Aurora Carmen

The Promise

"Wake up, Dead Boy

Enter adventureland "

Nightwish, Last Ride of the Day

Fifty years ago, when his pleas for a Fixer were finally answered, Elizar received a vision of a twenty-year-old boy, solemn and upright in his dark cadet uniform of some army from a world that was clearly not his own. Along with the vision, he was granted the Melody he needed to bring him into this world. But, at the time, he did not understand.

Why such an ordinary young man? The vision showed him an ordinary boy, with black hair and a wondering look, one among thousands in the rigid military order. At that moment, Elizar felt bewildered, almost disappointed. He had expected a hero born of the spirit, a vibrant soul that resonated with the echo of the greats. But the boy was just that, a boy.

But the years allowed him to observe the development of that boy. He saw how the young man was forged in discipline and sacrifice, how hardships hardened him until he was transformed into a cold and methodical soldier. The young man's gaze became more steely, losing that gleam of innocence and expectation, to become cold and sharp.

In various visions, he saw how the young man carried out his duties with efficiency and coldness, even sometimes with a hint of cruelty. Apparently his mission was to pursue certain undesirable elements of his society, although Elizar never saw them commit any crime. This boy began to displease him, with his complete dedication to his hunts, although he still did not understand what crime his prey had committed.

His prey were usually, apparently, minority groups, such as acolytes of some religions, people with different sexual inclinations, people with some maturational or physical difficulty, none of which seemed particularly dangerous. All without exception belonged to the lower class of his society.

Elizar began to regard the young man as a tool in a cruel and inhuman machinery, though sometimes he saw a hint of doubt or pain in his gaze. He even came to doubt the choice of "The Promise," as he had begun to call him. That man seemed too distant from what Elizar had imagined a Fixer to be.

But over time, the pieces began to fit together.

At forty years old, the boy met, in an old neglected park, a small and sweet woman who was walking her dog humming. Sparkling and cheerful, the girl seemed like a ray of sunshine on a stormy afternoon. Of course, he fell madly in love.

The wedding was simple but neat, the boy in his immaculate black Major uniform and his golden nameplate that read Daniel Aurelius, and she in a simple white wedding dress, languid and evanescent. There were not many guests, and half of them belonged to the boy's force. It was an elegant wedding in its simplicity, and for the couple, memorable.

Elizar had once thought that this taciturn and serious man did not deserve a woman so resplendent in her Ode, so lively in her simplicity, but Daniel changed completely in her presence. The man became almost a teenager, attentive to every glance, every smile, every caress she gave him. Elizar found it funny how that stern and hard face melted into a silly smile every time she stroked his hair or shook his hand.

She had a spiritual wealth that Daniel did not have, and that never ceased to amaze him. Daniel idolized her for that, he considered her the only light in his stern and violent life. In contrast, she worked in a hospice helping in the kitchen and accompanying its elderly residents.

Two years later, Elizar witnessed, through her visions, the tragedy that destroyed that man. He was informed through a superior that his wife had been found dead in a terrorist operation carried out in the hospice. Apparently, a sect of some religion had decided to surgically attack the hospice employees, leaving the elderly unharmed.

Daniel received the news with a stoic face and shining eyes, his fists shaking with anger and pain. He was given a stipend for the death of his wife, and was granted six months of paid vacation, subject to weekly visits to a psychologist. A month later, Daniel, a burning ember of pain and controlled fury, requested his immediate reinstatement in the force, arguing that duty could not wait for him, for his recovery.

From that moment on, the Major became a daring, almost insane, instrument of persecution. Many of the missions were carried out alone, with a level of cruelty rarely seen, and exposing his life as if it were worthless.

This situation lasted two decades in his sad life, where he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel for the merciless effectiveness of his methods. The man was becoming a dry shell, without his own light, and his meticulous routine clearly demonstrated this.

The loss of his wife broke something deep within him. In his military force as well as on the streets, he became known as the Black Fury. His name alone aroused terror in some social circles, and his own peers looked upon him with fear, avoiding him if possible. That seemed ideal to Daniel, who preferred his empty solitude to the discomfort of socializing.

His own superiors began to fear his cold, hollow gaze, his stiff, stern posture, and decided to take him off field missions, promoting him to Colonel. He was already very close to retirement age, so it would not surprise anyone if he was given a good position at a nice desk. They gave him no choice. It was that or retirement.

Daniel accepted, because he still had one last mission he wanted to carry out. He wanted to go through the files of terrorist cases, he wanted to find out which group was responsible for his pain. He set about it with all his ingenuity and determination, and although in two years he found nothing, he was not discouraged nor did his determination wane. He finally found his answer, in a completely unexpected place. Daniel clearly worked in some establishment dedicated to intelligence, or counterintelligence, since the folders and files he was looking through spoke of such operations. While browsing through the "terrorist operations" file, he found a directory called "false flag." Elizar didn't understand what that meant, but apparently Daniel did.

Daniel's face, as he looked through those files, began to turn livid and stony. An exclamation of pain escaped his lips when he found a serial number and next to it, the address of the hospice where his wife had worked so many years before. His hands trembled as he slowly read the contents of that folder.

The attack on the hospice had apparently been an attempt by his military agency to capture a group of believers, including all the staff. Something had gone wrong, and the result was a massacre. It was presented to the public as a ruthless terrorist attack, to prevent heads from rolling within the force.

Daniel trembled with rage and pain, holding in disbelief the documents that marked the greatest loss of his life. A loss brought about not by chance, but by the very hands of the military institution he had served with unwavering loyalty.

Elizar, moved, watched him discover the terrible truth: his wife had been eliminated for being a believer, and that revelation broke him in ways nothing else could have done. A silver tear rolled down Elizar's cheek.

From then on, "The Promise" changed. He was no longer just a soldier; he was a repentant man, disgusted by his actions, willing to face everything, with a sense of purpose that burned like an unquenchable fire in the twilight of his life. His soul, scarred by pain, began to resonate with a melody of redemption and sacrifice that Elizar had not been able to foresee.

Now he understood. This broken and hardened man had been prepared not by chance, but by design. He understood, and that meant that the time of Repair was close at hand. Tomorrow, the Repairer will face death in his own world, but his Ode will not be lost. It will be provided to Elizar as an answer to his prayers of long ago for Nox Terra.

The current of power that enveloped his Pantheon turned the sky a sapphire color with reddish stars, which Elizar found simply delightful. Standing at the top of the North Tower of his residence, his hands crossed behind his back, he felt a rush of excitement run through his body, while a gentle breeze caressed his long white hair. His clear gaze was lost in thought looking that voluptuous firmament, while his portentous mind ran through in chronological order all the visions that had accompanied him during 50 years of waiting. So many years without understanding!

But now he did understand.

He slowly turned on his heels, hands still behind his back and head bowed, and walked slowly through the bushes that lined the flagstone path of his private garden, heading towards the iridescent entrance to his palatial residence. Above his head, peering out from the high arched balcony, he felt his wife's gaze, and the strange mix of nervousness and sorrow that emanated from her being.

"Tomorrow a new era will dawn. Tomorrow we will have visitors for the first time in millennia. Tomorrow, Hanna my love, the Mending begins. Today, after all this time, we can, at last, rest," he said in a tired whisper, knowing that his wife could hear him perfectly. His words traveled lazily to his wife's Ode, and Elizar saw harmony reborn in his beloved's soul.