5




"Like yours? What is your destiny?"
"I've never done it before, but I'll show you what I haven't shown before. Do you trust me?"
"Yes," her Atemu replied. Strangely enough, without hesitation.
"Then give me your hand"

The moment he touched it an impulse similar to a lightning flashed through him and the next moment Atemu opened his eyes again he was suddenly somewhere else. He was standing on the edge of a road that led out of a village. It was dark only a few lights coming from the torches of the houses lit the street. Fortunately, he noticed that Cleo was standing next to him, the whole situation scared him a little. A man suddenly came up to him, next to him a little girl was hopping. She was about eleven years old, wore a long dress with a sash and two long braids hung over her shoulders. Her blonde, almost white hair glistened in the night and when Atemu saw her poison green eyes, he knew that Cleo was that little girl who was apparently walking next to her father. Atemu looked at Cleo with questions. He still didn't understand where they were.
"Those are the shadows of my memories," Cleo explained.
Atemu nodded and looked again at the little girl who was smiling and holding her father's hand and looking up at him.
"You must have loved him very much," observed Atemu.
Cleo's head drooped, but she didn't answer him. Atemu was suddenly startled when a man jumped out of a corner and stood in front of little Cleo and her father with raised knives in his hands. The lust for murder was evident in his eyes. Atemu realized immediately that it wasn't about money or anything. The only thing he wanted was to kill!
Cleo's father pulled his daughter behind his back. Then he let go of her hand and watched the man with the knives. His face was contorted and his eyes flashed red.
"Do you see his eyes?"asked Cleo Atemu. He nodded.
"He's a phantom," he stated himself, whereupon he got a nod from her.
Atemu had been distracted by Cleo's question and had missed how the man had pounced on the father. The prince only saw how one of the knives stuck in the man's chest and the man twisted and howled.
"Father"
With tears in her eyes, the blond-haired girl approached her father. She had backed away when the fight started. Her father turned to look at her ... And at that very moment he collapsed.
"Papa," Cleo yelled loudly again and ran until she knelt next to him. Blood oozed from the man's stomach, but he didn't seem to care. Instead, he turned to his daughter:
"Is everything all right Cleo?" He asked in an exhausted voice.
The little girl could only nod vigorously. Tears ran down her face and found a new home on the floor.
"It's good"
Her father smiled.
"You have to be brave now, okay? Go and run home to Anna and tell her everything, okay?"
Another violent nod of the head. The little one stood up clumsily. It was so difficult for her to leave her father behind.
"Aren't you coming to me?" She asked in a tear-choked voice.
Her father just smiled.
"I come!"
Atemu knew it was a lie.
"Cleo ... take care of Lilian! Promise me!"
A nod for the last time.
"Go now!"
With that, the blonde turned around and ran.
"Who are Anna and Lilian?" Atemu wanted to know.
"Anna was our house helper. For me she was more of a grandmother and a good friend," explained Cleo.
"Lilian was my little sister ... at the time she was a tender six years old"
Atemu closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened it again he was in front of a house. At dawn he could see little Cleo running towards the house.
"The memory isn't over yet," Cleo said flatly, indicating the girl.Like them, Atemu and Cleo entered the house.
"Anna?" Shouted the girl desperately through the house. She ran down the hall toward the kitchen. She shouldn't have gone there!
"By Ra!" Atemu gasped when you presented him with the image of what Cleo had already offered back then.
Anna was dead. The kitchen was smeared with blood. The housekeeper nailed to the wall with knives. Even the Crown Prince, who had seen many battlefields in wars, was left breathless. Panicked, little Cleo ran through the house.
"Lilian! Lilian! Lilian!" She screamed over and over again.
Finally she found her way to her sister's room, followed by Atemu and the older Cleo.
But the sight was anything but beautiful.
"Lilian"
In a matter of seconds Cleo was on the floor next to her sister, shaking her. But in vain. The little girl was dead. Cleo got up crying and whimpering, took the blanket from Lilian's bed and wrapped the six-year-old in it. Then she picked up the delicate body and laid it on the soft bed. Then Cleo turned away. Apparently she was looking for something. When she found it, she took the book and sat down next to Lilian on the bed. With a trembling voice she opened the book and began to read:
"She stretched out her arms as far as she could.
she moaned.

She showed the father the torn, dirty, plastered teddy bear that the slipped rubbish had pushed near the wire fence.

The father hesitated.

Monika started howling and the father gave in. He reached through the fence, got hold of the teddy bear and pulled it out.
, called Monika.
"

Cleo's voice moved further and further away and in the next instant the prince found himself in the small room that he and Cleo had rented.Back in reality. Cleo stood in front of him and looked at the floor. Atemu stared at her in disbelief.
"Later I learned that a hunter should have killed the man, the phantom. The hunter had pity on him and let him live. And so a little girl and many other people lost their families. Because a hunter hadn't done what was necessary! "
There was no anger in her voice, but infinite sadness.
Atemu understood now. He didn't hate Cleo for what she was and he didn't hate her for what she did either. Rather, he felt a sense of compassion. He liked her very much and now, as she stood there, suddenly the strong feeling of comforting her came over him. Carefully he walked up to her and put his arms around her. Cleo winced at the touch. She hadn't expected that reaction from him. But it was beautiful, there was no doubt about it! After a moment's hesitation, she hugged him too and began to cry uncontrollably in his arms. Atemu held her tightly as if she would disappear when he let go of her. Cleo stammered quietly through tears:
"Please don't hate me!"
Atemu's lips came closer to her ear and he whispered back gently and reassuringly:
"I do not hate you!"
Cleo clung to him until the flow of her tears stopped and she fell asleep. Atemu lifted her onto the bed, covered her carefully and brushed a strand of hair back from her face.
"I hope one day you can forget what happened and live again!",
he breathed, gave her a kiss on the forehead and finally fell asleep next to her.

"If you run even slower, then you go backwards," Cleo Atemu teased.
"In case you haven't noticed: We're in the desert and it's damn hot and we've been walking for hours without a break," Atemu gasped back.
The two were on their way to Thebes again and almost arrived at their destination. It would take a maximum of two days to reach their destination."Let's take a break," suggested Cleo and collapsed into the hot sand, exhausted.
"Good idea!", Atemu also said, stumbled and lay down lengthways. Cleo laughed. Atemu had never heard her laugh like that before.
"Hey, that wasn't funny!" He said and spat out the sand.
"I found it very amusing," smiled Cleo.
She crawled over to him.
"Wait," she said, gesturing for him to hold still. With her hand she wiped the sand from his eyes, nose and mouth. It stuck to the mouth and traced the contours of his lips with her finger. Atemu opened his eyes and said right into Cleos. Their faces were only a few inches apart and closer. Now her lips were only a millimeter apart.

"Prince!" Someone suddenly shouted joyfully and Atemu and Cleo broke apart.
Atemu looked in the direction from which the voice had come and in the next moment he was pushed back into the sand and hugged stormily.
Cleo backed away in shock.
"Mana!"
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