This is the opening scene of The Raven of Dusk, and the only one that is still subject to change because, well, intros are tricky for me, and this one is a little on the long side. Please let me know what you think :)
'
The Raven of Dusk
Prologue: Raiden
This was the land that
time forgot.
The mist emitted through
the limbs of trees thickened the further Raiden tracked his father into the
untamed regions of the Malysai rain forest.
There were no more houses or people to be seen and the trees were
growing taller and left unkempt. The
branches and leaves smacked Raiden’s air shuttle like fanged demons trying to bite
through the glass. Without the shimmers from the forest lights
there was only Hela to guide his way, but Hela was descending and soon the moon
would claim the sky and make the mist glow ghostly in its light. He was thankful that he didn’t have much
further to go. Father and Hastings would
soon park and navigate the rest of the way on foot, and then Rexus Poloray
would find himself apprehended or dead.
Twin red beams in the
distance indicated that Father turned on the brake lights to his shuttle. The vehicle hovered to a stop nearly twenty
feet above the ground, and then lowered until the bottom rails kissed a
clearing of dirt. Raiden should have
been relieved that the driving portion was over, but he only grew more
nervous. They must have been getting
close.
Raiden dimmed his
headlights and floated in a sea of thick gray clouds. He wasn’t ready to let them know that he’d
followed them—especially after he’d been instructed not to. Raiden found another clearing about a thousand
feet from where they parked and quietly landed his air shuttle on a soft pile
of leaves. A pair of bushes beside Raiden’s shuttle emitted
a flurry of tiny green orbs, which fluttered up into the air and evaporated
like dying fireflies.
He ogled the gunblade
holster on his passenger seat. He didn’t
have any training with it beyond what Father had taught him back when he was a
boy, but he had not been a boy in quite some time. The happy memories of fencing with Father with
nothing but sticks and laughter would have to do.
Those memories faded
once the fear set in. He knew all too well what sorts
of primal creatures resided in the dark, deep echelons of the rain forest. Once he opened that shuttle door, there would
be no turning back. His only chances of
surviving would be to become one with the forest; to be just another creature
wandering about with the dark and the quiet as his two closest allies.
I can turn around.
I can leave and forget all about this and no one would know.
But then Raiden thought
of their conversation after breakfast.
It was all it took for Raiden to open the door of his air shuttle. He couldn’t let Father do this without
him—not when it involved Riles’ life. He
needed to keep his distance until they were too far into the woods to turn
back. Only then would Father allow him
to continue with him and Hastings.
There were shadows
swarming around his feet as the ground moved beneath him. The fowtow snakes must’ve made this
particular clearing one of their nests.
He couldn’t see their protruding spiky skin in the dark but he could
make out the directions in which they were slithering. As long as he avoided stepping on them they
would leave him alone.
He paid careful
attention to where he placed his feet as he navigated the forest floor. At one point a fowtow seemed to be slithering
toward him, but it wanted just as little trouble from him as he had wanted with
it. It took off in the other direction
and allowed Raiden to leave the clearing safely.
Father and Hastings
disappeared deeper into the District of Shadows somewhere up ahead. He speed-walked through the wildberry bushes
and the plants that exhaled orbs of yellow and white. Their flickering lightspaved his way. The tree leaves above were so thick that only
traces of Hela’s rays made it through them.
He reached Father’s
shuttle, but there was no telling how far ahead he and Hastings were. At least the alcove they’d parked in front of
made it clear as to where they were heading.
Between a set of trees as wide as palace walls were a pair of leaves
that were so large they must have weighed five pounds apiece. They bent toward one another and formed an
archway into another world.
Raiden crossed under them
and found that the angled trees no longer allowed the rays from above to seep through. The only lights were the flurries of orbs
dispersed by the plants around him, but they were evaporating quickly. Father and Hastings could have been within an
arm’s length and he might not have known it.
Something else could have been just as close.
Raiden withdrew his
gunblade just in case. The pistol itself
was less than half a foot in length, but when he thrust it forward a silver,
three-foot-long blade shot out of it. If
anything was looking for prey, he’d be ready for it.
