Chapter 10: Light
A white haired boy sat on a tall, elevated throne inside a grim, ashen, empty palace. The throne was made out of pitch black metal, yet blood and gold adorned it with majesty and glory. The steps leading towards the throne were blood red and stone gray. Beneath the throne and its steps laid hundreds of thousands of skulls and bones.
The white remains were of various shapes and sizes, ranging from as small as insects to as enormous as islands. There were numerous human shaped bones yet there were many remains that had never been seen before. Skulls that had three eyes, four eyes, a hundred eyes. Bones from creatures that had no limbs to thousands of them.
The boy sat lazily and pridefully, one hand to his cheek as he looked both bored and dreadful. The boy’s skin was an unnatural ashen gray, as if actual ash perpetually covered his skin, drawn to him. He wore armor and garments made out of pristine gleaming bone and ethereal, soul-like, transparent silk. It decorated him with menacing grace.
Slowly, he closed his eyes.
…
Fire. Fire! Why was his house on fire? Why was his village on fire? Why were the skies on fire? Tell me! Why!?
My family! Where are they!?
Zan rushed through the chaotic battlefield, dodging sword and axe swings and rolling away from the rain of arrows. The red haired boy sprinted through streets and open fields where two forces spilled each other’s blood like sacrifice to a malevolent god. Running through no man’s land with a shield he looted off a dead body, every arrow volley was blocked by the shield or a random corpse on his village ground.
One cruel soldier wearing red colors intercepted the boy. Zan had seen this one killing the farmers instead of his enemy soldiers.
The cruel man brought his axe down on the boy. Zan brought up his shield, blocking the slice before he gave a powerful roundhouse kick to the man’s leg. The man shook but he did not falter. Instead Zan’s leg hurt like hell.
He felt padded resistance on the man’s leg. Probably a thick type of leather.
Arrows shot down from the sky as Zan shifted, using his elaborate footwork to circle behind the man. The man brought up his circular shield to block the arrows but a stray hit his left thigh.
It did not go in too deep thanks to his leather, but Zan used this moment to rush forward, he did not have to stay to fight, just look for his family. As he burst forward he felt a leather whip wrap around his left ankle, before it lashed him and stopped him from running. Zan looked behind him to see the man had pulled out a whip from his side belt, dropping his shield.
The man dropped his whip on the ground next, running towards the boy with only his axe on his left grip. Zan rolled to the left as the axe hit the muddy ground. The boy took his shield and smashed it on the man’s helmet, stunning him. However, the man’s limp movement surprised Zan, he was prepared for fast counter-movement but instead the man fell down on him. The weight of the two hundred pound man was too much even for the brawny boy.
Zan held on to life as he was pressed against the man’s weight. The man, still somewhat in the stars from a shield bash to the head, sluggishly grabbed the fallen axe to his right. At the same time, Zan’s head raced with speeding thoughts, he was trapped under the man’s weight and he could not generate enough force to stop the fat bastard that was several weight classes above him.
Still on top of Zan, the man raised the axe high above his head. Death approached. Zan whipped his hand and dug out the arrow head from the man’s thigh, the man faltered from the pain, before the red haired boy plunged the arrow into his neck. The man still did not fall, so Zan took out the arrow head from his neck, blood leaking out of the hole as he plunged it back into a different spot, over and over until the man’s neck bled like rivers and the red haired boy was simply the red boy.
The man’s head fell off his neck, though, still hanging on by a few sinews, before his body followed to the ground. The red boy looked at his blood stained hands, good thing he did not have a mirror, for his face was fully covered in blood too. His hands shook intensely at the deed he just committed.
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The boy steeled himself, picked himself up, and ran. And he would continue to run from it all until he reached his home.
Home…was not home anymore. His humble and small wooden refuge that housed his annoying but loving family was burning to ashes right in front of him.
The red boy collapsed to his knees, the red-orange of the flames and the sky perfected the scene of momentous eternal carnage. The flames threatened to blind him as he looked desperately for his family…or their remains. In the end, he did find them. Two of them at least…two adult charred bodies decorated the miserable destruction. Tears flowed from his eyes as he held a blank look.
In the next moment, he steeled his heart again, his sisters were yet to be found. So Zan wiped his tears, and he searched. He searched and scoured the still turbulent battlefield over and over, battle after battle. The two sides either ignored or tried to kill him when he trespassed their territory.
