Leafing through that old book, I can inhale the smell of old paper. Dusty as it was, it gave you the impression that it had remained unused for a long time on the huge wooden bookcase and whenever a thought or a fear crossed Grandma Aina's mind, she would open the book to search for answers to it.Grandma Aina's white hair was tied tightly in a braid at the back of her head, pinned with an ancient white hairpin on which you could see a characteristic detail that made you wonder: it had two small wings designed on it in gold. Her white hair framed her oval face.You could clearly see that her small almond-shaped eyes in the shade of blonde honey immediately became more lively and more expressive, as soon as she picked up this old book. In general, her posture as a stocky woman, and her movements changed when she read this book. In general, she sat in a comfortable armchair, while next to her there was a small table where there was a ready cup of steaming coffee that broke your nose, as if "calling" you to drink it.She wore a beige dress that had golden roses sewn on it.On the cover of this book was printed the phrase "When you want to rest". The letters were in the color of blue, which reminds me of the sky and the sea at the same time. Upon opening this book, she would get lost for hours, her mind traveling in what she was reading. This book that Grandma Aina held with her wrinkled hands was a "mystery".In an instant, as she read it, it was as if she had recovered from her spiritual journey, as if she had returned to her body. At the same moment, little Zyran entered the room, holding in each of his hands a stuffed doll with wings. This little stuffed doll had some other characteristics, the likes of which he had never seen from his surroundings. More specifically, it had the body of a human with two white wings on the back, with bleached blond hair, wearing white pants and a white shirt. In his other hand, he held another stuffed doll, so opposite to the first: from its colours to its form. On its face it had two black goat horns, it was not wearing clothes, but its form was tragomorphic, that is, it had goat legs and was dark red.Since he didn't know much about these two figures, he made them fight and sometimes the figure with the white wings won and sometimes the figure with the horns. Of course, every time the one with the white clothes won, he cheered without knowing it, while when the tragic figure won, he squealed and cried fakely.Zyran, a child at the age of 8, with short black hair and green eyes, barely understood what to do with these figures.As soon as his grandmother came to, she realized that Zyran had taken some "relic" and decided to stop the battle of the figures he was holding in his hands. She stood up, took him by the hand in a state of agitation, and whispered to him: "My dear child, my Zyran, I am getting old... But I will tell you one thing, that time has come for you to learn the first thing about the world, something that you will understand much later, the importance of... My child, the figures you hold in your hands are not just figures. They come from a world very different from ours. Above the earth on which we live, there is a sphere of much larger dimensions than ours. There, there is a place of heavenly and inexpressible beauty, which no human mouth can express all of this. The only thing we can say about this place is that sometimes it is day there, sometimes night there, and sometimes day and night coexist. That is, half of the side is day, and half of the side is night. There, then, there is such beauty that if a human eye sees it, it becomes blurred and is not dazzled by so many inexpressible beauties. Everywhere flowers and streams, each stream has an infinite number of colours, which touches your heart, everything being made by a perfect Creator God, who did everything with precision. It is said, in fact, that before God created humans, He created spiritual beings, the Angels. The Angels consisted of a legion with many other spiritual beings who had various forms of Angels that I would not describe to you. But, for the sake of brevity, I will only tell you this: there were 9 generals of the Angels, each army having countless Angels. One day, one of the Generals, who was the brightest of all the others and was near the planet Earth, from the entire Galaxy, was possessed by a thought: to become God in the place of the true God, willfully refusing to submit to His commands. Thus, he acquired the form of a goat because of his sinful thought..." At that moment, a weak female voice was heard crying out pleadingly from the next room: "Mother! Mother! Call a doctor! I'm in terrible pain!"This heartbreaking voice came from Zyrán's mother and Aina's daughter, Valerie. As soon as she heard her heartbreaking voice, Grandma Aina ran into the next room and the sight she saw was horrible: she saw her beloved daughter lying on the bed, spitting blood from her mouth and pulling the sheets from the deep pain. Without wasting a moment, she grabbed her in her arms, wiped her with the paper that was left on the bedside table, next to her bed and took out her mobile phone from her pocket, something very rare for her, since she only used it for emergencies. She called the ambulance number after trying to explain the situation as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Zyran followed Grandma Aina into the room with the figures in her hands. As soon as he saw the sight, he began to cry with heartbreaking sobs and held the figures in his hands as tightly as he could.After a while, the ambulance siren was heard. The nurses entered the house, at the behest of Grandma Aina, who had left her only daughter Valerie in her arms. The nurses grabbed her and put her on the stretcher as it was with the sheets to take her to the nearest hospital. Grandma Aina approached Zyran, then stroked his fiery blond hair and he hugged her in pain without knowing what was going to happen. His eyes were rolling with inconsolable tears. The grandmother let him out of her arms, told him "Don't be afraid, everything will be fine," - which she didn't really believe either - and ran to get clean clothes for Valerie from the closets. Immediately, she moved as quickly as she could to catch the ambulance. After looking her beloved grandson in the eyes for the last time, she called out to him from afar, closed the front door of the house and got into the ambulance: "Wait for my call!"All the way to the hospital, she remained silent, holding her hand. Without showing the slightest agitation, grandmother Aina prayed inwardly for her daughter to get well, trying to cope with this unprecedented shock.
