5.2

Ehimus, with the characteristic weariness of someone looking for another answer, had to formulate her question in a better way:

"I asked if dying is possible....".

Rey, resisting to believe the words he had heard, ignored the other comments and said to himself; "Why not check what was happening on the other side of the door if no one sees me?". With a solution in mind, the little boy with no last name got up and taking short steps returned to the front of the room he had left. His father was still standing with his eyes closed, as one who could visualize the other side of the door just by concentrating. Wulfgang was worried.

Remaining leaning forward, Rey merely poked his head through the door. "Oh... that's right. Now I can remember what I felt and saw the moment I came into this world, just before Silvia carried me in her arms." Rey saw her once more, the one whom the Great Wise Wizard had described. It was only an instant and no one seemed to notice her, but death was there to see her coming. "She indeed wears black... small, violet-eyed...",

Despite leaving her body on the other side, with her eyes curious and wide open, Rey could see how Silvia proceeded to carry back and forth a bundle rolled up in sheets pressed against her lap. Also that her mother did not have her belly open as she had imagined, but was laughing a little agitated as she held two pink-fleshed babies at breast level. Something else caught his attention. Silvia, trying not to get in the way of the old ladies cleaning the place, said:

"No sign of malformity or mental retardation in their little body or head. Except for his white eyes, he doesn't seem defective. He has an active gaze. He also reacts to sound and sucks my finger. He does not look bad colored and breathes well. Healing aids have no effect. He is as healthy as his siblings...."

"Yes, but he is not crying. Could the baby be mute?"

Rey could hear Clara's comment somewhat worried. And the one that Ana said already when she finished emptying the bathtub:

"I've never had a newborn baby that doesn't cry after coming into the world, unless he is in very delicate health. Keep checking him carefully, it is better to be cautious. On the other hand..."

The old woman looked in the direction of the vampire who was already on the bed half lying down.

"Since we didn't have to make any cuts, there was no tearing and the placenta is already out, you will have to continue breastfeeding the babies until the bleeding stops. Mom, I recommend you rest as much as you can."

After hearing the comments of so many people, Rey was already wondering if it was normal that she had not cried like her siblings did when they were born. He also noticed that, as soon as his mother finished holding his siblings, she turned her gaze to Silvia as if asking permission to see the baby.

The maid, with a smile on her face, gave the bundle she was carrying to Maryam and so Maryam put her mouth on one of her breasts for her to suck on as the first ones had done. Rey made the same expression that the elf had made at the sight of her past self sucking on her mother's tit.

Once the other two babies were detached from the warmth of the vampire's body, they began to cry again. Crying was their way of asking to return to the comfortable place they were in, but they were taken to a small bed that had appeared out of nowhere, just in the opposite corner of the room. With this, the little one that no one could see poked his head out of the room and returned to where his father was.

As soon as Rey stepped back and returned to his upright position, he gave a glance at Wulfgang, who now had his eyes open. Silvia opened the door causing the most awaited moment to arrive for everyone still outside, amidst the muffled babbling and cries of two babies:

"Congratulations to the new father!" the maid said in Wulfgang's direction, as if she were inviting him in with her outstretched palm.

The lycanthrope barely reacted to the news and merely frowned. On the contrary, those below the stairs feasted in exultation, so much so that Rey could hear them jumping so loudly that they knocked their chairs to the floor.

"You may come in, Lord Wulfgang," suggested this time, with words and a gesture of her open hand, the maid whom he looked most concerned.

"Our modest efforts are required elsewhere" said Clara. "The work is finished."

"Time to go," said Ana.

"Do we owe you anything?" asked the lycanthrope.

One of the little old ladies raised her hand and made a gesture in an attempt to get the man there not to worry. As the two old ladies left, Ehimus, Mijan and Katherine seemed to have misheard and, almost running down the stairs, pointed their gazes at the door with the intention of entering behind the newly proclaimed father to see the babies. Rey turned quickly away. If he could be touched, at that moment he would have been run over by the three energetic runners, but Silvia stopped them by raising her hand in the air in a "stop" sign.

Pausing and clearing her throat, the maid snapped to attention and corrected herself.

"Lady Maryam only allowed entry to the father of the creatures. Please, would you be so kind as to wait a little longer?"

