Broken Rays of a Dying Sun: A Collection of Short Stories

Lazarus

Day 1

His tower was so clean it made my nose itch. The bitter-sweet chemical fumes which kept the floors white, the walls gleaming, and the glass clear, they clouded the air like rust and filled my throat. I swiped at my nose.

The clothes I had to wear made my skin crawl like a spider under a looking glass. The bright red made me the target of everyone’s eyes, the material so smooth it chafed. I think what bothered me the least were the manacles locked around my wrists. I like to think that I was used to the weight of metal and the loss of freedom which accompanied them.

I usually kept my hair short, down to my shoulder, and if longer, as I kept it in the winter season, I’d tie it in a tail behind my neck. They had kept me locked away so long (three months, sixteen days, and four hours, I had been counting), and by now it was several inches below my shoulder, a constant weight on my scalp. My hands clasped behind my back, I could not keep loose locks from straying into my face. I held myself slouched, my face down, so that it did not hurt my eyes or too much impair my vision. This was not their intention, but I think they liked how defeated I looked with my eyes to my feet, my shoulders low.

I could hear whispers, but I daren’t look around me. I knew there were two guards by my side, clothed in deep blue robes that fell and trailed to the ground, and knew the outline of fitted leather beneath those robes that could deflect the nick of a blade. To my left I knew there was a broad window, one that took up the entire wall though the corridor. I could feel the sun on my face, but it felt strangely cold. My skin trembled at the touch, but still, I couldn’t bear to look outside.

Just a pane of glass separated me from everyone I had been forced to abandon, all of the beloved friends that I had let die, their mourning families, their shallow graves— I should have been there, standing vigil for each one. It didn’t matter how long one stood in silence within a prison cell. Just three months, sixteen days, and four hours ago marked the dates on their gravestones, but I could not see them. There was a window with cold light and clear glass which stood in my path.

Passing back and forth among the halls were many, oblivious to the ruin outside their tower. They all watched me, reflected in the blacks of their eyes. “Heretic,” I heard one whisper. “Demon child,” another spat. My lips soured into a frown. I could almost taste the acrid words on my tongue, and if I could, I’d have spat them back out in a moment.

I hear a gruff voice beside my ear. “Bow before Him, your head to the ground. We’ve not the time to teach you the proper ritual.” Just then, we approached a heavy set of double doors, locked by a device I had never seen. The other guard pressed a button, typed in a set of numbers, and then mumbled a phrase into a box by the side. “Do not speak unless spoken to. Address him always as ‘His Holiness.’ Whatever you do, you do not want to anger Him.”

I was not apt to follow the guard’s instructions. His breath smelled of morning air and I could see specks of dirt beneath his fingernails. Perhaps that was empathy I heard in his voice? His warning me, hoping to keep me, from crossing the line I stood so carefully upon—a line between life and death. It was, of course, only His Holiness who stood in the way of my death sentence.  I didn’t look into his eyes, but felt the tinge of tears at the corner of my eyes, the cool brush of air against the liquid at the rims of my eyelids. I blinked them away and said not a word. It was not every day that one met a God.

He wasn’t in the room when I walked in. Just two chairs in a circular room, a plant more green than I had ever seen, a large window taking up half of the wall in a semi circle, and doors off to the side. My eyes fixed on the large window, my knees felt weak, but I could not afford to fall. I blinked away tears, hardly noticing the click as the guard unlocked the manacles. I swallowed, I didn’t move, the other guard ordered me to sit. There was an energy wall by the door that would kill me if I ran, they told me. The windows were impossible to break, and even if I managed to, they continued, I’d never survive the fall. The one guard that seemed to have sympathy, he asked me not to try. I didn’t remember sitting down, instead, I remember thinking to myself that I would not cry. I had shed not one tear for 3 months, 16 days, and 4 hours.