Draiks and Angels: Deity

16 - Children & Darkness

Satiya reflected on the other visions, trying to think of what places they could represent.

"Children seems like an easy one," she said to no one. "Where do I have a connection to children, when I was a child?"

Satiya thought hard. School would be an obvious choice, but she was home schooled.

"Where else do you find children in numbers? Extracurricular sports? Carnivals? Playgrounds?"

She tried to think of more places, but her mind kept coming back to the idea of a playground. She wasn't in public school, but maybe her parents took her to a neighborhood playground? Satiya jumped up and took off for her parents' house.

Finding a "neighborhood playground" among all the mansions would be a problem. They just didn't have such things. So Satiya looked for the closest suburban neighborhood from the air. They may have had to fly to get there, but there was one not too far to the west as the crow flies. She circled until she found a likely looking playground and landed at the edge.

Even though it was getting cool now, it wouldn't have been unusual for there to be children playing. But maybe school was still in session, because the park was deserted. Satiya walked through the equipment, vaguely recognizing the various pieces of climbing towers, slides, monkey bars, and swings. She sat on one of the swings, confident that unless she started swinging, it wouldn't break under her weight.

She closed her eyes and started her meditation. This time when her vision changed, she was prepared for what was going to come next.

She was close to the ground, in a child's body she knew. She stared timidly at the floor, as children appeared in groups of three and four all around her. Angels and humans here. Draiks and Angels there. Only humans there. She looked up to see several children of the groups pointing at her, then turning to the others in their group to say something and snicker. The others would look at her and snicker back. She could feel heat in her cheeks. Suddenly there was a sharp pain in one of her wings. She flipped around to see one of the boys run away with a black feather in his hand, laughing. She pulled her wings in close, and shrunk down, wishing she could disappear. Wishing she didn't have to come back to this place.

Satiya could feel the tightness in her chest. Her breathing came faster, shallower. Her heart was racing. Anxiety attack. She was used to them, and used meditation to control them, but she was already meditating, how could she stop it here? Without warning, the children around her jumped on her and grabbed her limbs. They started yanking out feathers one at a time, sending shots of pain through her wings. Satiya began to panic. She struggled against the children, but it didn't make any difference.

A small voice in her mind reasoned that if she could breathe fast in the vision, she ought to be able to breathe slowly. Shaking, Satiya forced her mental self to breathe slower... slower... deeper... deeper. Soon her heart was beating normally, her breath was calm, trembling: ceased. She realized the children were gone, and light was filling the air.

Satiya unclenched her hands from the chains of the swing and saw deep indents in the flesh of her palms and fingers. She flexed her wings, still feeling the after-ache of the ripped-out feathers, even though it wasn't real.

Suddenly, she felt tremendous cold on her foot and looked down in a panic. A small blob of blackness was trying to envelop her foot, but it appeared to be too small. She recognized the freezing cold, though. It was Kek! Calling her magic, she shot a burst of purifying light at the mini Shadow, disintegrating it and freeing her appendage. She quickly got off the swing and looked around.

There were mini blobs of darkness all over the playground. They waved around like they were reaching for something they couldn't see. It seemed that Kek had restored enough power to send out minions, but they were hardly worth being called that.