Fallen: Prologue-Chapter Three

Prologue: 1

Rose of the Dark2

In the dark, all alone. A miserable rose, petals bloodied with the fall of death. Fallen into shadows, heart in turn shadowed with the despair of her fall. Fallen as the tiny pinpricks of needles raining against her skin in a brutal shower caressed tender flesh in a silent whisper of death. The only greeting you could get when you took that fall. She was a pallid rose, bloodied hands grasping the fading memories of once unstained naiveté. 3

And as she cried, the darkness of the world became like the maw of some beast closing in on her, a pool of nothingness, a deep realm of despair. She fell, and yet it seemed she had fallen as deep as anyone could go. Dead, and yet she mocked life as she lived. This was the Other Side, and yet she was not ready for it. Not ready for it as otherworldly as she seemed, cowering in the shadows, a miserable rose who had shed light and life the opportunity of taking the fall.4

Soft gray eyes stared into the darkness of the sky, glazed. Fragile and almost lifeless, immobile as hail caressed her skin in a loving grasp of ice-cold anguish. She reveled in it; Rose reveled in the sheer perfection, in the heavenly bliss, of the agony. At her throat rose soft moans of pain, and yet she understood all too well; this was what she deserved.5

Hers was the life of a rose who had become too bloodied to live, of one who must die, and yet was so bloodied and sinful even the Other Side had closed its gates to her. So hers would be the life of eternal agony, of wallowing in the pain and the disgraceful guilt of the sin she had ruthlessly committed. Fallen through the shadows of the Other Side, drinking in like precious liquid the few tantalizing glimpses that passed before her eyes in a brief flicker of light.6

Then, the Other Side closed. The Other Side, where those not fit for the Far Beyond would go, had decided even the Other Side was too much of a reward for her. She would be one of the Rejected, souls wandering the world, throwing their shadow of anguish wherever they walk.7

Enclosed in ebony darkness; part of the world and yet not part of it. Souls that lived, breathed, ate, and yet could not die nor sleep. Forever wallowing in the pain, they watched the world from half-closed eyes, sometimes aware of what they were doing with hands that had once been unstained, other times merely closing their eyes and doing what the Keeper of the Other Side told them to do.  8

Once of the light, now of the dark. A rose, doomed. Eternally doomed to the miserable, undying existence of the Rejected.9

~~10

Chapter One:11

Dreams of Rose &12

Autumn Winds13

Soft gray eyes flickered in the distance. Five nights those eyes had watched Sakia; five nights from the shadows, a soft whispering of dark forebode drifting through the half-open window. Crisp leaves had fallen from the autumn-colored trees, now turning the pallid gray of winter. She could see them now, those soft gray eyes; she felt the eternal anguish, the extreme guilt, even from the darkness, the ebony darkness, of the shadows.14

The night sky was an indigo blanket draped across the world, bathed in shadows. The autumn wind stirred the leaves with its gentle rustle, causing ancient trees to creak and moan as they swayed in a soft motion, making the shadows do a dance. The blanket draped over her knees was a sparse covering in the frigid breath of fear those gray eyes wove around her. Fear for what she did not know; fear for what she knew might be the truth.15

Sakia let out soft, nervous laughter stray into the wind. The dark whisperings of forebode was almost music to her ear. The autumn winds were a caressing feeling, and as they beat against her skin in an eerie tattoo, she could almost feel her body stop shivering. There was always something almost otherworldly about autumn winds; always something hinting of the Far Beyond and the Other Side, mingled in the intricate dance of life. At least, it was sometimes like that.16

Other times, the wind pricked her skin like infinite pins against soft, tender flesh; pricked in a painful motion that sent fiery pain flooding through her body. Sakia relished how they both felt; the eerie tattoo of the wind like a warm hug, and the pain so fiery and yet so oddly blissful. To people, Sakia was already considered one of the Rejected; the pitying stares they threw at her, so full of warmth and emotion and yet somehow cold seeming to send shivers of fear down her spine.17

The stories of the Rejected were etched into her mind; fear of them had been taught to her as it had been taught to all of the other children when they had been little. Once, Sakia and a few friends, playing and joking around on All Hallow’s Eve, had pretended to be some of the Rejected haunting the forests, and though no one had ever figured out there were really no Rejected near them, the mayor’s sort of knowing glance sometimes made her guilty. But still, she feared them.18

