Cold water splashes on my face and brings me to life.
My first instinct is to thrash, thinking I have once again been submerged in a river, but breath comes far easier than it would have and movement harder than it had ever been. My wrists and ankles refuse me. Biting metal tightens as soon as I test them, telling me I've once again been shackled.
There are mutters in the background of a dream.
"It's come to my attention that a little birdie's been spreading rumors amongst you captives." Jonah. "And even worse, after a pitiful display from one of my own men, a good chunk of you probably think, 'you know what, maybe there's something to this special little boy, after all.'"
I'm so tired…
My eyelids slope downwards in an attempt to…
Another splash of cold water brings me awake.
Whispering.
"Aw, why the long faces? You should be happy for what I'm about to do!"
My eyelids slope downwards in an attempt to…
SPLASH!
Sobbing.
Shouting.
Screaming.
My eyelids slope…
Chains rattling as I fall into a dream.
A man's raw protest in the crowd. "You cock-sucking bastards! If I find out you did anything to my daughter…"
Resisting.
Restraining.
Daughter?
"Wake the hell up, kid! They found her! They found my little girl! Please!"
Shining.
There was a light shining overhead. Silver streaking across a black sky.
A little girl stares at me from the other side of the clearing. Her rough condition contrasted with the wonder in her teary eyes.
Reflecting.
Mouthing. Wishing.
"Can you see it, too?"
SPLASH!
"Oh, shut the hell up. If you want to protect something, you've gotta be strong enough to do it yourself."
Crunching.
Splattering.
.
.
.
Silence…
Was she wishing to be like me? Or simply to have a destiny?
_'What do you wanna do after you save us?'_
I…
SPLASH!
Rattling.
Wheezing.
Dragging…
I'm so tired…
My eyelids slip down in an attempt to fall into a dream, but another splash of cold water freezes them in place. A hand knots in my hair. Tilts my head back. Forces my gaze upward.
"But I'm here to save you from those lies." There is a faint thud in the grass in front of me.
Body heat radiates onto my face from a shivering source, inches away.
In my vision, I see two flames burning in the daytime. "This is what happens to people waiting to be saved. Take it off."
Lucidity drops onto my head like a bolt of frigid lightning. "No!"
A gauntleted hand eagerly reaches from behind. Metal scrapes against the back of my skull, hunting for the cloth that keeps my curse at bay. "Jonah, if you truly despise this world as much as you claim, then you will stop this madness at once!"
I can smell the fear rolling off the captive's skin, mingled with the faintest spark of hope—hope that in my eyes, he will find salvation. "Close your eyes!"
It is no use. The old man can no longer respond. His body heat has begun to fade into the air. His inner flame longs to witness the peace that lies behind a cloth veil.
"Jonah! You and I should know that there are far worse things in this world than a simple end. If you allow this man to look into my eyes, you will be subjecting an innocent soul to something not even the devil himself is deserving!"
Rough fingers seize the edges of my coverings. "Argh! Close your eyes, you old fool! It's not what you think!"
The fabric clings to my skin for a heartbeat, as if it too resists, before tearing away in one violent pull. The open air strikes my face—raw, merciless daylight pouring where I prayed it would never touch. "Have you gone deaf? This is not the end that you seek!"
I clamp my eyelids shut, but hands like iron pry them wide. Their gauntlets dig into my cheeks, their thumbs forcing me open to the world.
And the world—
it strikes me like a flood I cannot outswim.
Every detail tears into me with merciless clarity: the green of the leaves is not green but a thousand greens, layered and quivering and blending into each other like a thousand verdant streams. Sunlight fractures through the canopy, not in beams but in living columns, golden dust twisting like spirits in the air.
The bark of the trees is a scripture of ridges and scars, telling histories my hands had never learned to read.
The earth itself glows—soil rich and damp, painted with a scatter of tiny blossoms so bright they seem to laugh at the day. Even the shadows astonish me: cool pools of blue and violet, shaped like the fingers of giants reaching down from heaven.
