Sylpher

[loner-kid]

There are some things that we cannot escape. Things that will forever haunt our past, present, and future. It's these events that make us, guide our choices and reactions down till the day we die. Some would call it destiny, but such a word denotes some guiding power, some higher cause. Even in this world of gods, there is no mind behind the ever turning wheels of fate

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The world was dark. One great mass of oily blackness that streached from horizon to horizon. Not a single light peppered the endless expanse of darkness that hovered overhead with a delicate fragility, as if the slightest touch would cause it to shatter like shards of brittle glass. Beneath this bleak and opresive sky lay a surface as featureless as the night, a mirror stoicly reflecting whatever lay in its path. But there were differences, unknowable in this world where sight had no meaning. The ground was a blanket of snow, so thick that all definition had been lost leaving a pristine layer of purest white. But sticking from it, random and without order, were branches. They littered the landscape, small enough to be overlooked yet creating a contrast so blazen as to tear your eyes towards them. Obscured by the darkness as they were however one would never know the world was anything other than the ever present darkness, and the bitter chill that soaked up through ones feet. But there was one more thing. It lingered in the icy air, the steady crunch of trodden snow.

The girl walked slowly, her feet dragging in the thick snow, forming a shallow trench through the unforgiving white snow. She walked with the air of someone who no longer cares where it is that she goes, the monotomous pace of one who has lost all hope yet knows no other way than to keep walking. Her body is broken and torn, covered in a mass of grubby bandages that wind themselves losely around her tattered frame. They extend all over her body, covering even her face and hair with their dirtyed white form. Some hang, coated in the deep red of dried blood while others lie shredded as if they were ripped apart from within. Other than the almost transparently thin blanket wrapped inexpertly around her shoulders this is all the small girl wears. She appears like a ghost, almost as white as the silent sea of snow in which she has been stranded, with a shock of silver hair leaving a spectral trail in her wake.

Her breath was hoarse, panting slightly, leaving small puffs of condensation in the air before her face. She shivered almost constantly now, and her skin was icy to the touch. She stopped, her legs no longer able to move through the dense layer of snow, her feet tinged with the pale blue of frozen soles. With a morbid grace the small girl collapsed to the floor. She lay, spread eagled on the snow, her arms slowly moving as if trying to lift herself from the cold ground. In the snow a head of her came a shallow plop, the sound of something light landing on the already disturbed snow. Groaning the girl raised her head to look towards the sound, her eyes widened and her hand flailed in an attempt to scrabble across the snow. Slowly her movements became more sluggish, winding down to a sudden unimpressive stop. Her body lay motionless on the frozen ground. A few feet from where she lay was a small wooden figurine imbeded in the snow. All that could be seen was the hunched form of a crying woman, her tears the great dripping red of fresh blood.

***

[loner-kid]

Running foot steps echoed down the long chorridor, a frantic slap of leather sole on the rough stone floor. Huffing from the effort the small boy collapsed against the wooden wall. Behind him was the roar of burning wood, and the ever present heat of the twisting inferno. Despite the rolling flames the corridor was free of the dark cloying smoke that rose in the confines of a burning building. It was like this everytime, the boy thought as he lay panting for breath. The endless corridor and the racing flames, it appeared whenever he closed his eyes to sleep. A nightmare so real that it left him sweating in fear whenever he awoke. And every night he ran, fleeing from the fire till the faint rays of dawn draged him to safety.

A stream of fire dashed across the wall in front of him, he'd rested too long. Tearing himself from the wall the boy returned to his desperate flight. The fire racing along the walls beside him. His clothes slowly burning from the violent heat of the blaze. Desperation coursed through his body and he felt himself pull away from the dry heat of the fire. Ahead of him, far away, on the very cusps of his vision, was an opening. An exit. An escape from this burning hell. For the first time since this nightmare began, he could see a way out. A glimmering visage of hope or one who had never imagined a release from this ordeal. As he ran he could see the opening getting closer, the scent of grass, the sound of caroling birds, even feel the faint gust of wind against his face. And without even noticing it he stumbled out into the open air.

The boy lay in a what appeared to be a small garden, enclosed on all sides by simple wooden walls. The boy pulled himself to his feet and took a closer look around the cage like garden. It was mostly just empty space, dominated by one large pink blossoming tree that seemed strange to the boys ignorant young eyes. Under the protective shade of the delicate pink blossoms lay a small pool of water, hardly an inch thick with a tiled base easily seen through the miniscule depth of the pond. It was picturesque in the simplicity of its beauty, but the small boy didn't have long to admire the scene that lay before him.

