Gift of the Phoenix
[Note - this is my first piece of fanfiction I've written, reviews would be wholly appreciated]
Cael awoke to the steady splatter of droplets cascading against his window. He lay there for a moment, wallowing in the comfort and warmth of his bed, reflecting on everything and nothing.
To any one who knew of him, Cael Murdock was a seemingly ordinary ten-year-old boy of no consequence. A slender boy, with short raven-colored hair, sharp features, and striking dark blue eyes. Anywhere he was; school, home, or out among people, Cael had always been the quiet one. Thankfully, anyone dubbed the 'quiet lad' could be accepted among today's society and still seem ordinary to any soul, though Cael himself wouldn't describe himself as 'ordinary', he knew.
Glancing out his lone window, he noted that it was quite a dreary day, and windy too. A reflection of this past school year, he thought, as he rose from his bed.
School was not important to Cael, as much as he or his mother would have liked it to be. It was not that school didn't seem appealing to him in any fashion, but the idea of adjusting to social norms and keeping up with his status among the hierarchy of youths all while having information systematically drilled into his brain didn't suit him as society would have liked it to. This information - which in most occupations he would most likely never need to know, controlled his future. So he went, of course, and achieved adequate grades that were usually high enough to please his mother and set his mind at ease in regards to his future.
Despite his hate for the school system and its curriculum, he had discovered an interest in literature. English classes had come easy to him for as far back in the system as he could recall, and Cael found the works of famous writers, poets, philosophers, etc. to be fascinating. Reading was his past-time, and writing was his passion.
But this passion didn't originate in his English classes, it was the result of Cael being the outcast among his peers. He'd been picked on, bullied, and sometimes physically beaten by the other kids because of his decision to keep to himself. A few times his only option was to change schools. Consequently, he had developed an anxiety disorder, and an even further detachment from social activities.
Grudgingly rolling out of bed, Cael made for the bathroom to take his usual unheated five-minute shower. When he was finished, he decided that his attire for the last day of school, thank whatever God might be watching over me, would include a plain brown t-shirt, jeans, and his beloved Chuck's. Mussing his wet black hair and snatching his pack from beside his rickety chair, he made way for downstairs to break his fast.
Still sleepy even after his shower, Cael greeted his mother with a "'Morning," as he shuffled into the kitchen and hastily prepped himself a bowl of cereal.
"Mhm," she responded, hardly taking note of him as she continued reading the morning paper.
Cael's mother had been quite distant lately, and he couldn't reason why. His Mom, or Neve as her friends called her, was a beautiful woman with midnight blue eyes, much like Cael himself (even though they were of no relation), with undulant brown hair which always seemed adorned with some kind of ornate trinket to match her outfit. Today she wore a simple headband the color of lilacs and a backless black dress. Cael had always seen his mother as frivolous and buoyant, a hard-working woman of independence and dignity who had decided long ago she did not need a man in her life. Cael loved his mother, as any son would, yet confronting her about her feelings was not something he was going to do in his disheveled state, besides, he did not have the time. 'Maybe tonight,' he thought. As of now he could only hope it wasn't something too serious.
After swallowing his last few spoonfuls of wheats, dosing himself with anxiety medication, and saying good-bye to his mother, Cael made for the door. Yet as he stepped over the threshold, an innate sensation, one of which he had only felt the likes of a few times before, told him that that was the last time he would set foot inside of his home. Cael knew slight feelings of vertigo were a side-effect of his medication, but an inner voice was nagging at him, telling him to trust these feelings. He shrugged the feeling off anyway and continued on his way, sprinting over the threshold and into the pouring rain.
As he quickly made his way down the path and towards school, Cael couldn't help thinking about that feeling he got back at his house. He had felt something like it before, he knew. A year ago, after school had ended and Cael was walking home, a group of the usual bullies, including Jared, the worst of them, had come from the woods and beaten him to the ground. When Jared had taken up a rock and started to swing toward Cael's head, he knew it would be fatal if his swing connected. So he reacted. With speed he didn't know he possessed , he jumped up from the loose circle of kicking children and caught Jared's swing. The look of surprise on Jared's face was almost humorous, until he yanked out of Cael's grasp and went to shove the sharp stone into his stomach, where he was stopped yet again when Cael dodged his lunge and swiftly kicked at Jared's calf. The result was a satisfyingly loud crack of bone, and a terrible scream of pain from the bully.
Cael was shocked at what he had done on that day, but fortunately the bullies had left him alone from then on. Many other strange things had happened to him since birth: vanishing objects, levitation, the occasional explosion - but Cael had always shrugged these instances off as strange phenomenon that could be explained with science, or at least he hoped so.
A sudden chill broke him out of his reverie, and he noticed that the wind had picked up even more, while the steady droplets had increased to a chilling downpour. That's really unusual for a spring day in England, he concluded as he ran even harder for a nearby underpass.
At this point he didn't even care if he was late to school or not. He wasn't going to catch a cold just to make it on time for the last day of school, so he decided he'd wait out the rain under this grimy, underused, underpass where all kinds of scavenging creatures dwelt.
As he stood there, watching, listening to the heavy downpour of water, he decided he rather liked the rain. While most other people thought it annoying and depressing, Cael found comfort in the steady drips and drops. Rain relaxed Cael, and made him feel as if the world were small again, like when he was a child. Closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of life and water, he stood there for minutes as the storm continued, unrelenting, over sorry-old-England.
Suddenly he felt a chill creep up his spine as there was a sudden drop in temperature. Now this is getting extremely odd, he thought, dumbfounded. How the hell is it this cold, when it's almost summer?
Abruptly, the underpass became unnaturally dark, and the small pools of rainwater that had run under it were no longer pools, they had frozen solid. Even a nearby street lamp was frozen. It flickered, once, twice, and went out. Fear struck Cael, a fear so utterly strong he concluded there and then that he would never know happiness again.
Out of the corner of his eye, a shadow shifted toward him, one so large it might have been one of the pillars supporting the underpass. Rigid with fear, he managed to turn his head at the shape. What he saw could have resembled all of the horrors in the history of the world, and still, nothing could compare to this thing - whatever it was, that sucked all happiness from the world.
It was a cloaked monstrosity, over eight feet tall, with no visible lower body, that slowly swooped toward him, a meter off of the ground. Beneath its hood, he could see nothing but darkness, and frankly what lay under it was not something Cael would ever hope to see. He thought to run, to bolt out of there as fast as his legs would carry him and never look back, but he was paralyzed with fear, and he knew this thing would catch him despite his efforts.
Mere feet away now, the figure reached to pull back its hood. No, NO, Cael screamed to himself, but it was too late. A head of black decaying flesh was what looked upon Cael now. Its face was entirely featureless but for the rotten hole for a mouth, yet he knew the creature was pleased with the meal it had before it.
It closed in, and Cael found himself reliving his worst memories: of school, the beatings, of loneliness, the distance between him and his mother, the lack of a father figure, all of it. He felt himself drifting, as if his soul itself was being pulled out of him as he was reliving these memories. I'm going to die, he thought. I am going to die, at the age of ten, with this thing sucking my soul out. Who will care? But he knew that answer before he asked it. No one but Mum.
But as these thoughts came to him, and the last terrible memory was sucked from him, a flame, a wonderful, beautiful flame, of warmth, happiness, and life, enveloped both himself and the creature.
Cael's last conscious moments were blurry, but he made out the shape of a large red bird, chasing the hooded creature away from the underpass and out of sight. Then he knew no more.