In his captor’s home under the shadows of the bleak skyscrapers, the only things that kept the young boy hopeful were the street lamps outside and a tattered teddy bear.
The man in front of him was someone he didn’t know, but he’d seen him every single day for a while now. The boy was confused, scared, and desiring nothing more than his freedom. Months spent in the dark room, nobody to keep him company aside from the man’s raspy voice.
“You miss the teddy bear, don’t you? I am afraid I will not fix it, nor will I replace it.”
Clutched in the boy’s hand, a broken friend, torn in half. Even while it was dead, he still held onto the corpse with the hope that he could one day see him whole once more.
“Why don’t you understand it yet? You can’t have nice things anymore. You don’t belong with the people in the towers above. I know you understand; you hated them for a reason. I do too.”
The child understood what the man said, but he didn’t agree with it, not all of it. The people above were despicable, selfish, uncaring of the people down below. But the people below… They were this man; they were undeterred by law, chaos weavers, uncaring of those whom they hurt to try and get back against the people above. And clamped in the middle was everyone else, constantly barraged by the misgivings, flaws, and unjust treatment of the criminals and the selfish rich.
“The Lightkeeper chose you, little one. You were chosen to be the one that finally brings peace and silence to this cruel world. For that, their facade of a society must fall. Everyone must die.”
The child was once above, now he was below, but he was neither in his heart. He wanted to fix all of it. He didn’t want society to fall, but he didn’t want it to remain as it was.
His big dreams trapped in the small room, they couldn’t be contained. That day, something within him ignited. A beam of sunlight flared through the grotty window like a spotlight, and the man knew the boy’s power had awakened… It brought him wonder, and then it brought him fear.
The very first Soulflare.
The bear had returned to grant him freedom.
It was never gone, it was never dead. It was within his soul the entire time.
The walls shook with indescribable power, the roof began to crack as the boy’s body flooded with a sensation he couldn’t describe, but it felt like a calling, a purpose, a path forward. He reveled in it… until he heard the roof finally give in with a mighty crash… Everything went dark.
When the smoke cleared, the seared ground was covered over by rubble. In that rubble sat the boy that now noticed that his captor was right… The Lightkeeper did choose him.
No longer would he choose between the rich or the poor, nor the weak or the strong. He would choose it all, because despite his young mind, he had big desires.
He knew that something had to change. And, in that sense, the Lightkeeper didn’t choose him.
He chose himself to change the last city of humanity. He wouldn’t break it, for its flaws didn’t mean it deserved death…
It meant that it could be fixed.
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Many years later…
Failure eats you alive when you know that you could have succeeded, but were too distracted to do so; stretched taut across everything in your life. And the thinnest armor is pierced the easiest.
The infuriated screams and shouts of hundreds echoed through the halls of the Crystal Canopy as Pouria ran down the stairwell of his own mayoral office building toward the ground floor.
Trailing right behind him were two other men, Kaino and Penove. The former calm and collected despite the situation, the latter quite a bit more frightened despite his normally upbeat demeanor. Someone unknowing of their status would think them to be a security detail, but they were in as much trouble as their boss was, all for similar reasons.
Pouria’s heart pounded in his chest, descending each flight with a level of haste he didn’t think possible with the state of his body these days. His two companions in the chase weren’t faring much better. Everything they knew had fallen, their life’s work tarnished, and their names synonymous with shame, slandered in the sight of the city’s people. Those people were all seeking vengeance against the government who had brought calamity just days ago.
Despite it all, their will to survive and make it out of the building was stronger.
Penove, the shortest of the three, right behind Pouria, pointed to the emergency exit at the bottom of the next flight of stairs. There was a silent agreement between the three men as they raced toward it.
Pouria smashed through the door, the alarms connected to it not going off with the building’s main power cut off by the revolutionaries. The fifth story door led down an ironcast spiral emergency staircase to the lobby below, trashed from its former hyper-modern glory. The people were hungry to see the mayor, some smashing his immaculate chandeliers, crystal decor, or any of his security who barely put up a fight, some even joining the mob. All of them were there to do anything from spewing complaints to putting a bullet into their mayor’s chest.