Fire erupted from the corridor behind him, hurling the boy forward and coating him in a thin blanket of flames. He screamed out as the fire ate away at his flesh, and squirmed deperately on the floor trying to put out the burning rags that covered his body. Around him the walls of the garden burned a deep crimson, smoke, true oily black smoke, billowed from the strangly silent fire. It rose into the air, blotting out the sun in a whirling maelstrom of pure darkness. In the dusty light of the all consuming flames, the boy writhed in agony.

"You're pretty useless aren't you" The flames whispered "Can't escape us, can't even put us out" Screaming the boy dove for the small pond. He landed on the smooth tiles with a faint splash.

There was no hiss of dying flame, no cooling rush of icy water, just the ever present heat and pain. The boys eye widened in despair as he watched the submerged flames dance along his body. The whispered voices around him erupted in mocking laughter, the jeers and taunts of before increasing to a fervoured pitch that echoed inside the boys terrified mind. Slowly though the flames began to recede from his body, reluctantly parting from his tender flesh like children called home by zealous parents. They cascaded along the surface of the water merging together into a growing piller of flame that twisted and turned as if driven by some invisible force. The boy could only stare up in fearful wonder, the sudden bite of the icy water doing little to still his fear of the raging tornado of fire that lay before him.

From withim the flames came a brief, briliant pulse of light. As if in the centre of an explosion the walls of the burning piller erupted outwards. Large rolling flames decimating the fresh grass and hurling up great chunks of scorched earth into thee oily black darkness that lay over head. In the centre of where the whirling piller of fire had once stood was a gigantic pheonix burning with its own inner light. It hung, suspended in the air with only the heat of the rippling flames that made up its body as proof to its existance. Dangling from its slender neck was a strange bronze chest plate which sat comfortably against the birds breast. In the centre of the gleaming plate was a large tatered rune that seemed to smolder with a primal fury. For the first time since it had appeared the flaming pheonix moved, truely moved, its great head peering down at the boy who lay panting in the small pond. Slowly it opened its beak, a great voice booming from inside its throat.

"Well boy, we finally meet. Have you enjoyed your stay in my realm?" It said, glaring down at the small figure that lay below it. The boy could only stare back, his lips moving in silent terror. Was this what had caused his nightmares? This pure bird of golden flame, fearsome yet retaining its own majestic beauty. Glorius hawk like eyes projecting a calculating gaze that dripped with a humourless malice. "Have you guessed my name yet little one?" It chortled, its face pressed up close to the boys own, singeing his flesh as he sat paralyzed in fear. "He appears as a mighty bird wreathed in holy golden flame, the rune of destruction emblazened across his breast. Witin his wings lies the promise of the purifying flame to burn away the sins of the mind and body that reside within the human heart."

The boys trembling mouth began to move, silently tracing the letters that he was terrified of saying aloud. Unwilling, unable to say the name that had sprung from his feverish mind. As if the very action of saying it would cause it to be true. Finally, amidst gasps of stuttered speech, the boy forced the word from his dry and swollen throat.

"B-B-Be-Bel-Belrun." The god of fire smiled, his great beak bending impossibly to accomadate the unatural motion.

"Good, you're not a complete idiot." It paused, looking around at the surrounding flames. They were hazy, almost indistinct against the black smoke, as if they were fading away into nothingness. The pheonix waved a wing irritably causing the myriad of briliant flames to burst into renewed vigour, only to fade back to those strange hazy flames in mere seconds. "Hmph, we've almost run out of time. So let's give you a little parting gift to remember me by" It said, a spiraling orb of fire apearing in front of the birds large face. The orb descended, streaching out into a long slender slither that seemed to twist and curl like a creature awakening from a long sleep. Slowly it began to drift, coiling around the small boys arm like a snake constricting its prey. The boy looked down at his arm fearfully expecting a blinding stab of pain to burst from his ensnared limb. And yet there was no pain, just a strange tingling sensation that seemed to spread through his entire body. He blinked, caught off gaurd by the unexpectedly pleasent touch of the flame on his tender young skin. He looked up at the pheonix, a relieved smile spreadin easily over his youthful features. The smile froze. Agony exploaded from the boys arm, the serpentine flame searing into his flesh with the crackle of roasting meat. He screamed, one long gutteral note that sung out into the pervasive blackness of the oily smoke and died away in the distance. And all around him the world faded away to nothingness.
***