The Fallen

Chapter One

Drazos. That was its name. A star so unique many worshiped it as a god. The colors would change, shift, melt together like a beautiful swirl or emotions brought to life. Gold, silver, magenta, the perfect balance of blending and contrasting with the night sky. Drazos sat opposite the moon, much smaller in comparison but still running the show. When the moon was at its fullest, showing with a deep blue pride, Drazos would pull from its depths the darkest red you’ve ever seen. What else could cause such a drastic display of attention but a god? That’s what many thought. And so they did what anyone would do when a god was recognized. They offered sacrifices of herbs, spices, sometimes crops, other times cattle, whatever felt right in the moment. Each turn of the season we would have a bonfire of sorts to sing its praises for giving us a beautiful and easy life. But alas, time took its course and wanted its revenge.

Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe it could be thoroughly explained by science. Maybe Drazos just got too old and weak and surrendered to father Gravity. Not much else to say besides what I saw with my own gentle eyes. Drazos began to flake like dandruff. Piece by piece it would fall as a shooting star blessing the earth with all of its glory yet never landing in Eldamar. We would see the trail of fire and smoke each piece left behind. The tiny explosion it created when it crossed Earth’s barrier. The ripples it made like water. Always so beautifully terrifying. Then one night when the moon was just a sliver, you could hear the rumble. Feel pressure. Sense the wrongness in the universe. And all at once you could see the explosion of colors before everything came crashing down in a literal rain of fire. Drazos finally shattered into a million molten pieces making its final exit from the galaxy and its entrance into Earth. We didn’t know it then but that was only the beginning.

When the meteors began crashing they left huge craters in the earth that extended for miles, anything that so happened to be within the immolate death zones combusted on impact. Ashes of flesh and bone wafted in the wind. Families wondering if that was a loved one that got trapped in the unfortunate death of the god’s hand or if they had indeed taken the opportunity to leave forever and restart their life. To this day, in their old age, people still carry a small glimmer of hope. How do I know this happened? Well, because I lived just outside the radius of one and at the age of six I watched my neighbors blow to dust and saw their own small bits smack the sides of buildings and fences without remorse. Leaving blood spattered graffiti in its midst.

Following the showers of fire, there remained a burning aura around each and every meteor which would mark its targets with the sign of Drazos. Each person who stepped within the aura would be forever branded by this seal of torture. At first, we all thought it was a symbol of the God’s pride. Picking and choosing its disciples as if it were claiming cattle. Time did not agree. Time took its course yet again and just as the first catastrophe, these branded people were not given a gift but a curse. With each passing day they would decompose while their souls remained intact. First the body hair would fade out in clumps leaving each as bald as the day they entered this world. Then ever so slowly their nails would fall off until their fingers and toes were nothing more than bloody nubs. Then their teeth would decay right inside of their gums as if they’d been smoking their entire lives. Making each bite more painful than the last. Eventually their skin would peel until muscles hardened by scabs and bones were all that were left. Many left in agonizing pain wishing for death to overtake them. Faceless beings who were nothing more than memories turned to nightmares. Awful creatures they were. And eventually when they had repented long enough for every sin imaginable, they would begin to lose their muscles and their bones would splinter until they could no longer move. Lying motionless wherever they may. Until finally their organs gave in and their hearts stopped beating. That’s how my mother died. I watched it unfold before my very eyes. I watched my father’s heart break more with every passing day as he watched his one and only love die in the slowest, most painful way anyone could ever imagine. And there was nothing he could do but watch. For that was the prophecy of Time. That was the curse of Drazos.

Where the star once sat, there was nothing but a black hole. Something darker than black, darker than sleep, darker than death itself. No one understood, how could they? It had never happened before. No one could begin to explain. Eventually, Eldamar dwindled down to just a few who were smart enough to avoid the rock and strong enough to survive the suffocating depression and stench of death. Those who remained were taught the ways of the old land as well as the ways of the new land. When it was time, they were titled Warriors of Drazos and sent out to look for new life elsewhere. For the elders understood there was no life left to be had in this grotesque morgue of a village. They were all that remained and all that ever would be in the village of Eldamar. As the saying goes, ‘as it was, so it will be’.