The three men were sandwiched. One half of the mob behind them, and the other half below. The ones below began to notice them upon the emergency balcony above, and with shouts and heavy footfall, they climbed the spiral staircase up toward them with reckless abandon like a hunting pack of wolves.
“Go back!” Pouria shouted, pushing past them and trying to continue on their previous trajectory. Men and women spewing hateful remarks and wielding crude weaponry began to pour down the stairs, but the descending stairs remained clear. The three men barely dodged the grasping hands of the mob as they ran down to the fourth story, and went through the door.
They ran down a curving hallway, one wall lined with office doors, the opposite one containing a window down to the lobby. The crowd below attempted to throw objects up to the window, some even shot at it, but they did nothing, thanks to all the windows in government buildings being outfitted with bullet-proof glass. The real threat was chasing right behind them, though. No glass would stop their assault.
“There’s a way out from here, in my lab, but it won’t be easy.” Kaino said.
“I don’t care, Kaino. We have to do it.” Pouria replied.
“Pouria, you will come with me. Penove, you will need to hold them off. I am sorry to ask this of you, but I need time to gather my most confidential research.” Kaino said to them as they stopped in front of a door, not much more fancy than any of the others, but on the front was a bronze sign that read ‘Private Soulflare Testing Lab’. Kaino’s little hole where he spent most of his days working tirelessly, to the point of utter collapse. Pouria didn’t approve of it, despite the results, but this would be the last day either of them would set foot inside it.
“Be quick, you two. I don’t know if I can handle them all.” Penove said nervously to the two men. He wasn’t usually one to get nervous, and Pouria knew that well. He didn’t have as much combat experience as Pouria, nor as much intellect as Kaino, but he was good at talking down a crowd as the spokesperson. Pouria hoped that his words could hold them off before he would need to fight them.
Kaino opened the door and let Pouria in first. The lab was dark and small. One of those things was fixed as Kaino turned on the light, revealing a room that most would consider a lab, but hardly somewhere one of the greatest minds of humanity would work. Pouria knew Kaino didn’t want a bigger lab than this, knowing the man preferred everything organized, at arm's reach, and without anyone’s hands on it.
Kaino wasted no time in walking to a gizmo he kept in the corner of the room under one of the countertops. “I hoped today wouldn’t come, but we might have no choice.” he said, picking it up and stepping toward Pouria.
It was a device similar in shape to a blender, with clasps attached to belts meant to lock it to your chest. On the front side, projecting away from the strap side, was a circular barrel like that of a cannon made of titanium, with an aggressively sharp coil sticking out of it.
It was ominously named the Messis Machine by Kaino. It had only been fired once, and Pouria hoped that it would never again see the light of day.
“Kaino, are you fucking serious?” Pouria said, looking at it with an expression of horror.
“A weapon like this… it cannot fall into the wrong hands.” Kaino said. “The research here is negligible. They can have it, cus they won’t get the really important stuff from Blue’s servers, but this…” he held up the weapon as he paused. “Nobody should have this. Not even us.”
The rumble of footfall came from outside the door as the crowd had probably caught up. Pouria was tempted to take a peek, but knew he had to have a little faith in Penove.
Kaino set the device down on the central island and climbed up onto it. Above was a vent duct which ventilated chemicals, standard in the labs across the city. He twisted one of the screws and the vent flapped open on a hinge, hanging down off the roof. Pouria had his best mechanic install escape routes in every important office, just in case there was a major attack on the city by the vile gangs and miscreants that seemed to grow with each day, forming whole syndicates now. Little did Pouria know that the attack would come from his own citizens, but he was just glad that only his inner circle knew about the ducts.
Inside the duct, on the wall, Kaino flicked a switch and a ladder flung down onto the desk. Kaino climbed down off the desk, ushering Pouria to climb up as he ran to the door to get Penove.
He opened it cautiously, but then flung it open when he and Pouria both realized what was outside.
Nobody. The mob had moved on, and Penove was nowhere to be seen.
“No… what happened?! Where is-” Pouria shouted, but Kaino put up a finger to his own mouth, silencing his mayor.
