For the Forgotten: short story
Aug 28, 2012 19:56:06 GMT -6
Post by Bardiel on Aug 28, 2012 19:56:06 GMT -6
I started writing down some ideas for what happens to Bardiel when he first jumps into the abyss and it just kept getting longer and longer. It’s turned into something of a short story. Be warned, its every bit as disjointed as its protagonist so it doesn’t make a bunch of sense. I don’t know how but it sort of evolved into a love story at one point… so yeah it gets weird and rambly pretty fast. I wanted to post it in the For the Forgotten thread, but like I said before, it got pretty big. Anyway hope you guys enjoy.
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It felt light, empty and cold. That darkness beckoned, promising a sweet release. It was like watching the sun set on creation, whose light was giving way gently to a dark realm of dreams and sleep. That void would wrap him up and lift the weight from his chest.
The black was indescribable, perfect. So empty was its colour that the darkness appeared to be playing tricks with his eyes. It was as if the mind were struggling to conceptualize the not reality that its flawed senses failed to interpret. It was black nothing in its totality, the end of torment, the end of all things. It was simply ‘end’.
Like a page of paper drinking in the stain of black ink, a feeling of awe settled itself into Bardiel’s soul. An implacable sense of peace stole over him. Almost unconsciously he slowly raises a hand to touch the flawless, featureless surface of infinity. As his hand draws closer toward the border it appears as if his fingers stretch and twist, coiling like smoke rising into that dark horizon.
A phosphorescent pain explodes throughout the entirety of Bardiel’s being. His flesh is burning, cinders flare to life as his wings spasm, beating uncontrollably in every direction. The crucifix around his neck is a baleful star, turning black iron into molten blood as it burns through the Fallen’s breastplate. He feels like something within his core is about to snap as he’s torn between the inescapable pull of the Abyss and the fiery choke chain of the crucifix. He feels like he’s being ripped in half, that surely his mangled soul is about to break.
But then, in spite of the sun burning against his chest, ice crawls its way through his veins with razor claws and instead of breaking, something bends. And he’s falling again.
It had a hunger, an insatiable desire to be filled. A bleak longing for a cup, a bowl, a river, an ocean of love, but still it would not be enough to fill their hearts, hearts riddled with holes, draining sanity away, empty and empty. He watched as he began to unwind, body unravelling, unmaking his soul. Together they screamed for a miracle to come and complete them. Death would not give them what they needed to free his heart form her. Fly little angel, she did not speak, her tongue running up his neck, teasing him with gifts half remembered, that space directly behind your head where the it hides, let’s be the end together you and I. Still he fought, fought to escape, running from the name carved into his heart. Where are you now? He heard a voice speaking in the language of silence, felt the touch of that awful expanse. It tried to hold on to him but still the empty space was denied, even as she screamed; You’re abandoned! Try as that lonely voice might to bring him back into the deep forest of her embrace he faded away like a dieing song laughing madly through the passionless vacuum.
“So you hound me even here.” The stranger was concealed by darkness but there was no mistaking the velvet in those words, the words that lived now only in Bardiels memory. Fear gripped him, drove him forward in blind flight, toward the blade that would fell him, the brother that would curse him. These things he feared, but that was not what hurtled him through the skies, the mind destroying terror that sent him burning through heaven, crashing through earth, straight through hell and beyond. Still falling, even now.
He looks up through his greasy mass of hair and smiles, perfect golden lips pealing softy over shining pearly teeth.
“Stop it, just stop it.” She wraps her slender arms around her body as if to protect herself from those words. She trembled, and he remembered she was only a little thing. He didn’t want to make her cry. But when she looked down at him there were no tears in her deep dark, star filled eyes, only a quiet and helpless pain. “Why are you lying to me?”
He said nothing. It had all been said already.
“So you’re doing this thing to yourself because of them?” This time something did swim there, emotion bringing to life her alabaster features. She held them back. She let them die.
Kneeling in one graceful motion, with the sound of silk water running over skin, she extends a porcelain hand to tuck away his matted locks, but he jerks his head away, giggling maniacally.