He stepped forward into
the darkness, feeling the bristles of leaves tickle his ankles. The greens around him sighed and pale orbs of
chartreuse and white flecked a foot into the air. Somewhere from above the birds were chirping,
oblivious to anything that might have been below.
Raiden walked further
into the District of Shadows, so deep that he doubted that he could find his
way back to the shuttle on his own. Once
he ran into Father, he’d have to stay with him. It was too late to turn back.
His paces were slow and
steady. He tried to count them, but lost
track sometime after a hundred when the flutters of wings flew around the thick
leaves of trees somewhere to his left.
Raiden jumped into his battle stance with his gunblade in front of him
only to feel silly a second later. Of
all the things to fear in the forest, the birds weren’t among them.
Further and further he
traveled, wondering how much time had passed by, and hoping that Father and
Hastings were going in the same direction. According to the stories, the treetops blocked
out the skies above for days and days.
In reality it was probably no more than ten or fifteen miles in
circumference, but he didn’t map it out beforehand. Scouring the forest blindly, he felt stupid
for not planning ahead.
Another bird flew by and
shot through the treetops, revealing the fiery sky of an impending Hela set,
but did nothing to help him make out his surroundings.
The bushes in front of
him stirred. Whatever it was seemed much
larger than a bird. He strained his ears to
hear whatever it might have been. It was
moving left, then closer to him. He
heard the tiny branches snapping beneath feet, or paws, or claws.
“Stop right there.”
Whatever it was had
stopped fifteen or twenty feet in front of him.
He silenced his breathing to hear the grumbling of the creature within
range.
More orbs flecked into
the air in a V formation, but evaporated just as abruptly as they started. One of the orbs allowed him to catch a
glimpse of the deep purple fur of the creature before him.
Shit. Raiden
thought. Only a few creatures bore such
color, and of those few only one of them was native to the Malysai rain
forest. He was standing before a
behemoth, the king of the woods. Behemoths
were one of the many reasons why the District of Shadows remained uninhabited
by people. Adults grew to the size of
seven or eight feet; their claws were often stained red with dried blood. Its fur varied in shades of purple and royal
blue, and its eyes were as dark as a starless night. He heard many stories of rain forest hikers
making camp too close to the district.
The scent of humans was like a butcher’s cut of steak to behemoths. Even if their snarls were heard as they
slinked toward their prey, no human could outrun them. Those they tried were devoured, leaving
nothing but the remnants of their cracked bones as evidence that an attack had
ever happened at all.
If this behemoth wanted
to challenge him, he stood little chance of surviving.
He maintained his battle
stance, trying best to ignore his sweaty palms on the hilt of the
gunblade. The behemoth hadn’t moved
either, but he still heard its grunting as it dug its nails into the dirt
beneath its paws. It was preparing to
lunge at him.
“Away!” Raiden shouted in its direction. He shot a stun orb into the air a few feet
above where the behemoth was roughly standing.
The yellow orb flew north and evaporated into the leaves. The behemoth yelped, but stood its ground.
The yelp made Raiden’s ears perk.
He shot another stun orb just a little above where he assumed the
creature would be. As it grazed by,
Raiden saw the silhouette of a creature three, maybe four feet tall at
most. It was a behemoth for sure, but a
young one. The behemoth retracted its
claws from the dirt and started to back up.
“Away!” Raiden threatened. This time he fired a stun orb right at
it. The behemoth let out another yelp
and took off in the opposite direction.
The stun orb would’ve only temporarily paralyzed it, but the creature
didn’t know that. Raiden would’ve only
hurt it if he had to. After all it was
protecting its habitat, just as Raiden had set out to protect his own.
The stun orb crashed
into a tree stump a couple hundred feet ahead.
Raiden got a glimpse of another one next to it and cocked his head. It was unusual in this part of the forest to
see two stumps in such close proximity.
He quickened his pace and retracted his gunblade. The faster he could inspect the stumps, the
closer he might have been to catching up with the others. He also needed to put some distance between
him and the young behemoth. He didn’t
want to risk it revealing his location to its mother.
He approached the wooden
stumps and found that there were far more than just two. Before him was a whole line of platforms, and
they increased in height like a stairway in the middle of the forest. They went on for as far as he could see
(granted, that wasn't very far), and miniature plants exhaled more orbs to
light the way.
