Men of Renown, completed
I've finally completed my short(which turned into about 17 pages) based on a dream I had in last June or July. I received positive and negative criticism for it.
What do you think?
If anyone can find grammar or spelling errors, editing would be MUCH appreciated. ^^
The kingdom was tainted in angelic blood. Once divine devotees of His glorious Lord, now the fallen and eternally forsook. The rebels descended from paradise to procreate with mortal beauties. Perverting the human race and building occultist ties.
With a fatal tide, God wiped the earth of these men of renown. The angels fell from grace repeatedly, transforming themselves into their former adversaries. Corrupting the bloodlines of the human race and introducing wicked philosophy. The offspring born unto them arose and proclaimed themselves gods. In our kingdom, there were worse monsters than Goliath. These monsters didn't demand the blood of soldiers, but the blood of infants. The chosen tribe's infants.
My mother was of the chosen tribe. She too fell from grace when my father, Kakabel, swooped into her domain. Kakabel was entranced by her radiant beauty. Thick-tight ebony curls framed her porcelain complexion, accented with emerald eyes. A slender figure, a graceful air and an irresistible sin. Standing before her, his robust build adorned elegantly in luminous silk, he gazed at her with bold and bewildering eyes. His eyes, two infinite abysses. Colorless and foggy. Two tunnels reflecting the beholder's heart, sentiments, phenomenal fantasies, and criminal lusts. She caved into those eyes and fell victim to his spell. God cast out Kakabel.
Kakabel pleaded for forgiveness. He collapsed to his knees and mourned for the tragedy. His tragedy. The loss of a most cherished love. His love for the Creator. He soiled himself and betrayed their pact. He sealed his fate the moment he wandered into the forbidden waters. Though he was forsaken, his loyalty ceased to diminish. Never would he promote himself a false god unto the feeble mortals. Never would he preach the mysterious and twisted secrets of the supernatural. The secrets so many other newly arisen demons were teaching their wayward disciples. He disappeared and left my mother to her shame. Unaware of what she was dealing with, she waited in exile for my infamous birth. She claimed that he who was responsible must have died of a mystic and indicative death. She submitted to the fabrication and doubted not its authenticity.
The contractions befell her. A novel breed was creeping into ancient reality. No one but the aging nurses of the chosen tribe were witness to the wonder. Unaware of my dubious lineage, they suffered me to exist. With the exception of my eyes, I presented no visible mutation or conspicuous traits. A fragile-pale babe with bold and bewildering eyes, colorless and foggy. Chestnut scraps of smooth and linear hair spotted my petite scalp. The head priests decreed that I was to abide in the isolated fields for eternity. Tiny and vulnerable, I unveiled my eyes and showed humans the fabric of their beings.
Amid this time the fiends were sacrificing their own young. Throwing them into the dim and dull sea of a million corpses. The bottomless altar. The haunted cradle. A place where the fiends crafted a man-made hell. A hell one can see, touch, smell and taste the salt rocks dipped in guileless flesh. Though their actions were cruel and vile, they solely preyed upon their kind. Peace was amidst the notably distinct tribes. The azure skies grew bright and auspicious. But all blue skies subside to the dreary clouds.
My mother nurtured me in the isolated fields. Despite her persistent state of solitude, her remorse faded with maternal love and duty. The skies were without flaw for many dawns.
Our house was designed in pale patterns and modest lodging. Far from the kingdom, it was settled in a field of delicate emerald blades, the shrubbery waved gracefully in the winds. The dusty stones founded its structure, circling around the the entrance. The rooms were modest in adornments. The spaces could fit what was necessary but not desired. Our home was necessary but not desired. My abandonment was necessary but not desired.
The dawn came when the clouds crept up and fogged my gleaming skies. A year abruptly dissipated since my birth. My mother placed me on the cracked wooden table where she changed me regularly. As she unfolded my unmentionables, she noted the lack of a fresh rag. She hurried to the neighboring room in pursuit of one. When she returned, I was lying on the dirt floor. A giggling infant, without injury or adjustment in position. Cradled happily in the worn shawl which I was previously fastened. Her porcelain face lightened into a tone of invisible white. A white which was rather unflattering and startling. She began to tremor briskly. Her supple hands masked her moist face, and she released a grisly shriek.
Over the following weeks, my puzzling and swift disappearing and reappearing into different locations feat drove the nurses to climacteric suspicion. My mother's love dwindled along with her tender essence. Her brilliant smile lost and her countenance dark, my mother faded resentfully from present realities. The brazen nurses handled me while she sat in the corner, cradled into a ball, her long locks of ebony veiling her ghostly face. Her head drooping over her knees. In the shadows she lingered. Where the infectious rumors spread by the shallow nurses couldn't touch her. But even the shadows couln't shield her from the demeaning remarks.