The captive's breath brushes against my face, and I see it: each exhale a silver cloud dissolving into nothing, each blink of her lashes a storm of motion finer than any dream had allowed me.
My old friend stands behind him and he is just like I remember.
A boy amongst men. Chiseled by the world, whereas they stand weathered.
His dark hair grows freely in odd directions, wild and unkempt, but not matted. And his clothes, though similar to the rest, carry none of the stench of hardship. There is an air of simplicity around him. One that is easy to mistake as that of a child.
It is too much. It is unbearable in its beauty.
No dream, no river, no whispered prophecy had prepared me for this—
a world not merely alive, but singing, dazzling, insistent.
And it burns me more than fire ever could.
***
I am an infant bawling in the candlelight, alone.
Suffocating in her juices.
A mother's drying husk as her babe chokes on her blood.
Gone before she hears his first cry.
I am crawling in a home for those without a place to call so.
I can still taste her iron on my tongue.
Cough up red in my porridge and empty it still.
Sleeping on an empty stomach.
I am listening to hammers by the heat of a blazing furnace.
A daily coin my pockets will surely forget.
Body entwined with a woman who doesn't care for my name.
Coins spilling from her fingers on a passionate night.
What should be a mother except for the burning in my lungs?
Freezing to death on a cold Decembre.
Ash soaking up blood in a blackened chest.
Barge into a room with nothing the last coin in hand.
Daughter of a daughter whom I never supposed.
A mother's dying husk as her babe chokes on her blood.
She was but an infant bawling in the candlelight.
I saw paradise through the eyes of an angel.
She was waiting at the edge of an infinite fall.
PARADISE - AN OLD MAN'S DREAM
"So this is your gift, huh, kid?"
I was on my two feet in an endless plain, staring up into a sky that matched the color of the last thing I seen. Couldn't see his eyes when I looked into 'em. Not with that fancy mystical glow, but when he rummaged through my soul, I saw some of his stuff, too.
That Spineless was right. Those things were something else.
Well… Speaking as a man, of course.
Couldn't tell you how long I was walking before I heard it.
You'll get a better view of the sky if you sink into the grass.
I try to make a habit of not listening to disembodied voices. But with nothing else to do, your eyes start drooping. It wasn't long before I was curled up in the grass like a motherless kitten. Opening my eyes in a distant dream.
One where I'm lying awake in a whorehouse bed.
[I've run into more sorry bastards than I can count, but he might be the sorriest one yet.] There is a warmth on my chest I didn't deserve. [Guess it's to be expected. He's still just a kid in the end with the world on his shoulders. And back then, I can't say that I was no different.]
Words spilled into the open that no man should ever admit.
[Looking back, all I did was run the same damn lap as the rest of 'em.]
A woman's tears pool in my chest cavity and flow down the contours of my ribs.
[Born in a whorehouse to a dead woman. Grew up in the same damn orphanage as every whoreson in this damn city. In places like these, every little boy talks big about breaking the cycle. How the world is designed to see us fail, so we're gonna make it big and take all our brothers out of there with us. But even among those sorry retches, it's just me who got unlucky. Bitch musta' been on her period! Choked half to death on my very first day.]
I laugh, but it doesn't devolve into bloody coughs like it always.
Eh… some jokes don't hit the same without the punchline.
[Anyway. That whole ordeal fucked up my lungs pretty bad. Then I got into smoking and fucked them up pretty badly. Tried my hand at smithing, of all things, and fucked em up some more, then got kicked out on account of my coughing up blood into the crucible.]
[So I said, 'You know what? I'll spend the rest of my coin on a damn good investment!' Used the last of my dime filling up some bitch in a whorehouse. City's small, might have been my damn sister, for all I know. Stumbled out in the early morning and got right back to it—conning, drinking, dying.]
[Didn't know I was making a kid. But whenever I had some extra coin, I'd pay for a night. Always with the same pretty thing. So when the belly started growing, we both knew it was mine. Not like it made much difference. Once a whore gets pregnant, she becomes the target of every single monster living in the upper circles. Couldn't get that bitch out of the city if I tried. After that, I kept paying for the night, but we never bumped uglies cause my and little guy wasn't on speaking terms after I found out what he did.]
