Xerxes

Tales from my parents

"Why can't you help me?" I asked. "After all, you're a god too."

There was so much that needed to be done and I wanted the easy way out.

"Like I said earlier, I can only tell you things that you need to know, but there are still so much that you need to learn on your own," she emphasized to me, stretching out the 'on your own' part.

That wasn't much help.

The wind howled in the distance making me shiver at the cold. This did not feel like a dream or vision. I could feel things like I was still in the real world. I wondered if I could get hurt here. Or die.

"You created this place with your mind when you were just a kid," she said, breaking my thoughts. "It was your solace whenever you were down or scared," she continued, stretching her arms out while cracking her knuckles in the process.

"I still remember when you were little, I would read to you about the old gods and tell you of a place created by a certain deity — the cherry field or field of the gods as you used to call it — "

She went on and on about my childhood which I could not remember.  I could only smile at the memories she drew out, but I had no recollection of them happening. Maybe I was too small to remember. Maybe I did not want to remember. 

"Has Mr Roma..." I said, before stopping myself. I might hate him for whatever reason I had inside, but he was still my father. "I mean, father visited you in awhile?" I corrected.

It was foreign to call him father, I wasn't used to it yet.

"No, he hasn't," she replied. "It's not that he does not want to, it's because he can't. He doesn't even know where I am. I'm pretty sure he has searched everywhere for me to no avail,"she said with conviction.

I had known Mr Roman for awhile and I knew him to be someone who had no ties. He might have been a good person in the past, but that man was gone. He was something else now.

"Why not?" I asked, even when I had a pretty good guess.

"Well, it's because he knows nothing of this place," she sighed. "As I said earlier, you created this place as a child for solace. When I don't feel your consciousness in your body, I would come in to get you, and this was where you stayed every single time. You and I were the only ones who had access to this place," she explained further, shooting a weary look my way.

It was far from my thoughts, but I wondered if he would change if he knew about this place and her. Would he become someone who cared for other people's safety?

"Before I died, I threw my consciousness in here. I knew that one day you would grow and set things right. I had to wait for years before your last incident," she said grimly.

"When the time is right, you will guide me out of here and into the heavens, but for now we have a mission," she pointed out. "And that is to stop Mars from causing more chaos in the world."

She was not wrong. I needed to focus on harnessing my power and getting stronger than I was. But where do I start from?

The sky in the distance started to get dark and unsteady. The perfect weather was beginning to let off, giving way to this turbulence.

"What do I do now?" I asked hopelessly as the wind grew intense, bending the flowers in one direction.

"Well," she stated. "You need to build a team. And your father needs to be in it."

I shook my head in disagreement.

"I don't want him to..."

"Xerxes, he needs you," she interrupted. "And you need him too. He's still broken from losing his family, but if you give him a reason to live, trust me when I say that you would have the most powerful demon god the world has ever seen on your side. Now that's what I call a bonus."