One life for another...

The girl was looking at her mom crying. Her granma was holding her mom, but her mom was still crying. She would stop crying when she was hurt and her mom held her. She was a big girl and a strong girl. Mom was also big but maybe not as strong as her. Her dad was in a room with uncles in white coats and tubes around their necks. She knew they were called doctors. There were aunties also in white dresses and funny hats. They are called nurses. Everyone was running around. When the door had been open a bit she had looked in and seen her dad was sleeping. She was happy her dad was getting some rest.

They had been traveling for a party to granpa and granma’s house in their own car when some uncles came in a van and stopped them. They were not nice. They pulled her dad and mom out of the car and they were hitting her dad. One of them had pulled her out but didn’t hold her gently. Her mom was screaming and so was she. She didn’t like these people. There were lots of cars on the road, but no one came to help them. Her dad looked very hurt. Two men were holding him while two others were hitting him. Then her Hero came.

He was not as old as her dad but did look older than the big boy next door, who goes to college - the big kids school. No one realised when he came just that one of the men holding her mom flew out and fell. While the other one soon after just fell where he was. Then he reached the man holding her. He hit this man on his arms and head very quickly. She couldn’t even see clearly and then this man dropped her and fell down. Her Hero caught her, didn’t let her fall and handed her to her mom. Then he went to help her dad.

One of the men holding her dad and one hitting him came at the Hero. The first one to reach swung out to hit him but he bent down and then came up hitting the man under his face. He then quickly turned to the other man and kicked him between his legs. However the other two had left her dad and reached him. One of them carried a knife. The Hero got hit on his back and fell forward. Yet, even as he fell he turned his body bent his arms and legs and then shot out his legs at his attacker. That man flew away and fell far away. Then the Hero quickly rolled as the other bad man tried to hit him with the knife. He reached one of the men he had hit earlier who kicked him in the side. Before the man could land another kick the Hero grabbed his leg and pulled him into the man with the knife who was trying to come in for another hit. As they both fell he rolled away again and got up.

Another of the men he had downed earlier ran at him and collided with him from behind. The Hero seemed to be hurt, but he raised his left hand and turned quickly hitting the man in the head. At that time they started hearing sirens. The bad men got scared, they tried to pick up the two men who were still lying on the ground, stumbled to their van, dropped one, left him and quickly drove away. Her mom was trying to pick up her dad who was lying on the ground and groaning. He seemed hurt and dirty. Her Hero then put on a white jacket and went to help her mom. He must have taken it off before fighting. They got her dad into their car and he drove fast. She liked being driven that fast. They quickly came to this hospital, some uncles put her dad on a bed with wheels and took him inside. Her mom was crying and she held her mom. Her Hero sat on a bench near the door to the to the Hospital. He was texting away on his phone. Soon a doctor uncle came and told mom that dad would be fine. Granma and granpa had also reached. She could tell her mom felt better but couldn’t stop crying.

Right now she was by herself and unsure of what to do. She found her Hero interesting and she remembered she had not said thank you, neither had mom and her dad couldn’t. So she would do it now. She took Bebe and walked up to him, he had finished texting and was just holding his phone. There was a call coming but he was ignoring. He didn’t look happy but he smiled when saw her, “What is a big girl like you doing here? Your mom needs you”, he was realllly nice.

“Thank you”, the little girl beamed at him, “I came to say thank you for helping us with the bullies.”

“You are a really good girl, and I should give you a return gift but I don’t have any chocolates on me...”, he said as he showed her his empty palms, “But there are few coins in the air, I’ll get them for you...”. He then quickly grabbed something beside her ear and as she turned opened her head, opened his closed fist to show he a big shiny coin in his palm.

She knew this trick, she knew he had held the coins between his fingers in the back of his hand, she was a big and smart girl. And then her turned her world upside down.

“Hey, look this should be enough to get a small chocolate but you should probably save it as your doll already has a big chocolate bar on her”.

She was stunned. There was a big Dairy Milk between her hands and Bebe. She had been holding Bebe to her chest tightly with both her hands, she never felt any chocolate been pushed into her hands. THIS WAS REAL MAGIC. Her face broke into a big grin.

He then turned to nearby nurse aunty and said to her, “Please take her back to her mom, there, she should be seeing what is about to happen”. She didn’t want to go, she had so many questions but he turned to her and asked her to be a good girl, to go help her mom and that he needed to rest, so she let it be. She’d come back to him later. As he started to lie on the bench, nurse aunty seemed to get worried and hurried her back. The nurse tried to distract her by asking questions, so she still looked back. The Hero was lying on the bench, eyes closed. His white jacked had a red patch on the back. Red and pink were her favorite colors she approved of his fashion sense, but the design could have been better.

Life or something like it, goes on...

He died young. It was by choice, a choice he’d rather not have made, a choice he would have preferred not to have to make. He didn’t care about the man being beaten, but he did care about the girl. He had lived the life of an orphan and would never let a child, that too 4/5 yrs old, become one. So he had stepped in, fought, won the child the life of her parents and taken a literal knife in the back for the trouble. Thankfully the jacket was thick and the blood had not shown early. He’d learned to live through pain and it was not a bother. But its intensity was like nothing he’d felt before. His insides felt weird and he knew the guy had hit something critical. The hospital was small, thinly staffed, already busy. Maybe could have handled two emergency cases simultaneously but he wouldn’t risk the girls dad.

So he sat with his back to the wall and texted Rima all the details on how to get to the money and investments he had made. He was an orphan, not yet legal, neither was the money, so all of it was held anonymously and in cryptocurrencies, all accessible online. She was smart enough to know how to get them and hopefully would live well. She was blowing up his phone but he couldn’t talk. He wanted to hold on to his memories of her as happy, the happy twinkle in her eyes, the happy lilt in her voice. He didn’t want to hear how he was leaving her sad and alone in this world. He was also happy to see the little girl leave him smiling. He had tried to introduce some wonder into her life, something she could hold onto if shit did still go sideways for her.

What he couldn’t understand was that he knew he was dead, then how was he still thinking? Everything was dark, all his senses were cut off, but his mind was still ticking. Had he not died, but gone into a come or worse, turned vegetative? Then everything turned white. He appeared to be floating and there was a lady floating in front of him.