(Year 997, 16th of Full Inji, 1:11AM)
“Child…”
I heard the whisper, but I was too groggy to understand what I was hearing.
“Wake up, child…”
Now that the whispers had my attention, though, I was starting to come back to my senses.
“Waken, o child of misfortune, before you miss your chance…”
The room was dark as my eyes opened. Dark enough that, for a moment, I thought my eyes were still closed. It was the dead of night, then… and if not for this whispering, I’d still be dead asleep.
The whispering.
My eyes shot open. Who was whispering to me? The voice seemed… familiar. Like a girl I knew, but I just couldn’t remember.
As I rolled over and pushed myself up to look around the room, I realized… I couldn’t see who was whispering. There was nobody in the room.
But then I noticed the shimmer.
It was like I was looking at the heat haze over a strong fire, a ripple and blur in the space before my eyes, but it was just there in the darkness of my room, right in front of me.
As my eyes focused fully, the shimmer shifted, and I realized it was reaching out to me. I flinched back, unsure what I was looking at, and the reaching stopped. The shimmer shifted again, and suddenly it was like it had… outlines? Like there was a thin border traced along its edges, making it easier to pick apart from the darkness.
“Fear not, o child…” Whispered the shimmer. My eyes widened, as I realized that it had the shape of a person. “For I am simply here… to help.”
Words weren’t coming quickly enough to make my thoughts known, but I managed to ask, “W-what? I– Who are you? What are you?”
The shimmer hissed. “Be quiet, child. You must not be heard, and we do not have much time. You… are about to be a victim of great misfortune, unless you follow my instructions. Do you understand?”
That was a lot to dump on me, so I lowered my voice, but I felt a need to ask, “What do you mean…?”
The shimmer shifted closer to me. “Dark deeds are afoot, Aedan, and you must flee. You must flee, and quickly, before it is too late.”
All other concerns aside, I found myself getting up and out of bed to face this shimmering whisperer. “Flee? You want me to run away from… well, from what?”
All the Shimmer said was, “Stop. Observe. Listen.”
I took a deep breath, not sure what the shimmer meant by that, but…
Then I heard it. It was quiet, but when there was no other sound to block it out, I could hear the sound of someone talking. It was quiet, coming from far away, and as I stepped hesitantly away from my bed, I realized I was hearing it from the window.
And then, when I looked out the window…
The shimmer cautioned me, “Do not be seen,” but I was already close enough to see the light being caught by the smoke in the air.
“There’s a fire…”
The shimmer was quick to respond. “You must not go. You must not be seen. You must take your things and run.”
A part of me agreed with the shimmer, but…
I shook my head. “No. I… I need to know. What’s happening?”
There was a moment of silence, and then the shimmer spoke. “A good person is dying, or already dead. It is a painful way to die, but the killer believes he is doing the work of his god, and he is correct. If you do not flee quickly, child, the killer will come for you too… and no-one in your village will stop him.”
I didn’t like that the shimmer was being so vague, but when I was being warned that I might die, it was hard to argue with something that seemed to want to save me. I needed to run… so I got up from bed and got to work. I was foresighted enough to know that if I was going to run, I would need food, and maybe money, and then whatever else I could take. I snuck out of my room to look for a bag… and saw Dad’s bedroom door hanging open. Where was he?
Was he watching the fire?
I felt the air around me shift, and I turned to see the shimmering being again. It was moving, but… it was like the whole world was moving around the shimmer in the air, flowing and bulging, instead of the shimmer being the one to move.
“Aedan,” said the shimmer, in its familiar voice, “You need to–”
But it had missed its chance to tell me to run, because that was when I heard the scream, full of pain and fear and rage… and even though I’d never heard her scream before, I could recognize the voice of Miss Ambrose instantly.
I ran to the kitchen window, knowing in the pit of my guts what I would see, but still dumb enough to hope I was wrong.
I was not.
The sundial in the center of the village had been covered over by a pile of firewood and hay and grass and leaves, or it must’ve been, before the pyre was set alight. Up from the fire rose a single tall shaft of wood, a whole tree cut down for this one purpose… and there on the pyre, already on fire, was Miss Ambrose. The whole village, it seemed, had gathered around to watch her burn… but in a space at the core of the crowd, preaching, was Bishop Mordecai, attended loyally by Preacher Stefenson. I could hear his sermon to the crowd, and none of the words made sense, but I could pick out words like ‘blood’ and ‘sin’ and ‘traitor’, and that was all I needed to know.