He hoisted himself onto
the first one, which was more than three feet off of the ground. The rest of the stumps weren’t as steep, but
he would have to jump onto them and hope that his strides were large
enough. The second stump was just a foot
higher and a few feet away. The one he
stood on was large enough for him to get a running start, so he backed up to
the edge and darted forward, leaping onto the second stump with ease and
sticking the landing.
The next several wooden
platforms proved to be just as easy to navigate. Eventually the tiny plants on the ends of the
stumps emitted orbs of light that revealed a path to the top. He jumped again, but too far this time and
gasped as his left heel barely grazed the stump's edge. He kicked off a pile of sludge that had been
amassing at the edge and watched as it broke into fragments of mud that
disappeared into a nothingness below. He
must have been more than twenty feet in the air and still had a long way to go.
I can do this… I
can do this.
Heights didn’t often
usually scare him, but he found not being able to see the ground terrifying. The darkness would swallow him whole if he
fell and his body would be lost to the Districts of Shadows forever. The thought made the jumps from stump to
stump no longer seem easy. He needed to
gather his courage again, so he closed his eyes and thought of the son he left
home with his mother; the son that Rexus Poloray had threatened to kill. The thought of losing him was far scarier
than any leap into the unknown could have been.
He leapt again. His breathing cut short as soon as he left
the safety of the stump. His legs pushed
through the still air and he felt the colors of the lights of the orbs in front
of him. And then felt the solid wood
beneath his feet. He opened his eyes and
sighed with relief. He was going to be
just fine.
The breeze briefly
reassembled the leaves and Raiden got a clear view of Hela through an opening
in the treetops. It was descending
quickly—much faster than he thought it would.
He could no longer be afraid of the unknown before him. There wasn’t enough time for that. He leapt again without worrying whether he’d
land on a stump or break his legs on the ground far below. And then he did it again, and again, and
again.
He must have been a
hundred feet in the air by the time he saw a stump that was only half-visible,
concealed behind a wall of emerald and crimson leaves. He stopped just before it. With a deep breath he sprang, plowing through
the wall of leaves before him, and landing on the stump on the other side.
Raiden got a glimpse of
his startled father somewhere in front of him, then nearly slipped forward and
over the edge of the stump. He put his
hands out to balance himself as the arches of his feet teetered on the corner
of the wooden platform.
“Ray!” Father exclaimed and bolted toward him.
Raiden could have sworn
he’d heard Hastings scoff, but he was too focused on maintaining his balance so
that he didn’t slip off the edge. He
waved his arms backward as a means of pushing more of his weight onto the stump. His heart raced wildly, but he knew he could
do it. He wasn’t about to fall to his
death before even seeing the man who threatened the life of his son.
Father rushed to the
edge of the crisscrossing tree limbs on which he and his partner had been
supported. Before he had a chance to
grab for his son with his large callused hands, Raiden placed all of his weight
on the balls of his feet and scooted backwards, safely on the stump.
“Phew,” Raiden sighed.
“Ray,” Father’s tone
switched from shock and worry to parental and foreboding. It reminded Raiden of the time he was caught
stealing chocolate-covered blueberries from a foreign vendor. He had been too young to recall why he had
done it, but he never forgot the look of shame engraved on Father’s face. It was a shade of disappointment that he
never wanted to see again. Father must
have known that, or else he wouldn’t be looking at him the same way this
time. “Ray, what in Noreis—”
“Don’t even, Dad,”
Raiden snarled. “I’m a father to Riles
just as you are a father to me. I
wouldn’t expect you to not take action if you got word that someone had
threatened my life, so you shouldn’t have done the same.”
Father’s gray eyes grew
morose. “I should never have told you.”
“Arias’,” Hastings said
with a scowl on his face and hands on his hips, “We still have a little way to
go.”
Hastings had been Father’s
partner in the Serenity Seekers for three years. Raiden wanted to like him, but the man always
seemed a little full of himself. He was
also far too close to Raiden's age to keep Raiden from thinking that Hastings
might have been the version of him that Father might have liked better. Father had always wished that Raiden had
joined the Seekers. It nearly broke his
heart the day Raiden revealed to him that he wanted to work as a tour guide for
the Tri-City Forest. Hearing about Father’s
missions with Hastings had caused Raiden to wonder if it had been the right
decision all those years ago.