“I can’t see him.” Kaino sighed as he shut the door behind him. “We have to go without him.”
“I am not leaving him! He is not going to die just because of my sins.”
“You didn’t sin, and he chose to stand by you through all of this. None of us believe that you caused The Exodus Event. It’s just bullshit that the church made up, I still don’t know why you believe it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I am not letting him die.”
Pouria looked at the door, thinking of Penove and what it would feel like to lose a friend and colleague like him. His imagination stewed with dark thoughts, but it only convicted him further in what he had to do. A power bubbled up from his soul, he felt it, and knew that he had to let it loose. He had to unleash his Soulflare.
“Go on without me. Protect the Messis Machine. I’ll call you when I get somewhere safe.” Pouria said with conviction. Kaino only gave him a somber nod. Pouria knew that he wouldn’t stop him, because he knew he never could.
Pouria darted out the door as his power flushed from his chest, swirling around him in red energy until it formed into a shape behind him, following closely. The teddy bear from so long ago still lived on inside of him, it had grown with him, and now resembled him in its form. Still soft and plush, still with brown fabric for skin and plastic beads for eyes, as tall as he was, but even more powerful and fast. Perhaps it resembled an inner strength that he wanted to have, but couldn’t possess alone. He didn’t know. But he did know one thing; the bear was him, and he was out to save Penove.
Two of his own guards blocked the stairs ahead of him, opposite to the other flight he’d come from previously, and he knew they weren’t letting him through. Heavy tactical gear they’d stolen from the armory covered their bodies, but despite it hiding all their human features, Pouria knew who they were all the same. He knew they were the weakest link in his security force, but he didn’t have the heart to fire them. They didn’t have another job, being hired from poverty. As they blocked his way now though, his previous corporate mercy was gone, as was his normal mercy.
“Traitors!” Pouria shouted as they aimed their pistols at him without pause. The Bear, hovering behind Pouria, flew forward at twice its owner’s speed. Its phantasmal form flew in front of the bullets before they even left the chamber, both hitting the Bear, leaving only scorch-marks on its fluffy chest. Pouria still felt two sharp stings on his own chest in time with the shots landing upon his Soulflare, but nothing compared to what it would have felt like to actually be shot.
The pistols fired repeatedly, and The Bear absorbed two, four, six more bullets. But his use as a shield had allowed Pouria to get in close to his targets. Once he was right up next to them, he knew the exact spot that Kaino told him to aim for. Right in the chin, strike it hard enough and you’ll knock them out, along with some teeth too. While their armored shell helped against the small, centralized impact of a bullet, The Bear was much bigger than a bullet. The two men shook as they went down to the floor, the fists of The Bear not as plush as its huggable exterior made them out to be.
Pouria looked down off the balcony and through the window, the lobby wasn’t nearly as full, many fleeing to the exit in a panic. Upon close inspection, he saw people dropping to the floor, collapsing from what looked like nothing.
A shout came from behind him. Three more armored guards came running up the stairs wielding assault rifles. They seemed furious and unruly, but before Pouria could even defend himself, they stopped in place, like time had just frozen. They toppled to the ground at the top of the stairs, one of them falling down the stairs like a ragdoll, probably breaking a limb.
It didn’t matter what they broke though. Pouria moved in and checked their pulse. All of them, dead. After he took off one man’s mask, he saw underneath a face that would stay locked in his mind for years to come.
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Sunken in, blinded eyes. Tears of shining liquid, bioluminescent and sparkling, drooling down their face. Mouth agape, unbreathing.
He sat in the moment for nearly half a minute, trying to process it, and how it could have even happened, but he knew he had to keep moving if it meant saving Penove.
Down the stairs he went, arriving at the lobby to find a horrific sight once more. The dead littered the ground in droves. The sight shocked him to his core, even if they were just trying to kill him, they were still his people. He didn’t want to kill them, they didn’t deserve death at all. His stomach churned, and his sickening feeling reached a boiling point upon seeing the corpses up close. Loved ones knelt over some of them, crying in a state of disbelief. Not any of the dozens of bodies had a single wound on them. It’s like their hearts all just stopped. Impossible, unthinkable, indescribable.