I knew it was too late, I knew that Miss Ambrose was on fire, and there was no time to get her down, and there was nothing I could do, not with the rest of the village against me.
But still, driven by some inner force I’d never felt before, I pulled myself up onto the kitchen counter to jump off it and out the window, getting outside as fast as possible, yelling “STOOOOOOOOOOOOP!”
Everyone went silent, even the Bishop, and they all turned to face me. I didn’t stop, not as I passed the edge of the crowd and pushed between them, not even as I passed Bishop Mordecai, who said aloud, “And of course, my friends, the last to wake is the one with objections… and by then, it is all far, far too late.”
The other edge of the crowd parted, letting me through, and at last I fell to my knees next to the pyre of my burning teacher, watching her twitch and gasp, seeing that she was still alive… if only for a little bit longer.
“You should be happy, Aedan… like the rest of your village is.”
I turned, shifting on the dirt, to see the smiling face of Bishop Mordecai. With his grin lit by the flickering of the fire under a cover of ash, he looked like the exact opposite of a holy man. Still, with priestly conviction in his voice, Bishop Mordecai lied to my face, “The sad truth of this evening is that Miss Ambrose was deceiving you all! She was… a fox in the henhouse. A liar and harlot, and even a witch! A practitioner of sinful magicks! A corruptor of fine young men like you, perhaps… and her life, the life of a villain, is the cost of your salvation.”
I stared at him, awed, and then turned back to Miss Ambrose, still alive and shaking. She was shaking less, though… more weakly. She was dying.
Her eyes, which already seemed cloudy, seemed to regain a bit of clarity when she noticed me. Forcing a burning throat to produce sound for the last time, the corpse of my teacher choked out her final words: “Aedan… run…”
I heard the Bishop clicking his tongue. “Sad… so sad. Even in her final moments, the youth are the first thing to come to her mind… But this woman could not be trusted with your youth, could she? Not truly, not at all. But now, my friends… you know better, and you shall be stronger for it. You shall be stronger for the cleansing of fire, stripping away your impurities… and leaving behind only the sternest of you.”
The air shifted around me again, and the shimmering being hovered into view. Nobody around me said a word… except for the shimmer. “Aedan… I warned you.”
I shook my head. “No… No, this… this can’t be right…”
The shimmer shifted toward me. Outlined by the light of the fire, I could see exactly how human-like the shape of the shimmer was… like the shape of a girl with long hair, made entirely from shadows. “I didn’t want you to see this, Aedan… you would have been happier if you’d run. But now that you know the truth… you know what you must do.”
I nodded. I did know. I had to run, but first…
I heard the shifting of dirt behind me, and I felt a hand on my back. I craned my neck around to see Father Mordecai had crouched down and laid a hand on me, still smiling. “Oh, young Omarsson… It can be hard to know the right thing to do. Sometimes, the wrong thing can seem right, and the right thing can seem wrong. Sometimes we are led astray by fleeting fancies or wanton desires. In the depths of our hearts, though… We all know what is best, as the gods have told us. Don’t we, Aedan?”
Past the Bishop and his stupid smiling face, I could see Dad standing in the crowd. He was carrying his axe… had he been the one to cut down the tree they’d hung Miss Ambrose from?
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He just… stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I had to hope he couldn’t tell what I was thinking, either…
Because I knew what I had to do.
Pulled by the same force that had carried me out the window, my hand reached up, shaking… and I reached into the fire.
The people around me gasped, but… they couldn’t see yet what I had already felt: I wasn’t burning. In fact, although I’d reached into the fire, my hand wasn’t actually touching it. Instead, the power of [Absorb] was pulling it all in. I flicked my hand, and on the Status sheet in front of me, and I watched two new numbers rise:
Aedan Omarsson
Peasant
Age: 15
Good: 0
Physique: 0 (0/0)
Evil: 0
Dexterity: 1 (0/1)
Order: 0
Mind: 3 (2/1)
Chaos: 0
Soul: 0 (0/0)
Creation: 0
Fortune: 0 (0/0)
Consumption: 2
Substance Consumed
Energy Consumed
Earth: 2.3/10
Heat: 7.7/10
Light: 7.7/10
Life Consumed
Essence Consumed
Plant: 0.2/10
Beast Soul: 1/10
Hair: 3/10
Flesh: 5/10
Muscle: 7/10
Blood: 10/40
Bone: 4/10
Advancements: [1]
I could feel Bishop Mordecai’s hand on my back curling around my shirt into a fist, getting ready to pull me back, but before he could, my hand laid down on Miss Ambrose’s foot.
