Sanctus Espiritus - Prologue

Prologue  Ashes of Blood

The clock chimed blood.
         Coughing, I opened my eyes a crack.  The color of my vision was only hues of red.  Below me, I could feel a sticky warm puddle.  A metallic scent lingered in the air choking the lavender scent of the candles on the fireplace mantel.  Screams echoed in my head, they haunted me reminding me what I tried to forget.
         A blackened lump came into view and I squeezed my eyes shut.  I knew what I would find.  I could not acknowledge the truth.  Maybe these visions would scatter if I denied them.  However, the memories I could never erase.  My mother, father, sister and brother stared back at me accusingly because I had lived.

         Tears fell from my eyes, down my cheeks.  I stifled a cry in my throat.  It gurgled as I fought.  What if our attacker was still out there?
         Mother!  Her laughing face replaced by a marred corpse.  She screamed as she was disheveled.  Her cries went unheard as she was violated.  Eyes full of terror rested on me as she was taken from this world.  Father stared in blank horror as his head was severed from his body.  Molly!  My sweet, innocent sister, shot holding her teddy bear.  Aaron and I fought back.
         I cried begging the memories to fade.  They refused to listen.  Aaron roared as he emptied the shells into the attacker.  Even now, I hear my voice again cry his name as his neck was snapped flawlessly.  Rage blurred my vision as I charged.  With one swift move from the attacker, my legs were shattered and I crumpled.  I feel the blood seeping from my mouth, reliving every torturous pain. I longed to get up but something, a deep voice, told me to stay down.
         After I fell, my attacker fled back into his shield of darkness.  I bit down bitterly on my lip.  It wasn't fair.  I should have died too.  How many hours passed?  Why haven't I bled to death yet?  I could feel shattered glass embedding into my useless legs.  Still, it managed to hurt proving that not all my nerves had been damaged.  I whimpered.  The pain was unbearable both the physical and the mental.
         I took two deep breaths.  Gaining enough strength, I started dragging my broken body toward the door.  I knew now that I could not give in.  There had to be a reason I lived.  Debris and ashes swirled around me as I moved.  I lifted my head trying to find the door.
         Only a few panels of wood remained clinging to its feeble foundation.  Half of it was scattered around the floor where it flew when the door was kicked in.  While the rest of the wood lay somewhere discarded outside the front porch.  Above my head, I could hear the eerie creak of the chandelier and tried not to picture it falling and crushing my back.
         "I have...to get...police." I huffed choking on more blood.  There was no doubt in my mind that I had a crushed lung.  I wheezed but gritted my teeth.  I had to make it.  I could not give in.
         The distance between the door and me began to shrink.  But my strength was ebbing.  My arms and shoulders shook from carrying my useless bottom half.  Worse yet, I could feel my one good lung beginning to collapse.  Please body... I beg you... Do not fail me.
         Taking another pain-staking breath and biting back a scream, I regained a small amount of strength.  Forcing my protesting limbs, I proceeded to shorten the distance between freedom and me.  I didn't notice the sharp long piece of broken crystal until it was too late.  I screamed in agony as its sharp edge sunk into my fleshy, wounded chest.  It pierced my heart, causing me to collapse.  I writhed and twisted, rolling onto my back.  Grasping the warped crystal, I yanked it from the new wound.  Blood oozed from the flesh stealing my last precious ounce of energy.  I whimpered more tears fled from my eyes.  I had failed.  There was nothing left.  I was dying.
         Darkness blackened my eyelids.  Was it night?  Did my attacker come back to make sure he finished the job?  Did it matter any more?
         "Do you want to live?"
         That voice!  That same voice that told me not to move earlier.  But this time it wasn't in my head.  The deep voice was actually speaking to my ears.  I squinted up through cracked eyelids.  Though it was terribly dark, I could see the figure of a man.  He was not my attacker.  From what I could tell, he was bigger with more muscle definition whereas my attacker looked lanky.  That is, if my memory served me correctly and wasn't damaged with the rest of my body.
         "Do you want to live or not Zane Carpathia?  The choice is yours."
         How does he know my name?  More tears trailed downward.  The screams reverberated in my mind hammering me with guilt.  Visions of the massacre surfaced.  I choked on more blood.  Feelings I have never felt coiled in my stomach, ready to strike like the vipers they were.  Feelings of sadness, guilt, doubt and above all hatred.  Coiling and uncoiling in my body, a deep-seated rage engulfed me.  I hated the man who came in out of nowhere and slaughtered my family.  I loathed him.  Biting my lip, a single strand of blood fled from the cut.  I could feel his merciless eyes dancing with pleasure as he ripped my life from me. 
         Why?
         The rage welling up inside of me threatened to burst forth as a tiger.  My nails clawed the glass-strewn floor.  I longed to claw him to pieces, to show him the same heartlessness that he had given unto me.  The souls of my family cried out.  I could not let them down.
         Staring back at this man, I growled.  Whoever this man was, I knew I needed his help.  He was the only one who could help me.  I didn't understand.  Part of it scared me.  It was as if my soul knew that the moment I decided to go with this man, my life would change.  Why?  Questions flooded my numb brain but one thing remained perfectly clear.  It gnawed at me against my better judgment.  The man standing before me had all the answers I sought.  A fire lit my eyes.  I needed to live for those answers.
         Choking out more blood, I forced precious air to rattle against swollen vocal cords.  I squeaked and whimpered trying to form words.  The air fell.  I felt my throat closing.  My nerves fired signals but the fear never came.  It was as if my body was almost too dead to respond.  I knew, though I could not feel it, my body was shutting down and panic nipped at the edges of my brain. 
         I need to live.
         Closing my eyes, closing the fear and death out.  I summoned whatever I had left.  I gritted my teeth and forced another breath.  It hurt.  It burned.  A fire that would never quell engulfed my insides.  Another surge of energy welled up inside me.  I could not lose.  I could not let my enemy win.  I had to stand my ground.  When the air stroked my vocal cords, it whistled.  Now with my body completely numb I could not feel how much it hurt to speak.  I almost didn't know that I said a thing except I heard my whimper.  It sounded more pitiful and hardly anything human.
         "Yes."
         Once the word was released, I was swept into a calming darkness.