Child of Aspiria

Mournful, sorrow-filled eyes gazed up at her. Eyes a shade of gray, steadily trained onto hers, and framed by lashes charcoal black, so long, so full. He died, his beautiful eyes holding hers. He was a Child, but older than time; his eyes shadowed with life and maturity. Lips parted; ready to speak, to call out to her. A hand reached out, pleading, begging for her to grab hold and save him from the Abyss. Fingers curled to grasp hers, straining to find purchase.

Fingers tipped with claws.

Her own gasp of horror brought her to the world, the sane world of wakefulness, rubbing sweat from her pale forehead and trying to stop the terrified pounding of her heart.

“Please, oh, please. Not again. Not this again.” The pleading never worked, not this time, nor the times before. He came back, he always returned to continue his descent into the Abyss, always reaching for her as he fell.

She dropped into routine, a repeat of her own litany. “He’s not real—how could he be real?—wiped out thousands of years ago. He doesn’t exist. They’re dead. He’s just a dream, he isn’t real, just a dream.” She gulped in several deep breaths. “This is impossible!”

The last, always shouted, was her denial of him, of his need. Of his sorrowful eyes and the desperate reach of his hand. Her declaration that she wanted nothing to do with his helplessness.

She swung bare feet to the floor, lowered head into hands, tried to hold the sensibility in, her deep sigh echoing across the room. A cold shower soon followed, washing all the perspiration away, rinsed to be recycled and cleaned, so that she could bathe in it again. Later, silky soft garments sliding over her skin, and she slipped her arms into a coat, lifting a rainshield from the waiting rack, and closed the door behind her as she stepped out.

It was far too early to be up, too soon to see the day.

And so, down the steps curving to the main gate, she opened the door with a hand on the touchscreen. She lifted the rainshield above her head, unfolding it with the ease of habit, the small buzz of power audible as the blue field stretched above her coiled hair. The roar of the waterfall called to her this dark morning before sunrise, offering her a place of seclusion.

Seclusion was exactly what she wanted.

Her footsteps echoed down the walk, clicking in time to her heels. The perpetual patter of rain against the shield calmed her mind, wetting the tiles to a glimmering shine. Sedately, she paced down the wide staircase, down onto smooth tile of the canalfront, hands gripping the rainshield, white knuckles visible in the streetlight.

Following the flow of the canal, she glanced to the bottom of the machinemade-river and saw the ornate patterns glowing below the surface. Moving gingerly with each step, ignoring her own thoughts, she passed estates which remained beyond her sight, hidden, like hers, within their walls of ornate filigree.

She passed the doubts and terrors of her own mind.

The waterfall’s voice reached delicate and tiny ears, singing a song of hastening. The designs spiraling on the floor of the canal glowed even brighter as the waterfall neared, coalescing into a stunning array of silvery spirals and golden leaves that soon reached out of the water to sprawl below feet, teasingly rendered—coming together, then drifting apart, shifting with the mood of the wind—truly stunning designs that she hardly ever noticed.

She did, however, notice the roar.

Shielded from the spray of the falls by specially designed fields, she stepped up to the platform, looked down at the sheet of white water that misted up from its heavy fall off the cliff, and could hardly see anything over the mist. Down the long cliff, the water fell, tumbling down, slamming into smoothed rocks below, splashing tiny mist particles into the air. Rain added to the cascade, cycling from the estates above, down the cliff to the smaller manors below.

She leaned forward, slight weight shifted forward onto toes, bending into the tile. Looking down, straining down, tiny droplets of mist collecting on eyelashes and lips, cooling flushed skin, she simply gazed.

Her gaze caught his.

Perfect stillness in his face, lips barely parted to reveal a tiny hint of clenched teeth in a strong jaw line, then coming apart to call out to her. Points extended from temples, angular ears peeking from behind lifted locks of hair. Twin points swept back from his forehead, curving first in, then out, sharp horns. He fell; plunged into the Abyss, his eyes admonishing her, begging her to catch him.

His lips formed the words.

“No!” Voice cracking in the early dawn, sprawled on the wet tiles, water soaking into pristine garments, she sobbed the words out.

He even haunted her in the world of wakefulness.

The rainshield clattered down, then automatically folded up, glistening in the misting rain. Her knuckles rubbed into watering eyes, brushing away the fear he roused in her.

He who didn’t exist.

She wanted to be left alone, to simply live and not have to look back, not have to reflect, just exist. One day at a time, one hour after another. His death was none of her concern. She wanted none of this.

None of this.

Eyes brightened as realization dawned. Surely there were ways to banish such a being from her dreams. She simply needed to find out how.

Back up the canal, rainshield still abandoned on the wet tiles, clothes slicked against her body, she headed home. Hand on the touchscreen, registering skin patterns, then up the stairs and inside, water streaming from hair and garments, then into the library. Books lined every shelf, blocks of color and texture, nothing like the reassuring data discs of the modern library.

She found it there.

Its binding caked with dust and its page corners crumbling away at the slightest touch, she carried it to the ornate table dominating the center of the room. It fell open, unfurling to a page of colorful beauty.

A truly terrifying depiction.

Night-black blood seeped into the dark ground; fearful faces gaped up at their retribution. Smooth, gray tails curled to cover naked bodies, tufted at the tip with a plume of gray hair. Sweeping horns broken off to expose bloodied ends, claw-tipped hands held to the shining heavens in supplication, staring in horror at hell below. Their home, and the land of their creator, a tiny spark of blue and green, faded away on the corner of the page.