She hoped for a miracle, where there seemed to be no way out of her situation. The nurses took her down on a stretcher and took her straight to the intensive care unit for diagnosis. There, because Grandma Aina was not allowed to enter the room where Valerie was being examined, she waited patiently, sitting in a chair, looking at the large circular blue clock on the opposite wall. During this time, she saw doctors coming in and out without stopping unexpectedly. Until a nurse approached her and said: "In addition to the MRI scan that the doctors did for her, she will have to go into surgery immediately due to her critical condition and we want her family's approval." With these words, Grandma Aina bent down, swallowed hard, and immediately her words were heard like lightning: "I am the only family she has, proceed with surgery as soon as possible." At that moment, she sat back in the chair and the nurse left with a quick step. Grandma Aina began to tremble all over. "And if he dies? Then who will take care of Zyran? How will he grow up? He didn't even have a father.", all the unanswered problems began to pressure her to find an immediate solution to the situation. In her confusion and panic, she picked up the phone, wiped her eyes and with a trembling voice said to Zyran: "My boy, I'll call your aunt to bring you to the hospital." In the midst of his maneuvers, he heard her grandmother's voice and his low morale was immediately lifted for a while.
Valerie in the intensive care unit saw scenes from her simple everyday life with her son and her mother. Her life was turning upside down. She knew it. She wouldn't be able to endure the surgery. With tears in her eyes, she said goodbye to her loved ones one by one in her memory, remembering the beautiful moments she had with them... She knew it, the end was approaching and the "miracle" was nowhere in sight.Zyran came to the hospital with Aunt Kandra. He ran into the arms of his beloved grandmother. "Grandma, what happened to my mother?", he asked with great curiosity. "She'll be fine," he went to answer, but the voice of the doctor who performed the operation announced the results. It was too late. Grandma Aina's beloved daughter and mother of little Zyran, closed her eyes forever in the eternal joy of the Angels. This shattered her entire mental world. Grandma Aina became a wreck, she didn't breathe. Her daughter, Kandra, wondered what had happened, while her grandson started screaming. "They killed her! What's happening is not possible! I can't live with this! 28 years old and Valerie abandoned us," Grandma Aina began to complain after a while. Everything was spinning in her head, saying over and over again in a confused way: "Who could have done this evil?" and sometimes again: "My grandson, my child, my good one, when you grow up, promise me that you will find those who did her so much harm."
There is an old saying that when your mind wanders to things from the past, you are so absorbed in it that you can not live the present.
This saying became a rule of life for Zyrán, something he could not overcome. Living a life with his grandmother Aina, he did not expect anything from anyone except from "his own people."
In the days following the unexpected death of his mother Valérie, Zyrán was not allowed by his grandmother going to school until the police had clarified the case. So, with this thought in mind, Grandma Aina headed with Zyrán in her arms to the nearest police station. As soon as she entered, she saw a young blond-haired man with blue eyes, about 18 years old, talking to two police officers, around 35, and asking them the following: "When are you going to solve the case? It's strange that he died so early.." An extensive conversation with the police officers followed, which Grandma Aina missed. The blue-eyed young man was talking about Valerie's case, which made Grandma Aina miss it! She didn't expect anyone to be interested in this case since she had no other close relatives in the city, specifically in the apartment building where she lived with Zyrán. For the first time, he saw a young man with such beautiful features that one could say that he was identical to the figure of Zyrán that he had been holding and playing with the other day... As soon as Zyrán saw him, he wiped away his tears that were flowing like a river for his mother and wanted to get down from his grandmother's arms. Then he approached the young man and, as if enchanted by his beauty, began to shout, "He looks like my doll!" The grandmother pushed him away. But then, the young man's conversation with the police officers was interrupted, and they turned towards him. The young man then, quite surprisingly, beckoned to grandmother Aina and Zyrán to come closer. "This lady will tell you in detail the rest of what exactly happened..." Although the grandmother was puzzled and surprised by the incident, she began to explain to the two police officers in detail what had happened.
