DAMNED GODS,
chapter zero: the before!

          OLIVIA, FOR A MOMENT, BELIEVED IT FALLED IN A DARK VACUUM. That her hands could no longer cling to that cliff where she was before darkness appeared. She no longer saw her parents, she no longer saw her brother Sam. The black color was the only thing that clouded the little girl's judgment. She tried to scream, tried to get her voice to travel through the deadly silence in that gloom - but nobody listened to her. No one was there to help her, nobody could know where she was. Olivia tried to climb, but simply floated. She floated and floated. At least, that was the only way to stay alive - trying to avoid the cruel fate that her brother Samuel faced: a painful and cold death.

          It was a fun thing, according to her parents: the fact of playing God. The fact of having the decision power over the individual who lives and the one who dies - a macabre game that Olivia didn't yet understand. Being 10 years old was a privilege.

          The young girl with ash blond hair, adorned with beautiful green eyes, was fighting the bracelets that kept her tied to the stretcher - while trying to avoid looking at her left side, where her younger brother Samuel's body lay. She felt her cheeks swollen with tears, a strong pain in her head and her voice was already broken like a Russian crystal doll - shattered. Olivia needed air, she didn't want to smell those toxins, she didn't want to see those two figures that once welcomed her and showed her the deepest human feeling they had to show: love. It looked like a nightmare and she wondered, for a single moment, if they could both wake her up.

          The only thing she could only notice: this wasn't a nightmare, it was as real as burying a dagger in her chest at that moment.

          Olivia shouted. She screamed and screamed - but no one seemed to hear that angelic voice. It was only a matter of time before someone, in that distance, listened to her requests for help - for someone to wake her from that nightmare and for the dark gloom to disappear. And, to her own fortune, someone had heard her.

          The Dark Knight had done it and seeing that young woman wishing to wake up was the only thing that gave him strength to stop once and for all those people - punish those who deserved to feel guilt in their veins and remorse in their neurons. Batman got out of hiding and Olivia struggled as she let out a shriek. Her parents turned around instantly and watched that dark figure, admiring her. That sepulchral silence made the blond-haired girl nervous, as, unfortunately, it was a battle of murderous looks and the girl didn't know who would attack first. She let out a small sob, which drowned in her throat and looked fearfully at her parents figures, so still that they would just fall like chess pawns.

          Batman looked at the girl through his mask, realizing that the body that lay beside her was long ago lifeless - but he knew he hadn't arrived so late. Robin, his partner, somehow, was hiding in the dark gloom devising a plan to get the blonde out of there so the Dark Knight decided to create a distraction or - how he taught him many times: a truce.

          "This doesn't have to end like this," he snapped thickly at the girl's parents. He looked for his partner with his eyes, being meticulous and at the same time careful, to prevent those slags from doing more damage than they had already done. "Release the girl and nobody here will get hurt."

          Olivia lay on the bed, releasing a couple of painful and silent tears. Her parents took a step forward. "This girl belongs to us, Knight."

          Didn't they love her like their daughter? Batman looked at them neutrally, but whoever was inside that mask, Bruce Wayne, felt a deep anger at the negligence of those scientists he thought he had ever met. The perfect family. The family that would never abandon his family - that's why Bruce felt so betrayed to discover their activities. He wondered at that moment where the hell Robin was - but he knew that Dick was smart, too smart for his age. He would have a plan and Bruce wanted it to end quickly.

          He took a step, willing to negotiate. "Gotham police are on their way and things won't end well."

          "We're about to see if the human genome can evolve, Knight!" Olivia's father growled, pointing to his board with years and years of research. "This...! This could change the world."

          "Or you can destroy it," Batman said and pointed to the girl. "Just let her go, she can't be part of this."

          "My daughter Oliva is the perfect subject," said the girl's mother with disdain.

          It could kill her, Bruce thought. However, he didn't say it out loud.

          The sirens began to be heard on the avenue and Batman looked at Robin who slipped behind the girl's parents. Olivia's father turned to look for a syringe - which was not thanks to Robin and that alarmed him. Turning again, the Dark Knight dropped a smoke bomb that dispersed like a sinister trap. Olivia closed her eyes tightly and heard the screams of her mother, who looked for a weapon under the table - the shots were not long in coming and the blonde girl remained with her eyes closed.

          Be brave, she repeated.

          Robin tried to tear down Olivia's mother but she escaped down the hall that led to the main stairs of the house while Batman tried to tear down her father. Olivia took a deep breath, in puffs of air mixed with smoke and coughed a couple of times - her heart was pumping like crazy and she felt it would go out through her mouth. Asking for help once again was something completely useless. Batman dodged Olivia's father's blows, and then returned them twice as hard - he swore he heard one or at least two bones break. Both went to a large window where the sirens resounded closer and closer - Olivia's father did not give up until with a hidden knife he ended up stabbing him into the shoulder of the Dark Knight and he threw a kick that threw the scientist into a vacuum for the window, breaking it into thousands of pieces.

          A shot of a lost bullet rang out behind him and he ran into the hall to confirm that his partner was still alive. Upon arriving, he observed Robin hanging on the railing, looking at him in panic and when they both looked down, all they saw was spilled blood. Olivia's mother's lifeless body lay on that white marble floor, in which Olivia used to play with her brother Samuel - that long-gone innocence.

          Both had died and their blood was scattered on the walls of that house.

          Batman and Robin returned to the room where Olivia was captured, getting rid of those ropes that seized her. The blond girl could no longer contain that accumulated anger, that unfortunate suffering and pain - it was not long before shedding fat tears down her cheeks. Robin helped lower the girl and Batman looked at her from above, considering the great difference in height. He bent down and looked at the young woman. "Are you alright?"

          Olivia wasn't intimidated by his presence and his imposing figure. She just nodded.

          "It's over, little girl, you're safe."

          You're safe. Olivia had never felt this way.

          The young woman circled the knight's neck with her arms and hugged him, bursting into tears at that moment. Batman wouldn't have done anything but Bruce Wayne knew that girl very well - even before adopting Dick. The Knight held the girl tightly in his arms and didn't release her, feeling her body tremble and her sobs drowned against his neck. Bruce wondered if she had someone else in her family alive - but there were always four of them and no one else. Everyone was dead and she was the only one alive.

          Olivia was really alone and Bruce Wayne could fix it.

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