Sacrifice Helle

Chapter 15

I woke up, it was light outside. 'Oh, no! I slept through the whole night! We were supposed to sneak out!' I calmed down, 'I guess it doesn't matter now, it's day already, we can make mom and dad come with us and talk to the people from church, they'll probably let us go once they learn more about the tradition...' I got out of bed and saw that Asami had gotten up already. Mom would probably make a deal out of it again, that I always slept for too long and that Asami always got up early. I went to the bathroom, changed into my regular clothes and walked downstairs. Mom was outside in the garden, preparing it for summer, dad was sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper. "Morning..", I mumbled. "Morning to you too.." Dad looked up from his paper and gave me a suspicious look. "Yeah, yeah, it's 11 already, and I've been sleeping for to long, I know, I know..." "That's not it, where's your sister?" "Hmm? Asami? Isn't she awake already?", I asked as I grabbed the bread and started making myself breakfast. Dad got a concerned look on his face, "You mean to say that she's not in her room?" I stopped slicing the bread and looked at my dad, "She's not in our room, I thought she had woken up already! You sure she didn't just go outside?" Dad rose up from the chair and walked outside to mom, "Hey, Marie! You haven’t seen Asami this morning have you? Helle says that she's not in her room, and I haven’t seen her all day." Mom looked up at us standing in the doorway, "No.... I haven’t seen her, I assumed she was still in bed, or that you two girls were up to something, staying in your room all morning.", she looked at me while saying the last part.

I felt like life ran out of me down my feet and disappeared into the ground. My head got empty and foggy, I slowly sat down on the stairs, staring out into nowhere. "Helle, are you okey, what's wrong Helle?" Dad lifted me up on my feet again and all three of us went inside. We had a talk, what was going on? Asami was missing. We decided to go search for her, she could have just wandered of, she must have, in the middle of the night. Maybe she had walked on her own to the cathedral? I agreed with mom and dad and we decided to walk to the cathedral to look for her. But I knew she hadn't walked there, she wouldn't have without me. I tried to remember what I had seen during the night, but all I could remember was deep blue eyes. I think I was about to cry when we walked over to the cathedral, I knew we wouldn't find her there.

A vision suddenly came to me as we approached the cathedral. It must have been because of my sorrow and fear, I felt the same feeling in the air around the cathedral, an event that burned itself into its surroundings. Whether it was the past or the future I couldn't tell. I saw one dark creature with huge black wings and one who was bright. The dark one held something in his arms and the bright one.. It must have been an angel, he cried blood. It was raining on them, and the dark one handed the angel what he held in his arms. It was... a body, soaked in blood, and the angels white clothes got coloured red with blood. I had stopped walking as I saw this image, and a tear fell down my cheek, I don't know what this was, but it was making me very, very sad.

The ceremony was just over and a lot of people streamed out of the cathedral. Mom and dad went inside, and since it was their first time there they were stunned by it's beauty. I looked around for Daniel or Raphael. I saw only people. Mom and dad had gone to find the minister, while I wandered off. I walked around the cathedral, it felt so different, so ordinary. The walls were cold towards me, not warm like they had been before. "Raphael, where are you..?", I whispered. I went up the stairs, the doors that had been open to me before were closed now. "Asami, where are you..?" "Helle!" It was my mother. I looked down at her from the gallery and saw the minister there with her, her eyes going like this O_O. My mother turned to face her, "Helle is my daughters name, it's not English.", she explained to her. The ministers eyes were still a little O_o, but my mother simply ignored her and called out for me again, "Helle!" "Yes, I'm up here!", I called back. "Please..!", the minister implied, "Maybe you should go outside..!" She was clearly concerned about the peoples reaction to my name, and found it apparently unacceptable to pronounce inside the cathedral. Mom just gave her a glance of irritation, then she yelled at me, "Meet us outside HELLE!" The minister shrunk together and I could see her trying to hold her frustration back. Mom left and I walked downstairs and outside to meet her. It had come clear that nor the minister or anyone else in the cathedral had seen Asami. Mother was in her state of coldness, a place she went to when she needed to keep her head clear. It would seem she didn't care less if her daughter had just disappeared, the truth was that she had to keep emotions away from her head in order to think clearly. Dad was asking people outside if they had seen Asami and asked them to keep an eye open for her. A lot of them knew who she was, Asami was the sweet child all parents loved, and she had in such short time gotten to know so many children from our school. The minister had called the police for us and told us to go back home and wait for them.

