An Aftershock of Hope and Fear: Chapter Two

             Interitus 3: Short Story #1: An Aftershock of Hope and Fear

            Chapter Two

 

            Small puddles of mud splashed beneath his feet with every step. The rainstorm had stopped for the time being, but wispy clouds drifted across the starry sky at a high speed. Like with most storms on the island of Gavara, it had surfed the sea breeze from the western shore. The moisture hung heavy in the air as Abraham emerged from the forest with his sword in hand. He took a deep breath and narrowed his blue-green eyes, scouring the moonlit world for any sign of the Hartorville ruins. Across a field of tiny shimmering puddles, Abraham finally recognized the silhouettes of shambles before the clouds covered the moon again. With darkness as his cloak, he tore across the field and stepped carefully so that a splash would not betray his surreptitious approach.

            “It makes no difference to me if the monster that dwells here did spare my life, back when I was here for the first time. She killed a village of innocent people. I may carry the same curse as her, but that doesn’t mean I cannot protect the world from her. At least I understand the creature I intend to fight,” Abraham whispered to himself, justifying his decision to his own trepid nerves.

            It almost felt like an animal instinct screaming at him from within. It was a terror which contrasted the bloodlust imbued to him by his curse. Ever since he inhaled the impulse and felt his power unlock, he came to understand that he was meant to wield weapons far more fearsome than those he had seen. If he could already force the earth to tremble without having fed his bloodlust, then it stood to reason that a full-fledged Taenarius could have inconceivable strength. It both drove him away and enticed his interest; the curiosity catalyzed every forward footstep. Abraham concluded now that there was truth to the alchemist’s supposition, and it was the allure for power that drove him onward.

            When Abraham stepped out of the flooded field and onto the rain-soaked ashes at the edge of the town, he held his breath and searched the buildings for any sign of the Taenarius. Every falling raindrop distorted his attention, and every tiny sound caught his concentration. He wandered toward a somewhat-intact building on the west side of the street, and he stepped with one foot onto the rotting wood. It was here that he saw a thin patch of white sand beneath the rainspout, in the place where flowing water washed away the ashes. He peeked inside the ruins of the crumbled building, but he found nobody inside. Old stools stood beside a charred bar, and broken glass bottles scattered the ground. It was as empty as anywhere else.

Abraham sighed and retreated from the tavern shambles, but his heart jolted in his chest when he saw the silhouette of a towering creature on the other side of the block. Moonlight glistened on the rainwater which dripped slowly down the creature.

            Craning his head to the sky as he stepped closer, Abraham said, “If you are what I am destined to become, I can only apologize to this world by destroying an engine of equal destruction.”

            But when the Taenarius saw Abraham on the other side of the block, it swiveled its lanky leg and brought its foot crashing down upon the muddy street. The crash created a shockwave which ignited instantly; the earth shook violently as a fiery wave raced toward him. Having forgotten about his own powers, Abraham took off running and crouched behind a rotting pillar. When the wave of fire engulfed the pillar and his body, he threw himself into the muddy street with a roll. The moisture stifled the flame, but the shockwave sent him rolling back until he struck the wreckage of a broken wagon. The Taenarius quickly crept closer, splashing through puddles with every large step. Abraham stumbled to his feet as a flash of heat lightning illuminated the monster for just a moment.

            The towering creature stood nearly as tall as the buildings on either side of the street; it was just over one story tall. Its lanky extremities were equipped with long quill-like blades which shimmered in the glow of lightning. Its face was dark and narrow, though its deep eyes betrayed something beyond anger and bloodlust. It lifted its right claw as it approached, and then a plume of fire spiraled along its scythes. In the blink of an eye, the creature barreled closer and slashed its fiery blades directly at Abraham.

Abraham threw himself forward and crashed his sword against the scythes with all his strength. In the metallic clash which followed, a blue spark set sail to the moonlit air and danced into the flames which covered the monster’s blades. And in the next slash which followed, the impact launched Abraham backward at a disorienting speed; he slammed into the shambles of a rotted building.