The Rejected haunted her nightmares; some, mass-murderers, others, traitors to their own kind who had ruthlessly traded in thousands of lives for their freedom. Now, most either got to the Far Beyond or the Other Side. The last Rejected had been a fragile, pallid young girl, Rose; eyes so soft and gray they seemed beautiful, and yet her mother, still alive, claimed to have always seen something in them that hinted of the Rejected.19

It was funny, though. Funny how you could have loved somebody unconditionally during one lifetime and tossed them aside whenever they were proclaimed Rejected. Funny how you could pretend to love someone and do so much evil that you ought to be a Rejected, and yet were allowed in the heavenly euphoria of the Far Beyond.20

Sakia closed her eyes; those horrid eyes! Those horrid, horrid gray eyes! Now they were gleaming with a wicked sort of grin, and then they held an innocence that made the wicked grin disappear. They flickered between emotions so fast and in such a deceiving manner that Sakia could hear a silent whisper on the wind, on the gentle embrace of the autumn wind, that proclaimed the person a Rejected.21

With her eyes closed, Sakia slipped into a nightmarish daydream; those awful, traitorous soft gray eyes meeting her at every corner, belonging to a shadowy form. Sometimes, the Rejected tried to talk, to whisper…and other times it just moaned softly, and that moan, indiscernible, seemed to hold anguish and guilt. Anguish and guilt and a bloodthirsty hunger for vengeance.22

The same soft gray eyes, bitter and hard, now, gleamed unblinkingly, ceaselessly, from the shadows. And, at that moment, she saw something flicker in her vision; an emotionless, almost lifeless body perched at the edge of the river Ryl, soft gray eyes staring bleakly at the soft, shimmering patterns the sunlight played across the rippling silvery liquid. And she could see the same girl, at the same time and yet at a time not part of anything, could see the girl as she fell through the nothingness, motionless and yet rapid. Could see the flicker in the eyes, a blur of brief images. 23

As soon as the image had come, it had faded. She was in that dark, dark, dark corridor, watched by those horrid eyes…now, though, they were so pleading…so innocent…so…kind. And the shadowy form was not so obscure or enigmatic as it had been.24

‘Help…’ it strayed into the silence. Strayed into the silence, and yet was not lost. Forever, the plaintive cry echoed vaguely in the back of her mind, and she carried the daydream with her, always playing in the back of her mind…fallen…fallen even beyond the Other Side. Rose.25

The soft sun at first seemed to erase the dream; creamy curtains drifted in the autumn wind, and this time, this time it was silent. Not frigid, not comforting, not painful. Silent. Then, the silent slipped as she recalled the eyes. The eyes, the horrid eyes, and then the same eyes, and yet somehow different. The soft word, so plaintive, so full of anguish and grief, echoed in the silence, seeming to rise on the frigid wind that had started to shriek. Started to shriek, and started to whisper foreboding secrets.26

For a time, Sakia stood there, the images flickering before her eyes, vivid. Murky, though; murky, for the sunlight made the terror feel vague and unrealistic. A mockery, almost, to the melancholy horror of the dream. Then, she felt emptiness. Just…nothing.27

The soft creak of stairs passed unnoticed, but as a soft shadow slipped through the doorway, the emptiness dissipated. Dissipated and was replaced by terror. For a brief second, she could see those eyes again; those horrid, haunting, plaintive, deceiving, melancholy eyes of Rose, of the Rejected Rose, and yet the illusion slipped. Only her mother…only her mother. The soft whisper of relief drifted into the shrieking autumn winds.28

~29

Chapter Two:30

Echoes31

The multi-colored, crisp autumn leaves crunched silently under her lightly booted feet, a soft cloud of dust trailing into the sky. Sakia could run and run, just listening to the silent monotony of the crunching and the stirring of the wind and the silence and the trees and the soft lullaby of the wind…could lose herself in the noise and the silence of it all. It was soft and comforting for her; she could forget the haunting of last night in the perfection of this morning.32

The soft  melody of the drums, a smooth, rhythmic beat, and the gentle flickering of the candlelight, filled her with hope. The haunting would soon become nothing but a memory; its last, ebony traces and the terror would leave her; she would be left with the faint remnants of the memory. And it would be nothing but that. Nothing but that.33

She put on a last burst of speed, world spinning. Spinning…spinning…stumbling twice on her knees, she let out a soft hiss of impatience. Fallen like Rose through the shadows…except on my knees…weak…fallen…34

“Stop it!” Sakia hissed in irritation at her weakness…hissed. So weak…so weak…Fallen…Rose…fallen…me, soon…fallen…help…fallen…echoing…cries…fallen…35

