Prologue
At first, there was darkness. Not the stifling closed darkness of a room, but the breathy open darkness of a cold winters night. It was the darkness that surrounds the sleeping bark of a wintered willow, the darkness that encases the fury of a dove gray rain cloud. The darkness where misted breath was bright and stark. And then in a flash of gold like the first spring sunlight through the ice of a frozen river, there was the ochre velvet softness of golden hair, a veritable halo for honeyed skin and amber irises.
A soft glow arose, a corona. Never a halo. He was not an angel, not a demon, no, not even a boy. A man, whose core was wrought in the fire of the sun, quenched in the iced loneliness of the moon. Man, made of sins and repentance. Man, unbloomed. Man, grown as big and tall as an oak. Fine dark skin, scarred and altogether too soft for such a child of the wilderness, stretched across fine lean muscles. Carved soft and strong like a Xerxesian statue. Classical conformational perfection. A broad strong jaw, clenched in determination, straight brows furrowed in concentration over fired eyes, high broad cheek bones, dusted with soft blonde hairs. All atop a a broad shouldered and thin hipped form, legs lean and strong, long and muscled. A study in human paragon. Regret rose in flames, burning like the Inferno.
Skin bubbling off, screaming tearing agony, no longer the commodious wintry forest. Now, the white hot searing pain of all sins unpaid for, of hanging like macabre jewelry from a cross. Tears and torment, rising in the mind like bile to the throat.
Terror-stricken red eyes, puffy from sobbing, crying for mercy. The horror never lost in dark, empty eyes. A child curled protectively against the stairs, white hair gray brown from sand, skinny from undernourishment. An order. An order.
An order.
A snap.
Inferno.
Always an Inferno, the stench of only the ashes remains. Dog tags clinking in the recoil of the blast. A reminder. Once a dog, always a dog. A dog, a dog, a dog. The hounds of hell at heel. Nipping for a taste, a taste of murderer, taste of evil, taste of patriotism. Barking, howling rage. The sound of snap bombs, snarl, growl, earth shaking rumble.
Never escape, can't escape, fire burning, ash choking in tarred lungs, smothered in the remains of the recoil, eyes bleak, dead as that which had just been snuffed from the land like so much smoke. Heart pounding, heart breaking, heart sickening. Hands shaking, eyes rolling back.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.