She aborted her cowering position and grim corner. She stepped out onto the lush fields and crossed over into the bustling village teeming with piercing chatter. Seemingly detached from the obvious jabber, she strolled out onto the murky sea of a million corspes which seperated the chosen tribe from the fiends. A crowd of curious locals pursued her path. They stood idly in confusion and vast numbers. She stared at the empty air before her, above the sea dabbed in slain innocence. She treaded into the waters in a daze of apathy. The massive crowd couldn't revert its attention from her. They gazed but refused to repress her. They refused to shout counsel unto her. They refused to intervene. There they stood idly and open-mouthed, until the crown of her scalp vanished under the surface. She plunged into the sea of God's stolen, making herself a member. A pardon for the millions that committed no crime. For the lone crime she delivered. Her reason to believe. Her reason to desist. The tide assembled a gallant wave and with its boisterous crashing, she was gone.
The feeble nurses lay a heavy-ebony cloak over me, concealing my existence as they relocated me into the village. I could hear a similar type of jabber ring in my ears. Seven years dissipated since my birth. My tiny tong sandals collected with dust. I could barely see through the thick screen of the cloth. Our feet shuffled to the center of the scant town. The prattle increased, audible throughout each corner. A nurse kneeled before me. Her brittle hands uncontrollably shook as she lifted the cloak over my head saturated with bright-brown locks of smooth hair. I fixed my gaze upon the wrinkled old maid attired in a white smock and dress.
Her eyes glared into my empty pools void of understanding and muttered, “This is your home now, daughter of the fallen.”
I was startled to not find the familiar stone walls of my former dwellings, but deep lavender curtains adorning the shittim wood walls. Ahead of me lay the altar, upon each corner stood a horn holding a gold ring. The smell of incense floated in the air. It burned atop the altar’s golden crown. I turned to the nurse. My precious voids burned into her dull eyes in hopes of an answer. She shook her head and whispered, “We’re in the temple.”
Though I lived in luxury, my room was located far back within the temple. Behind the ten purple, blue and scarlet curtains, my home sat dimly lit and bare.
A place unseen and invisible to the ignorant.
My glass house.
What was once beautiful can no longer be described as warm and alluring, but cold and deceitful. Which would remain even more so once the fiends invaded.
They crossed over the sea. Their dark kingdom became a disease, a condition they wanted to spread to all. The eyes of men are never full. As they spiraled downward and the chosen tribe developed, they grew envious and hungry. They twitched with feverish anxiousness. They boarded their large ships and crossed the sinister sea. The gray sails fluttered in the wind, painted with mysterious symbols. They charged with fierce might, headed by a wooden satyr, carved to the front. The chosen stood in fear and subjection, skeptical of the plagues festering to awaken.
Years passed and all I could imagine was the menacing smirk on the satyr. The temple was obliterated and desecrated to the finest degree. It took little time for the fiends to gain control of the chosen. With sinewy swords, an abundance of daggers, flying arrows and heavy maces, they enslaved the few survivors. We were outnumbered and overcome by their wicked powers. When weapons failed, their mutations took over.
The fiends discovered me in my dim little hole, awaiting the sun and a sign of victory in our favor. The guards wrapped in silver sockets of armor gazed into the abyss of my colorless eyes and lifted me out of the hole. I struggled to break their tightening grip, but it was in vain. I attempted to do what I had been forbidden to do several moons ago. But the discipline of its actions restrained me from doing it again. I couldn’t disappear. I couldn’t relocate. My vulnerability was limitless as their grips engulfed my arms on each side.
I saw grotesque giants and men molded by beastly features. I questioned not only my vision, but the state of my sanity. Their were heads of a lions fused to a men’s torsos. There were fouls blended with creeping creatures. There were beasts of burden entwined in human sculpture.
God's pallet corrupted by crossing crayons and wayward inks.
Men gawking with crimson eyes and layered in black feathered wings. Men with multiple faces and physical deformities.
The men who inspired the stories.
The infamous and rebuked.
Those who struck fear in our hearts and with justifiable reason.
The men of renown.
Stars of brimstone whistled in the dark skies above, crashing into our cosmos. Displays of radiance erupted with each crash, distracting my tribesmen from the busy criminals, incapable of removing their eyes from the sparks. The fiends hauled the chosen into the wooden ships engulfed in the stench of rotten bark, unafraid of the dire consequences.
The brutes dragged me across the shadowy sea to their prince, the evening and morning star, inquiring of what to do with me. The prince in his lavish garments with gold ornaments lifted the cloak over my thick chestnut hair and stared into my abysses. For what seemed eternity, he stared. It was almost as if he were watching his life unfold in the telescope of my foggy eyes. His tight lips gently parted, revealing a feeling of shock and inexplicable distress. Panic was written in the delicate lines of his copper skin. “Take her to the abandoned temple on the other side of the kingdom. Leave her there. No one is to go there unless she interferes with our law.”
Here I sit on the gray stone wall of the heathen temple, ten years later. Drained of my stolen youth and lapsed bliss.
Bliss lost itself with the view of a million departed infants wafting in the sea. The fiends’ functioning temple was north of my home. When a sacrifice was gathered, the carcasses floated in my direction, visible to my eternally sodden eyes. I opposed the slightest peek below my frayed balcony. There was little else to be seen inside the forsaken place of misguided worship.