Sakia felt the curious eyes of a young girl following her as she stood on her knees in the center of the path, the sun tracing patterns across her flesh. The Mother held her daughter’s hand sharply, urgently, and began to drag her away.36

“W-w-we’re haunted…” Stammering, Sakia fell silent, listening to the mother’s uncertain laughter. Though, the eyes now betrayed a look of worried concern.37

“Are you all right, girl? ‘Tis gibberish about the Rejected, you know, a mere story told to frighten everyone into trying to be as good as they can. I don’t suppose the Other Side exists either; only the Far Beyond, and every soul shall go there as they die.”  Her voice echoed doubt, though. Echoed doubt and uncertainty, for she lived with the foolish hope that it was lie. It wasn’t, though; everyone knew that, though some chose to pretend it wasn’t true.38

“I am perfectly okay!” Sakia snapped, biting her lip. The world was spinning around her; spinning as she knelt there in the middle of the path, echoes of the dream flooding her; echoes of Rose’s pleading voice rising to an intolerable squeal in the silence of her mind. 39

And all the while, Sakia could feel those deceiving, haunting, melancholy eyes, those soft gray eyes boring a whole into her; etching a path through her very being, leaving its traces on her heart. She was scarred; scarred, but not with fear, or any other emotion. Scarred, for the Rejected Rose had claimed her.40

“Rose…I-I…saw her…” Sakia glanced up, her ice-blue eyes so full of certainty that the woman let out a sharp gasp, clutching her daughter’s hand frantically.41

“The Great Keeper help us!” Whirling around, the lady scampered away, shooting Sakia wary glances, scooping her daughter into her arms as she went.42

Sakia listened to the echoing of the lady’s footsteps, ringing in her head as she watched the world spin ‘round and ‘round…43

The flickering of light burned her eyelids…44

Something underneath her was damp.45

She could hardly move, lips stumbling softly…46

Lips moving softly in a moaning whisper.47

‘K-keeper help…fallen…G-great K-k-keeper…’48

Through heavy, blurry eyelids, she saw someone…49

Shadowy, moving…moving…50

Groggy, though, Sakia could not move…51

Could not move and only watched…52

Watched as gray eyes stared deep into her soul…53

Watched as gray eyes cast their last, plaintive melancholy glance at her before shimmering…shimmering into nothingness, into shadows. Sakia was kneeling, again, though this time the lady was still in front of her, and the young girl was watching her with the same curious eyes, and the mother was beginning to act as if she was a madwoman…54

Sakia tried to speak…tried and could not say anything other than a soft oath as she whirled on her heels in a mad dash toward the temple, a hazy blur on the distant horizon.55

“She is mad, Nyatu! Mad! Why would you consider what she has to say? I saw her today, just before she came to you, Nyatu. She is mad! Stark raving mad!” The woman’s eyes held concern for her child, but there was also a sudden, burning fire of hatred. Hatred so strong that Nyatu shivered before remembering his duty.56

“That may be, ma’am, that may be, but ‘tis my duty to at least consider anyone’s claim. ‘Tis too serious to disregard her, though mad she may be…” In the dim glow of candlelight, his face was etched with lines of worry. Sakia’s words had seem the words of a frightened young lady, torn between doubt and surety; torn between hatred and love. A Rejected…and yet she came in fear of the Rejected, claiming to have seen one, to have been visited in a dream by one in a plea for help…it made no sense.57

“Nyatu, you are a fool! As much a fool as that…madwoman!” The withering glare of hard brown eyes stung him as he watched her, unable to do anything, as she grabbed her child roughly, jerking her toward the entrance…58

“Stay way from that girl, little Lekki. Stay away from her…”59

Nyatu sighed, softly. The drums still beat their eerie tattoo; so smooth, so soft…so comforting. The girl had come through the east entrance; was still there, no doubt, and had heard the conversation. The vivid red cape shimmered in the candlelight that cast its glow across his sweating face. And yet, it seemed frigid to his heart; frigid as winter’s numbing grasp. The dark green of his eyes were shadowed; shadowed and hard, and cold, and distant…the warmth in them was replaced with something else…60

There seemed to be echoes…seemed to be echoes that surrounded him…echoes…echoes that rose on the sudden shriek of the wind…and saw as he fell through shadows dark and miserable eyes…soft gray eyes, and yet teeming with an enigmatic hunger. They pierced into his heart; they pierced into his very mind and read his thoughts. He felt her anguish; the guilt and anguish she bore. But he felt hatred and anger in a strong surging tide that she conveyed to him was that just that once glance.61

