Tears of Flame

Tears of Flame

In the darkness of the Void a young man spun. Whether it was head over heels, from side to side, or some other direction, he couldn't tell. His eyes had long since shut, so as to take shelter in the familiar darkness of his eyelids from the vast, unknowable pit he had somehow ended up within. Time seemed to march on endlessly here, or perhaps that was merely his own perception. He felt neither warmth nor chill. He had tried for what seemed to be years to remember- nothing in particular, just anything he could. He was a husk, a body without a soul, though perhaps that was a bit of a harsh way of putting it. The man knew only that he was himself, alone in the ever-reaching blackness. Shuddering, for the first time in his memory, the man began to cry; a noiseless cry, merely a tear leaking from his clamped eyelids, but crying nonetheless. The tear wound down his face, following the curve of his neck, past his bony shoulder, beyond one of the elbows curled around his legs, stopping finally on his hand. For the first time, the young man felt. The tear was something else, a beacon of joy in the emptiness. With slow, jerky movements, the man let his hands part and his knees extend. He raised his head, the long blonde hair from his head parting to the sides of his face. He raised his arm to where he assumed his eye level was, but then stopped. He was afraid of the emptiness. Within his mind, he was safe, nothing could hurt him, but out there.... there was Nothing. Fear creeping into his conscious, the thought of knowing true Nothing, the young man quickly started to curl back into his fetal spiral.

Then it happened. The tear shook off the man's hand.

In a panic, the man desperately reached out in every direction, trying to feel his way back to the tear. A little droplet, just a little, was all he needed. He grabbed and kicked and swung and punched, but to no avail. In this darkness, he would never find the tear again. The man felt the same emotions spring back into him, and suddenly realized he could just make another tear! He would treasure it always, and it him. The joy in his heart stopped his tear ducts cold- The man could not cry. The realization was too much for the man, and he could do nothing but let out a scream in despair. His eyes felt like they would water, but rather than do so they dried.

The man blinked.

For the first time in however long it had been, the man peered into the depths of the Void. It was soul-shattering, to experience true Nothingness firsthand.

But the man had stopped his wounded cry. The Void was not empty- he was there, and somehow, just inches from his face, glowing with its own light, hung the Tear. The man was shocked, to say the least. He forgot all about the emptiness around him, so enraptured he was by the glow the Tear produced. He looked at it from its pointed, curved top to its rounded base, and realized that the tear wasn't a liquid, as it had Felt, but a crystal of some kind. It was beautiful. The man put out his hands, cupping the shining gem, and pulled it to his heart, alone no more.

Within the darkness, a light slowly spread. It was a wonderful feeling, seeming to cradle the man in a warm embrace. The light was familiar, inviting. The man allowed it to take him, from the depths of Nothingness to wherever it would.
A child was born to the world on that day, a tear-shaped scar on his chest, his blue-green eyes wide open. The babe never uttered a single cry, but laughed. Some called the child an abomination, others a blessing. Parents were concerned as the boy grew from infancy, keeping their children from playing with the boy. Even so, the boy never lost the smile on his face. The boy grew into a strong young man- slim, but muscular. Many of the other children grew taller than the boy, but that didn't worry him- he knew that he was just as he was supposed to be.
On the his sixteenth birthday, the boy's smile finally left his face. On that day, band of warriors appeared near the village. The boy greeted them at the village gate, smile on his face- it was met with a club, knocking the boy out cold.

The boy awoke groggy, the world spinning before his eyes. He saw flashes of orange from on his back, the village he called home was set ablaze. Pillars of land plunged through the shops, the houses of his people, and through the people themselves. The boy could do nothing but stare in horror as the people he had loved unconditionally for all those past years were killed. Through the smoke and rubble, down what was left of the main road, the boy saw his father fighting the men in the town square, unfathomable fury in his eyes. At his feet lay the boy's mother, covered in blood, twitching. Wildly the boy's father swung his wooden sword at the men, trying to drive them back from his wife. Two men fell, then a third. The boy's father was a blur, his sword moving as if it were another limb. The sword, though merely a sharpened oak plank, hummed through the air with sounds of a proper metal saber.
The noise abruptly stopped. The father stopped moving. The men he was fighting were still, as if statues, and then disappeared in clouds of smoke. A large shadow materialized behind the boy's father, clad in a cloak darker than a starless night. It reached out a skeletal hand, plunging into the father's chest, piercing his heart, and exiting the other side. The boy rolled over, grabbing at the dirt, pulling himself forward, his happy blue-green eyes a deep crimson, and roared at the creature. Digging into the ground, the boy pushed downwards with all the force he could muster, propelling himself toward the beast. The creature turned at that moment, a look of confusion in its gray, glowing eyes. As his fist connected with the side of the creature's cheek, a gale swept up and blew the creature backwards into the town's clock, the boy's father in tow. Rising slowly and shaking the man's corpse from its hand, the creature cracked its hidden neck, dusting itself off. It rose in front of the raging boy, towering over him. It leaned down, slowly, pulling back the hood of its cloak. A blackened skull gaped at the boy. It let out a horrible scream, which chilled the boy's raging anger, forcing him to curl into a ball on the ground in fear. The boy had felt this fear before, though he couldn't remember where. All he could think about was that his parents had been killed, and that he would be next.

The creature's hand reached towards the boy's heart, piercing his back. The boy screamed in pain, as he felt the icy hand of Death grasp his frantically beating heart. He waited in agony for the beast to finish the deed, to end his suffering, but it never came. Instead, a small light glowed on the boy's breast, from the tear-shaped birthmark there. At the same time, the phantom let out another howl, this one in its own pain. It slowly was being pulled into the boy, body & all, and was trying desperately to avoid its inevitable fate. It raked its free claw against the boy's back, carving deep into his flesh, but still was being drawn into the boy. It tried grabbing at the boy's throat, his head, anywhere the creature could, but from that point on the attacks merely swept through the boy, as the water would to the air. With a final cry, the beast grabbed its own head, ripping it off from its body, throwing it far toward the horizon. The rest of its body disappeared into the boy- now bloody, afraid, and alone. The wounds the creature dealt to the boy slowly sealed, as if they'd never been there in the first place. All that remained on his back were eight marks where the creature had raked his claws into the boy's flesh. They scarred quickly, with searing pain, and soon blackened, as if roasted in an oven. A skull, dark as the eight marks, appeared at the base of the boy's neck, underneath the tattered remains of his tunic. The boy passed out, his ordeal finally at an end.

The boy awoke that evening in the square, smoldering buildings still smoking. A trader & his escorts had seen the smoke from the town and had come to help. The trader knelt down to the boy, propping his head on his lap and having him sip water from a skin. The boy tried to push himself up, but the trader stopped him, telling him to take it easy. Again, the boy pushed up, this time falling back on his own. The trader asked him, “What happened here? What is your name?” The boy stared blankly at the man for a moment, and with dry, sad eyes and a wavering voice, he spoke his name.

“Char. My name is Char Argyle.”

With that, the young man fell into a deep sleep.