A valley stood between the haunted ruins which I called home and the kingdom’s square. The crowded village was located directly beneath the prince’s extravagant palace. The palace illuminated an eerie glow, sending the faint to their knees in its mighty shadow. I never left the temple for fear of the fiends. There was a sick vacancy within the crumbling temple which kept me silent.
My scraps of chestnut hair blossomed into a long smooth mane. Puberty transformed my juvenile build to a womanly figure. Some would suggest that I shared the same alluring beauty which led my mother to her downfall.
Some evenings the kind slaves of my former tribe would sneak to my lair and spoil me with garments and food. Their charity kept me from withering away in my sorrows. During the day, there was no one to share my company. As long as I remained inside the temple walls, the fiends left me to my solitude.
My cherished love for the Creator was in dire question. How could he embrace a half-breed, when my kind hinders not to destroy and pervert all that he has divinely woven with his nimble hands? My teleportation refuses to activate, and I wouldn’t dare disappear if I were enabled. I am condemned and forsaken like my forefathers before me.
I awoke this shadowy morning in my bed of gray stones near the balcony by the sea. Another dull day and countdown to the anxiously awaiting nether world unfolded. I rubbed my foggy eyes to look up at the incredibly high-reaching ceiling. Suddenly, an image appeared. I squinted to adjust my blurred vision. Could it be? A wicker brown basket was falling swiftly to the floor.
I kept my head held high in order to discover the contents packed tightly inside of it. As it gently lowered in the mid air, I saw a pale blue blanket tucked soundly against an infant. It was not only a shock but an utter horror to my eyes as the infant hit the floor without a sound. What have I done? I watched as the babe fell from the infinite sky to his death. And what did I do? I stood idly like those who viewed my mother’s march into the sea, futile and dumbfounded. I prayed to have a second chance. I prayed to the God who has cursed my existence to come to my rescue and give me another opportunity to prove my lowly self. My hands were securely bound together in an attempt to move Him. My clammy forehead was pressed firmly on them. Releasing them, I took a quick gander at the ceiling from which the tragedy occurred. But something rather bizarre caught my attention. The basket vanished.
Calmly, I lifted my head back up to the awning. The basket was falling for the second time. This time, I wouldn’t hesitant to respond. God granted me the power to wield my gift. I teleported in reach of the child and promptly grabbed the basket, and within a thought, returned onto the floors.
I unwrapped the child from its basket and held it tightly to me. I peered over the edge of the balcony and identified countless corpses of young babes, all chosen. As I examined the babe, I perceived the unthinkable. He was of the chosen. There was no denying, I knew my kind. The fiends would come and collect him and slay me for interfering. Finally, there was purpose to my bleary life. I would protect this child, as though he were mine. Whether it meant life or death for me, it didn’t faze me. Either way, I would suffer. It would be best to save those who can create joy. Maybe there was a slight chance I could conjure this for him.
I acquired a place for him to abide secretly. Before I could conceal his identity, I looked out into the kingdom and witnessed hordes of the heathens heading our way. They must have seen a star falling from the sky and realized a miracle was unfolding, a miracle only the God of the chosen could muster.
They were armored in gold plates and tall headdresses. They carried jagged spears, towering over their lanky bodies. I stood paralyzed in my fear and ignorance. What was I to do? With every moment that passed the fiends drew closer. I looked deep into the child’s sad gray eyes. At that moment, I decided that I would die before harm harkened unto him. I would do the unthinkable and formerly forbidden. I held tightly onto the child and closed my eyes tightly. With a deep breath, I teleported to the far end of the temple, hoping to be rid of them.
We reappeared on the other side, but the fiends surrounded us. Again I tried my infamous trick. I found myself in a distant part of the temple, except this time I was in strange company. They weren’t fiends, but they were not of the chosen.
He was a young man of dark color, no doubt of the southern tribes to the west. The fiends conquered their lands as well, taking them as prisoners and soiling their home. He wore ragged shorts and flimsy sandals. He possessed a handsome square jaw and even features, pleasant to look upon and flattering to his tall and robust built. His dark eyes briefly bored into mine, until he subsided to breaking his stare. A young woman stood beside him laden long locks of straight chestnut hair and pale skin. Gazing at her, I couldn’t help but feel a strange sensation. It was as if I were looking into a mirror. Her eyes weren’t kosher. I beheld everything that I kept hidden secretly inside myself. I tried to look away, but I stood frozen in the nightmare. The young man started to speak, shaking me from the haunted dream. “We saw the star falling, daughter of the fallen. We’re here to help you and the child.” Perplexed, I questioned, “What is your name? And are you of the southern tribes to the west?” “I am, and my name is Khem.”
An awkward silence surpassed us for a near moment and I asked, “Why are you helping me?” A sly smile overcame his majestic face, and he whispered, “Am I not also a victim of the fiends? Now teleport us up to the tower in the center of the temple before the fiends capture us.” I heard the simultaneous thumps grow louder. “Grab onto me.” The girl and Khem clutched onto me as I held the babe tight to my chest. We vanished and landed on the tower in a flash.
