The Beast Must Die: Chapter 1
Ash...
The air was thick with it, it rained down from nowhere like an unearthly snow, mingled with the smoke in the night sky. The air that carried it was heavy with the stenches of burning thatch, pitch, mortar, fur... the air carried not only the ash but the screams of of their owners...the ones who once called things their own, their homes, beds, children, now being reduced to the ashes that filled the air they sreamed into. Ash covered everything, it was blown on the heated air, it dug and burrowed under the young Rawcomine's eyelids...he was blind, but right now sight didn't matter to him...indeed sight could not have helped him now anyway, the night was so dark, illuminated only by the hazy red glow of his torched village. Blinded, but not deaf, he was listening...calling, crying, tears catching in the grey soot that covered his furry face. Still his mother's voice could be heard.
That he could hear the call is a wonder only a mother-son relationship can explain. Above the crackling roar and myriad of screams he heard his mother calling...calling, still screaming his name. "Varco! Varco where are you!"
"Mommy!" Stumbling through the square. He tried to run to the source of the sound, only to stumble on a fountain stoop and fall face first into the murkey water. The water, cooler than the surrounding air, served to wipe away the ashes, robbing the young Racomine of his ash-induced blindness...and his innocence forever.
Standing waist deep in the shallow broken fountain, Varco looked up to see his village ablaze. There went Lystra, his schoolteacher and mentor, sprinting across the square pursued by two giant Horsemen. They flashed their swords with menace and whooped in sadistic ecstasy of the hunt. Varco turned away quickly, only to see his neighbor run into his blazing hut screaming "Gornale! Baby where are you!" the cries lasted only as long as the burning rafters could hold out, and without warning the criesweresmothered bya crash and a shower of sparks. Suddenly, just down the dirt-beaten road toward home, he saw his mother.
Everything suddenly blurred, the warrior cries of "In the name of Aslan and Narnia" and "Kill the Rebels" all faded to a distant garbled chorus as Varco saw his mother staring back at him. Too far to hear what she was saying, he only watched as her lips formed the words "Run! Run Varco!" But Varco was in shock, and numb to the world around him...the carnage surrounding him all melted from his conciousness when he saw his mother...his protector, his guardian, his Mommy. Surely she could make all these bad people go away and stop burning things! His numbed state was broken as he was engulfed in a shadow. He looked up just in time to see a huge Horseman clear the Fountain, sailing right over him through the smoke and ash toward his mother. It's sharp hoof met with Varco's face, and he toppled back down into the muddy ashen water. Quickly gasping his way back to the surface, the sight that met him left him cold...colder than he'd ever been before. Eyes wide, Varco could only watch his mother jump out of the path of the charging horse hooves...into the blade of a swinging scimitar. Her eyes blinked no more, but stayed transfixed on him, her face frozen in concerned terror, her lips forever frozen halfway through the word: "run".
Now the terror around him seemed to engulf and consume his conciousness. Mommy wasn't moving!
"Get up, Mommy! Mommy help! Help me Mommy!"
His cries were drowned out. Drowned out by the crackling of thatch and blazing of rafters, of the screams of his friends and villagers, of the constant chanting of the charging Horsemen "For Aslan and Cair Paravel! Death to Rebels! Death to Rebels! Aslan Wills it!" Death to Rebels!" still, as deaf as they were to that racomine child, just as deaf was he to everything else around him. Numb to the smoke and the heat of the air, numb to the fountain water that soaked him to his waist. Heedless of the terrors that consumed his world still his focus was locked on that frozen unblinking stare.
"Mommy wake up! Mommy! MOMMY!"
"MOMMY! Mommy! Varco woke up screaming. The nightmare passed as quickly as it had started. Once again Varco had to come to terms with his flashback as he was left screaming to himself in the dark. "C'mon Varco, that was so many years ago. It's past, it's past…" Still, he could not stop his pain from welling up inside again...the pitch blackness all around him concealed his tears of rage. Slowly, he wiped the tears away with the back of his paws...and his claws scraped wood. Wood was in front of him, a board lay not two inches from his nose. With a quick twitch of his head his whiskers brushed wood on all sides. He tried to curl up, but kicked a hard rough plank. Slowly, as his eyes adjusted, he saw wood...and nails...the bottom tips of nails...sticking out of the board pointing at him threatningly. Like a tide rising in his chest fear gripped his heart anew. He was sealed in a wooden box...
He'dwoken upinside his own coffin!