Chapter I
Kain
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
If you do not wake up….
You're dead.
I need to wake up, but maybe, I shouldn't
Maybe it's just a dream? Or a memory.
I need to go home, but where is home?
Is it here in comforting darkness, or is it somewhere else?
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Huh? Is that..?
A Bloodied chest.
Yeah, it is...It hurts so bad.
It's so frigid. The air? Why is it so cold? My hands so numb, I can't feel past my palm.
I now notice the glacial iron clasped on my wrist, robbing me of my heat…
It's so cold...so cold….cold.
I feel drowsiness and longing for what I do not know. I pull against my iron bondage to no avail.
Drip...Drip…Drip
How long has it been? It feels so slow, like a clock that ticks and tocks far too slow to be real. It mocks me, taunting me.
Am I even Alive? Or Less?
Questions bounce off each other with no answer in sight.
'Is it real?'
'Why?'
'When?'
And so I look.
It is a hole, the tomb that I am placed in. Bounded in chains, no doubt to keep me in, surrounding me with blue ice on all sides...with only a black abyss above me…
I stare. And stare for more. A look inside in the black abyss above me. It reminds me of a quote by some old man that Annabeth told me once.
"When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you "
I don't believe it.
I notice something while staring for gods know how long, something that gives me hope.
A pinhole speck of light, that...feels real, something tells me…
"That's the way home"
DripDripDrip
My desire grows
Grows like fire, the only fire in this frost-bound place.
It grows with anger and hate
It grows in spite of the icy tomb.
I want out, I need to, it calls for me.
In a flash of fury, I thrash hard, pulling against the chains, but soon give up.
The chains are far too tight and stubborn, perhaps it more than just chains? But I was now tried, I found myself drifting off to sleep.
Drip…
Drip…
Drip…..
My blood now pooled on the ground and leaves me cold.
I think...I think hard...harder than I ever had. To escape my goal and my body as my tool.
I think until I found something, something to bring me freedom. Then it hit me.
Blood.
My blood. I remember it being made of cells and water, something I learned from what little school I had. I wanted it to work, no matter how wrong it was. I dared to dream, so I pull, with that feeling at the bottom of my stomach.
Nothing. I try again. Nothing, I try once again. All for naught.
And so I try some more.
Again and again.
It wasn't until the 13th time that I got something….something more than nothing. It trickled closer together. Slowly but surely. But I was far to tried to be lucid any longer. And I drifted to sleep once more.
When I woke, I found a small sliver of red, blood I realized. But something was different...it moved. Slowly and almost barely perceivable. The strange part, it was because of me. I wasn't moving it or controlling it...almost like...it had sentience.
Huh.
Drip.
So I waited.
Drip.
For more blood.
Drip.
For this to become more.
Drip.
It assumed a form, a snake of some sort. A snake of blood.
Fitting.
The thing garbled and spat. Almost like it a newborn child. Blabbing and making the strangest sounds.
It was comforting, to have something other than me. Even if it was my blood given life.
But it needed something, something all children have.
A name
So I thought and thought some more.
Until I found a name.
I found one.
The perfect name. A name so fitting, something that meant something.
Kain
It was something so foreign, something so far out, yet it was something so familiar. But it didn't matter.
"Me and you, together we will fill this abyss." I spoke knowing it would one day understand.
Me and you.
Drip...Drip...Drip
It grew and grew, it was now a thin arm's length. It grew as fast as my hope grew.
So fast that I boiled. Now I pulled, creaking, straining the chains.
But still unbroken.
Time meant nothing, I pulled and pulled. First in rage and wrath.
Then in cold fury, like the unforgiving tomb of ice.
Then composure came with a calm surety, I knew was going to break free. Because nothing will stop me.
Nothing
TWANG!
Then something snapped
One chain fractured and left my right arm free.
And so I pulled harder. I felt Kain, moving up on my arm and pulled too, and together we pulled.
Pull we did.
TWANG!
I was free from my bondage. Now the icy tomb was my only warden. Kain chipped with affectation feeling my joy and wrapped itself around my wound, suckling the driping blood and keeping comfort from the frigid air.
I have a prophecy to finish.
I needed to climb and climb I did.
I slowly moved towards that pinhole of light, that light to freedom of this tomb. Kain's body pulsed against my body, reminding me of its presence.
I climbed and climbed, higher and higher.
SNAP
But a foothold broke under my weight. Only Kain saved my precarious balance, slithing down to my feet, and holding me from falling from gods knows how far.
I swore, Me and you.
I resolved to reach it, that black abyss, with that tiny speck of light that seemed to inch further away.
So I climbed, faster now. With purpose, nothing will stop me.
Not one thing.
Faster and faster, reaching new heights. Soon Kain seemed to understand, understood that it needed to help me, to keep pushing us skyward. We pushed and push until the light final grew bigger, faster and wider. Emancipation was near, so near. And we pulled yourself over the ledge.
Only to see the barren landscape so bare, that it made the underworld look like a joke.
One word popped out.
Tartarus.
Out of the blue, into the black.
I said the only thing I could
"Shit"