            Abraham widened his eyes as he watched the Taenarius unleash a stream of scarlet fire from a short distance. He desperately kicked off of the rotted wall behind him, flung himself to a short distance, and narrowly escaped the fiery shockwave. He sprinted forward and swung his sword at his enemy’s lanky leg, but then it surrounded itself with a sudden circle of searing sparks. He stopped in his tracks, and then the monster slashed its scythes through the fire; Abraham jolted backward and dodged the strike by mere centimeters. The creature followed up with a second high-speed slash, forcing Abraham to block with the side of his silver sword. But when their blades clashed loudly with a burst of sparks, the Taenarius lowered its jaw and whispered in a guttural voice.

            The monster said, “I apologize for this, but most others have the sense to stay away. I cannot control this. I never wanted to be this. I have no choice but to do this.”

            In the next moment, when the Taenarius stomped the muddy street with an earthshaking crash, a pillar of fire engulfed Abraham. The heat expanded the air so quickly that the shockwave knocked him backward, and the pain struck while his feet shakily landed on the ground. Mud splashed upon his shoes as his skin burned with terrible pain. He stumbled as he swung his sword upright, but he was too agonized to take a forward step. Instead, he glared into his enemy’s deep eyes as a drizzle descended from the spiraling steam.

            “It surprises me that you still retain a piece of the person you once were. An alchemist told me that she was the one who unleashed. There was a time when you sought to spare the innocent from your madness, but now it’s too late. These ruins are an open cemetery for the lives you destroyed. Our world is better off without you,” Abraham professed.

            “That is one thing on which we can agree,” whispered the Taenarius in its guttural voice, and then it commenced its attack once again.

            Having sensed the attack ahead of time, Abraham threw himself forward instead of backward. When a pillar of fire erupted in the space behind him, the shockwave propelled him forward. It was the perfect chance for a frontal assault, so Abraham swung his sword with all his strength. But just before impact, a high-speed spiral of fire struck him in the stomach and threw him backward. The sudden attack left him completely disoriented; he crashed into a rotting wooden wall and fell to his knees before he even realized what happened. Steam lifted from his skin, and smoke plumed from his burned shirt.

The rising gases concealed his distant enemy as a towering silhouette, but when Abraham saw the glow of fire, he jolted aside and dashed through the swirling smoke. His heart raced as the rotting wall burst into fire, and he sprinted toward the monster despite the searing burns which stained his skin. Adrenaline flooded his veins, driving him to draw his sword and strike the Taenarius.

            The entire street trembled as the towering Taenarius took a quick step backward, narrowly dodging the slash of Abraham’s sword. And though he missed, he redoubled his assault and nearly tripped on the muddy earth as he jolted forward. The monster retaliated in that moment with a sudden burst of fire, but Abraham ducked beneath it and lunged forward with his swinging sword. In the moment before impact, the creature blocked his slash with its narrow blade. When the two weapons crashed together, a single blue spark shot off into the darkness until a drop of rain extinguished it.

            “If you know that you deserve your end, then why are you fighting me? I am trying to do you a favor. Only death can save a soul that is stained with so much blood,” said Abraham.

            But as the monster took a backward step in the rainy street, it said with a throaty voice, “Please do not pretend to understand a fraction of my plight. There is a hurricane inside me that screams to kill just so it can grow stronger. She is both the darkest piece of me and the only piece left. There was a time when I loved every person in this hopeless town… so when the time came that I burned them all to ashes, I tried to take my own life in the smoldering cinders. As if that token gesture could give any shred of justice to their restless souls. That was when this heartless form awakened. I became a creature cursed out of my control so that I have no choice but to wallow in my own transgressions. A creature cursed to recreate the agony any time a helpless soul wanders into the wreckage.”