“Father, this morning
you mentioned that Rexus was curious about the Transcendence Theory. What about it?”
Father exchanged glances
with Hastings and then his son. “Dusk of
the Eternal, Dawn of the First, Three and Three, the Second reveals the Third.”
Raiden blinked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Walk and talk, guys,”
Hastings grumbled as he turned from them and continued watching his footing as
he alternated between the tree limbs.
Hastings seemed numb to the sizable drop beneath them that could spell
death, were one to make a misstep and fall.
Raiden eyed the
crisscrossing limbs that his father and Hastings were standing on with
caution. They were two curiously large
platforms of wood that formed a double helix and traveled through another sheet
of leaves. He leapt onto one of them
with ease and found himself having to look up at Father yet again.
Raiden fell in line with
Father, who had begun to follow his partner when he finally answered his son’s
question. “That is what your mother told
me. As for what it means, I’m not sure
that even she knows. Either that or,
despite a thirty-year betrothal, she still doesn’t trust me.”
“You were only married
for eighteen of those years.”
“She will always be my wife.”
“Technically your
divorce made her your ex-wife.”
Father increased his
pace to catch up with his partner. “Say
what you will, son, but you were too young to fully understand the
circumstances surrounding our separation.”
“I wasn't too
young. She was too absent.” Raiden said while having a hard time keeping
up.
“Absent, yes, but that
woman will always be your mother. She
did what she thought was best for everyone.”
“She did what was best
for her.”
Father stopped
moving. Somewhere in the distance Hastings
had groaned, but it didn’t stop him from rushing ahead.
Raiden bit his tongue
and squinted. He knew what he was about
to be in for.
“Your mother is a
complicated woman. Do I believe in
everything that she did and the choices that she made? No, but I understand why she did it. You would have never met your wife if she
hadn’t, and you wouldn’t have that beautiful son to come home to. It was the right thing to do back then, just
as her telling me about Rexus was the right thing to do now. Let’s do what we came here to do and go back
home.”
At last Father had said
something he agreed with. Raiden
followed in his footsteps without saying another word as they walked forward
and jumped from one intersecting limb to the next, trudging deeper and deeper
into the dark side of the rain forest.
“The first clue is ‘Dusk
of the Eternal’,” Father said. “Your
mother explained that there’s a clearing somewhere in the depths of this forest
where the orbs emitted by the plant life have generated the same sequence for
thousands of years. Twice a year at the
time of dusk they reveal the collective image of the location to the ‘Dawn of
the First’.”
“Did she—” Raiden
stopped talking to hoist himself onto a limb that curved upward at a forty-five
degree angle. “Did she tell you what
‘Dawn of the First’ meant?”
“No, but she did say
that if we were unsuccessful here, the ‘Three and Three’ meant that the clues
are separated in an eternal sequence of three days, meaning that three days
from now at dawn the second clue would reveal itself.”
Raiden bobbed his
head. “And then ‘The Second reveals the
Third’ means that the second clue would lead us to a third clue?”
“It won’t come to
that. We’re putting an end to this
now. If we don’t, others may come to
learn of Rexus—or worse, about the Transcendence Theory.” Father had mentioned that not even the
Serenity Seekers could know about the theory, which would have baffled Raiden
if he didn’t already have so many other things on his mind.
Hastings had disappeared
through another wall of crimson leaves in front of them. Raiden hadn’t noticed until he emerged
through them. Even in the dark, Raiden
was able to make out the astonishment on Hastings’ face.
“Is that it in front of
us?” Father asked.
Hastings waited for them
to cross over the last set of limbs to reach him before saying anything. “I think so.
Galen, you should have a look.”
“All right then,” Father
said casually as he withdrew his gunblade and thrust forward a three foot
shimmering blue blade. The blade was at
beautiful as it was dangerous. To even
slide one’s fingers along the edge would make them bleed. Riles tried once. Father never withdrew it in front of him
again.
Hastings withdrew his as
well. Hastings' blade was as green as a
forest and, though not as bright and Father’s, it was just as deadly. Not wanting to waste another second, Hastings
muttered “It’ll be dusk soon” before trudging back through the wall of leaves.