Her long eyelashes tickle my skin as today's… excitement gets to her. The last of her energy coming and going in stable breaths. Softer now, I keep talking, though she's no longer listening.
[Thinking back, I probably shoulda said something.]
She jolts herself awake, and I wait for her to go back.
[But back then, I had to convince myself that it was enough. That even though she was getting battered and bruised and tortured by those sick fucks in the daytime, this was the life she deserved. Wasn't my choice to make her a whore. And when you make bad decisions, you have to stick with it!]
[And so I stuck with it. Every night, with her cheek on my chest, tears running down my skin as she tried to fall asleep. Feeling her jolt awake every few seconds on account of some nightmare from her working hours. Realized she had an easier shut-eye to the sound of my voice, heaven's grace. Always been a chatterbox. Heavens witness the fact. Always talking to myself when there was nobody around. When she was awake, I'd yap about the rumors that ran through the city, but I'd wait until she was asleep to get into the meaningful stuff. Kind of stuff no man wants a woman to hear. Making up a story when she wakes up until she goes back to sleep…]
She jolts awake again, and my heart stops beating. <<**And then I walloped that son of a bitch and sent him running!>>**
[Trying my damndest not to cough and ruin her slumber.]
**<
[Almost bawling my eyes out every time I did it anyway…]
**<
[He's still a kid, so I wouldn't expect him to understand…]
**<
[You don't know what it's like to reveal your flaws to a woman on accident…]
**<
[Accidentally exposing all your bloody weakness for a dime to see…]
**<
[Just for her to put her hand on your chest and go back to sleep...]
**<
[It's enough to kill a man, I tell you. You kill me dead.]
[Couple of months later, when I found our daughter choking on her mother's blood, I thought it was the end of the world. But it was just another turn of a vicious cycle. Don't know why I thought it was any different for the girls. World being designed against them and all. Just that those who own the whorehouse can't make a profit off the boys. It's a horrible thing to be born a whore…]
But he should know that. There's really no point in telling him. His hair ain't really gold. I saw it rummaging through his memories. Look too close and you see the roots are pitch black. Same color as a woman who snuck through his window. Same color as the whore they found hanging at morn.
[Saw my mother lying in the same bed her mother died in. Saw my father fucking her in the same bed after conning half the city. Saw our daughter on the same bed fucking a man no better than me and told myself ain't to way I'll let let that happen. Bruisers on my heel, little girl wrapped in those bloody sheets, I ran off on our place and never looked back.]
The woman jolts awake again, but this time she doesn't fall asleep.
I figure no harm was done since she never showed any signs of listening to me. In what was probably to her just a cruel twist of fate, she just got saddled with the one idiot dumb enough to fall in love with a whore.
[Look. I don't know the kid's some special salvation. I don't know he's telling the truth about some 'one special day'. But the most important thing is that he never lied about what was happening today. Delusional? Definitely. But he ain't a liar. And if there's one thing that separates men like him from men like me, it's that he wouldn't have told himself this hell was acceptable. He'd have picked you right up and left this place behind.]
[My granddaughter was born just as bad as me. Swallowed a hell of a lot of her mother's blood.]
I don't even know why I'm telling you this. You probably know that shit better than I do.
[His saving our daughter was a miracle. But they're gonna find her, Anne, I just know it. This ain't a world that lets miracles happen. But our child.] Something's building in my throat as I remember his memories. [I saw how she looked at him at the edge of that cliff. The things she said… bullshit, all of it. But it was way more delusional than I ever had the courage to let her be.]
[I know now that every man should have at least a little delusion in him.] Not a cough but a bubbling heat that wants to explode. [I was so sure that the heavens would take her from me that I didn't even bother to give her a name. I failed our daughter, Anne. Just like I failed you.]
