Shaking his head ruefully, the priest had to be impressed at the boy's will to live.
As far as he could tell, the boy had been left for dead by his father almost a week ago and for good reason. The boy by all rights should have died even if he had received the medical attention he'd been denied.
No, the boy simply refused to die.
He'd crawled away from his training ground and broke a vending machine for nourishment even as his broken body tried to mend itself. The boy had come to the priest's attention not because he was stealing food to survive, but because the boy made most zombies in horror movies look warm and cuddly. In short, the local populace in general wouldn't go near the moaning broken figure.
So the priest eventually located the boy lying in a drainage ditch, and after determining that he was actually still among the living and not in any way demoniacally tainted, the boy was taken back to the temple.
There, the muck and blood was washed from his body and his wounds cleaned as much as possible. Unfortunately due to the fact that the wounds had been so dirty and infected as they healed, the boy had scarred horribly. Those scars also had a tale to tell, one of near missing limbs and even a missing eye if that tale was to be believed.
Oh, and the priests did believe it as before their eyes the boy's body continued restoring itself, the boy displaying an unbelievable ability to move on limbs that were as of yet still healing.
Even two weeks later when his body had fully regenerated, the scars still told their horrible tale. The boy wanted to be a martial artist, yet all he could do was stumble around. Even still he refused to give up, even when people didn't want to so much as lock gazes with the boy.
There were unfortunately parts of the boy that didn't recover properly, his eyes being chief among them. Set in a mask of scars were two silvery mirrored orbs staring blankly back at whomever was unfortunate enough to lock gazes with the boy.
The priests however were made of sterner stuff than most and helped the boy to speed along his rehabilitation. It was also, in a way, a lie to say the boy was completely blind, as his eyes naturally tracked the otherwise quiet monks.
In time, they gathered that he had the ability to see the life force of those around him, the chi pumping through their bodies, the birds flitting among the trees, the spirits that visited and even the flowers in bloom. Some actually envied the ethereal visions and beauty the boy saw, the way he would wonder fearlessly into the night greeting spirits and people alike on his way.
Stronger in many ways than a boy his age should be, the priests saw much promise in this one.
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(Posted Tue, 05 Sep 2006 04:05)
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