At the same time, the young man went to Zyrán and they went a little further away to talk.
"What is your name?", Zyrán asked in surprise.
"My name is Hael," the blond-haired young man told him.
"My name is.."He didn't have time to finish, and Hael told him his own name. "Zyrán!" exclaimed, and the little boy began a barrage of questions: "How do you know me? I don't know you? Did Grandma Aina tell you my name?" Hael understood that the little boy wanted to get to know him better, and he, in turn, began to answer each question: "I live in the apartment next to you, on the same floor. I met your grandmother when I moved in next door. I've seen her two or three times from a distance, walking together, but you probably didn't notice me. However, I've liked you more, my Zyrán." Immediately Zyrán's eyes lit up, he began to admire young Hael more and more.
"Do you want to be friends?"Little Zyrán asked him enthusiastically. "Of course, maybe we can become best friends! Who knows?"Hael asked with a sly look.
"Do you know who you look like, Mr. Hael?"the little boy asked proudly. "No, with whom?"Hael pretended not to know the answer. "And, since we became friends, I don't want you to call me sir, I'm still young, Zyran," then Hael added. "You look like my stuffed doll that was next to my mom's bedside table! And when she fell asleep, I secretly took them from her and played with them! You look exactly like him!" Zyran said in surprise.
Immediately, without a second thought, Hael said: "That explains why your mother has died! You left that doll that was next to her bed and looked after her..."Hael muttered.
What did his words mean? That Zyrán was responsible for his mother's death? Or rather, how naive is his childish soul that he considered Hael an angel or that he rather resembled the stuffed figure of the angel he had at home because of his external characteristics and his young age?
All this was spinning in Zyran's head, and he began to wonder along with him.
At that moment, Grandma Aina also finished the conversation she had with the policeman. She called Zyrán, "We're leaving!"she said. Then, Zyrán turned towards her with a pleading and sad look towards his grandmother and said to her: "Grandma, can't Hael come with us for dinner? You said that after here we would go to eat!" and immediately invited him to dinner since it was almost 1 pm.
Hael understood that Grandma Aina wanted to "escape" from the fresh memories of the previous events, but also to forget a little about the suffocating situation that Grandma Aina felt inside the house, with all that had happened.
"Why don't we go in my car? I'll drive you to one of the best restaurants in town!"Hael suggested to both.
Coming out of the police station, they saw a blue modern car with the initials "APH 888". "What do those initials mean?" Zyran wondered, and Hael smiled slyly. Hael offered to open Grandma Aina's door so she could sit in the passenger seat. Grandma Aina liked this way of behaving from the young man. "It's something you don't see anymore in our time," she thought and got into the car. Then, Hael ran to open the door for little Zyran. "Thank you, Hael," Zyran said. Getting into the car, Hael drove them to the most expensive restaurant in the area, where they served the best meze. During the journey, Grandma Aina said: "I see, my Zyrán, that in our misfortune we found a good person to support us, where we didn't have one." and Hael jokingly replied: "Wait, you haven't even met me, and you're saying that. " At that moment, Zyrán's voice interrupted them: "And yet I have met you! We will remain friends forever, Hael!" and Hael thoughtfully said: "Of course! Friends and whatever else you want!" he said, murmuring, and his eyes sparkled. Grandma Aina, who was in the next seat, had heard him and burst into a smile. "Zyrán doesn't like people easily, and he liked you from the first moment!"
As he parked the car, Hael got out first and opened Zyrán's door. Immediately, Zyrán fell into Hael's arms. "Tell me more about yourself," said Zyrán. "You know, I'm not from here," replied Hael unconsciously. "I'll tell you more when we're alone."he added, whispering in his ear, and Zyrán motioned for him to be quiet.
Then, as they entered the restaurant, Hael became aware of the presence of a "competitor" in the room. Call it the "sixth sense" or another sense that he had hidden in his heart: perceiving his opponent with a warning of unrest in his heart...