<
A voice chimes in the dark. One that only ever came distorted through panting lies and staged moans. There is an eternity before I dare to identify it. Afraid the night will fall apart again if I run my big mouth.
<
A summer sound to the soul. This woman kills me, she does. She really kills me.
Quickly, I backtrack, wanting to leave the worst memory behind. <
[You did give her a name. You were just too afraid to tell her.]
<
On a night with a lady, she was out to drain me dead. Six seconds of paradise followed by six seconds more. Eventually, I collapsed in the mounds of a gargantuan bosom. But even in my dreams, I was running my mouth.
<
She spoke the words that she wanted no man to hear. <>
The dream fades away until I'm back in the plains.
I find the dreamer fast asleep on a hill on a starry night.
Mesmerizing, for sure. But they're only the fourth most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
The kid looked peaceful. Soft snores push and pulling the grass in front of his nose.
"You know. The worst thing in life is people like you." I spoke the words that I felt the boy needed to hear. "Thinking you can save everybody when you don't know their story. But now you've seen my story and I can tell that nothing's changed."
"Thank you for trying, kid. It's a hell of a lot better than this world deserves."
***
I open my eyes to the darkness.
It starts at the crack of dawn.
It ends just as the moon hits its apex in the sky.
I was a lifetime of nothing that goes up in silver flames.
Grass tickling your sides is a strange feeling. It kills you in a way you can't even imagine. I don't go into detail about what happens next. What I remember most is wishing more of the other captives had died during the journey. At least, that way, there are fewer mouths to spread the gospel of my shame.
Weak murmurs circulate in the dark.
"Are you okay, boy?" one asks as a crowd of battered victims forms around me. The surrounding area turns warm from the mass of bodies radiating shallow heat. I look into their chests and see their flames burning a little brighter than they had before.
I curl myself tighter into a ball, muttering to myself. "It's too late for that, now. The coldness of this world has to offer has long crept its way deep under my skin."
"That girl," I hiss. "Tell me that she's okay."
The sound of a masculine voice sends terror into my heart. Though this time, it is only to give a solemn response, "Those men took her inside the second they threw you out. We stopped hearing her cries not long before you woke up. I'm sorry, little dreamer. I fear she won't be coming out."
The silence behind his final word hangs loud in the air.
I close my eyes to the darkness. "Leave me."
But they don't.
Yet another fool decides to open their mouth. This time, it is a woman. Her voice is so grating and so parched, I have no doubt she spent a lifetime selling her throat. And her speech was so undignified, so uneducated, I know she didn't spend much time negotiating the price. "These weren't your accidental fault."
"Leave me."
This time, a bastard who most likely loses a leg overestimating himself against some vile creature. Thinking his pride thick enough to make up for his lacking build. And his technique sharp enough to make up for his little to none intelligence. "You did what none of us were willing to do."
Then an older, dignified voice from before speaks.
Unfortunately, I have no criticism for the life he would have lived. Except that if he is so wise in the ways of the world, then why does he smell of wet shit? "Calm yourself, boy. This is none of our or your fault. In this world, we are born slower than the slowest of our enemies. Weaker than the strongest of their calf. Human beings are not meant to fight as hard as we've seen you do. It's simply the way this world is created-"
I growl, toss off the filthy, smelly covering, and swat their bony fingers away. "Shut your mouth!" I tell my foolish saviors. "Shut your filthy, voiceless mouths and leave me! You think I know not where to place my anger? You think I know not the target of my wrath? The worst of this existence is the fact that none of this is our fault. That these things just happen to the unfortunate bastard who falls headfirst into a group of indomitable steel foes!"
The prophecy doesn't say anything about this journey. It might as well say nothing at all! That vague revelation does not instruct as to how I am meant to burn away the darkness. Just that it is my sole responsibility.
"But If you knew anything of the will of the gods… if you knew anything but the insignificant triflings of a meaningless day-by-day, you would know that I was not born to be that bastard. You may be content with cockroaching into another day, but the heavens did not bestow me to the earth to simply for me live and die!"