Zan did not care, his sisters mattered more. And he had promised them that one day, he would come and go anywhere and everywhere, and no one, no thing, would tell him he could not.
The red boy searched and searched. During the day he would scavenge the battlefields, digging and moving corpse after corpse just to make sure that even if they were dead, they would be buried properly. Under the cover of night he would sneak into the enemy encampments, looking at their prisoners or inspecting their women if his sisters may have been taken by one of the soldiers.
Whenever each side caught him, he would simply sprint away, losing them under his knowledge of the forest. Though…sometimes he did not want to lose them, but lose himself under the fiery rage. He took upon it himself to punish the callousness of both sides for their deeds against the innocent. Yes, indeed, the boy stalked each force, divided them, before delivering his own judgment of those he deemed worthy enough for a dagger to the neck.
In the final battle, Zan lurked once again, looking and searching frantically, as if he himself did not already know that it was useless. As if he was not denying that they were indeed gone. Perhaps someone took them far away or perhaps they were already dead but he continued to deny it till the end.
Covered in the blood of both sides he screamed hopelessly, before falling down into the mixed pool of blood.
Darkness surrounded him once more.
Scenes and moments passed by in a black and white blur. Chains suddenly appeared on his hands and then his ankles, and then a pickaxe appeared out of nowhere as he started mining.
A skinny blonde boy appeared, he was cowardly but kind. It seems they were from the same village, but he became a slave first, while Zan became one months later.
Water gushed over while he slept, threatening to drown them as the first intense flood he experienced forced him into the darkness.
Using his instinct and intuition, he picked correct choice after correct choice, never reaching a dead end but only advancing steadily as he reached the star-filled sky, a path towards the tallest iron peaks.
Vivian, the whore who would do anything to give everything to her children. Hmph. Respectable.
Nel, the firework whip, that would only brandish his whip for show, and cared much more for the slaves than anyone else. Even more than the other slaves.
The water bowl thieves, his last hot blooded disobedience and finally the sickening scene of hell with the insane doctor Mila.
All of them, all of these…things, simply passed Zan by. As the blue light of memory and reminisce started to fade, he felt the cold darkness set in once again. The glowing fluorescent lights full of harsh life faded from his perception.
In the end, none of these things mattered anymore. There was nothing for him in the present, nor the future. He had clung to life, never really wanting to and asking why he did everyday. What he wished most right now, at this very moment, was rest. Eternal rest, an eternal slumber.
All light faded away, silence settled, and Zan could feel the darkness embrace him once again.
…
A soft, warm hand touched his back again.
In the pitch black darkness of the void, light flourished and shimmered and weaved. Wrapping around Zan in white-gold radiant vibrance.
The light covered him in its warmth as it forced the battered and worn boy to open his eyes once more.
As he opened them he fully relished in the new sensation, this was not the peace of darkness but the fullness and warmth of light.
Looking forward, he saw streaks of flowing and streaking light. It seemed to be dancing with a lively intelligence as it flowed from behind him. So, he turned to look.
There, floating in the darkness was a boy made out of glowing luminescent white light. He seemed to be no older than six years old and…his left hand seemed to be missing.
His right hand was still touching Zan’s back, as if transferring his healing light towards the older boy. Filling Zan with life, energy, courage and bravery. Healing his past wounds and lifting the heavy burden on his physical, mental, and spiritual bodies.
Zan felt once again, that feeling. That feeling that his very being was expanding beyond him, beyond his vessel, he once again felt…vast.
Zan turned to face the little boy fully and caught sight of two glowing orbs behind him. Before he could look further the boy’s remaining hand clutched at his. He looked down to the boy as he seemed to be saying something but Zan couldn't hear what it was, he only saw the boy's mouth move in the same motions.
Before he could grasp what it was, he felt a pull, growing more and more intense as moments passed by. The child gave him one last look, giving a smile to the older boy before letting go of Zan’s hand.
The sensation yanked him out of his world. It was as if a deity plucked a man from one side of the Earth and put him into the other.
Zan suddenly opened his eyes.
‘What…was that?’
The boy stared at the ceiling of the room he was in.
‘What…’
He was in a daze. Were those…simply dreams? What was it that he just saw and felt and experienced? The boy tried to close his eyes to return to it, or at the very least visualize everything that happened. But before he did, he grew aware of something on his chest.
On his chest…a small left hand laid resting.