            The Taenarius unleashed a sphere of searing fire despite its remorseful words. It shot the fireball at Abraham so swiftly that he had no time to run; his only defense was to swing his silver sword into the center of the scarlet sphere. But when the weapons collided, the fireball detonated with a forceful shockwave. Abraham was blown off of his feet and thrown into the air, forced to fly backward as every falling raindrop shimmered in the fiery light. Every raindrop was a descending droplet of fire, suspended in time as he came crashing down on his back. But the pain itself sparked his fury, and so Abraham executed a backward somersault and landed on his feet a split-second later. Another fireball flew right past his right shoulder, but it was now that Abraham counterattacked with his own tectonic power. The ground beneath the monster’s feet shook so violently that it nearly collapsed. It lurched forward, striving to slay its attacker, but it partially tripped over the shaking earth. It attacked instead with a sloppy slash of its blazing scythe, but Abraham clashed his own sword against it.

            “Then that means you know you don’t deserve to suffer. If you are unable to give yourself silence, then perhaps I can give you peace,” Abraham whispered through the falling rain.

            In that moment, the tremor beneath them intensified violently. It did not take the form of a full-force earthquake, but it instead forced a seismic shift which disheveled the street. A spike of rock and dirt emerged from the ground and struck the Taenarius with a forceful smack. It was forced to partially retreat with a jump, but the strike injured its slender right leg. Even as the monster returned to its full height, it shouldered its weight on its left leg. Abraham noted the success of his new power, but the Taenarius gazed at him with a pained gaze.

            “I can feel the impulse emanating from you. I understand now why you came here. You and I carry the same curse. You are the start and I am end,” said the creature with a raspy voice.

With a solemn stare, Abraham said, “The misery that consumes you is my curse and condemnation. It is the flickering flame that illuminates my shadowed path. I also bear the mark of the Taenarius; I am also damned to a future soaked in blood. But if I can kill the creature I am cursed to become, then at the very least it serves as an apology to a world I’m meant to end.”

As every flame on the street extinguished at once, the Taenarius confessed, “I can safely say that I envy your resolve. You strive to save the helpless from a madness you inherited; you strive to serve a goal that is greater than yourself. Most other monsters descend into madness when they learn that carnage fuels their power. It happened to them as it happened to me, but it took me time. You and I both cowered from our curse but for different reasons. Your reason is righteous. But as for me? I buried my darkest piece because I could not bear to let her see the monster manifesting in my soul. She was the only reason I kept myself intact.”

“I understand that. And without her, there was nothing holding you back. We are cursed to a cycle catalyzed by bloodlust and fueled by a desperate craving for power. But in the time before I lose myself completely, at the very least I can protect people from creatures just like us. These people did nothing wrong. They do not deserve to die just because we succumbed to unheavenly desires,” said Abraham as he lifted his sword.

The Taenarius lifted its arms into the towering sky, and then every blade burst into fire. Despite the drizzle which cascaded from the night, the flames burgeoned with each passing second. They danced in color between orange and blue; the night itself became the canvas for its light. The raindrops reflected the orange glow like tiny spheres of sunlight, and the wreckage of the long-lost town shimmered with a blue which matched the midday sea. Every inch of the street was suddenly illuminated, and Abraham could see every wound which stained his skin. Every nearby drop of rain evaporated from the abrupt inferno, and even puddles on the street quickly turned to steam. And as soon as the Taenarius unleashed its firestorm, Abraham hurled himself behind the rocky spike which once served as his weapon. It protected him from the forefront of the flashing flames, but spiraling streams of fire quickly crushed his barricade.

Abraham narrowed his eyes and caused the entire street to shudder. He forced a fissure to open beneath his feet, and then he fell a short distance underground. The firestorm charged on overhead, but he was temporarily safe from everything except the superheated drafts. He set his hands upon the ground and forced the street to violently quake; he summoned an epicenter just beneath the fiery monster. His earthquake grew powerful enough to collapse the creature. It fell to the earth and slashed its blades underground, narrowly missing Abraham as he jolted backward in his own crevice. Now that the firestorm had stopped, Abraham hoisted himself onto the street and sprinted into the swirling steam. He could not see the creature, but since he had gained a portion of control over his power, he finally had a plan. About a block away, a narrow pillar stood tall from the wreckage. He sprinted toward it, hoping he could topple it and crush the Taenarius.

