Ashes of Lily

An Ascian

  In a long-forgotten village rounded with crimson rivers, some lived and some died. Humans? Certainly, they were. Normal? Ordinary? Absolutely not. Those spared by hell were eternally soaked in sorrow and agony as they each night crept out of their bodies like snakes ridding themselves of aged skins. Their pain was beyond measure. It was their fate: males, females, young and old shed no tear being repeatedly skinned alive and to be helplessly born again from nothingness. In the midst of it all, their senses are to their sharpest to every single rip, every sting of air, and every move. Earth would feast on the fresh blood and flesh and spit the new bodies once more for every soul to emerge with its medium to reality in the view of normal to the rest of living human beings. It was their atonement and their reminder as they lived to relive for even the universe has bounds that ought not to be taken for granted and the Gods patience ran thinner than fading sunlight at twilight.

Long before, as the first petrifying night of infernal wrath came to be, silence roared in the place for no heart was beating and no creature was breathing. Although the moon showed its round face in a blushing shade, its light could not escape the claws of murkiness. Clouds roamed in need of refuge but the sky’s palms were far too large for them to escape. Upon descending heavens, clumsy wind caressed all features in a harmless yet icy touch that made even rocks shiver. Trees stood rigid, plain, soulless, and dull shielding lifeless beings without a name for sneaky hands had frosted them in shapeless molds. Beauty was not fairly parted from cruelty. But that is the image painted by nature in its saddest nights. In careful attention, that silence was ghostly wicked and a fragment of death soaked with betrayal merged with soil and lingered in the air. That was quite the enchanting presence the Black Woods has always had. Only tonight is an exception for cowardly feet dared to take steps to its deepest slots and toss what was left of their deed in its spiteful ground. Whoever said the dead will not have a breath of life again surely was mistaking as the departed rose once more shaking chains of abyss off their shoulders and asking their reaper for space and time to collect arrears and rip the hearts of those who have locked theirs with rusty locks. If only that was the case… rules were shattered beyond repair.

“Rise sunken man! Bury your anguished heart and bear your enmity for you are endowed mercy from long resting eyes!” Through the hushed night, muffled moans erupted stillness and quivering fingers grabbed a fistful of dirt in an attempt to balance a wobbling body. No one could have guessed that ordeals of the sort would be laid upon such an innocent and fragile child. The coin of life and death, mercy and brutality, reality and fantasy, forgiveness and punishment was flipped. Only the odds were no longer foreseen. Nothing is the same anymore. None was predictable, to begin with, but hope still existed in the shadiest folds of souls. What was done is already done and men have to reap the planted seeds in the soil of their miserable destiny. Who wronged whom? Who is to carry the burden of the crime? A crime it is indeed, but who would understand if truth and lies are one?

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH” Burst the voice of the one who dug through dirt and clawed his way up the pits of hell. In the shadows of the trees staggered a figure that was wrapped in a thick cloud of smoke that robbed everything in its way of the slightest bit of life. Pants and wheezing noise could be heard but despite the moonlight, nothing could be seen except for a pair of gleaming bloody eyes. “….” A hoarse voice chanted, “In…ter…fi..ciooo” This was the damnation of a child born from the defiled womb of a human conjured to bear a child for a venomous deity worshiped by greedy men thirsting for the specks of power and fortune. The child meant to serve as a vessel, whose blood was drunk and body ripped apart at night to be sewed back together the next day, begged and prayed to be forgiven and forgotten. Yet, the ritual happened every day until he was ruined; and ruin he brought with him. One last time brought about distortion and as such shackles dropped and he rose. Urob the Ashen Hollow rose to topple over the world of fiendish men and stand at the summit watching their tortured wails of persecution.

Here he is now. Staring yet again for the innumerable time at the little girl whose fate strings are reconnecting to another beginning as she is stuck in limbo. This time, however, when everything was unfolding, a shambled vision contorted the flow of this reality he was seeing. In the midst of a stifling cloud, the smell of rotten flesh was pungent but the sight of a lacerated child restrained by the strings of fate was grotesque. Nonetheless, his eyes widen and a grin took form for the first time in centuries. There was indeed distortion. The girl chewed the string that shackled her even though it was tearing into her neck and mouth. She cut it off and the cycle was severed. He flicked his wrist and a gush of wind swapped the smoke as small balls of light burst to illuminate their meeting.

“Look up human,” He spoke with ethereal neutrality that tingled throughout the air. The child attempted to do so but the burden on the body was greater than what the soul could bear and thus settled to glare up with a swollen eye as the other was gauged out. “Shall I escort you to hell?” He asked again in the same voice. If the girl assumed he was an angel or a devil then it certainly did not faze her as she did not flinch or even utter a sound. “Pointless to ask. You are the embodiment of it, " He stepped closer and continued, " A hundred and thirty-seven, intriguing indeed” He stepped in front of her and tilted her chin to stare her dead in the eye and smile with a sinister that send chills down the spine of the cruelest monsters in Niflheim. " Death is dear, child. but vengeance is dearer” he ascertained. “A deal for your soul. It shall keep me company and I shall grant you sword and shield” He put his forehead on hers and finished, “Soar in the sky Lily” She closed her eye allowing the tears to shed for the last time and mumble in a ripped tongue and broken mouth, “Deal” In an instance, the man that stood there vanished, and a crawling sound was heard. A shadowy entity approached her wrapping her in a firm grip and snaps came from every direction releasing her. " Sleep, Lily” came the man’s voice only huskier. “I shall await your shadow-less awakening”