Then, she disappeared; she was fragile, pallid girl; beautiful, but in a dark, deadly sort of way. Truly deadly, now. Those eyes were what gave her way. Those eyes…62

Sakia felt the cold stone underneath her bare feet. The perfumes wafting in the air were strong and smothering, but it was worth it. If they purged the memories of that girl from her mind, if they made her clear and pure again so that she could enter the Far Beyond when it was her time to go, then maybe it was worth it.63

The black lace of the borrowed cloak drifted in the crisp autumn winds. The black lace to shield her from the haunting, to judge her, to cleanse her. Unsure, Sakia glanced around. Everything was normal; everyone was merely leaning forward on knees, as she was, washing their hands free of whatever sin that had stained them, washing their hands in the holy water to purify their bodies. Nothing, though, could purify the soul. Nothing.64

Nyatu was behaving oddly; he was sweating, and yet shivering. Muttering soft words that sounded so familiar, she shivered.65

“K-keeper help…fallen…G-great K-k-keeper…” And as she shivered, Nyatu’s cold, hard form gave a thrash and a scream wracked the silence. Shocked, Sakia gasped, stumbling forward…66

The ground rushed up to meet her…rushed…closer…closer…67

Choking as cold holy water rushed into her mouth and into her nostrils, she felt fear, frigid and cold, grasp her. Fear as she heard her own thoughts echoed by people…and yet their lips were sealed in fright, sealed as they watched her stumble, rising to her feet…68

Surrounding her in a tight ring, looking at her, shocked. Something she had done, and yet did not do. Something she might have done, and yet she had forgotten about it. All that was felt was the sense of fulfillment; the sense of fulfillment as she watched them like skeletons, foreboding and full of doom, as they continued form their shocked ring around her.69

Everyone froze in motion, froze as Nyatu drew the girl into a pitying embrace. Froze as she began frothing at the mouth, letting a wild shriek of rage echo among the columns. Thrashing, she pummeled him; Sakia pummeled the frightened man until his body relaxed; cold, lifeless. His eyes were dead and unseeing, still wearing shock at the triumphant Sakia who was perched ruthlessly on his limp frame.70

They formed a circle around Sakia; to shocked to speak. Silent, they listened to her laughter and cowered in fear underneath her hypnotic glare. Her echoes were heard as she glared at them, eyes cold as ice. 71

~~72

Chapter Three:73

Scarlet Droplets74

The branches were cold underneath her; cold as she pressed the pallid blossom to her lips, inhaling its fragrance. It smelled so sweet, and yet it was such a sickly, syrupy sweetness that Sakia choked. Though, she could not prevent herself from stroking the soft, jagged edges of the blossom. Odd…Kiju were soft, small petals…they caused no harm. And yet as her fingertip met the jagged edges of the blossom, she felt a sharp cry of pain. For something so small, it felt like a thousand needles were pricking uncomfortably close to her skin, digging deeper the more she moved. 75

Scarlet droplets of blood trickled from the small gash. Confused, Sakia tossed it aside, shrugging.76

It wasn’t just the sharp edges of the soft Kiju that confused her. Everything did. The appearance of the Rejected, what had happened before and after she entered the temple. There was no explanation for any of it. There was simply the certainty that something was happening, and whatever it was, it chilled her blood and numbed her mind. Sakia breathed shallowly, still eyeing the Kiju, pale blue & pink petals stained with small blood droplets.77

The autumn winds were so bitter that they hardly seemed to belong to autumn; the harsh whisper with which they stroked trees, and the bitter stinging with which they caressed her skin, seemed otherworldly, as everything did, now. The leaves stirred uneasily, the dust trailing into the sky clouding up the crystalline perfection of it. A soft whisper of uncertainty drifted from Sakia’s folded lips, lost in the murmur of the wind as it teased at her ebony curls.78

Sakia struggled out of the circle as it closed, choking. Sweat and dust mingled on her forehead; something in the air choked her. The tall pillars supporting the roof made her more uneasy; revealed, surrounded by so many people, in the center of a vast plain, empty save for the village, was somehow nerve-wracking. Her head still spun uncertainly as she gazed from face to face; shocked. And in those eyes, she saw with chilling fear what was going through their minds. They thought she had killed Nyatu!79