The wretched fiends cursed us from below, waving their sinewy swords left and right with anger and rage. Khem’s grin widened from ear to ear. But the winds can change direction swiftly. The girl released a slight shriek as she looked out over the edge. Khem and I joined her to find the fiends overcame the obstacles, climbing the high tower with rope and effective tools. Khem’s handsome smile washed away with fear, and I shouted for them to grab a hold of me. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but it was some place far from the fiends within the temple. I closed my eyes and prayed to a God who’d forsaken me long ago.
When I opened them, we found ourselves seated at the head of the temple, a comfortable distance from the dangers. I gazed sorrowfully at Khem, “I don’t know what to do.” With his face stern but delightfully soft he answered, “You can do anything you want. Believe. You’re a hybrid.”
“But I’m not God.”
“You’ve got something that the hybrids don’t.”
“And what’s that?”
“Faith, now believe. Believe and walk through the illusions of this reality.”
Where the strings of my world interchangeable? I would remain ignorant unless I toyed with them. Khem started to quiver as we held each other’s gaze. “Run, you and the girl. I’m going through the ceiling.”
To the babe I softly whispered, “Don’t worry child, all will be right.” Embracing him tightly, my feet lifted slowly off the stone studded floor. Into the air above us we were lifted with our hopeful spirits. The ceiling steadily decreased. I prepared myself to phase through it. Yet a twain of sudden doubt shot through me. What was I doing? I was incapable of such immense power. Khem certainly couldn’t be right. A harsh collision was inevitable.
As each fear surpassed me, we floated lower and lower to a familiar and devious reality. Khem and the girl spotted us and made haste.
I handed my newly beloved to the girl and commanded, “Run to the tower, and we’ll meet you there.” She nodded and raced towards the grand central point. The fiends were distant from the tower, struggling to keep up with my sly disappearing act. I watched her as she ran, disturbed by her resemblance. I didn’t see a strange girl. I saw myself, through a stranger’s eyes.
I focused on Khem and with a sense of urgency uttered, “Come with me. We need to find a way out of here, out of this temple and out of this wasted land.” He turned his head towards the balcony, out onto the dreary sea. Somewhere beyond the stench of misery and the gray horizon, life existed.
He grabbed my bicep, and we traveled through the illusions in an effort to rescue my twin and babe. The girl flinched in freight when we assembled before her. Without words spoken, we joined in a circle, intertwining our arms. Not nearly a moment later, we were seated at the pinnacle of our previous refuge.
The fiends detected our presence and quickly returned to the site. They surrounded us. They released their pesky tools and ascended the stones which founded the monument holding us. Khem stared at me, for a duration only he could bear. “I know your kind, the thunder runs through you. I’ve seen the sparks on the tips of their fingers. You must obliterate them before they kill us, before they kill your child.”
“I can’t! I’ve never tried. I was forbidden.”
“You’re not forbidden now. You must trust me. You must believe, if not in yourself, then in the God which wove your existence.”
Though he shook as he stared deeply into my eerie eyes, he refused to avert. I trusted him. His tenacity opened my eyes to faith. Faith breaking my profound bitterness, faith gracing me with invincibility.
I lifted my pale hands and faced them palm up and extended my arms out toward the heavens. Dazzling sparks of energy arose to dance feverishly in my quivering hands. The fiends climbed higher and the bolt grew greater. Flash of violent lighting punctured holes through the roof and connected with my humble flame. Stones were descending and the temple shook with ferocity. Tilting my head back, I united myself with the energy. My body grew cold and my eyes faded. I threw my hands down onto the hateful tribe of whoremongers. With a fiery remorse, I lighted their souls with a fire burning within me. My hear was not hardened by the Lord anymore. I would grieve no more.
The fiends disintegrated into ashes. Ashes they were born, and ashes they were buried. The bolt was broken, and I collapsed. Khem cradled me and wiped the perspiration off my forehead. “It’s over daughter of the fallen. You are no longer of the fallen.” He lifted me to my trembling feet. The girl stepped towards me and grinned mischievously. “Well done daughter.”
Her form shifted into a man of robust build, but still adorned with those bold and bewildering eyes. Feathers from his broad back fell silently onto the ground, feathers dipped in ebony. “Father?”
“Yes daughter, I was always here to guide you, to wash this land clean of tainted blood. God may not of forgiven me, but he has blessed you. This child’s lineage is clean of corruption and inordinate breeding. God chose you to protect it and to ensure a new race. Look to Khem as your husband, only he can gaze into your eyes and see the beauty within them. You are the tribe’s guardian. Go across the sea and live in the Lord’s eyes. I bid you farewell.”
“Why must you leave?”
“I must discover other ways to redeem myself. I wander these hills in remorse and regret. Regret for a family I’ll never recognize. Regret for the unrequited love I’ve shattered. This is my burden. This is my punishment. But the Lord is merciful. My gift, is your freedom.”
He kissed me on my forehead, an affection not even my mother could render. His black laden wings unfolded and he took flight. He glided over the foggy seas and out into the gray horizon, disappearing from my thoughts yet again.
