What Lies Beneath: Back to Basics

[Bvie 1754]

Spoiler

Part One of the on going event can be found here: 

 

Simple steps. Small steps.

Like baking bread. Like smelting an ingot.

Simple steps. Small steps.

Like sitting on a horse. Like planting a garden.

Simple steps. Small steps.

Basic steps.

 

 

 

The air in the room was still. The sounds of the outside world muted by windows, not only covered with curtains, but wood.

 Candles, whose long bodies once rose to the skies, now sat stubby and short from long and over use.

The scent of perspiration hung in the air as if a thick sheet lay upon one before bed.

 

 

 

 

 

Old tomes and notes decorated the stone floor.

Pictures and holy words look up from their low position to eyes that scanned them frantically, searching for an answer.

Eyes that were tired, bloodshot, raw, but fixed on the texts.

A hand wrapped in a white cloth that was stained crimson turns the pages as anger wells up inside, the information only repeating what had been known already for nearly a century.

A swift kick lashes outwards, sending the text skidding across the stone, ending up in a pile of her students’ theses and basic lessons.

 

 

 

 

 

Hands slide through thinning brown locks. Gripping. Pulling. Tight.

The head shakes as the dry tongue runs over the equally dry lips. Determination found once more.

The cloth is unwound, revealing the oozing and infected wound on the palm.

 

Deep breaths are taken. A brow is furrowed.

Eyes focused on the wound.

 

But nothing changes.

 

Teeth are gritted. Willpower is pushed.

 

But nothing changes.

 

Prayers are made. Curses are uttered.

 

But nothing changes.

 

 

 

 

 

Frustration hits it breaking point. Something snaps inside.

Golden flames erupt from the palm, lashing out at the shadows that fill the room.

The free hand grips the shaking wrist, trying to reign in control as the fire and flames grow higher.

The heat from the growing inferno washes over the skin as desperation forces the flames to spiral inwards into a sphere.

The fluctuating orb  quivers in the palm as control begins to slip.

A panicked thrust sends it forth, crashing into the room’s wall. Portraits are destroyed, tomes torn asunder, a mirror is shattered.

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes stare at the destruction. Wide and fearful.

They move from the scene to the palm, oozing and infected, that twitches involuntarily.

A lump in the throat is swallowed dryly as a cloth with a crimson stain is wrapped tightly once more.

Bare feet walk carefully through the debris.

Shaking hands pick up fragments of a, seemingly, past life.

A shard of mirror is lifted, tired eyes looking into it.

But an unknown figure dominates the space, a reflection nowhere to be seen.

 

 

 

 

 

The mirror shard is quickly discarded. Strands of brown hair are pulled upon.

Old tomes are lifted once more into a lap as tired eyes scan them, searching once more for something lost.

Scanning over instructions. Scanning over theology.

 Scanning over history. Scanning over the beginning.

 

 

Simple Steps. Small steps.

Basic steps.