Chapter 76

Ashes to Light (I)

It was home, Asher recognized.

Not home as a planet, but home as a hometown. Tiny little hamlet notched betwixt old, forested mountains, always a decade behind the rest of the world. It was here that he was born and spent the first eighteen years of his life. It was here that he had his first love, his first kiss, his first scar, his first heartbreak, his first hangover... it was here that he went from a boy to quarter a man.

A strong force suddenly pushed him from the rear and he found himself flying; without even meaning to, he seemed to have steered in the direction of a small courtyard tucked away in the north-western part of the town.

He landed in silence, stirring not even the overgrown grass beneath his feet. His eyes immediately veered toward the fence--there, deeply immersed in digging dirt, was a young boy, perhaps six, maybe seven. Asher recognized him--the round eyes full of wonder and hope, not yet besmirched with life.

The boy, eerily, looked up from the worm he had just dug out, and his eyes drifted over to Asher, meeting his. There was empty curiosity there, though no fear as if the boy knew there was no danger. Innocently, the young boy extended his arm out and seemed to offer the worm. The green eyes seemed particularly guiltless, stirring something in Asher's heart, something he wanted to bury.

But he was not fooled--the boy’s body exploded into a rhapsody of shadows and smoke, and a creature struck out. Asher dodged to the side and swiped out, easily killing it.

The world, however, did not change. Colors and shapes did not begin to twist and contort; rather, they remained precisely as they were, still and unmoving.

He heard sounds, suddenly, coming from the house. Turning, he headed inside, partaking in scenery that felt so close and familiar, and yet so distant and cold. He’d never gone back--not once. The world consumed him and bewitched him, and he could never hear the calling of the home.

The familiar scent of the frying bacon wafting through the open doorways caused his lips to curl up in a smile. He remembered it--the best he could, at least. Walking over into the tiny kitchen, he saw a short woman donning a summer dress hurriedly jumping between the appliances, her hair oddly tied into a ponytail.

“Ash, Luce, it’s time for breakfast!” she called out sweetly and yet sternly. It wasn’t long after that the sounds of rushing footsteps across the old and creaky staircase overwhelmed the house.

Two kids rushed in--a boy aged roughly ten, and a girl some four or five years older than him.

"Luce..." Asher mumbled into the nothing, watching the two wrestle their way to the dining table. Lucy was always a spitting image of their mom--tall, beautiful, sweet, and mischievous. Though he found her to be an annoyance, as sisters wont to be, she also always looked out for him. A favor he was unable to repay.

The empty table was soon filled up by a feast, and the trio sat down and ate in silence. Their mom never allowed anyone to chat during a meal--not even if it was the most important thing in the world. Asher, being as impatient as he was, devoured the breakfast as quickly as he could, bade his farewell, and disappeared, likely going out with his little band of thieves to the local pool as it was dead middle of June.

And yet, the scene did not change. The atmosphere grew heavy and awkward, with Luce shifting in her seat and their mom staring blankly at her. Their lips parted and they began to chat, but no sound came out--Asher could not hear them. Soon, they were at their feet and screaming, right after which their mom slapped Luce rather violently. The latter tore open in tears and ran upstairs, likely into her room, while Mom sat down and grasped her head... breaking out into tears as well.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He pretended to relax, and the shadow tore out from her fragile, paper-texture skin and attacked--and he swiftly ended it.

The memories of his childhood this far back were quite fragmented, and there weren't that many of them. Though he did vaguely recall that Luce and Mom had somewhat of a frosty relationship, he never did quite learn why. Mom would never say and Luce... he never got the chance to ask her.

He stepped out of the house and onto the street--he immediately recognized that quite a few years passed as he saw Tracy watering the plants next door. His first love, the classic story of the girl-next-door. Though, ultimately, it was just a teenage boy's conjured fascination. She looked to be about sixteen, which meant that he was sixteen as well. An awkward age for all, especially a scrawny kid who had yet to grow into his frame properly.

Throughout his life, he didn’t often think about where he came from--if anything, he’d buried this part of his life deep inside a well.

“Oh, Ash, wait up!” Tracy suddenly called out and Asher’s eyes drifted over to a young, still short boy who was of firm belief that cargo pants were peak fashion... even in the middle of the summer.

“What’s up?”

“I, uh, I heard that you and Luke became sort of like friends?” Ah, Asher chuckled inwardly, remembering finally when this scene was from.

“Sort of, I guess? Why?”

“So, uh, does--does he like have a girlfriend?”

“No, no I don’t think so.”

“Nice!”

“Eh? Why? Don’t tell me you like him or something?”

"..." The first heartbreak, as it were. In his memories, Asher distinctly recalled 'playing it cool'--but that expression and the jittery fingers were all but. Before it could become any more awkward, however, the two bodies were torn open as the ones before it, with the shadowy specters emerging and attacking. As before, Asher killed them with ease, wondering what was happening and why the difficulty plummeted so suddenly.

"Why are you doing this, Ash?!!" he turned around and faced the house's entrance--there, with a backpack tossed over his shoulder, his eighteen-year-old self was having an argument with an aging, graying, and wrinkling woman.

"Look, I told you Mom--I wanna travel the world. And the recruiter said--"

“--he said whatever the hell you wanted to hear!! Don’t you know what happened to your father?!! Huh?! And you still want to go into the army?”

“I--”

“--what happened about wanting to be, what was it, a mechanic? Didn’t you say you loved cars?”

“... mom, I’m going.” He’d buried this fight, he realized. It was as though he was watching a movie rather than his own memory. “But I’ll come visit, I promise. Every time I get back from a tour, I’ll come and say hi.”

“Don’t throw your life away, Ash. It ain’t worth it. Not for them.”

That was the last time the two ever talked--Asher did come back about seven years later but, by then... it was too late. They'd tried to reach him but as he cut contact with everyone, nobody knew how. She got diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and died shortly after while he was still doing his first tour in Iraq.

He'd watched his friends die, their limbs be eviscerated in front of him, and had been shot himself, and watched the horrors of war entirely numb him in heart and soul, but while he stood in front of her grave... he broke down and cried.

As though his body heard his mind, his legs marched to the far northern edge of the town. Past the rows of aged and weathered homes, there was a rather small graveyard. It was somewhat uphill, and toward the top, he spotted a lonely, hunched figure standing in the rain.

He wore his uniform, reading the barely discernable letters inscribed in the stone overcome with weeds and vines.

Martha Rune, 1956-2002.

That was it. There was nothing else written. No inscription, no dedication, no epitaph.

Glancing to the side, he barely recognized the man he was seeing--young, fit, without a gray hair in sight. They weren’t long off, however. Just a few more years, ultimately.

There was something hauntingly despondent about being back here once again, reliving this day anew, and feeling the wounds burn all over again as though they had never healed fully.

This was the last time he'd ever come to town, and there were no more stories of his left to tell. Eerily, the man standing next to him turned and faced, as the boy did initially. And yet, gone were the round, innocent, green eyes full of hope and curiosity. In their stead, there was a pair of aged, numbed, cynical specters bereft of faith.

The man stared at him silently and emptily while the rain drowned the world, washing away the hamlet in an apocalyptic flood. From the watery graves, he watched a city arise, tall behemoths shooting towards the sky.

And the man stared still, through it all.

“Time to go,” Asher whispered and swiped with the blade, ending the mirage and turning it into a puff of vanishing smoke.

He was back in Washington where he spent the chunk of his mid to late twenties. But there weren’t many stories to tell here, as far as he could recall. Just lies etched into the memory of a paranoid cynic, where he was forever cursed to never believe in anything... or anyone.