The horizon started to illuminate, transcending into a gold I’d never beheld. The seas seemed to clear. I looked to my love and said, “Let’s get out of here.”
What do you think?
If anyone can find grammar or spelling errors, editing would be MUCH appreciated. ^^
The kingdom was tainted in angelic blood. Once divine devotees of His glorious Lord, now the fallen and eternally forsook. The rebels descended from paradise to procreate with mortal beauties. Perverting the human race and building occultist ties.
With a fatal tide, God wiped the earth of these men of renown. The angels fell from grace repeatedly, transforming themselves into their former adversaries. Corrupting the bloodlines of the human race and introducing wicked philosophy. The offspring born unto them arose and proclaimed themselves gods. In our kingdom, there were worse monsters than Goliath. These monsters didn't demand the blood of soldiers, but the blood of infants. The chosen tribe's infants.
My mother was of the chosen tribe. She too fell from grace when my father, Kakabel, swooped into her domain. Kakabel was entranced by her radiant beauty. Thick-tight ebony curls framed her porcelain complexion, accented with emerald eyes. A slender figure, a graceful air and an irresistible sin. Standing before her, his robust build adorned elegantly in luminous silk, he gazed at her with bold and bewildering eyes. His eyes, two infinite abysses. Colorless and foggy. Two tunnels reflecting the beholder's heart, sentiments, phenomenal fantasies, and criminal lusts. She caved into those eyes and fell victim to his spell. God cast out Kakabel.
Kakabel pleaded for forgiveness. He collapsed to his knees and mourned for the tragedy. His tragedy. The loss of a most cherished love. His love for the Creator. He soiled himself and betrayed their pact. He sealed his fate the moment he wandered into the forbidden waters. Though he was forsaken, his loyalty ceased to diminish. Never would he promote himself a false god unto the feeble mortals. Never would he preach the mysterious and twisted secrets of the supernatural. The secrets so many other newly arisen demons were teaching their wayward disciples. He disappeared and left my mother to her shame. Unaware of what she was dealing with, she waited in exile for my infamous birth. She claimed that he who was responsible must have died of a mystic and indicative death. She submitted to the fabrication and doubted not its authenticity.
The contractions befell her. A novel breed was creeping into ancient reality. No one but the aging nurses of the chosen tribe were witness to the wonder. Unaware of my dubious lineage, they suffered me to exist. With the exception of my eyes, I presented no visible mutation or conspicuous traits. A fragile-pale babe with bold and bewildering eyes, colorless and foggy. Chestnut scraps of smooth and linear hair spotted my petite scalp. The head priests decreed that I was to abide in the isolated fields for eternity. Tiny and vulnerable, I unveiled my eyes and showed humans the fabric of their beings.
Amid this time the fiends were sacrificing their own young. Throwing them into the dim and dull sea of a million corpses. The bottomless altar. The haunted cradle. A place where the fiends crafted a man-made hell. A hell one can see, touch, smell and taste the salt rocks dipped in guileless flesh. Though their actions were cruel and vile, they solely preyed upon their kind. Peace was amidst the notably distinct tribes. The azure skies grew bright and auspicious. But all blue skies subside to the dreary clouds.
My mother nurtured me in the isolated fields. Despite her persistent state of solitude, her remorse faded with maternal love and duty. The skies were without flaw for many dawns.
Our house was designed in pale patterns and modest lodging. Far from the kingdom, it was settled in a field of delicate emerald blades, the shrubbery waved gracefully in the winds. The dusty stones founded its structure, circling around the the entrance. The rooms were modest in adornments. The spaces could fit what was necessary but not desired. Our home was necessary but not desired. My abandonment was necessary but not desired.
The dawn came when the clouds crept up and fogged my gleaming skies. A year abruptly dissipated since my birth. My mother placed me on the cracked wooden table where she changed me regularly. As she unfolded my unmentionables, she noted the lack of a fresh rag. She hurried to the neighboring room in pursuit of one. When she returned, I was lying on the dirt floor. A giggling infant, without injury or adjustment in position. Cradled happily in the worn shawl which I was previously fastened. Her porcelain face lightened into a tone of invisible white. A white which was rather unflattering and startling. She began to tremor briskly. Her supple hands masked her moist face, and she released a grisly shriek.
Over the following weeks, my puzzling and swift disappearing and reappearing into different locations feat drove the nurses to climacteric suspicion. My mother's love dwindled along with her tender essence. Her brilliant smile lost and her countenance dark, my mother faded resentfully from present realities. The brazen nurses handled me while she sat in the corner, cradled into a ball, her long locks of ebony veiling her ghostly face. Her head drooping over her knees. In the shadows she lingered. Where the infectious rumors spread by the shallow nurses couldn't touch her. But even the shadows couln't shield her from the demeaning remarks.
