Kissed by Chaos

Kissed by Chaos (2) - Nightmare

All credit to the artist/photographer of the image of the side: http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=chaos#/d2tb4p4

  Kissed by Chaos

Chapter 2 - Raafi

At first he thought he was in heaven, purely because of the woman's magnificent beauty. She was the most beautiful being he had ever seen in his five years. He felt slightly guilty for thinking it, but perhaps this woman was even more beautiful than his own mother, whose beauty was legendary in all of Mirzan.

This woman's flawless face, as if sculpted by a master, showed no sign of the age the boy could only guess at. She had long hair the colour of the midnight sky. It billowed around her face, like a cloud trying to hide the moon's beauty. It seemed to him that one strand of her hair would be even taller than his boyish frame. He reached out his chubby fingers just to see if her hair was as soft as it looked and they they were soon tangled in the long, floating strands.

Suddenly, music echoed in the emptiness around him, perfectly melodius. He felt blessed to hear it. Then he realized that it was not a song - the woman was laughing. He looked into her bright, emerald green eyes smiling down at him, absolutely enchanted.

He had thought he was in heaven, but then he felt the pain.

He suddenly felt as though his chest had been sliced open and his lungs were being squeezed by rough, careless hands. The air was suddenly stifling and smothering. It sat on his chest, pinning him down like a helpless doll.  His head throbbed with a pain greater than he had ever felt before and he tried to scream out to rid his body of the pain. But simply opening his mouth to do so was a burden. He felt as though his arms had been physically stretched out in an attempt to pull them completely out of their sockets. He sensed something wet on his stomach and instinctively reached out his hand to see what it was. His pulled his hand away to find it dripping with something crimson.

This was not heaven.

"It hurts, my son, does it not?" asked the woman, staring down at him with an absent sort of concern. "Where does it hurt?"

A guttural cry consumed his words. Even now, when his body was being taken over by pain, he could not help feeling ashamed of himself for screaming out. His father had taught him not to ever let anyone know he was in pain, yet he had failed his father, his teacher, yet again.

Trembling with pain, the boy bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from crying out yet again. 

The beautiful woman knelt down and brushed away a strand of the boy's dark hair from his forehead, matted with blood and dirt. Her fingers were long and slender and were like silk against his skin. His trembling was stilled for a moment, as if quelled by the woman's touch. After a painfully short moment, he was taken over by the pain again. Squeezing his eyes tight, the boy prayed to Allah to have mercy on him.

"It hurts, I know it hurts," murmured the woman, her sharp, cat like eyes gazing deep into his own, as if trying to see right down into his cowardly soul. Perhaps his pain was causing him to hallucinate - her edges seemed blurred and she was weightless to the point where the howling wind threatened to blow her away. But something told him that she was much too strong for that.

Who was this woman? What use was she to him if she could not take his pain away?

As if reading his mind, the woman said, "You do not know who I am, but I know who you are, my child. Raafi Mustafa, the Prince of Mirzan." She said his name slowly, letting his name and title drip from her tongue, tasting each and every one of  its syllables. "Do you want to know who I am?"