“You were no martyr brother, please,” the ivory woman insists. “Mock me not.”
They are silent for a moment, and all is quiet. The silence stretches out to surround them, so complete that each is not even able to hear the others breathing. Then he opens his mouth, strangely lucid. He takes her delicate chin in one of his twistedly disfigured hands so that their eyes can meet.
Bardiel felt a twinge somewhere behind his eyes. They exploded into bloom like bloody, burning flowers. Black sludge erupted violently from the orifices of his face as it spiralled away into the void. His wings twisted and snapped and split, spitting splinters of bone to orbit him like a veil of knives. His body began to shrink into itself, contorting, limbs curling like some alien arachnid drowning in a toxic foam.
Bound to his withering form by chains of boiling blood, linked by tissue ripped from his own arteries, the crucifix looked down at him, its bleak light as apathetic and callous as the ultimate night that ultimately surrounded him, and entered him.
Are you insane? Her sightless eyes opened all over him, like blinking wounds. You can’t drag God down. Still he played amongst the mists of fantasy, the sound of madness trumpeting out the absurd, breathing into her an animalistic heart beat. The dieing embers of him were now hers to feel, he had no more fire, but somehow the promise of light was still there, the deadly promise of fuel waiting to burn, volatile, unstable, special.
Warmth came, a bizarre thing, a polluted light that sunk down deep into the ashen labyrinth of that dead place, lost yes, infinitely lost, a light for the forgotten, a light made more perverse by its tainted memory, now the shadows it cast festered in the abyss, horrid parodies of the darkness they once were. It knew it was not alone, it could feel her eyes looking in on its monstrous form, giving the creature shape. Giving the nightmare direction. A path toward the light.
Even as Bardiels lungs burst like balloons into shreds of meaty fabric the stoic radiance of the crucifix knitted him back together, he had no body, his body was destroyed. Lumps of flesh and feathers packed close together by the pressure of the abyss were all that remained bloated and bleeding like some wretched egg. Bardiel raised a hand to the membrane of his small world, the only thing between him and the end of all things. He pushed, hatching from the flesh egg in a shower of embryonic fluid.
He was all alone. Alone, her voice echoed. She came to him then, talking to him, watching him lie there before her. Singing gently, whispering dark secrets of despair. Please sleep, forever in your memory lonely with me, she sang. Like silken sheets of winter, the cold caressed over him, undressing his stress. Hiding the angel away, no he was gone again. Always looking for him, searching deep down in the sewers of that barren empire, even stepping tentatively out into the light where she would look longingly for him in the sky, wondering if the sun was crying for the son it lost, and if it did it must be in some sad, insignificant way. She did not care enough for him to cry, the darkness sung sweetly into his ears. Goodbye. Goodnight. Lost in her lullaby of lies, the darkness covering the maze of his thoughts, making the strange corridors perilous, the twisting winding path of his history, and the city of the Fallen’s dreams hugged tight by the shadows that pressed themselves eagerly against those streets, wantonly against his body, so coldly distant and remorseless.
The scar crossing his chest began to move. Something was within, gestating inside himself, gorging itself on his desires, inflating like a maggot gnawing on the fruit of his organs. Pearl like blisters began to appear in the unhealing flesh, they lengthened, growing into a forest of countless teeth, warping the bisecting wound into a pallid grimace of crooked blades. Like some gigantic quartered maw the jaws of the scar ripped open, cracking his ribcage. The God eater started devouring him alive.
Timidly it kneels, bringing his face close. It extends a black hand as substantial as smoke, the gesture a fragment from his own memories. The shadow leaned forward, a winged creature reflected in its dark mirror infecting the void with strange sensations. Carefully it brushes his lips, the caustic kiss painting them with a poisonous tar.
Is this you? She whispered again, together with him but alone. I’m alive he remembered, as he was before surrounded by the dammed. Your plan, the choir of mutes sang, it’s a pointless shot in the dark, it’s not fair, I’m lost, he thinks. But my God, my fear will be worth any price. To force feed them all this chaos, silent while they weep.