The holy water was sweet to her tongue as she managed to gulp it down; the guilt that flooded through her clouded her vision. Drinking holy water! And yet, she had no other choice. It would be more blasphemous, she reasoned, to spit it out once it had touched her tongue.80

Panic surged into her veins, a fiery feeling, sometimes numbing, but always white-hot fingers that grasped her heart. Forcing herself to move, she cast a frantic glance at the ring of people, thick, and ducked underneath their arms. Vision spinning…spinning…she was so weak…so weak with fear and doubt and guilt and could hardly move, legs feeble.81

Tripping over her own feet, jaw smacking against the floor with a bone-jarring, numbing smack, and then scrambling back to her feet, on hands and knees, she made her way step by step farther away from the temple.82

Now, she felt the gray eyes again, watching from the shadows. There was this strange feeling of soft fingers prying in her mind, piercing through the barriers…soft fingers that stroked out every information of the past, every secret, every piece of mischief she had ever caused…and in a brief moment, her whole life flickered before her eyes.83

The overwhelming despair and guilt and sadness and happiness and joy and humor all pressed down her from all sides…she felt like she could weep with sadness and joy, shout and holler and whoop. And yet as instincts to do all of these probed at the edges of her mind, the tide of memories died down. There was even the hint of what might be in the back of her mind.84

And a voice lingered on her mind…one word…help. Just one word and yet Sakia felt as if her death sentence had been written by that word.85

Her mother would have gotten the news by now, how she had supposedly murdered Nyatu and then fled. Casting a glance over her shoulder at the dim flickering of candlelight in the window of her house, Sakia let a soft sigh linger on her lips. So much confusion…she felt weak. Like a baby, bare and exposed to so much. Unused to everything. Just beginning the frantic, never-ending climb and adventure that was life.86

There was a soft mourning cry that was drifting from a distant area; the soft mourning cry of death.87

The anguish was really the only thing discernible; the anguish and the hatred and the bitter pain. Biting her lip, Sakia felt the odd pain of it, and yet somehow she heard the taunting voice in the back of her head that whispered to her. She deserved it. She deserved it and she was weak…weak…88

Fallen through death’s shadows, a bloodied rose…soft gray eyes, now hard, now cold, now oddly smiling in a twisted grin gleaming from the shadows of despair, from the deep nothingness, and then the pallid world of bleakness that the Rejected saw as the world. Gazing at the weak, feeble young girl clutched in the loving grasp of the winter-gray tree, a few scattering of blood droplets from the Kiju still staining her hand, a few beads of blood on her lips. Fallen…fallen…the echoes wrung through her head as she gazed upon herself and the world through the eyes of another…89

Through the eyes of another…the eyes of another…eyes of another…of another…another…scarlet droplets were the only sign of the guilt she bore. The guilt of a sin she did not commit, of a sin she might’ve, and yet was unaware of doing…and then hatred became a strong fire crashing over her in waves as she recalled who had done this, who had shattered her life. Who kept on haunting her and haunting her…ruining Sakia…90

Calm. Scarlet droplets are the sign of your innocence. You are innocent. Free. Dwell not, child. Dwell not…then, the peaceful, soothing voice had vanished, replaced by another. A sharp, futile shriek echoed in her mind, echoed in her mind…echoed…echoed…echoed…world spinning…in circles…spinning…breath rising to her throat…rising as the world spun and the silent shriek for help echoed. Rising as a shriek like the one she heard in her mind…piercing…piercing…91

Piercing…92

She couldn’t move…93

Piercing…94

Couldn’t breathe…95

Piercing!96

There was the shrieking crescendo of noise; her cries and the cries in her mind, both becoming one as they rose in a great swell toward the sky. Darkness…97

Dark! Dark as night…a pit of doom. And beneath the eclipsing sun, her eyes flashed with a wicked amusement, lips twisted into a devilish grin. Other than the scarlet droplets, her skin was pallid and pale ‘neath the darkness. Dark! Dark as night…and fallen, fallen…fallen from the pale branches to the ground and on her knees, head raised so that an ebony cascade of hair would fall around eyes, blue as ice. Fallen…98

Her soft words were lost in the darkness of the eclipsing sun. Lost as she made arcane gestures to the darkness of the sky.99

Kiju grasped in her hand, she watched, interested…watched as the jagged edges bit into tender skin, etching designs across her pale underarms. Scarlet droplets of blood flowed across the path. Scarlet droplets…and the piercing cries shattered the silence. Shattered the silence as her scarlet droplets were shed.100

~101