Pouria came closer to look, but some of the living looked to him with scornful faces. They were all older people, none of them under the age of forty. These people on the floor were their children, some of them were mere teenagers. They had been taken without warning, their bodies turned a pale shade, their lives ended abruptly and tragically.
“You did this!” one of them screamed, an older woman with gray hair, the others rallying around her as they stood up, pointing their weapons at Pouria. He noticed the gun in her hand and time seemed to slow. He had the power to block the shot and then kill them all, but how could he? They were all parents. They had just lost their children. But a dark part of Pouria knew if he didn’t get through them, he wouldn’t see Penove ever again.
Pain. Searing, burning pain. It shot up Pouria’s left arm like his blood had turned to fire. The woman had no mercy, pulling the trigger without hesitation, barely missing the heart with her trembling hands.
Pouria turned and ran.
He didn’t run past them, to where the crowd of people fled the building into the streets, rampant with chaos. He ran to the emergency exit behind him, out of the Crystal Canopy, down the staircase and across the plaza.
That was when he looked up.
Something inside him knew that the figure enshrouded in golden light was only visible by him. Nobody else in the plaza turned their head to stare at its majesty, four wings of pure light, orbiting it like planets to a star, a form unlike anything Pouria had ever seen, impossibly complex and unthinkably strange. Describing it wouldn’t truly grasp the beauty and horror that it represented, like a man before an alien.
“Leave. There is nothing left for you here. You have failed.” it spoke in a voice of sorrow, disappointment, but bitter all the same. “Never return to Soulflare Metropolis, Pouria. I shall be watching you, as I always have.”
Penove was gone. It took some time for Pouria to accept it, but his tears began to flow after a moment.
The Angel of Death. He had to listen to it. He had to obey. He had to leave his city.
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"I expected they would force you to leave the city. Glad to see you are alright. The weapon’s in the trunk, by the way."
Pouria no longer had his proud smile, as he was no longer the leader he strived to be. He looked behind him, the skyline of his city shining back, as if saying ‘goodbye and good riddance’ to him. The road ahead was cold, unpaved, and unsure. The screams and animosity of the past days still rang in his tired ears. The faces of the dead still flashed behind his eyelids. Pouria, at the very least, knew that his road would be quiet and lonely.
"I deserved this, Kaino." Pouria muttered, head held low. He stared back at his old friend through the car window, utterly disappointed in himself. "I fucking ruined the city. I let Penove die, and so many others."
"You didn't, you’ve been a good mayor." Kaino replied, leaning back in his car seat with a face of regret. Pouria knew why, because Penove’s death was both of their faults, but neither could blame the other. "Both of us know you didn’t cause any of this. And all that nonsense that the news put out, it’s all just slander."
Dr. Kaino Phantom was a wise man with an intellect to match. Pouria knew his intelligence well after all of the great work he had done in his scientific field, and as his Vice Mayor. He knew that while Kaino was more or less silent, his few words were often powerful. He chose him because of all of those things, and he didn’t regret it, not even now.
"What the hell did I do to deserve this? They said it was because of my sins." Pouria sighed.
"You did a good job while in office, and I will do my best to continue your legacy in my research." Kaino replied. "And I will do everything in my power to make sure that whoever spread all that misinformation about you is put behind bars."
"Thanks, I'm sure you'll do a good job like you always do." Pouria said, taking one last look at Soulflare Metropolis. "Well, guess that's it. Maybe one day I’ll reach out to you, you could come to the Wastelands, and-"
"As much as I respect you,” Kaino replied. “I would prefer it if you came to the city."
"I barely got out alive. I don’t think I’m ever coming back here.”
Kaino nodded, both men realizing that their road was over. Everything was done. And that they weren’t going to see each other again.
“Well…” Pouria said with a nervous chuckle. “Hope you’ll be happy in whatever field you move on to next.”
"Don't worry. I am most likely going to continue researching Soulflares." Kaino said. "If Blue allows it, of course."
"Good luck, bud. It's been something. Many good times are behind us, hoping for the best for both of us." Pouria said.