Consciousness slowly returns and for what feels like the fist time, Bardiel struggles to speak. To him in that empty place, it felt like they would be the first words that had ever been spoken ever. It would be the proclamation that brought the light of creation into existence, the syllables that dawned time and brought an end to the primordial night. Once he had spoken there would be no going back. A genesis for the voice itself. He wets his lips. And says;
“Tastes like rainbows.”
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It felt light, empty and cold. That darkness beckoned, promising a sweet release. It was like watching the sun set on creation, whose light was giving way gently to a dark realm of dreams and sleep. That void would wrap him up and lift the weight from his chest.
The black was indescribable, perfect. So empty was its colour that the darkness appeared to be playing tricks with his eyes. It was as if the mind were struggling to conceptualize the not reality that its flawed senses failed to interpret. It was black nothing in its totality, the end of torment, the end of all things. It was simply ‘end’.
Like a page of paper drinking in the stain of black ink, a feeling of awe settled itself into Bardiel’s soul. An implacable sense of peace stole over him. Almost unconsciously he slowly raises a hand to touch the flawless, featureless surface of infinity. As his hand draws closer toward the border it appears as if his fingers stretch and twist, coiling like smoke rising into that dark horizon.
A phosphorescent pain explodes throughout the entirety of Bardiel’s being. His flesh is burning, cinders flare to life as his wings spasm, beating uncontrollably in every direction. The crucifix around his neck is a baleful star, turning black iron into molten blood as it burns through the Fallen’s breastplate. He feels like something within his core is about to snap as he’s torn between the inescapable pull of the Abyss and the fiery choke chain of the crucifix. He feels like he’s being ripped in half, that surely his mangled soul is about to break.
But then, in spite of the sun burning against his chest, ice crawls its way through his veins with razor claws and instead of breaking, something bends. And he’s falling again.
It had a hunger, an insatiable desire to be filled. A bleak longing for a cup, a bowl, a river, an ocean of love, but still it would not be enough to fill their hearts, hearts riddled with holes, draining sanity away, empty and empty. He watched as he began to unwind, body unravelling, unmaking his soul. Together they screamed for a miracle to come and complete them. Death would not give them what they needed to free his heart form her. Fly little angel, she did not speak, her tongue running up his neck, teasing him with gifts half remembered, that space directly behind your head where the it hides, let’s be the end together you and I. Still he fought, fought to escape, running from the name carved into his heart. Where are you now? He heard a voice speaking in the language of silence, felt the touch of that awful expanse. It tried to hold on to him but still the empty space was denied, even as she screamed; You’re abandoned! Try as that lonely voice might to bring him back into the deep forest of her embrace he faded away like a dieing song laughing madly through the passionless vacuum.
“So you hound me even here.” The stranger was concealed by darkness but there was no mistaking the velvet in those words, the words that lived now only in Bardiels memory. Fear gripped him, drove him forward in blind flight, toward the blade that would fell him, the brother that would curse him. These things he feared, but that was not what hurtled him through the skies, the mind destroying terror that sent him burning through heaven, crashing through earth, straight through hell and beyond. Still falling, even now.
He looks up through his greasy mass of hair and smiles, perfect golden lips pealing softy over shining pearly teeth.
“Stop it, just stop it.” She wraps her slender arms around her body as if to protect herself from those words. She trembled, and he remembered she was only a little thing. He didn’t want to make her cry. But when she looked down at him there were no tears in her deep dark, star filled eyes, only a quiet and helpless pain. “Why are you lying to me?”
He said nothing. It had all been said already.
“So you’re doing this thing to yourself because of them?” This time something did swim there, emotion bringing to life her alabaster features. She held them back. She let them die.
Kneeling in one graceful motion, with the sound of silk water running over skin, she extends a porcelain hand to tuck away his matted locks, but he jerks his head away, giggling maniacally.
“You were no martyr brother, please,” the ivory woman insists. “Mock me not.”
They are silent for a moment, and all is quiet. The silence stretches out to surround them, so complete that each is not even able to hear the others breathing. Then he opens his mouth, strangely lucid. He takes her delicate chin in one of his twistedly disfigured hands so that their eyes can meet.