When the police came they didn't seem to happy to be there, they just said that children often ran away and that she was probably at some friends house, or that she would come back on her own. Dad got crazy with the officer, saying that Asami would never run away, and that we had already called everyone of her friends. Then the policeman asked me, who had been sleeping in the same room as her, if I had noticed anything. I had, but I didn't know what to tell him. He saw that I held back and mom and dad forced me to tell him. "Well... It may be difficult to believe, but I did see someone in our room at night. At first I thought I had been dreaming, but ..." "What did you see?!", dad asked, "You're saying there was someone there?!" I nodded, "Yes. But I didn't get a good look a the person, only... He, or she, had blue eyes. Deep blue eyes." The policeman looked at me suspiciously, "You don't even know the sex, but still you got a good look at the eyes?" 'I knew I should have just kept my mouth shut..!' "The person looked at me while I was sleeping, but it was dark in the room, and I was sleeping, or, I fell asleep again and.." "I think I've heard enough.", the officer said, "I'm sorry about this, but you will just have to wait. If your daughter doesn't show up until tomorrow morning, call us again." Mom went silent and walked away, dad followed the officer out to his car, trying to convince him to start a search for Asami. I started crying. It didn't help what I saw, I knew it wasn't a human being who had been in our room. And I knew no one would believe me if I told them everything I knew. There had to be something I could do... /But first: think! Why did anyone want Asami, and who had taken her? Why did Daniel and Raphael want us to stay in the cathedral yesterday? They must have known this would happen. Vaan. It must have been, who else. Or one of his children had taken her. They wanted Asami? Not me... Then.. she might have been brought to the park, where I had been brought./ I got up and grabbed my jacket, wrote a little note to my parents: 'Gone out to look for Asami in the park'. Then walked off to the park.

It was nice weather outside, my jacket was not necessary, but I planned to stay out for a long time today. Vaan was in the park, that's what Darien had told me. I just had to find him. But as I wandered it came clear to me that Darien and the others also had been looking for Vaan, 'and when they had such a hard time finding him, then how can I?' I cried as I walked aimlessly around. I didn't even know what to look for. "Raphael!!!", I shouted into the sky, "Get the fuck here!!!!" Some birds flew out of the trees at my shouting, I watched them fly as I walked, then I tripped over a branch and fell on the ground. I cried even harder, tears wouldn't stop falling. I cursed myself for letting this happen to Asami, I was convinced it was my fault. I laid on the ground, buried my face in my hands and cried. Then I felt the ground beneath me get softer, I opened my eyes and saw that the dark ground had gotten white. It was.. a white fabric. I was laying on someone’s lap, I looked up and into the most beautiful eyes I could remember. "Don't cry.", he said and folded his arms around me. "Raphael...", I sobbed, "She.. she.." "I know.", he said, "I'm so sorry." I laid there in his arms until my tears silenced. The air felt warmer when he was close. I looked up at him and sat up, he had such gentle eyes, so concerned. "I need to find her.", I said, "Tell me where she is!" Raphael kept quiet. "Tell me!!", I shouted, grabbing his shoulders, trying to shake answers out if him. "Where is she?! Where's Vaan?!" He took hold of my hands with his and pulled them away from his shoulders, looking at the ground and not at me. "Why wont you talk to me?!" I felt sadness getting replaced with anger and frustration inside me and rose up on my feet, looking down at him. "Why can’t you tell me?! You know where she is! You care so much about that fucking vampire?!? I'll tell you what: I can’t even touch him, I just want my sister back!" Raphael was still looking at the ground. "You....!", I started, my hands closing into fists. He then suddenly rose up and looked at me, his eyes weren't gentle and concerned any longer, he looked pissed of. Faster then I could see he had grabbed hold of me, his one hand on my back, grabbing the hair in my neck and forcing my head back, the other he used to hold on to my arm real hard, I bit my teeth together from the sudden pain, as he pulled me closer and his face was just inches away from mine. "Don't take this out on me..", he hissed between his teeth. My anger turned into sadness again when I realized that it was me doing this to him.

Raphael’s eyes turned softer again, and the grip he had on my hair loosened up, he also eased the grip on my arm. It felt warmer instead, he had been holding me so hard that I had gotten marks from his hand. He then started to move away from me, but I held on to him and hugged him. "I'm so sorry, Raphael, I forgot..." "It's okay.", he answered, "You are upset right now, I understand. I should keep away from you until you calm down." He broke free from my hug and kissed me gently on my cheek. "Your sister is alive, Helle. But I can’t bring you there, I will not. You will get killed. You have to give her up." I froze by his words. How could I ever give her up so easily? "Come to the cathedral tomorrow, Helle. Stay with us the next month." Then he was gone.

I walked home. Mom and dad were waiting for me. I sat down with them and told them that I would go to the cathedral the next morning, and that I would like to stay there for a month. They allowed me to do it this time. I couldn't sleep that night.