There wasn’t even a warning this time.
I knew what I wanted.
The Bishop yanked me up and away from the fire, sending me sprawling… but he was too late. Miss Ambrose’s body was gone, and the statistics in front of me read:
Aedan Omarsson
Peasant
Age: 15
Good: 0
Physique: 0 (0/0)
Evil: 0
Dexterity: 1 (0/1)
Order: 0
Mind: 3 (2/1)
Chaos: 0
Soul: 0 (0/0)
Creation: 0
Fortune: 0 (0/0)
Consumption: 2
Substance Consumed
Energy Consumed
Earth: 2.3/10
Heat: 14/15
Light: 14/15
Life Consumed
Essence Consumed
Plant: 0.2/10
Beast Soul: 1/10
Hair: 5/10
Human Soul: 1/10
Flesh: 10/25
Muscle: 10/23
Blood: 40/50
Bone: 10/12
Advancements: [1]
I had gone as far as to [Devour] my teacher. The fire would not take her. She would stay with me… or at least, the pieces of her would.
The villagers around me continued to ignore the shimmering being, all eyes on me. “It is done, Aedan… and now, you must run.”
Bishop Mordecai turned away from me, shaking his head. “And so, the greatest sin of all is revealed… for one of your youth, redemption has come too late. The corruption of your treacherous schoolteacher has struck at the core of Aedan Omarsson, Son of the Kingsbane… And now he, too, wields the treacherous powers of the Sinful Paths.”
“Run, Aedan…”
Only now did I notice that Dad wasn’t the only person carrying a weapon. The other villagers were carrying torches, pitchforks, hammers… Even Mister Marokson was carrying a thick mallet, and Reggin was carrying his broom.
Now, with hate in their eyes, they all turned to me.
“Let nothing disrupt the Order of your village,” intoned Bishop Mordecai. “Permit not even a trace of corruption to survive this cleansing fire!”
“Aedan! RUN!” It wasn’t just the shimmering being that spoke… Echoing its words, her words, was the voice of my own father.
The face of Bishop Mordecai loomed over me, still grinning devilishly, and I raised a hand up to him. Out from my palm emerged a jet of fire, heat and light cast out by the power of [Release], and the Bishop screamed.
I took advantage of the moment of chaos as the villagers recoiled to get to my feet. I didn’t care who was in my way… I needed to run.
I turned and barreled backward through whoever was behind me, leaving a puff of fire with one hand to cover my escape… and with that head start, I made for the woods.
“After him,” screamed Bishop Mordecai, his voice distorted by flame. “AFTER HIM!!”
I ran away from Carvenstock, the only home I’d ever known… and for that one night, I didn’t look back.
Finally, I spared a thought for the power of [Indulge], knowing that it would work for running the same way it had worked for axe-swinging. No amount of exhaustion or fear would stop me from my escape until I finally fell over, unable to stand.
It wasn’t until hours later, at the edge of the forest, that exhaustion finally took me. It was like poetry to fall over, stumbling down a hill barefoot, losing my balance and falling, rolling to a stop just past the last trees… just as the first rays of dawn, coming down past the edge of the first moon, began to show on the horizon.
In the light of dawn, for the first time since the fire, I watched the shimmering being walk into view, the grass seeming to flow around her outlined feet. “I did warn you, Aedan… but you made the hard choice instead of the easy one. I will not judge, but I will ask…”
The shimmering being seemed to turn, and I got a sense that she was looking down at me. “Can you live with it?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I could barely answer her at all if I tried, still gasping for air.
After a moment, though, I did at least find the words to ask, “Who… what are you…?”
Outlined by the first light of a new day, the shimmering being answered.
“I am Desire, Aedan Omarsson. I am the deepest part of you, the part that set you on your Path. Mine is the shape of the hole in your heart, a need you will always yearn to fill. I am the sum of all your dreams, Aedan…”
The shimmering being turned, looking out at the dawn. “And if you are willing, after such an unfortunate beginning, I can be your guide to seeing them all come true.”