The little one no one could see noticed that, despite the door being open and all the commotion the others were making to see the babies, Wulfgang was reluctant to go any further. The wolf's eyes were wide open and his brow was even more furrowed, mistaking his happiness for sadness. Rey noticed him nervous, hesitant to enter. Before his eyes he saw him as someone who wanted to run away, which made him feel for his father. From his point of view, someone so strong, who stood up to everything, didn't seem to know how to be a father.

Despite not being able to interfere in that world, Rey felt the desire to extend his hand and support that person who needed to be supported. The little boy raised his hand slowly, but Wulfgang, right at the level of his son's face that he could not see, made his right claw appear. A claw composed of five nails as long and sharp as daggers. Rey stopped his movements. He was shocked and even surprised. He interpreted that his father had transformed his hand into a form whose specific purpose was to inflict damage.

Wulfgang said to himself quietly, but not so quietly that he could not be heard by the little boy:

"Maryam is weak. She is weak and you have to take responsibility. As a leader and as a father you must bear the result of your decisions, take responsibility for your beliefs. It is better to die knowing nothing than to live a life of misery and need for fear of dying knowing you did nothing. All the work it has taken to keep me breathing, the sacrifices, the actions and the effort it took to almost achieve what I never could. All that I have left behind are reason enough not to be like that man who didn't ask me if I wanted to come into life and threw me into abandonment. If I take responsibility and move forward without looking back... everything will be better.

Rey could hear his father's words, but he couldn't understand what they meant. Nor what they meant. Wulfgang entered the room like a predator. With his eyes he met the vampire, then turned to look at the babies and, from among the pups, raised his hand in front of one. For the wolf it did not matter whether he was right or wrong, for he had already made up his mind.

Rey dropped his arm and arched his mouth downward. Inside him urged the need to do something, to scream, to run, perhaps to smash the door. From outside the room, he watched as his father prepared to bring down his claw and bring death upon the unweeping newborn. At the same time, he angrily remembered something very fundamental. "The reason why I always saw that man as a stranger and not as a father," he said to himself. From another angle, Rey was looking at the moment in the past when Wulfgang became someone he did not recognize as a father for raising his hand with intentions of killing him. The idea of a male entity protecting the family, had been shattered into pieces from that moment for the baby who understood that someone wanted to hurt him.

Rage, disappointment and anger passed over the little face. But one thing was certain: Rey was no longer so happy for the gift of knowledge, nor did he look with such curiosity or seek to learn everything. At that moment, he realized that being able to see into the past was meant to teach him the true nature of the elders, that which would allow him to distinguish between allies and enemies. But that kind of knowledge carried a lot of weight, and rather than making the path easier, it would hinder him as he walked.

Before the wolf lowered his hand, Maryam rose from the bed, leaving a line of blood on the floor beneath his feet and said:

"My beloved!?....

Along with the vampire's words, her thin and delicate hand also stretched out as one who wanted to reach her beloved in every possible way.

"Easy, my love, easy. Listen to my voice, it's me..."

With caresses, she calmed her husband's violent behavior. The two of them stood in front of the baby who did not cry. Wulfgang breathed. He returned his transformed hand to normal and grasping the very familiar hand that caressed him, he turned his gaze to silence and then said in a hesitant tone.

"Regardless of who my father was, how I was treated in the past and all my failures, I feel that the present "me" should take responsibility and cause harm to avoid a greater evil."

Maryam, tightening her embrace, said:

"Ending the life you gave "as an act of kindness" will not make you a better parent. Just as when you ended the life of the one who gave you "out of revenge" it did not make you a better son."

"The more time passes, the harder Maryam will be," said Wulfgang, "Living eventually ties up dying, even if you are immortal and death itself is a sad event that is going to happen. If I don't kill him, I will simply be delaying something inevitable."

"Killing is not the solution. Least of all if you are judging a creature as if its only crime is to have been born."

"As a father, knowing what I know, there is no greater gesture of kindness than to spare him a lifetime of suffering."

"Fang, you know that in such a short time I know you like no one else," said Maryam. "Listen to my words. If you murder or witness the death of another family member, that event will end up becoming a painful burden to bear for the rest of your life. That will be the beginning of the process in which you will go insane and die, or you will meet your death before you end up insane."