Their final battle, their final moments.

After that, there were no more Children of Aspiria left alive.

And yet, he was in her eyes every time she closed them.

Perusing over the page, slender fingers poised above the ancient ink, eyes squinting at the misty figures, she looked for a familiar sorrow-filled face. He wasn’t there. A release of breath, sighing at the relief, she lowered her trembling fingers onto the page—

Which immediately crumbled to dust.

The dust drifted across her hand, swirling up in a spiral above her face, a cloud of fine, gray matter. The spiral wove in and in, until all she could see was the dust, surrounding her, encasing her. A sharply drawn-in breath, and dust drew into nasal passages, smelling of water, dirt, trees, rocks.

Smelling of him.

She backed away from the scent, spinning around in this place of nothingness, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, other than this terrifying grayness. Coughs wracked her frail form as dust clogged her breath. “Not real.” An insistence to herself, her firm belief in the straight and true. “This isn’t real.” She lurched forward, suddenly graceless and panicked, breath coming in sharp gasps, hand thrown out to catch her balance.

Something caught that hand.

A piercing shriek and she pulled away, straining to escape from the firm grip over her delicate fingers. Unerringly, she was guided back, tugged through the dust, out into the open.

Out into the color.

Vast color, spreading out over all horizons, greeted her pigment-deprived eyes. Grass fading from pure sage to a startling azure, a sky magenta and bright as the ocherous sun, damask clouds sparkling. Gazing straight up in wonder, so stunning she even forgot of the hand encircling her own, she saw the color.

Her hand was squeezed gently.

Her startled gasp shattered the silence of this world, shattered her own wondrous calm. And he was there to greet her eyes. Exactly as she had seen him, gray, shimmering with an inner light, fingers tipped in claws, long gray hair broken by pointed ears and horns, smooth tail curving around his leg to end in a plume of fur, modesty kept with a black loincloth. and eyes the color of charcoal. Surely anything as dark as a Child of Aspiria could not survive in such a beautiful place. He shattered the color of this world.

He was a darkling in a world of radiance.

“Welcome to my homeland.” A soft, gentle rumble, a tender greeting, captivating her. Silence reigned for several moments as he studied this woman before him, his head slightly tilted to one side. Her gray eyes opened wide in shock and confusion, haunted with dreams untold, pale hair still dripping with water, dark clothes moderately dry in the sun, she stared. He waited for her voice.

It came, but slowly and rather haltingly. “This—this is your home?”

“Yes,” a smiled blossomed across his face, startling her with the life it brought to his sad eyes.

“Oh—um—where is this?” Very aware of the hand covering hers, his body temperature slightly lower and rather drier, she glanced down to see gray skin with claws.

“This is the Luminescent World,” the Child of Aspiria murmured, eyes flashing down at their joined hands. Reluctantly, he released his hold on her. She backed away from him, steeling herself against his darkness. Surely the corruption extended into his heart and beyond.

Unable to resist the temptation, she looked at the horizon; saw it broken by gentle hills, saw the setting sun to the east. Eyes widening at the sight, she stepped back and away, staring at the phenomena.

The Abyss.

It started at the skyline and drew in, utterly silent in all its unnatural strength. Radiating from the crack, whiteness spread, bleaching the countryside, extending in a distorted anti-shadow, leaching the Luminescent World of all its colorful beauty. The colorlessness spread, devouring the distance between the pair and the horizon, following the hushed advance of the rough crevice. A dark arm swept out in her vision, indicating the damage.

“The Abyss spreads,” his voice tingled with suppressed emotion, his arm trembled. Swallowing in a throat that ached, she turned to him, brows drawn together. His hand slowly curled into a fist, dropping to his side.

“What—what is it doing?” Her voice froze, pale hand reaching up to brush away a stray curl of hair.

He turned to face her, stepping forward to close the distance. Wet earth tingled in her nostrils. “It comes to consume.”

“Why?” Melodic voice caught, freezing her confusion into a single word. “Why does this matter?”

Horned head dipped down, dark hair falling forward, he secured her with his eyes. Tears glimmered in coal-black eyes. “Because this land is all that stands between your world and destruction. Because with the extinction of my people, your home will descend into chaos.” His gaze turned penetrating; he saw right through her. “Because I am the last of my kind.”

Scorn tinged in her voice. “So some unknown force will destroy this place just to kill you?” Surely, no single person could be that important.

His voice hardened. “No. You destroy our home.”

Her own pulse pounded in her ears. “Me? I have nothing to do with this. You’re the one who dragged me here.” She waived the blame onto him. “You all died thousands of years ago. This place doesn’t exist.” She enunciated each word clearly. “This Luminescent World, as you call it, isn’t here. This sky, this ground, even that Abyss—they don’t exist!” Triumphant, she grinned at him. “This is a dream. None of this is real.”

He backed away, claws digging into clean dirt, clear droplets glittering down his face. “Your own doubt clouds your judgment.”

A smirk lingered on her face as the Child spun on his heel and walked away from her, his shoulders a tense line, spine rigidly straight. Her triumph then dissolved into confusion as he continued his steady passage. “Where are you going?” Her voice squeaked shrilly. She then noticed that he walked toward the ever widening Abyss.

Toward death.

Unnatural silence reigned across the land.

The Abyss neared, whiteness spreading toward the Child of Aspiria. It opened up under his feet—

And he fell.

He fell, and he fell, and he fell, and all the while, she stood and watched. She watched the chaos begin.

She watched, doubts clouding her mind and stealing her judgment.

She watched.