But before he even made it halfway down the street, he was struck from behind by a high-speed fireball. It detonated on impact with incredible force, and he slammed to the ground with his sword thrown from his grip. He rolled toward his sword in spite of the agony, begging the rain-soaked street to extinguish the embers which were seared into his skin. The cold touch of the wet ground crushed the smolders, but his burned skin screamed with pain, driving him to jolt upright and counterattack with another earthquake. Broken pieces of buildings collapsed and clamorously descended onto the street, but this was a mere side-effect of his attack. Abraham narrowed his eyes and focused on the source of the vibration, hoping to steer the epicenter. In mere moments, he created a crevice directly beneath the Taenarius, and it quickly fell as it swung its slender arms.

To Abraham’s surprise, the Taenarius transformed partway through its fall. And though it was cloaked by swirling steam and hidden beneath falling rain, he could tell that the air was sucked into the crevice; the monster transformed back into a girl who clenched the edge of the rocky precipice with her little hands. Despite the spontaneity of her transition, she pulled herself upright and onto solid ground.

Abraham knew that he could throw her backward and into the crevice with another earthquake, but he was instead transfixed by her human form. Having first seen her as a towering creature covered in blades and fire, it was haunting to see her now as a girl responsible for countless deaths. She wore a tattered sleeveless shirt and a long grimace. Her dark eyes betrayed both her sorrow and her bloodlust.

“You also escaped from the abyss, isn’t that right?” she asked listlessly.

Nodding slowly as he stepped closer, Abraham said, “When I was very young, yes. If I were anyone else, I would have lost my shot at life before it ever began. The force that condemned me to madness is the same thing that gave me a chance. Did you experience the same thing?”

As a stream of sparks spiraled along her bruised legs, she answered, “Yes. But it was not a spontaneous death. You see, I was born into a faulty family. Mother and father fought constantly. Viciously. It was all I knew for years of my life. The love they once shared had extinguished long ago. On the night he left, he beat her to the edge of death. She was so broken that she surrendered her life. She brought me to the ocean and drowned us both beneath the sea. Her body fell into the abyss, but a short while later, mine emerged. The currents brought me to the beach by Hartorville, and that is where the villagers found me. That is where my big sister found me. She brought me into her life with a warmth I’d never known. She cared for me with a love I thought could never happen. I thought I was born again as a second chance, so I could get it right this time. I thought it was a sign I was destined to lead a happy life. But instead in the end, it turned out that I was destined to kill the villagers who saved me in the first place.”

“As much as I hear about our supposed lust for carnage and power, I do not see it in you. Not anymore. Even when we fought, it felt like you did it as an obligation. Why do you suppose that is?” asked Abraham.

As the streams of sparks stopped spiraling around her, she whispered, “Because if I can resist it now, then that means I could have resisted it then. If I am not a slave to my bloodlust now, then that means on some level that I never was. If I have any control over myself at all, then that means it is my fault that I killed them. They pulled me from the ocean, and they died an unnecessary death because of it. Slain by the girl they saved because she could not control her own emotions. This was never my choice; that is the only way I can live with this. By telling myself that I never had a choice but to do this.”

Despite the power and impulse emanating from her body, Abraham set his hand upon hers and said, “Please tell me what sounds worse. That the girl who killed them continues to murder all who come near her, or instead that she uses her power to stop other acts of madness? Perhaps it means their death was unnecessary, but better unnecessary than entirely in vain.”

“And just how am I supposed to do that…?” she asked with a curious stare.

With his blue-green eyes open wide, Abraham gazed upon her and answered, “By joining me on that same journey. You and I can join forces and fight against the same demons that plague this hopeless world. We can fight together, Ophelia. Only we can counteract this curse.”