Reborn: High Strung | ONC2024

Chapter 2

"Zev!" Simon cried out as he yanked as hard as he could on his weapon with his good arm, causing the beast's head to jerk a few feet to the side. The beam-like stream of fury ripped through tree after tree like they were made of paper. Simon didn't have enough strength to hang on much longer with only one working arm; he knew that as soon as the beast stopped its attack, it would finish shaking him off of it. He was the strongest of his age in many years. If he couldn't show it with physical strength, he would show it in his technique. Speaking the true name of an ability made it much stronger, especially when speaking that name with a goal in mind: "Spiral constriction!"

The hilt of his blade dispersed into shadow particles in his hand as the serpent-like blade looked as if it had gained a life of its own, twirling around the beast's neck in an instant and tightening further in. The beast barked a hellish sound more akin to a dragon's roar, blood leaking from its wounded throat as the last of its fire stream faded away. Simon points his hand at the blade serpent around the draconic wolf's neck and clenches his fist, using spiral constriction to its fullest. The black serpent blade began to twist and close tighter and tighter around the beast as Simon let out a pained yell, focusing every bit of sethra he had into this one attack. The blade spun faster and faster around the monster's throat, sethra whirring as it finally broke fully through the scales, then sliced all the way through the beast. With a loud thud, the beast's head hit the forest floor, and its body slumped to the side with Simon, who landed on his back, panting heavily from how much sethra he had expended all at once.

Zev stood paralyzed with fear. Two treetops crashed around him, narrowly missing him as they fell. He stared at the dead sethra beast lying next to his exhausted older brother. Was it over? Simon looks up, slowly catching Zev's eyes. He is safe. Simon gives a wide smile to his little brother. The dead body of the creature began to glow with fire sethra and Simon paled. He knew this could only mean one thing: Someone had placed a dormant ability on this creature that would only activate upon killing it. Simon stood quickly, immediately understanding the gravity of the situation with his sharp mind, and turned to Zev, his one good arm outstretched. "Zev, I promise, I'll come back!" and with one shaky step forward, the beast-turned-bomb would explode into a roaring pillar of fire, sethra stopping just a few feet in front of the younger brother. Zev's eyes feel like they might melt from his sockets as they shake in confusion. "Come back?" He mutters into the pillar of fire that slowly burned away into the sky, leaving nothing but scorched earth, ash, and what Zev had only heard of-a soul link, Simon's soul link.

It hung in the air. Shadowy sethra had created a black object resembling a decorated padlock. The dark padlock depicted a sun shining rays through a forest surrounding the would-be keyhole. Zev stood inches from it, now examining it, as the sethra began to shiver in place and become unstable. He knew this from his studies: when someone passed away, their soul link would crumble from the layer they were born in, and they would be reborn three layers below. The padlock began to crack and shake faster, the black sethra dissolving down toward the ash and dirt. Zev tries to grasp Simon's link, but it glides through his fingers as easily as water from a pump. Three layers below? That would be layer four. With his mind slowly beginning to race and panic setting back in, Zev wondered how he would ever see his brother again, his school studies playing back in his head as time felt like it was standing still.

The world Sanctum belongs to is made up of 12 layered realities, with Sanctum being the first layer at the top and the safest. Each layer is contained in its own plane of existence, and traveling between layers is harder the further your soul link is from your body, the link of course being tied to the layer you were born or reborn into. As far as Zev knew, only the first three layers were inhabited by enough people to form towns. Simon would be all the way down on layer four, reborn into a body that reflected the traits of the layer. Would he be fighting for survival? Or maybe the books in Sanctum were wrong, and there were friendly people that far down. Zev takes a deep breath, watching the rest of Simon's soul link seep through the dirt and disappear on his knees.

***

A few weeks had passed since the sethra beast had ripped its way into Sanctum to steal Simon from Zev and his mother, Ruth. He had never seen his mother so devastated as she had been on the day of Simon's farewell. The town gathered in a festival of sorts to celebrate the life his older brother had lived on their layer. It was the biggest farewell Zev had ever seen for someone, probably due to Simon being the most prestigious soulkindler of his age, second to none. Even King Oren gave a speech, praising Simon and showing his hurt over the great loss, but it all felt like a blur to Zev, passing by so quickly that it was as if the whole ordeal had been a dream and now his brother was just gone. He barely even cared about his own achievement anymore; he wielded a rare and useless string-type sethra. His mother told him he could train up and become a flame, then use his sethra-type to aid in projects around town, but that felt so far from where he wanted to be.

A few weeks quickly turned to months as life sped past Zev with a great sense of hopelessness. Even in this state, he did what he had always done: trained his body and mind in his town's training grounds and library. It was just after noon when Zev had finished his morning run and meditation and was now sitting to do research with the few new books he had borrowed. He sat at the back of the library at the table he always chose, reading a book titled Ember to Flame: A Youngster's Guide. It was embarrassing to always read these books clearly designed for kids years younger than him, but he needed to rehearse the information in his head now that he had actually become an ember.

Zev knew the most basic description for soulkindlers: there were five stages. Coals were lacking in sethra entirely, as he had been. Embers, as he was now, had just unlocked their sethra and type. Flames could control their sethra much more precisely, even using simple abilities. Infernos, like Simon, could start to craft and use unique techniques with power stretching to their bodies' own limits. Then there was the final stage, Novas; honestly, not much about them was known. The only Nova living in Sanctum was King Oren, and he never spoke about how he ascended. Zev rubs his face as the information sits on his head like an idiotic crown while he thinks. "I know all this already, and I know that to progress my power, I need to understand it, but how am I supposed to do that when it's so rare?"

Zev laid face first in the book, sighing when he felt a thud on the table next to him, his face turning to look up at a very peculiar young lady around his age. Green medium-length hair like an unkempt bush sat around her head, big circular glasses hanging over her small diamond-like white eyes, and freckles dotted around her nose and cheeks. The huge satchel she had placed next to him and was now digging through was a dull brown color, and every nook seemed to be filled with junk. She was dressed in common clothes of yellow and blue. Her strange eyes slowly moved over to look at his gaze, and a toothy smile creeped on her face as she realized he had been sitting here. "Sorry," she peeped out, scooting over and tugging her satchel further from him.

Zev looked over at the strange girl and got a bit lost looking into her white eyes. He knew sometimes ascending could change physical features, but becoming an Ember had done nothing for him. She purses her lips a bit nervously, looking from side to side at other full tables before saying, "Is it okay if I sit here?"

"Yeah, of course, sorry, I wasn't trying to stare," he almost shouts before quickly lowering his voice. "Your eyes are just very interesting; is that from ascension?"

She takes a step back just to lean down and show off her eyes with pride. "Oh, these little peepers? You better believe it; these are the eyes of a flame ready to become an inferno." She sounded a mixture of boastful and awkward.

Zev's eyes light up as he almost stammers over his words, "Seriously? At your age? That's incredible; that would make you almost on par with" Simon's name catches in his throat as his expression drops a bit.

"The one they called Simon here? Yes, yes, it would. The name's Meira; what's yours?" She stretches a hand to him in a friendly way, a grin stretching around her face confidently.