Watching their heads tilt in confusion, I fail to find the will to keep my feelings at bay. If there is such a thing as the darkness within, then it consumes me long ago.
None of them tried to save her while I was unconscious.
And to think, these are the people I am destined to protect.
I hate them.
I hate them all.
And yet…
"You are the flock of this world. Victims to the hunger of the wolves. But I am destined to rise above! I am the shepherd of prophecy! I am the light that fell from the heavens! I am destined to protect and save you! I promised myself on the day my grandmother told me the meaning of my name that this world will not be the same as it was on the day of my birth on the day of my dying breath!"
My speech falls apart into a series of ragged breaths. I am so tired. So hungry. So cold. But most of all, I am so weak. I find myself wasting precious water through tears and snot that stream down my sunken face.
Lying with my back against the grass, I cover my eyes with my hands as if that could make a difference.
I can still see the darkness of this world.
It is far thicker than anything one would imagine.
I killed that mother and child in the desert.
I killed Auraris in the Ashlands.
And I killed everyone on this journey who I am too weak and powerless to rescue.
My voice is little more than a paltry whimper. "I thought I saved her… I really wanted to save her… If I can't save one foolish little girl, then how am I supposed to save the rest of you?"
There is not a response from the procession. They think me mad from the heights of my trauma.
But from the heavens, I expect more than just the empty silence.
My grandmother preaches the chorus of the gods that speaks in the heads of the women in our favored family. They are the true power behind the beloved Lightbringers of Dunreach Village. And only that a male shows himself especially faithful should he be granted counsel to their glorious voices.
I spend my entire life trying to prove myself. If there is a moment to make their voices heard, this is none other than the time to do so. I'm sure it would change me for the better.
However, it is the same silence I always hear from them. One not borne from nonexistence, as is believed by my late grandfather. And one not borne from appraisal, as is whispered by my late father. It isn't borne of disappointment as she weeps that night behind me. Nor is it the silence to test your belief, like my grandmother spends her life preaching.
In the end, it is the unfathomable depth of nothingness spoken only by eyes that watch with indifference. This journey might not be fruit to my awakening, but it is not tribulation in vain. For I know now that if there is such a thing as the gods, then they do not care for the trifles of a pitiful thing like me. In fact, I'm afraid they aren't looking down at all.
In her final days, my grandmother was no longer a priestess. While grandfather and the men were out on a hunt, some villagers found her passed out in early morn. Doctor Ze-us' examination determined the cause a combination of old age and a nasty fall.
The shimmering beacon of light I dearly loved was dim, and fading still.
I spent days by her bedside with nothing to do but examine the purple of her bruises and listen to ill-minded ravings. She rambled many things during the daytime. Long-unspoken stories of her youth slipping through the gaps in her memory. That's how I came to find out much about the village's history.
Our ancestors were once part of a flourishing kingdom.
When the first human who received bestowment vanquished the creature of stolen tongue, he established a settlement with six men and women similarly gifted by the gods. Together, they used their abilities to grow that settlement and nurture generations of humanity who were able to push back the darkness outside of the borders they established.
One day, the leader of their army was discovered in bed entwined with with a woman of forked-tongue and vertical slit pupils. That is, she'd coiled herself around his body and squeezed until his flame was extinguished.
Believing his kin to be spawned from the union of himself and an agent of the stolen tongue that was said to have been vanquished long ago, his entire family was labeled as sinners, and sentenced to an extinction to the last generation.
It was said that the progenitor of Dunreach village wailed to the gods for thirty days and nights for an escape. But on the final day before their scheduled execution, their cell became dead silent and was found giggling to themselves in the darkness.
The next day, they uttered one final prayer before the king's sword fell upon their neck.
But rather than praying to the gods, he instead prayed to the devil, and a blanket of darkness descended upon the kingdom. When the darkness finally lifted, the king's head was seen impaled on the tip of his sword.
I thought it to be myth.
