Chapter 1
The beginning of everything
One beat.
Two.
Three.
...
"Why is my heart so loud?"
A lone figure sits beneath unfinished concrete pillars on the rooftop of a skyscraper like a promise waiting for someone to name it, a silhouette stitched to the city's ragged horizon as wind threads through the rebar like a restless thought.
Below, red-and-blue lights swept across the streets. Searchlights skimmed rooftops one after another, while distant sirens dissolved beneath the rising wind that tastes of dust and possibility.
They were getting closer.
"This is probably the worst hiding spot I've ever picked."
Pause.
"...No."
"Second worst."
"The first one exploded." adjusts the wrapped object. He looks toward the edge.
"I could jump."
...
"No. Bad idea."
"If they see me..."
"I'm dead."
"If they don't..."
"I'm still probably dead."
"Wonderful."
Then—
Clack.
...
Clack.
...
Clack.
"The Father's gaze reaches even here."
"He still carries it."
Another voice:
" Scour every stone!"
"Leave not one shadow untouched!"
BDUMP! Heart beats.
"I can't move because moving means being seen." Holds the object tighter and slowly crouches lower. Doesn't breathe. Doesn't move.
"Three exits, none useful."
"West?"
"Too exposed."
"South?"
"Six stories."
"East?... I'd rather meet the people chasing me."
The voices grew closer.
He lowered himself further against the concrete pillar, pulling the wrapped object beneath his coat.
Footsteps echoed through the unfinished floors below.
Slow.
Measured.
Clack.
A pause.
Clack.
Another pause.
He held his breath.
Don't look up.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
Then—
"Search the eastern structure."
A second voice answered from somewhere below.
"Already searched."
"Then search it again."
His jaw tightened.
Persistent bastards.
He slowly shifted his weight, peering through a narrow gap between two concrete pillars.
Three figures emerged from the darkness below.
He couldn't make out their faces. Their silhouettes were distorted by the sweeping searchlights outside, their bodies wrapped in long, unfamiliar garments that moved strangely in the wind.
One raised his hand.
"Scour every chamber."
Another looked toward the upper floors.
"He cannot have gone far."
The first voice grew colder.
"He carries what was forbidden."
His fingers tightened around the object beneath his coat.
For the first time, the smirk disappeared.
So they know.
A beam of light swept across the floor below.
He immediately pulled himself deeper into the darkness.
The light passed.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
One beat.
Two.
Three.
Too loud.
A shadow moved across the floor.
Then another.
They were climbing.
He glanced toward the edge of the rooftop.
Six stories.
The street below was already crawling with people and vehicles.
Jumping would be suicide.
Staying meant being caught.
He looked down at the object in his hands.
The cloth covering it was soaked now, clinging tightly to whatever lay beneath.
For the briefest moment, something beneath the fabric seemed to pulse.
He froze.
Then—
Clack.
The footsteps reached the floor beneath him.
He stopped breathing.
A voice rose through the unfinished structure.
"He is here."
His blood ran cold.
The footsteps began climbing again.
One floor.
Then another.
Closer.
He pressed himself against the pillar.
Think.
West—
Nothing but open air.
East—
The adjoining building was too far.
South—
Six stories.
North—
The stairs.
Wonderful.
The footsteps grew louder.
Then—
A sudden gust of wind tore through the building.
Rain exploded across the open floors.
The searchlights outside flickered.
The voices below became muffled beneath the roar.
He looked upward.
Dark clouds had swallowed the moon.
Thunder rolled across the heavens.
The search party stopped.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then one of the voices said quietly:
"What is that?"
Another answered:
"The storm."
"No."
A pause.
"Not the storm."
His eyes narrowed.
The searchlights went dark.
All of them.
The city below suddenly disappeared into darkness.
Then lightning illuminated the clouds.
For a single instant, the entire skyline became white.
The figures below were gone.
He stared.
What?
He waited.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No voices.
Nothing.
Slowly, he released the breath he'd been holding.
His shoulders dropped.
A small laugh escaped him.
"They're gone."
He looked toward the staircase.
Empty.
He looked toward the opposite building.
Empty.
He even waited several more seconds.
Nothing.
A tired smile crept across his face.
"Guess I'm not dying tonight."
He leaned his head against the concrete pillar.
For the first time that night, he allowed himself to relax.
Then—
Drip.
A drop of water struck his cheek.
He looked up.
Another landed on his forehead.
Drip.
He wiped it away.
Then another.
And another.
Within seconds, the rain began falling harder.
He looked across the skyline.
The city was disappearing behind curtains of water.
Thunder rolled again.
But something about it felt wrong.
He frowned.
The storm wasn't moving in.
It was already here.
And somehow...
it felt as though it had come for him.
He slowly looked down at the object in his hands.
The cloth was drenched.
Beneath it, something faintly glowed.
He stared at it.
"You better be worth all this."
A flash of lightning illuminated his face.
For a fleeting instant, his smirk returned.
Then the heavens answered.
BOOOOOOM.
The entire building shook.
His expression changed.
He looked toward the sky.
The clouds were moving.
Not with the wind.
Against it.
His heartbeat became louder.
One beat.
Two.
Three.
He swallowed.
"...Why is my heart so loud?
Then...
"Father sermons."
Another voice.
"The decree shall not fail!"
Previous voice. "You dare disobey!?"
The voices disappear.
Silence.
He notices. "...Why did they stop?"
The first drop struck the cloth in his hands.
Another landed against his cheek.
Wind screamed between unfinished beams.