She aborted her cowering position and grim corner. She stepped out onto the lush fields and crossed over into the bustling village teeming with piercing chatter. Seemingly detached from the obvious jabber, she strolled out onto the murky sea of a million corspes which seperated the chosen tribe from the fiends. A crowd of curious locals pursued her path. They stood idly in confusion and vast numbers. She stared at the empty air before her, above the sea dabbed in slain innocence. She treaded into the waters in a daze of apathy. The massive crowd couldn't revert its attention from her. They gazed but refused to repress her. They refused to shout counsel unto her. They refused to intervene. There they stood idly and open-mouthed, until the crown of her scalp vanished under the surface. She plunged into the sea of God's stolen, making herself a member. A pardon for the millions that committed no crime. For the lone crime she delivered. Her reason to believe. Her reason to desist. The tide assembled a gallant wave and with its boisterous crashing, she was gone.
The feeble nurses lay a heavy-ebony cloak over me, concealing my existence as they relocated me into the village. I could hear a similar type of jabber ring in my ears. Seven years dissipated since my birth. My tiny tong sandals collected with dust. I could barely see through the thick screen of the cloth. Our feet shuffled to the center of the scant town. The prattle increased, audible throughout each corner. A nurse kneeled before me. Her brittle hands uncontrollably shook as she lifted the cloak over my head saturated with bright-brown locks of smooth hair. I fixed my gaze upon the wrinkled old maid attired in a white smock and dress.
Her eyes glared into my empty pools void of understanding and muttered, “This is your home now, daughter of the fallen.”
I was startled to not find the familiar stone walls of my former dwellings, but deep lavender curtains adorning the shittim wood walls. Ahead of me lay the altar, upon each corner stood a horn holding a gold ring. The smell of incense floated in the air. It burned atop the altar’s golden crown. I turned to the nurse. My precious voids burned into her dull eyes in hopes of an answer. She shook her head and whispered, “We’re in the temple.”
Though I lived in luxury, my room was located far back within the temple. Behind the ten purple, blue and scarlet curtains, my home sat dimly lit and bare.
A place unseen and invisible to the ignorant.
My glass house.
What was once beautiful can no longer be described as warm and alluring, but cold and deceitful. Which would remain even more so once the fiends invaded.
They crossed over the sea. Their dark kingdom became a disease, a condition they wanted to spread to all. The eyes of men are never full. As they spiraled downward and the chosen tribe developed, they grew envious and hungry. They twitched with feverish anxiousness. They boarded their large ships and crossed the sinister sea. The gray sails fluttered in the wind, painted with mysterious symbols. They charged with fierce might, headed by a wooden satyr, carved to the front. The chosen stood in fear and subjection, skeptical of the plagues festering to awaken.
Years passed and all I could imagine was the menacing smirk on the satyr. The temple was obliterated and desecrated to the finest degree. It took little time for the fiends to gain control of the chosen. With sinewy swords, an abundance of daggers, flying arrows and heavy maces, they enslaved the few survivors. We were outnumbered and overcome by their wicked powers. When weapons failed, their mutations took over.
The fiends discovered me in my dim little hole, awaiting the sun and a sign of victory in our favor. The guards wrapped in silver sockets of armor gazed into the abyss of my colorless eyes and lifted me out of the hole. I struggled to break their tightening grip, but it was in vain. I attempted to do what I had been forbidden to do several moons ago. But the discipline of its actions restrained me from doing it again. I couldn’t disappear. I couldn’t relocate. My vulnerability was limitless as their grips engulfed my arms on each side.
I saw grotesque giants and men molded by beastly features. I questioned not only my vision, but the state of my sanity. Their were heads of a lions fused to a men’s torsos. There were fouls blended with creeping creatures. There were beasts of burden entwined in human sculpture.
God's pallet corrupted by crossing crayons and wayward inks.
Men gawking with crimson eyes and layered in black feathered wings. Men with multiple faces and physical deformities.
The men who inspired the stories.
The infamous and rebuked.
Those who struck fear in our hearts and with justifiable reason.
The men of renown.
Stars of brimstone whistled in the dark skies above, crashing into our cosmos. Displays of radiance erupted with each crash, distracting my tribesmen from the busy criminals, incapable of removing their eyes from the sparks. The fiends hauled the chosen into the wooden ships engulfed in the stench of rotten bark, unafraid of the dire consequences.
The brutes dragged me across the shadowy sea to their prince, the evening and morning star, inquiring of what to do with me. The prince in his lavish garments with gold ornaments lifted the cloak over my thick chestnut hair and stared into my abysses. For what seemed eternity, he stared. It was almost as if he were watching his life unfold in the telescope of my foggy eyes. His tight lips gently parted, revealing a feeling of shock and inexplicable distress. Panic was written in the delicate lines of his copper skin. “Take her to the abandoned temple on the other side of the kingdom. Leave her there. No one is to go there unless she interferes with our law.”
Here I sit on the gray stone wall of the heathen temple, ten years later. Drained of my stolen youth and lapsed bliss.
Bliss lost itself with the view of a million departed infants wafting in the sea. The fiends’ functioning temple was north of my home. When a sacrifice was gathered, the carcasses floated in my direction, visible to my eternally sodden eyes. I opposed the slightest peek below my frayed balcony. There was little else to be seen inside the forsaken place of misguided worship.
