. Eve thought it was the perfect look for the young boy. As he caught sight of her and ran back toward his father, she noticed that Auto had even sewn a hood onto the back of Sauron's outer robe. As he ran, she noted that he also had bare feet, like his father, but much dirtier and bloodier. His hair, despite being wet, bounced up and down on his back as he went.
"Ah, Eve. I don't think you two were properly introduced. Eve, this is my son, Sauron. Sauron, this is the woman I told you about that helped me when I found you."
"Is it Mother?" It was the first time Eve had heard Sauron speak without struggling for breath. He still had the high, sweet, innocent voice of a child when he spoke. His face, which had been full of hope and anticipation, fell in an instant when Auto shook his head slowly.
"No, Sauron. Your mother is...is..."
"Dead?" Sauron guessed. Auto nodded.
"Oh. Well, it's nice to meet you, Miss Eve." The boy held out his hand to her. She took itand shook it gently.
"It's good to see you up and feeling better, Sauron."
"Thanks." he said, "Was I really almost dead when you found me?"
Eve almost laughed at how casual he sounded, as if he were inquiring about the weather or simply making small talk, instead of his own near-death.
"Well, I thought you were dead, until you almost launched a stomach volley in your father's face." He smiled, but just as quikly, he was serious again. He looked back at his father, who had wandered off toward the shack.
"Miss Eve...can I ask you something." The boy's voice was so soft, she almost didn't hear him.
"Of course, Sauron. What is it?"
"Well...I don't think Father wants me to know, but...What happened to my Mama?" Now he seemed much younger, and Eve realized how much he'd truly lost; his mother was dead, his father had been gone from him for ten years, and BnL had completely robbed him of his childhood. He may have been ten, but the pure innocence she saw in his eyes made him seem much more of a child. And in Sauron, she saw similarities to Wall-E. Both of them had missed out on their childhoods, both had been trapped and forgotten on the wasteland that was their planet Ereth, and both had lost those who loved them most. But then, both of them had found someone to love them unconditionally, someone who would do anything for the sake of their happiness, someone who would sacrifice their life to protect them. For Sauron, it was his father; for Wall-E, it had been-
"Miss Eve?" Sauron was looking up at her inquisitively, waiting for an answer to his question. Eve sighed.
"All right, but don't say anything to your father. He's very easily upset by it."
"I won't. Promise." Sauron unconsciously placed his hand over his heart, as if to emphasize his promise. Eve smiled and took the boy's hand, his slender, delicate fingers wrapping around her hand.
"Good. Now, let's take a little walk and I'll tell you."
They followed the creek along the same path Eve and Auto had walked when they found him. When Eve had finished telling him what Auto had told her, Sauron was quiet for a bit, looking down at his feet, or fidgeting with his robe. Eve could tell there was something he wanted to say, but he was having trouble actually doing it. She heard a small sniffing sound and realized Sauron was crying.
"Why?" he whispered, "Why would they do that? What did Mother and Father ever do to them?" Eve gently brushed some of the tears off his face.
"They had hope, Sauron." she said, "They had hope that we would return to Ereth. BnL didn't want people to have hope."
"W-why n-not?" he sniffed.
"Because if the people have no hope, they're easy to control. They're easy to brainwash. BnL wanted the starliners to be places where no one would have to think. And if no one could think or hope, then there was no one to oppose BnL. All their thinking was done for them by the automated crew and the BnL officials. Even the officers on the ship were mere pawns for them, slaves in their own bodies."
"How? How can you make someone a slave in their own body?" Sauron asked.
"Each officer had to be 'broken'. That meant breaking their spirit and their will to resist control. They did this through physical pain, mental trauma,...and sometimes murder." Eve shuddered inside at the thought.
"Like what they did to Mother?" Sauron's eyes had more tears in them, already beginning to slide down his cheeks.
"Yes. They killed your mother and banished you in order to break your father. It worked a bit too well. The mental trauma was so awful, Auto was incapacitated for four days before he could take his position as commander." Sauron bowed his head, his hair fell in a black curtain around his face, hiding it from view.
"What else did they do?" he asked.
"After the officer was broken, they would implant a chip into their brain that contained all necessary BnL protocols and directives. But it doubled as a control device, preventing the officer from going against the directives.
"Did...did Father have one?"
"Yes, but he cut it out of his brain himself. Almost killed himself doing it, too. He was delirious the last time I saw him after that, until he somehow healed himself. I confess, I didn't help him and I had him banished here because...well I'm sure he's told you by now."
Sauron nodded, "Wall-E."
"Yes. He told you what happened on the Axiom?"
"He shocked Wall-E with his pace cane. Was that because of that thing in his head? Were they controlling Father and making him hurt people?"
"Yes." Eve answered solemnly, "At the time, I didn't think so, but I know better now. He had the chip in his hand when we found him. He asked for help, not realizing it was me. And I still held a grudge at that time, so I just left him. That's why he has an awful scar on the back of his head now." Now it was Eve's turn to bow her head, hide her face, and let her tears fall.
"I'm so sorry, Sauron. I'm so, so sorry. It's my fault your father is so poor and sick. It's my fault you don't have a house. And it's my fault he can't get medical care for himself...or you. Oh, Sauron, I just-" She was cut off by a hand on her arm.
"Don't cry, Miss Eve. It's okay." She looked down and saw his face full of worry and concern. Just like Auto's that first night when she had wandered to his house and shared her grieving with him. Sauron looked at her and flicked a tear off her face.
"It's okay, Miss Eve. I'm not mad, and Father's not mad. So please don't cry. Please?" She couldn't say no. His big blue eyes, mirror images of his father's, were just too irresistible. She put her arm around Sauron and pulled him close. He didn't refuse or pull away. He just let her.
"Thank you, Sauron." she said, looking down at his sweet childlike face.
"For what?" he asked. Eve squeezed him tighter.
"For doing the same thing your father did. For listening to me. For understanding me. For caring about me."
Aawwww, like father, like son, no? Anyway, I think I'm going to go work on updating another of my stories. Don't ask which one, because I'm not sure right now. Whichever one I get an idea for first. Anyway, review this one and tell me what you think.