"Stay safe. Good fortune to you, Mr. Mayor." Kaino replied, tipping his hat to his best friend, to which Pouria replied in kind with his own.
"Goodbye, Kaino." Pouria said, taking his first step into the blinding sunset, out over the road through the dunes and the dirt, into the Wastelands. His new life awaited, and the last thing he heard of Kaino was the engine of his car as he turned and drove back to the city Pouria used to rule.
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Two years later…
Across the desolate sands walked a lone figure, their long red scarf like a windsock blustering in the gale. He didn’t know it, but he was walking above an industrious city, long since buried beneath the Wastelands. Pouria didn’t know why it was this way, and he never cared to learn about it. Ahead of him was his destination, and he was set on that. A two story tall building upon a tall hill made long before he was born, reclaimed by the land, yet still accessible from the catwalk entrance at the top floor.
He struggled through the wind, the sound of the flying sand hitting his grotty plastic goggles reminded him of the keys on a keyboard clicking tirelessly. It reminded him of his job, unforgotten, the memories of failure inescapable. He reached the door and went inside, looked at the empty husk of a building, and descended another flight of stairs to the ground level, now made underground thanks to the desert outside. He walked across the floor, the layer of sand pooled on the floor from various storms and cracks in the walls crunched beneath his feet, much easier to walk upon due to the concrete beneath it.
Within his backpack, he had a letter he’d received when he woke up one morning. It was clutched in his own hand that day, and now he held it again.
Pouria stared in silence and in contemplation. The rays of light from outside the abandoned factory's murky windows illuminated the words on the piece of paper. Pouria forgot that paper could look this clean, so glamorous. He read the words over and over, feeling the parchment's smoothness between his tired, dirty fingers.
The invitation to come to this, perhaps once grand, factory was signed by a familiar name to Pouria. None other than his trusted advisor, Penove.
Or at least, Penove was once his advisor, back when he was mayor. He'd been presumed dead near the end of the Exodus Event, murdered by an unseen Angel of Death, like so many others on that day. Unease filled Pouria's chest as he stared around, hoping that this wasn't a trap by one of the Wastelands’ many gangs, using his dead friend as bait. With the factory being so close to the Metropolis, closer than he'd ever been before during exile, Pouria feared that this may be even more than just the Wasteland gangs doing this. He could be here to be executed by his own people.
The factory was hot and silent, trapping all the sun's heat inside like an oven, not letting in the cooling breeze outside. The lightest gust rustled the chains hanging from the roof, causing Pouria to reflexively stare until he was sure the sound was just the wind.
It had been a full hour now, and the sun was past its spot high in the sky at noon. Penove was late, if he was even coming in the first place.
Pouria was losing hope, and he began to turn and leave… until he heard something.
A spark of light crackled from the corner of the dusty factory, and Pouria instantly jumped in surprise, getting into a combat stance.
The spark of light flew up about seven feet, like a blade through a slab of meat, cutting the air and creating a slit of a portal that two hands poked out of. They pushed the walls of the portal apart, and stepped forth.
The man’s teeth were as clean and pearly white as his garments, flowy and light, just like Pouria remembered him. And while Pouria never remembered that he wore any of the flowy, purple garments he had now, his grin and the charm it oozed was unmistakable. He seemed like the same man, just clothed in a different shell.
"Pouria!" the man said with levity. "I suppose you've been waiting a while for me."
"Where the fuck have you been, Penove?!" Pouria said, stomping forward to him. Both relief and anger were in his mind, but neither overpowered the other.
"You mean for the past hour?" Penove asked. "Or for the past two years? Apologies for not keeping in touch, by the way."
"Yeah, fuck you. Two years of silence, had the world thinking you died."
"Well I technically did, thank you very much." Penove said, his eyes darting around the room. "I was forced to retreat out of the Crystal Canopy. But that was when the people all dropped dead. Nobody knows why, but it was centralized at the Canopy. Everyone in the city thought you somehow ripped the life straight out of them."
