38: Unwanted Visitors (VII): The Walls

Once inside, the atmosphere was similar to that of a small and —oddly enough —homey military base. A pair of guards bowed their heads at Gregory's presence, and Gregory returned the gesture with a smile. The walls were brick like outside, somewhat cleaner than the outside, and the whole place could be described as a long corridor with a couple of rooms every few meters.

Melody ignored everyone's presence and ran in search of every "clone" of Padd that was on the path to the right. For the guards of the place it was not strange to see Melody peek through each door, after all, it was a place where the public had access to bring complaints or report problems if necessary, what was hidden were the dungeon, jail or prison Underground. The pair of guards didn't even stop to ask who the girl in Gregory's sphere was, for having things to do and trusting that she for sure was some kind of criminal.

"I'm going with Melody" Samantha stated. "I don't want her to touch what she shouldn't."

"Good" Greg started to go left, but his niece grabbed his shirt and stopped him.

"Don't take too long, Uncle Greg."

The melancholy look of his niece reminded him of the reason for his vacation.

"Sure, see you in an hour." He stroked her head, partially against her will, she ended up accepting the act of affection.

Gregory was used to moving through those corridors with someone in his sphere, placing it on the edge of the ceiling —which was almost two and a half meters away —and moving to the left near the wall. In this way he avoided problems and unexpected clashes with the guards who were hurrying to leave or enter the rooms. After a few short minutes he reached his destination, a door that instead of being to the right of him was in front of him.

It was one of seven intercepts between the walls, highlighted by the huge steel double door wide open. As he crossed it, he came across one of the three infirmaries on the walls.

It was a quarter the width of the walls and thirty meters long, about eighteen beds —white with a simple pillow —and a wonderful absence of people in them. The exception was the dark-skinned man leaning on one of them with his hand over his face and his fellow guard who was on the desk next to that bed.

"Gregory? Weren't you on vacation?" The lady lowered a couple of papers. Her profile was slim, with light brown skin from lack of sun exposure, a ponytail that hung down to her neck, and a pair of blue eyes with dark circles.

"Heilyn, I bring an injured girl." Gregory lowered the sphere and led her through the door.

"Get out of there Sam." Heilyn gave the man on the gurney a couple of blows, he reluctantly stood up, walked half a meter to the bed and leaned back without changing his pose or saying a word.

"Haha, is he on his break?" Gregory steered the sphere onto the gurney and released Airys.

"What happened to this girl?" Heilyn ignored Gregory and began inspecting Airys.

"Well/"

"She's got a broken head, she's bleeding! Don't stand still and pass me the veins and the alcohol!" she ordered without letting Gregory answer her anything.

"Here/"

"Why did you bring her here? Didn't they want to charge you at the clinic near your house?" Heilyn snatched the things out of Gregory's hand and cleaned the wound, checking to see if she had multiple breaks. "What is her name?"

"Is/"

"Why do you let this happen to such a pretty girl?"

Gregory dropped his shoulders, hunched over, and sighed every drop of weariness from his body. That is why he preferred to be treated by Sam, Heilyn has the bad habit of questioning the companion of the patient without giving him the opportunity to respond while she treats the patient.

"How old is she? What did she come to town for?"

"This day will be long," he murmured.

Sam, from his side, managed a smile. Rest is rest, and there are no emergencies at the moment.

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Meoldy ran open every door in her wake. Guards eating, no Padd. Guards resting, zero Padds. Guards exercising with weights, but Padd wasn't...

"Where are you hiding Padd?!"

Samantha followed her from afar, her little sister was too energetic when she wanted to compete.

"Kyaa!" Melody screamed when she opened the wrong room door and wet steam came out.

"Sorry!" Samantha blushed and ran to close the door and grab her little sister to move on, the men in the room laughed and didn't care.

Civilians were not forbidden to enter the bases of the wall, but that did not mean that they could run from side to side and open any doors they come across.

Samantha calmed her breathing and in that Melody fled to chase a Padd that she saw in the distance.

"If it weren't for our uncle... for our family, they'd kick us out of here..." Samantha thought, not entirely wrong.

Padd caught Melody with his arms and spun around with her releasing laughter and screams of excitement.

"Are you the one with the rose?" Melody asked with heavy breathing.

"Nope, keep looking."

Melody pouted and crossed her arms annoyed, that attitude did not last long because she saw as another Padd entered a room and with a grimace of malice ran straight there.

Samantha, she does not know exactly when was the first time she explored the foundations of the wall, what she does rescue from her memories is that before her sister was born it was already normal for her to come and look for her mother along with her father Down these torch-lit corridors back then.

She slid her hand along the rough old walls, focused her gaze on the glittering golden crystals that lit up the place, and lost a portion of her spirit.

The thing is... Melody loves to come, people are kind here and she —Samantha — as spent so much time here that she is surprised not to come to visit her uncle during work when Melody gets bored. But… she stopped liking it.

Her eyes watered.

"The least I wanted was to come on your vacation, silly uncle ..."

———————————————————————————————————

"She'll be fine, she just needs rest and a good apology from you."

"It wasn't me!" Gregory exclaimed. "I don't know her name, Zamir brought her to me and said that she was an accomplice of the thief of the mirror and she was already hurt! It's obvious that it was him!" he counted aggressively on his fingers.

"Yeah yeah, make sure she eats well so she gets her blood back." Heilyin filled a piece of paper with her pen and handed it to her.

Gregory received it casually because of the casual attitude of Heilyn when she gave it to him.

"And this?" he said before glancing at it.

"Bill."

"What?! Why?!"

"You are on vacation; you are not a Golden Guard today."

"And that has to do?!"

"The service is free only for the Guards and Golden Guards."

"B-but!"

"No uniform, no discount."

Gregory checked the paper and his eyes were bloodshot when he saw the exorbitant amount of a hundred silver coins on the paper, bone, although he had to sew a couple of stitches it was an abuse.

"I have to charge civilians double so as not to incentivize them to come here," Heilyn commented with an emotionless grin. She placed a wet washcloth on Airys's forehead. "And if I see you forcing her to pay I'm going to charge you triple."

"B-but she could be a criminal!"

"What I see here is a wounded and needy girl, my profession is not interested in the rest."

Gregory crumpled the paper and put it in his pocket, accepting the cruel reality with his eyes closed.

"I'm sorry Zamir, she will have you go into debt" he affirmed in his mind.

Airys was full of bandages on her head, she was sweating and breathing hard. Who will know what she is living in that dream or nightmare. That face of pain and agony embedded itself in Gregory's eyes. Appearances don't matter, he knows it; however, the rare purity that the young lady emanated in front of him did not give the impression of being a street rat or soulless crow...

Heilyn might not have been so eccentric after all, especially when Airys opened her eyes gently, focused her gaze on Gregory's face, and after a tiny silence, she sobbed and sobbed delicately.

"Great, you made her cry."

"E-huh?!"