Raiden grabbed for his
gunblade and thrust it forward, being extra-careful not to lose his footing and
slip over the edge as he did so. The
dull silver of his blade didn’t capture the light like his father’s, but rather
seemed to fit it with the darkness surrounding them.
Father grimaced at the
sight of his son’s gunblade. Raiden saw
his desire to protest him following them through the crimson leaves, but he was
left with no time to dissuade Raiden from going. He resigned to saying, “Just stay behind me
and you’ll be safe.”
Raiden obeyed and kept
five paces behind Father. The two
followed Hastings through the wall of leaves ahead. Right away he had to adjust his eyes. Before them were more tree limbs that served
as walkways that formed a near-perfect circle four hundred feet in
diameter. The limbs seemed to spiral down
all the way to the ground and continue up as high as the treetops, which was
only letting the slightest hint of Hela in.
The glimmering orbs in
front of them demanded his attention.
The ground must have been littered with thousands of bushes because
there were literally millions of lights flickering up towards him. Unlike the lights along the tree stumps,
these orbs were all shades of greens and blues and reds and every other hue
along the color spectrum that he could imagine.
It was so blindingly bright that he found himself momentarily distracted
from the fact that Rexus would soon be there as well, if he wasn’t already.
Raiden tried to make out
designs in the lights as the floated up towards the treetops. Father had mentioned that they’d be
sequential, but if there was a pattern that they were meant to reveal, he
hadn’t seen it yet. He wondered what it
would portray when Hela finally set. It
had to have been on the verge.
Father pointed
upward. “Let’s head to the
treetops. We’ll get the best view there
and a good vantage point on Rexus.”
As soon as his father
mentioned Rexus, Raiden returned his focus to the mission at hand. The orbs were pretty, but they were there to
stop someone who had threatened his son’s life.
Father was right. It’d be easier
for them to see Rexus from up above and, if they got a clear shot at him from
there, Raiden couldn’t hesitate to take it.
Hastings turned toward
where the tree limbs were spiraling upward and led the way again. Father followed right behind him and Raiden
remained in the back. Raiden tried to
focus on his footing, but was more concerned with keeping an eye out on what
was going on behind him. If Rexus were
to show up from below, he would be the easiest target.
He eyed the entrance to
the clearing as they traveled up fifty feet, and then a hundred more. Rexus could slink through the leaves at any
moment. The thought distracted Raiden
from being scared of how high up they were.
He was as weary about what was happening above him as he had been about
what could’ve been happening below. At
any moment they’d—
“There,” Father pointed
toward the center of the room where the bushes emitted a new sequence of orbs
that shot up toward the treetops. The
orbs swirled like rotating pixels. Each
floated upward at a different pace and came closer and closer together. The three stopped climbing to see what was
rapidly approaching them from below. The
orbs in this sequence were mostly earth tones.
There were still traces of vibrancy, but colors were predominantly
shades of blue, brown, and green. The
closer they fluttered together, the more of an image they began to reveal. And then, for the slightest of seconds, all of
the orbs came together in perfect unison to form a quick, clear image. It was of the portrayal of a landscape from a
time long ago; there were six rivers that criss-crossed one another, at one
point almost forming a perfect hexagon.
Along the edges of them were plains and hills, while the center of the
image was of a ground covered in shimmering blue and silver crystals. Amongst all of them, there was one in the
very center that seemed to shine the brightest.
Amidst what must have been several million orbs, the cluster of that
hundred or so was what caught Raiden’s attention the most. Before he had time to think about what he just
witnessed, the orbs parted and continued swirling upwards at different speeds,
and finally faded before hitting the treetops.
“That was Kalia,” Father
said. “Not as we know it today, but what
it looked like then.”
“That cluster in the
center,” Raiden muttered.
“I saw it too,” Father said.
On the other side of
Father, Hastings sighed. “If that was
the clue, then Rexus missed it.”
Raiden felt the blood
rush to his face. “Unless he’s already
here.”
The three stalled in an
eerie silence. None of them said
anything for a second. Another cluster
of orbs was beginning to form below.
This time they were bright and in shades of orange, yellow, and red. They flickered upward and engulfed the three
men in their blazing bright hues.