A valley stood between the haunted ruins which I called home and the kingdom’s square. The crowded village was located directly beneath the prince’s extravagant palace. The palace illuminated an eerie glow, sending the faint to their knees in its mighty shadow. I never left the temple for fear of the fiends. There was a sick vacancy within the crumbling temple which kept me silent.
My scraps of chestnut hair blossomed into a long smooth mane. Puberty transformed my juvenile build to a womanly figure. Some would suggest that I shared the same alluring beauty which led my mother to her downfall.
Some evenings the kind slaves of my former tribe would sneak to my lair and spoil me with garments and food. Their charity kept me from withering away in my sorrows. During the day, there was no one to share my company. As long as I remained inside the temple walls, the fiends left me to my solitude.
My cherished love for the Creator was in dire question. How could he embrace a half-breed, when my kind hinders not to destroy and pervert all that he has divinely woven with his nimble hands? My teleportation refuses to activate, and I wouldn’t dare disappear if I were enabled. I am condemned and forsaken like my forefathers before me.
I awoke this shadowy morning in my bed of gray stones near the balcony by the sea. Another dull day and countdown to the anxiously awaiting nether world unfolded. I rubbed my foggy eyes to look up at the incredibly high-reaching ceiling. Suddenly, an image appeared. I squinted to adjust my blurred vision. Could it be? A wicker brown basket was falling swiftly to the floor.
I kept my head held high in order to discover the contents packed tightly inside of it. As it gently lowered in the mid air, I saw a pale blue blanket tucked soundly against an infant. It was not only a shock but an utter horror to my eyes as the infant hit the floor without a sound. What have I done? I watched as the babe fell from the infinite sky to his death. And what did I do? I stood idly like those who viewed my mother’s march into the sea, futile and dumbfounded. I prayed to have a second chance. I prayed to the God who has cursed my existence to come to my rescue and give me another opportunity to prove my lowly self. My hands were securely bound together in an attempt to move Him. My clammy forehead was pressed firmly on them. Releasing them, I took a quick gander at the ceiling from which the tragedy occurred. But something rather bizarre caught my attention. The basket vanished.
Calmly, I lifted my head back up to the awning. The basket was falling for the second time. This time, I wouldn’t hesitant to respond. God granted me the power to wield my gift. I teleported in reach of the child and promptly grabbed the basket, and within a thought, returned onto the floors.
I unwrapped the child from its basket and held it tightly to me. I peered over the edge of the balcony and identified countless corpses of young babes, all chosen. As I examined the babe, I perceived the unthinkable. He was of the chosen. There was no denying, I knew my kind. The fiends would come and collect him and slay me for interfering. Finally, there was purpose to my bleary life. I would protect this child, as though he were mine. Whether it meant life or death for me, it didn’t faze me. Either way, I would suffer. It would be best to save those who can create joy. Maybe there was a slight chance I could conjure this for him.
I acquired a place for him to abide secretly. Before I could conceal his identity, I looked out into the kingdom and witnessed hordes of the heathens heading our way. They must have seen a star falling from the sky and realized a miracle was unfolding, a miracle only the God of the chosen could muster.
They were armored in gold plates and tall headdresses. They carried jagged spears, towering over their lanky bodies. I stood paralyzed in my fear and ignorance. What was I to do? With every moment that passed the fiends drew closer. I looked deep into the child’s sad gray eyes. At that moment, I decided that I would die before harm harkened unto him. I would do the unthinkable and formerly forbidden. I held tightly onto the child and closed my eyes tightly. With a deep breath, I teleported to the far end of the temple, hoping to be rid of them.
We reappeared on the other side, but the fiends surrounded us. Again I tried my infamous trick. I found myself in a distant part of the temple, except this time I was in strange company. They weren’t fiends, but they were not of the chosen.
He was a young man of dark color, no doubt of the southern tribes to the west. The fiends conquered their lands as well, taking them as prisoners and soiling their home. He wore ragged shorts and flimsy sandals. He possessed a handsome square jaw and even features, pleasant to look upon and flattering to his tall and robust built. His dark eyes briefly bored into mine, until he subsided to breaking his stare. A young woman stood beside him laden long locks of straight chestnut hair and pale skin. Gazing at her, I couldn’t help but feel a strange sensation. It was as if I were looking into a mirror. Her eyes weren’t kosher. I beheld everything that I kept hidden secretly inside myself. I tried to look away, but I stood frozen in the nightmare. The young man started to speak, shaking me from the haunted dream. “We saw the star falling, daughter of the fallen. We’re here to help you and the child.” Perplexed, I questioned, “What is your name? And are you of the southern tribes to the west?” “I am, and my name is Khem.”
An awkward silence surpassed us for a near moment and I asked, “Why are you helping me?” A sly smile overcame his majestic face, and he whispered, “Am I not also a victim of the fiends? Now teleport us up to the tower in the center of the temple before the fiends capture us.” I heard the simultaneous thumps grow louder. “Grab onto me.” The girl and Khem clutched onto me as I held the babe tight to my chest. We vanished and landed on the tower in a flash.
