For the love of death

Its three years to the day since my mother's unfortunate death, it is also that exact amount of time since I fell in love with the most unlikely person. It's a rather long story, but I think I have enough time to tell.

Let's see. At the age of two I was exposed to a rather large amount of Dark Eco by my father, who was a bit of a psychopath I will add, and I was changed rather drastically, but we'll get onto that later. After my fathers 'disposal', my mother made it her life's mission to find a way to reverse my father's doing and make me more normal, so I would fit in better in society. Her experiments with the Dark Eco meant she was exposed to it far too often, but she kept going, fuelled by the hope she would find something that could stop the Eco twisting me into something much worse than I already was.

A few years had passed and I was six years old. My mother had been gradually getting ill, since the Eco had been taking an awful effect on her. I remember very vividly her appearance; she was very pale and dangerously gaunt, her ribs were showing through her skin and her hair had begun to go grey prematurely at the age of 32.

It got worse as the years went by. By the time I was sixteen she couldn't walk under her own strength and she looked as frail as a 97 year old woman. I had to help her around our house, which was in the middle of Forbidden Jungle, since we were not welcomed in society anymore. I believe it was my appearance that was the problem. Getting back to what I was saying earlier, the drastic changes included skin colour and nails. Parts of my skin had twisted into deep blues and purples, in the shapes of sharp flame-like pictures, they stretched up my back and parts flickered around my neck. The tops of my arms were also affected in the same way, but by far the most disturbing part of me was my nails. They had turned a midnight black and were as sharp as blades, although not very long; they only just managed to stretch over the length of my finger tip.

More years passed and I began to worry massively about my mother. No matter how much I told her that I had grown used to the sensation of the Dark Eco in my blood and the colour difference, she would not stop her research. She was slowly killing herself. By this point I was 19 and I knew that I would just have to except who, or more what I was. I would just have to learn to control it somehow, even though I knew that it had never been done before, and that people had died horrible deaths trying. But surely, if I had survived this far, there was some hope?

It was early-winter when my mother finally gave in. All of the experiments stopped and she sat crying, for days on end, expressing to me how sorry she was that she couldn't do anything. All I could do was tell her I understood that she did all she could, she finally accepted that there was no hope in the experiments. But she still would not give in totally. By the time mid-winter came she had contacted the Green Eco sage, who told her that he could not help. Desperately, she sent letters to all of the other sages, but they too expressed their deepest sympathy, but were sorry that they could not help.

Mid-winter was in full swing when my mother called me into the bedroom. Perched upon her frail lap was a crystal of magnificent beauty. Its dark purple colour shone slightly in the dulled sun and gave an eerie feeling to the room. She invited me to sit onto the edge of her bed as she put the crystal onto a small piece of thread, and hung it around my neck. She explained to me that Dark Eco crystals were very rare and that it should give me extra strength. I nodded and walked out of the room, allowing her to rest.

I awoke one morning to find that my mother was not in her bed. I frantically ran around trying to find her but had no result. Still running, I went out of the house and deeper into the Jungle, to the one place where I knew she would go. Now in my sights was the Jungle Temple, a supposedly haunted building from the precursor era. I ran up the long-neglected staircase to the top, where a grand balcony was formed. It hung over the canopy of trees, stretching out over them at least 30 meters. The signature orange metal glinted in the sunlight that was peeping through the grey clouds. At the end of the balcony, holding onto the railings was my mother.

I began to walk towards her, but was stopped by a haunting laugh. A man, not too different looking from me floated down from the sky and hovered a few feet in front of my mother. She looked at him and smiled;
"Gol." She said, breathing uneasily. "Long time no see."
"Indeed." He said, touching his feet upon the floor and taking her frail hand into his own. He took in her changes and didn't quite understand. "Lily? I told you long ago that your daughter couldn't be helped." He was rather blunt with his statement, but it was true after all.
"I wanted to try." Her frail voice said. Whoever this man was, he was obviously sympathetic for my mother, although, he didn't look much older than me, even if Dark Eco had gotten to him too. This Gol person leaned in, and whispered something into my mother's ear, causing her to go hysterical. She began to scream and shout in some sort of language that I had never heard before. Any strength she had left was used to try and stab the man with the knife that was in her pocket. Again and again she tried to stab him in her violent rage, and each time he managed to get out of the way. I didn't know what to do; there was nothing I really could do. I just watched from the entrance of the balcony, the scuffle taking place.

Seconds turned into minutes and I had had enough. I ran from my hiding place screaming for them to stop. The man, Gol, turned and looked at me, I think he was as amazed as I was that he was like me, and I was like him. There was something about him… Before I had a chance to open my mouth and say something, my mother screamed out, her eyes turning a rotten purple. She lunged towards the man and stabbed him clean in the shoulder blade. He yelled out in pain, I ran forwards, towards my mother, but in her rage, she ran towards me. Any essence of frail had vanished, and she was now something much different. The Dark Eco experiments had changed her into a hidden monster. I should have seen it before. My pondering took away vital time and by the time I had stopped, she was mere meters away from me. It was not my mother running towards me, it was a monster. I held my breath as she got closer, I couldn't move.

Everything seemed to go into slow-motion as she lunged towards me. In a Nano-second, I felt a hand on my waist and another hand stretch out in front of me. A dark burst of Eco flew from the palm of the persons hand in an elegant but deadly manor, and hit my mother directly in the chest, causing her to fall onto the floor in agony. It was at this point that any trace of the monster vanished and my poor mother lay on the floor, in her original form, from before the Dark Eco.

I wriggled out of the grip of the person and fell onto my knees next to her. I scooped her up into my arms and lay her head on my lap. She let out a small smile, before closing her eyes and peacefully drifting away. My eyes began to burn with tears as it hit me that I was alone in this big world, the way I was, without my mother.

Finally forcing myself to realise that she was not coming back, I stood up, to face the person who had done this to her. I turned around, only to see Gol stood there. Not moments ago he was conversing politely with my mother, but now he had killed her. I began to shout between sobs towards him. He just stood there, his white and purple hair blowing slightly in the mild wind, his cloak doing the same. I stumbled towards him, not knowing what to do. As I got to him I threw my fists into his chest, little finger first, before finally giving into the sorrow and let my head rest upon his chest. I then fell to my knees and he followed, wrapping his warm arms around me and some of his cloak. My sobs were muffled by his chest, the cold air biting at my ears.

Three years ago. Three entire years. It doesn't sound long, but god it has been. It's felt much longer. I buried my mother earlier that evening on that mid-winter day... the fround was hard but I kept going.

I have recently discovered that I can't cope on my own. I do need help. But as before, none of the sages can help me in any way, they have tried. Green Eco makes me ill, Yellow Eco gives me a headache and does nothing else, Blue and Red Eco do absolutely nothing either, I can't even channel them.

Just this morning, I wrote a letter to Gol, begging him for help. According to Samos, the Green Eco Sage, Gol hasn't been seen since that day three years ago, he isn't even sure if he is still alive, but what we do know, is that he lives far in the north, and if I don't get a reply, I'll have to go and seek him out.

Is it wrong… that I have fallen in love with my mother's killer?