“Yeah, I’m very aware. But you know I couldn’t do that. I am just as confused as everyone else is.” Pouria said. While he’d not told anyone about the Angel he’d seen, whispers of an ‘Angel of Death’ had spread across the city, through the hallowed halls of churches, sparking the dark fantasies of doomsday preppers and conspiracy theorists alike. Like anything science couldn’t explain, the common man’s speculation had to fill in the gaps.
“They still hate me too. The news made sure all three of us were blamed for everything.” Penove explained, sounding disgusted. “The city is just as rotten as ever.”
"Can't be worse than when the Exodus Event was going on, can it?" Pouria asked, hoping he was right, but knowing deep down he was very wrong.
"Oh Pouria, you don't have a clue." Penove said. "I've been crawling through the gutters, disguising myself, and becoming a whole new person. All just to get a glimpse of the dark underbelly of that shit. Believe me, it is way worse than when you left it."
Pouria looked Penove up and down. Nothing about him said that he had been getting his hands dirty. In fact, he looked just as clean and refined as he normally did.
"Not a speck of dirt on you, Penove." Pouria said with suspicion.
"You think I wouldn't try to look my best for the occasion? I still consider you the most powerful political figure in the world, and after seeing what I've seen in the Canopy, the least corrupt."
"I thought you were hanging out with criminals. Don't tell me the politicians are corrupt now too… And what do you mean by ‘the least corrupt’?"
Penove chuckled. In a single second, Pouria was met with the sparking glow of Penove’s staff, pointed straight at him. "The politicians were always fucking corrupt, including you."
Pouria quickly realized that Penove wasn't here just to talk, this was something different. His face soured, uncomfort welling up inside him. "This isn't just about meeting up again with one of your old friends… You want to kill me, don't you?"
"I am here to find out the answers from the source. Whether that makes me end your life, Pouria, is entirely up to what I hear from you." Penove explained.
Pouria's brow furrowed. "I gave you a lot, Penove. We have worked together since we were young. You were the first person I hired, and I took a risk even doing so given your past. Doesn't that change anything?"
"Your bribery worked when I was still complacent." Penove said, his tinny voice sounding tired and angry. Pouria had never heard him like this. "All I want to know is the truth behind all of this, because the city is wrong and broken on so many levels, liars everywhere. I need to know if you were a mastermind, or just a fat pig content with his puppet strings until they were snipped."
"Is the current ruler like that? How many have fallen since I left?"
"I don't think you get how this works, do you? I’m asking the questions here." Penove replied. "And besides, you’re asking the wrong questions. I find it likely that you were just a puppet. I’m here to find out if you even knew who your master was."
"Wh- what? No, I didn't… who was it?" Pouria said.
"That's what I want to fucking know!" Penove yelled, his words echoing the empty factory. He groaned, and then whimpered with anger. "Clearly you have no clue." he then said, his voice turning somber.
Penove retracted the wooden staff. He looked Pouria in the eyes from behind his mask. "I really wish you did, though. The city is falling slowly, and with it, the last of humanity will return to anarchy. These Wastelands will be our new home as we all slowly kill our own species off out of controversy and desperation. Five million people left, but that number drops every day."
Pouria watched as Penove's posture then slumped, disappointed. He realized now that his old advisor was only here out of desperation. This was all for answers to save the city that they both cared about, society's last bastion of hope in a world ravaged by cataclysm.
Penove sighed, turning around to leave. "I have to go back." he said, a heartbroken tone in his voice. "I hope you are content with remaining here, because you deserve it for running away when things turned sour."
Pouria stood still, shocked, but expecting something like that to be said. "But… I tried to make things better! I did all I could!" he exclaimed, trying to get Penove to take back his spiteful words. "If I was just a puppet-"
"Then your complacency doomed us all!" Penove interrupted. "Hope you enjoy watching society fall, you fucking bastard."
The words hung in the air as Penove returned to the portal and stepped through it, his form vanishing into it as it dissipated into nothingness once more, like he was never in the factory at all.
Pouria knew that his advisor was right. But there was still time for him to fix everything.
After two years, he knew now that his exile had to end. Years living the lie that he deserved this, living in self loathing. No more. That angel wouldn’t scare him any longer.
He needed a plan, and help.
Soulflare would not fall. Not if its Mayor could help it.