Apollo & Luna

Epitaph In Twilight

Far away, in a secret place, a place where sunlight barely touched, a huge man wearing heavy armor trudged down the hallway bearing injuries he haphazardly bandaged with his own torn clothing. The sword wound on his side was no joke, and so were the gashes and burns distributed among his limbs.

His fight with the masked warriors the day before had been fierce. He was considered a strong man even among his peers, but it has been a long time since he had to fight to death, and there were three against him. He was no match.

Even though he knew fleeing would mean he’d lose track of the girl again, he still chose to do it. His instinct told him that if he insisted on pursuing Alicia, he would die. The three who attacked him were no ordinary warriors. They were as strong as knights and possessed special abilities like him.

His strength leaving him, the man leaned his back against the wall, consequently sliding down the floor as he closed his eyes, remembering his fight.

One warrior used fire while the other two used wind – a deadly combination for a foe to an Earth caster like him. He was not armed to fight with them. If it weren’t for his armor, he was so sure he’d been more injured than he was. If it weren’t for the artifacts – the weapons with sealed magic passed down from the progenitor himself, he’d have been dead.  

What he could not understand however, was, how come soldiers of that caliber would want to stop him. As he understood, no one knew of Alicia’s existence, except for those who personally handled the secret project years ago – and most of them were already gone, dead by his own hands.

“So how come the warriors were there?” he asked just as an image of a young man who attacked him with a pitchfork came to him and he opened his eyes as an idea hit him.

Those three warriors protected the young man when he was about to kill him.

“Could it be?” he wondered audibly.

Could it be that those warriors were not there for the girl but for the boy?

Could it be that the young man was someone he shouldn’t have attacked?

Could that young man be from the clan, and that he was an important member?

He wouldn’t have such strong protectors if he wasn’t, right?

But then again…

“How come he was so weak?”

If the man he nearly killed was from the clan, then he should have had a special ability like the rest of them, right? So how come he felt nothing from the young man?

Remembering how the young man fell on the ground with a bloodied chest, his frown deepened. 

How come he was so weak – so pathetic like an ordinary human?

===

She was floating in midair. Her slender body was wrapped in a white, sleeveless chiffon dress, making her appear like a wingless angel with her long dark golden hair blowing in the wind. In her mind’s eye, she observed the surroundings as if she was watching a movie with her arms and feet spread-eagled.

All was in black and white, and yet, the distinctness of the memory was so vivid, she could almost forget that she was dreaming.

Yes, this was only a dream – a vision. She had seen one too many not to know.

There was one thing she was never sure of however. Her visions, regardless that they were accurate, she could never ever tell where they’re from nor when they happened or if they did happen already at all.

Was she seeing the past? The present? Or was this vision something in the future?

With a frown marrying her beautiful face, the crease, an unusual expression on its accustomed serenity, her eyes scanned the surroundings, noting the timelessness of the stretch of land below.

Here was a place where those who reached the end were laid to rest. The ground beneath her was an ocean of marble and granite effigies, and tombs with their rusty iron fences and stained crosses glinting under the pale, mystical twilight.

Raising a hand, she pointed one delicate finger towards the ground, and gravity, like the very faithful servant it was, softly brought her down.

The breeze welcomed her presence, whooshing softly against her face, blowing the snow-white petals of the flowers from the trees towards her, showering over her like snowflakes, surrounding her in a whirlwind only to disperse as soon as her bare feet touched the ground. 

It wasn’t the soil that greeted the sole of her feet however. Beneath her was a white slab of marble, which epitaph she couldn’t decipher. Looking at the intricate designs carved in it made the frown in her face deepen in her almost desperate wish to fathom what it said.

“Touch it…” 

An inner voice seemed to whisper in her ears, filling her senses. Without thinking, she went down on her knees and reached for the inscriptions.

As soon as her fingertips made contact with the linocut, the marble tablet glowed as color splashed, filling the once black and white surrounding, as wind surrounded her again, blowing her hair and clothes upwards as her eyes filled with light. She could feel power surging in her veins, and yet her body trembled, unable to cope up with the sudden surge of energy.

Feeling heady, she found herself gasping for air as her nose started bleeding copiously, the plasma dropping on the hard marble, filling the etched designs with red, making the markings visible and readable.

“W-what…?”

She watched mesmerized as the scarlet hue filled each and every line until it formed what seemed to be a drawing – a symbol.

In the middle of the tablet was an engraving of what appeared to be a sun and a moon merged into one. The design was strange and yet it was somewhat familiar.

Where had she seen this before?

She tried to recall, and when she did remember, her eyes widened as she recalled a time not so long ago when she was at the brink of death.

In her mind flashed recollections of a man whose selfless act gave her back her life no matter that it would wipe out his memories and lose his rightful place in their world.

Yes, she knew that design – well, half of it at least. The sun was her salvation.

The man whom she owed her life to possessed the mark of the complete sun on his body, the mark which glowed like fire from the day star. The mark reminded her of the man people of his clan called Apollo, the very same man in the past years she called her brother.