Bardiel felt a twinge somewhere behind his eyes. They exploded into bloom like bloody, burning flowers. Black sludge erupted violently from the orifices of his face as it spiralled away into the void. His wings twisted and snapped and split, spitting splinters of bone to orbit him like a veil of knives. His body began to shrink into itself, contorting, limbs curling like some alien arachnid drowning in a toxic foam.
Bound to his withering form by chains of boiling blood, linked by tissue ripped from his own arteries, the crucifix looked down at him, its bleak light as apathetic and callous as the ultimate night that ultimately surrounded him, and entered him.
Are you insane? Her sightless eyes opened all over him, like blinking wounds. You can’t drag God down. Still he played amongst the mists of fantasy, the sound of madness trumpeting out the absurd, breathing into her an animalistic heart beat. The dieing embers of him were now hers to feel, he had no more fire, but somehow the promise of light was still there, the deadly promise of fuel waiting to burn, volatile, unstable, special.
Warmth came, a bizarre thing, a polluted light that sunk down deep into the ashen labyrinth of that dead place, lost yes, infinitely lost, a light for the forgotten, a light made more perverse by its tainted memory, now the shadows it cast festered in the abyss, horrid parodies of the darkness they once were. It knew it was not alone, it could feel her eyes looking in on its monstrous form, giving the creature shape. Giving the nightmare direction. A path toward the light.
Even as Bardiels lungs burst like balloons into shreds of meaty fabric the stoic radiance of the crucifix knitted him back together, he had no body, his body was destroyed. Lumps of flesh and feathers packed close together by the pressure of the abyss were all that remained bloated and bleeding like some wretched egg. Bardiel raised a hand to the membrane of his small world, the only thing between him and the end of all things. He pushed, hatching from the flesh egg in a shower of embryonic fluid.
He was all alone. Alone, her voice echoed. She came to him then, talking to him, watching him lie there before her. Singing gently, whispering dark secrets of despair. Please sleep, forever in your memory lonely with me, she sang. Like silken sheets of winter, the cold caressed over him, undressing his stress. Hiding the angel away, no he was gone again. Always looking for him, searching deep down in the sewers of that barren empire, even stepping tentatively out into the light where she would look longingly for him in the sky, wondering if the sun was crying for the son it lost, and if it did it must be in some sad, insignificant way. She did not care enough for him to cry, the darkness sung sweetly into his ears. Goodbye. Goodnight. Lost in her lullaby of lies, the darkness covering the maze of his thoughts, making the strange corridors perilous, the twisting winding path of his history, and the city of the Fallen’s dreams hugged tight by the shadows that pressed themselves eagerly against those streets, wantonly against his body, so coldly distant and remorseless.
The scar crossing his chest began to move. Something was within, gestating inside himself, gorging itself on his desires, inflating like a maggot gnawing on the fruit of his organs. Pearl like blisters began to appear in the unhealing flesh, they lengthened, growing into a forest of countless teeth, warping the bisecting wound into a pallid grimace of crooked blades. Like some gigantic quartered maw the jaws of the scar ripped open, cracking his ribcage. The God eater started devouring him alive.
Timidly it kneels, bringing his face close. It extends a black hand as substantial as smoke, the gesture a fragment from his own memories. The shadow leaned forward, a winged creature reflected in its dark mirror infecting the void with strange sensations. Carefully it brushes his lips, the caustic kiss painting them with a poisonous tar.
Is this you? She whispered again, together with him but alone. I’m alive he remembered, as he was before surrounded by the dammed. Your plan, the choir of mutes sang, it’s a pointless shot in the dark, it’s not fair, I’m lost, he thinks. But my God, my fear will be worth any price. To force feed them all this chaos, silent while they weep.
Consciousness slowly returns and for what feels like the fist time, Bardiel struggles to speak. To him in that empty place, it felt like they would be the first words that had ever been spoken ever. It would be the proclamation that brought the light of creation into existence, the syllables that dawned time and brought an end to the primordial night. Once he had spoken there would be no going back. A genesis for the voice itself. He wets his lips. And says;
“Tastes like rainbows.”