Crack!
Hastings clutched his
chest as a flurry of flames shot up from it.
“Ackkk!” He screamed in agony,
but before he could do anything he was engulfed in a fire that could’ve have
come from the orbs.
“Hastings!” Father exclaimed. He attempted to pat the flames off of his
partner, but when Raiden got a glimpse of Hastings’ wide-eyed look of pure
horror, they both knew that it was too late.
Hastings fell from the limbs, completely devoured in flames and
vanishing through the next cluster of orbs.
Crack!
A ball of fire cruised
through the flame-colored orbs and headed toward Father. Before Raiden could get a word out, Father
flung his blade forward and sliced it in half, disintegrating it.
As the orbs passed,
Raiden got a look at a man with dark hair and blaring eyes from across the
clearing. Even from a distance he could
tell that this man was about the size of Father—if not larger. Rexus wore a tattered sepia-colored coat that
swayed around his feet. He held his
blood-colored gunblade in their direction and shot another fireball from the
pistol’s mouth.
“Ray—duck!” Father yelled.
Raiden knelt down as
quickly as he could as a ball of fire sailed overhead and slammed into the
leaves behind him. If they were anywhere
else in the world the leaves would've gone ablaze, but the trees of the forest
had long ago coated themselves with a watery sap that made them fireproof. The whole world could go up in flames and the
Malysai rain forest would remain intact.
Father bolted around the
semicircle of limbs in the direction of Rexus. Rexus rushed toward him with graceful, wide
strides. Both men had their gunblades
outstretched and met in the middle of the clearing to engage in a flurry of
blows. Flashes of red swirled all around
Rexus, but Father was just as fast.
Father's shimmering blue blade met every one of Rexus’ attacks and
countered them.
Father’s eyes were wide
and desperate as he gripped his blade and Raiden knew immediately that Father
was too weary of his presence.
I shouldn’t have come.
He’s nervous. I’m a distraction.
Another series of red,
orange and yellow orbs floated towards the treetops. The colors surrounding the men made them
appear as if they were two harrowing flames lashing out at one another. Rexus hit the blade with a loud clang but nearly lost his footing when
he stood astride the limbs of the helix.
Father started swinging at Rexus, coming down on him with heavy, powerful
blows.
Come on, Father.
Come on!
Raiden blinked with
surprise at how fast Father was. Each
swing was graceful and lacked hesitation.
He had planned his attacks four or five slashes ahead of time. He was a giant and his blade was a sharp
extension of his arm, pummeling Rexus with blow after mighty blow.
Father swung again, but
this time Rexus used his might to slam into it with his red blade and Father
had to jump back. Rexus swung at Father
furiously. His blade resembled a blood-colored
viper and struck at Father with a hissing metal tongue. Father’s blue blade hurdled through the sea
of flames to block Rexus, but then he backed up again and kept an eye on the
awkward L-shaped walkway behind him.
Raiden clutched his
gunblade and ran forward through the clusters of orbs surrounding him. He broke through the patterns and images they
portrayed as if he was bursting through canvasses of artwork. The orbs flecked away, giving him a clear view
of Rexus and his viper-tongued blade. He
pointed his gublade toward Rexus and started shooting balls of fire through the
plethora of orbs in his direction.
Rexus blocked Father’s
blows and then spun backward to dodge Raiden’s attacks with ease. He side-stepped past one fireball, and then
sliced two more in half without breaking his stride.
Father flung his blade
at Rexus, who blocked it and then both twisted their blades downward. Rexus pushed down on Father's gunblade and
drove it deep into the wood. As the two
leaned toward the ground, Raiden rushed them.
He leapt diagonally across the L-shaped limbs and landed directly behind
the man who threatened his son and fought his father.
Rexus flung his blade
upwards and swung at Raiden before he could strike. Raiden gasped as the viper’s tongue went to
slice through him and blocked it with his dull silver blade. Rexus’ blow felt like it’d come from a
monster, not a man.
“Ray!” Father yelled as he shook his gunblade free
from the wooden limb below.
Rexus swung hard at
Raiden again and again. Raiden felt as
if he was being attacked with a wall of cement and continued to back up. He struggled to stay on his feet as the limbs
twisted and curved behind him.