The wretched fiends cursed us from below, waving their sinewy swords left and right with anger and rage. Khem’s grin widened from ear to ear. But the winds can change direction swiftly. The girl released a slight shriek as she looked out over the edge. Khem and I joined her to find the fiends overcame the obstacles, climbing the high tower with rope and effective tools. Khem’s handsome smile washed away with fear, and I shouted for them to grab a hold of me. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but it was some place far from the fiends within the temple. I closed my eyes and prayed to a God who’d forsaken me long ago.
When I opened them, we found ourselves seated at the head of the temple, a comfortable distance from the dangers. I gazed sorrowfully at Khem, “I don’t know what to do.” With his face stern but delightfully soft he answered, “You can do anything you want. Believe. You’re a hybrid.”
“But I’m not God.”
“You’ve got something that the hybrids don’t.”
“And what’s that?”
“Faith, now believe. Believe and walk through the illusions of this reality.”
Where the strings of my world interchangeable? I would remain ignorant unless I toyed with them. Khem started to quiver as we held each other’s gaze. “Run, you and the girl. I’m going through the ceiling.”
To the babe I softly whispered, “Don’t worry child, all will be right.” Embracing him tightly, my feet lifted slowly off the stone studded floor. Into the air above us we were lifted with our hopeful spirits. The ceiling steadily decreased. I prepared myself to phase through it. Yet a twain of sudden doubt shot through me. What was I doing? I was incapable of such immense power. Khem certainly couldn’t be right. A harsh collision was inevitable.
As each fear surpassed me, we floated lower and lower to a familiar and devious reality. Khem and the girl spotted us and made haste.
I handed my newly beloved to the girl and commanded, “Run to the tower, and we’ll meet you there.” She nodded and raced towards the grand central point. The fiends were distant from the tower, struggling to keep up with my sly disappearing act. I watched her as she ran, disturbed by her resemblance. I didn’t see a strange girl. I saw myself, through a stranger’s eyes.
I focused on Khem and with a sense of urgency uttered, “Come with me. We need to find a way out of here, out of this temple and out of this wasted land.” He turned his head towards the balcony, out onto the dreary sea. Somewhere beyond the stench of misery and the gray horizon, life existed.
He grabbed my bicep, and we traveled through the illusions in an effort to rescue my twin and babe. The girl flinched in freight when we assembled before her. Without words spoken, we joined in a circle, intertwining our arms. Not nearly a moment later, we were seated at the pinnacle of our previous refuge.
The fiends detected our presence and quickly returned to the site. They surrounded us. They released their pesky tools and ascended the stones which founded the monument holding us. Khem stared at me, for a duration only he could bear. “I know your kind, the thunder runs through you. I’ve seen the sparks on the tips of their fingers. You must obliterate them before they kill us, before they kill your child.”
“I can’t! I’ve never tried. I was forbidden.”
“You’re not forbidden now. You must trust me. You must believe, if not in yourself, then in the God which wove your existence.”
Though he shook as he stared deeply into my eerie eyes, he refused to avert. I trusted him. His tenacity opened my eyes to faith. Faith breaking my profound bitterness, faith gracing me with invincibility.
I lifted my pale hands and faced them palm up and extended my arms out toward the heavens. Dazzling sparks of energy arose to dance feverishly in my quivering hands. The fiends climbed higher and the bolt grew greater. Flash of violent lighting punctured holes through the roof and connected with my humble flame. Stones were descending and the temple shook with ferocity. Tilting my head back, I united myself with the energy. My body grew cold and my eyes faded. I threw my hands down onto the hateful tribe of whoremongers. With a fiery remorse, I lighted their souls with a fire burning within me. My hear was not hardened by the Lord anymore. I would grieve no more.
The fiends disintegrated into ashes. Ashes they were born, and ashes they were buried. The bolt was broken, and I collapsed. Khem cradled me and wiped the perspiration off my forehead. “It’s over daughter of the fallen. You are no longer of the fallen.” He lifted me to my trembling feet. The girl stepped towards me and grinned mischievously. “Well done daughter.”
Her form shifted into a man of robust build, but still adorned with those bold and bewildering eyes. Feathers from his broad back fell silently onto the ground, feathers dipped in ebony. “Father?”
“Yes daughter, I was always here to guide you, to wash this land clean of tainted blood. God may not of forgiven me, but he has blessed you. This child’s lineage is clean of corruption and inordinate breeding. God chose you to protect it and to ensure a new race. Look to Khem as your husband, only he can gaze into your eyes and see the beauty within them. You are the tribe’s guardian. Go across the sea and live in the Lord’s eyes. I bid you farewell.”
“Why must you leave?”
“I must discover other ways to redeem myself. I wander these hills in remorse and regret. Regret for a family I’ll never recognize. Regret for the unrequited love I’ve shattered. This is my burden. This is my punishment. But the Lord is merciful. My gift, is your freedom.”
He kissed me on my forehead, an affection not even my mother could render. His black laden wings unfolded and he took flight. He glided over the foggy seas and out into the gray horizon, disappearing from my thoughts yet again.
The horizon started to illuminate, transcending into a gold I’d never beheld. The seas seemed to clear. I looked to my love and said, “Let’s get out of here.”