If the gods refused to help the sinner, what power did some vile demon have to prevent divine judgment? Furthermore, what compassion to directly intervene with the trifles of mortal man? Even furthermore, it was unthinkable that a human possessed the gall to pray to someone other than their own creator.
That was until I heard her praying.
"What are you saying, gran-gran?"
For the first time since the accident, there was some recognition in her eyes. She cast me a distant, sideways glance and raised her bony, wrinkled finger to something on the other side of the room. "I'm praying to him."
When I traced her direction into the almost empty corner, I saw a half-dead rat escaping through a hole in the wall. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"No. Not him," she said, still pointing to the dark corner. "Him."
I looked around, confused. "There's nothing there."
My grandmother then turned to face me in her non-lucid state and spoke. "For once in this short, fleeting life, I want to tell someone the truth."
For some reason, I could not find the words to implore.
Luckily, my grandmother was never the kind of woman to act on cue. "There is no such thing as the gods, the light, or a golden table that exists above the clouds."
This time, the lucidity in her voice was unmistakable. "There is no hell for the evil sinner, and no paradise for the faithful believer. Instead, there is only a darkness far deeper than anything you or I could imagine. And no matter what the life you live, the evil you propagate or goodness you spread amongst your peers, every man who lives, and therefore every man who dies, will eventually return to that endless nothing."
My mouth fell open. I could feel my brain trying to force coarse denial through my veins, but deep down, I knew my grandmother was dead serious. For for as long as I'd been her precious little sunshine, she never lied.
I wish I could say a million questions flowed through my mind. Questions of why she chose this way of life and if she'd always known it to be false. Why she propagated it through the village knowing full well it was a worthless tale. Countless good-natured men and women died with a smile on their faces, solely because they expected to wake up to a paradise within the clouds. Even more evil men and women died with smiles on their faces because the belief taught us to forgive. And the chorus? How could it not be real when I heard it many a time myself?
But the only question that came was the only one I'm ashamed to say I truly cared about. In my apprehension, I failed even to form the full sentence. "…the prophecy?"
Luckily, she didn't tell me that my existence was part of her lifetime of untruth. But what she said was nothing like the truth I wanted to hear.
She let out a wheezing breath before turning back to the empty corner. "The contents of prophecy are indeed true. At least, I believe," she told me. "But I was lying when I gave you the name, 'Solvanel.'"
"I didn't receive the prophecy from the gods," she said. "Rather, it was revealed to me in one of many prayers to the devil. And in that same prayer, I asked the darkness for light, and he delivered. My precious little sunshine… you are not the light that came from the heavens. You are the light bestowed by the darkness. And as for whether or not you will change the world, I'm afraid I don't have a clue."
Finally, I released a laugh. A dry, mocking laugh that was sure to crush the spirit of any human being no matter the strength of their conviction. I was ashamed to direct it at my own grandmother. My precious old sunshine. But this entire conversation was clearly the result of her dying mind. If not, why else would she let me waste my life in her footsteps? Why else feed me stories of victors and vanquished, tricking me into thinking this life of mine held meaning more than the average man.
And yet, I found myself with bitter tears streaming down my cheeks. "I don't believe that for a second, granny! If there's anyone I can trust in this world to tell me the truth, it's you. I am the child of prophecy! There is such a thing as the gods! And there is no such thing as eternal darkness!" I gasped until the breath in my chest returned. And finally, I said to my grandmother before she spoke the last words she ever said to me, "And there is no… such… thing… as the devil."
My grandmother smirked pitifully at the dark, empty space in the corner. She didn't even spare me a final glance. "That's not true, Sol. The devil is always watching. You just need to open our eyes."
The worst thing in the world is not silence in response to your prayers: it's being too hopeless to dream of better days. That's what my grandmother told me when I was foolish enough to believe it. In the end, she committed suicide in the comfort of grandfather's arms. Hunger hasn't claimed a life in the village since.
I opened my eyes to the darkness.
No. This time, I truly opened them.
And I found the darkness had been watching the entire time.
That night, I spoke to the devil in the forsaken lands; he told me everything would be fine.