Father prepared to
attack Rexus from behind, but Rexus was ready for it and jumped high into the
air and well over Raiden’s head, leaving Father to swipe at nothing. Rexus landed behind Raiden and kicked him in
the small of his back. Raiden felt the
pain course through his vertebrae and fell forward, tripping over a small
branch. He lost his footing and stumbled
forward over the edge. He couldn’t
maintain his balance and plummeted toward the ground and the swirls of colors
covering it. As he dropped, he felt a
strong hand grasping at his leg.
Raiden gasped as he
watched his gunblade fall into the glowing abyss below. He dangled upside down for second and heard
Father’s voice.
“Raiden!”
Raiden contorted his
body to get a glimpse Father who was clutching his son's leg. In that moment, he saw Galen Arias look
helpless for the first time in his life.
He never thought he would see that expression on the man that walked him
through every step of his life. Father’s
eyes were bulging and his mouth was wide open, but he was too horrified to
utter a sound.
Rexus stood over Father like
an executioner over a man with his head in a guillotine. He plunged his gunblade through Father’s chest
with ease and without hesitation. Before
Raiden could scream he felt Father’s grip give way and he went freefalling down
through the millions of orbs. The little
lights floated upward, concealing the small openings through which the sky
could be seen.
There was a groaning
sound. It came from him, though he
didn’t know how it was possible. He
looked around at the orbs that were still floating towards the treetops. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, much
less how he had managed to survive a three-hundred-foot fall. He started to move and felt the pillows of
leaves give way, dropping him another two or three feet onto the hard surface
below.
The plants and bushes
below must have been so thick that they broke his fall. It was a struggle to see with the
overwhelming bright lights surrounding him, but he didn’t feel like he was in a
lot of pain. Nothing felt broken, and nothing
was numb.
Raiden rolled over and
got to his feet. He dusted off his
maroon-colored shirt and checked for scrapes and scratches. Besides having a few cuts on his forearms, he
looked astoundingly fine.
“Father!” He gasped.
He rushed toward the
edges of the clearing and quickly found a series of tree trunks that,
collectively, had a series of tree limbs that joined with others and
intertwined. Raiden hugged the tree with
the limbs that were closest to the ground and began hoisting himself up,
grabbing at whatever small limbs and branches he could find along the way. His forearm started to bleed, but he ignored
the pain. He had to get back to where
Father was as quickly as he could. He
needed to know if he was still alive.
He wrapped his arm
around closest tree limb that started up the walkway and balanced his body
until he was able to comfortably push himself onto it. He rested for a second, then got to his
feet. The limbs grew wider and more
stable the higher up they went. He
started to run up them. The pounding of
his feet echoed in the clearing as the orbs in the center flickered upwards
with more vibrant colors and designs. He
made one full rotation around the spiral, then another, and a third. He was losing his breath, but he didn’t care.
He caught a glimpse of
Father’s shimmering blue gunblade from across the way and the shadows of a body
with a hand dangling over the edge.
“No…”
Everything fell silent. He didn’t hear his footsteps as he ran toward
the motionless figure. He couldn’t feel
himself breathe. All he could think of
was Father’s helpless expression as he held Raiden by his leg.
He reached Father and
rolled his lifeless body over. There was
a blood stain on his chest where Rexus had stabbed him through the heart and
for a moment all Raiden could think about was one of the last things father
said to him. Stay behind me and
you’ll be safe.
This is my fault. This is my doing. I should have stayed behind. It would have been Rexus lying here, dead,
not you…
His vision become blurry
amidst a sea of tears. He no longer knew
what to do, or even how to get back to his shuttle. He was completely lost, like a young child
who had lost the grip of a mother’s hand amidst a roaring crowd. He hadn’t known a life without Father. They had always been together. He was the constant. He was supposed to always be the
constant. But now....
The lights were
reflected off of Father’s gunblade, drawing Raiden’s attention from Father to
it. He thought about it for second, and
then knew what he had to do. Father had
always protected him, but now he needed to care for his own. He grabbed Father’s gunblade, retracted it,
and placed it in his holster.
“No one threatens my son
and lives,” Raiden told himself through his lips dampened with the streams of
tears. “No one…”