Somewhere above, thunder answered.
The heavens had finally found him.
High above everyone heads, within the weeping of clouds, all else are ants. Wildly about as they run in fear. Which man can dare? Oppose this? The breath-taking downpour, a weeping of the heavens. That in itself, threatens to cleanse all in its wake.
You be a fool, Nature always wins, that's been the law since time immemorial.
The wind continues picking up between the high rise of buildings, as the countless celestial lights start to flash spirit into the gloomy sky, painting mysteries man hasn't touched yet. Dancing within these thunderclaps, is what all mortals dread. The stroke of death, the divine punishment heaven keeps.
A heartbeat, everything stops.
The world pauses leaving only the down pour to break its silence.
In the hush of silence, from the clashing heavens, an odd testament is witnessed!!
One who dares oppose the heavens.
Motionless.
Unmoved by the storm.
The weight in his hands felt impossibly warm despite the rain.
Back against the wall, clothes fluttering in the wind. His dull eyes remain fixed upon the heavens as lightning dances across the clouds.
A smirk splitting its face, rain tracing silent paths across his expressionless face.
It is as though its consciousness had drifted somewhere beyond the reach of the storm.
Under the fuming, watchful, silent eyes of the sky, something stirred, something ancient, something unnatural yet seemingly natural, was provoked by what they were witnessing. The sky grew fiercer in a fraction of a second and all the more violent in tandem. This is an insult to their pride; How can it go unpunished?
"I've waited long enough." He lifts his eyes up to the heavens.
Behold, a bright-white light, illuminates both the celestial heaven and all below. All above the heavens and the splendor of, within the heavens a majesty in its wake comes, creeping from the clouds. Moving to where the immobile figure is.
With a smirk plastered on its face, it's as if the moment of its unanswered prayers has come to pass and the very gravity of its existence has had its toll lifted.
Its mind is still a blank canvas, alive yes, hopeful sane too.
Alas the universe has other plans in store, plans to many folds vent its prided anger on him.
The light moved with unnatural flawless grace; his form shifting from being illuminated. All witness and behold; the stage has been set. For heavens judgement:
His eyes widened.
The world lurched.
Lightning descended.
Agony explodes through his body.
The city lights flicker on and off.
He's body is snatched and mysteriously lifts off the ground, defying gravity.
But as soon as his ascension, gravity also makes its rightful claim on the matter.
He instinctively reaches out only to grasp unto empty air, falling back to the ground. The trailing lightening had hit him, exploding right through his chest, leaving behind a gaping bloody hole in it. But through some mysteriously means, he still remained among the living refusing to join in on the afterlife.
Blood drenched the concrete beneath him, splattered as a piece belonging to the renaissance art.
Amidst all the gory sight lay what seems to be a shining crystal made of light. Carefully crafted like an electric bolt, is suspended a few inches off the ground, within his chest with arcs of electric charges bouncing off it. Something mystic about it caused droplets of blood to dance around it. It illuminates all the shattered bones, busted organs, The crystal floated where flesh should have been.
Laying in a pool of blood, his brain fails to come to terms with the reality before it.
In the tremendous amount of pain all coherent thoughts are distorted.
One still lingers. 'Am going to die.'
That very basal instinct of fear makes him want to stay alive.
He tries to take in a breath, but his grasping at straws.
The bolt-like-crystal begins to spin on its tip, blood stops. And drifts from the murky rain water flowing back into the hole formed within his chest, encasing the crystal within.
In the sky the storm rages in festivity, for its hand has dealt with the mortal putting him where he belongs.
Grilled is the man who faces such might, doomed is such council which doesn't bow to the law.
Set by nature itself, for man is but an insect before the heavens.
The gruesome hole starts closing as though time is being rewound.
Then it closed.
His mind gives out and he passes out. His body starts glowing, no, not the body but the area where the hole was, shines from within with an ethereal light.
Then in a burst of cloudy light his body is swallowed, shrinking out of existence and leaving behind no traces of his presence.
Somewhere in the grassy fields, wind blew in the tranquility of the night.
As far as the eye could see this land lay unclaimed by any civilization. The air, pure with no contaminants, the sound of crickets and the waving of grass blades break the silence of the night. The nocturne, on about their business as the usual calm of the night has its hold.
But No! there shall not be peace. Alas there has to be a will against the very concept of peace and it isn't about to relent anytime.
So, forth came a bust of a misty blue light, then came a body martialized within it, dropping unto the empty fields.
The wind blew across the figure that lay asleep causing the hair on its head to flutter across its face, then with another bust of the misty light that claims his body, he disappears from sight, leaving the startled hungry fox confused how its blessing slipped through its paws.
Again, his body materializing somewhere from that burst of light, this time falling in space, heading straight for the body of water below. His body tumbling down mid-air unconscious, the crystal shone brightly within his chest, streaks of electric arc brilliance dancing around his form as he fell head first, past a cliff then into the pool of water.
Splash.
Branches move.
Footsteps.
She reaches the cliff. Hair blowing.
Then—
She jumps.
Diving into the water below, she grabs the body and swims back up, before quickly swimming towards the shore.
One beat.
...
Nothing.
...
Nothing.
...
Nothing.
She checks for a pulse., seeing that there is no pulse. she immediately pressed down on his chest performing CPR she with unsettling calmness.
Then...
Beat.
One.
Tiny.
Heartbeat.
It didn't take long before a gasp was earned, coughing up the water he had taken in, His eyes fluttered open for only a moment before the pain dragged him back into darkness.