Book One; Will of Fire (On Hiatus)

Prologue: Sangsara

When a person, depending on their religion, thought of death, they more than likely immediately envisioned heaven or hell, along with their selected deity.

Let me tell you: whatever traditional hallmark that's supposed to happen after death is, sure as hell wasn't what happened to me when my heart stopped.

Instead, I was greeted by an all-encompassing sense of warmth, darkness, safety, and a paradoxical combination of serenity and anticipation.

Then came a indeterminable period of time in which I experienced indistinct nothingness, and then -

- there was cold, mind-numbing pain, mingling with a sense of unmitigated terror and apprehension. An inexplicable sensation of constriction and immediacy, before the comforting darkness I had grown accustomed to was yanked away, and I was forced into (freezing) cold air; my limbs unresponsive and my senses... effectively useless; hypersensitive and obfuscated due to sensory deprivation and all the time spent in that unrelenting, yet comforting darkness.

Screams; loud, sharp, and discordant rang inside my ears, and it took a minute to realize they were coming from me. I cringed and squirmed; thoroughly saturated in a thick, sticky (utterlydisgustingandunfamiliar) near-gelatinous substance that smelled metallic (bloodbloodbloodthere'ssomuchblood) and something else that I couldn't identify.

Voices echoed above me in hushed, harried voices in a language that sounded uncannily like Japanese (though I couldn't say for certain because something was clogging my ears and made it that much harder to hear than normal) before I was rubbed down and wrapped in something soft and warm, before I felt myself being lifted and carried (which didn't make a single shred of sense; I had always been on the short side, but I had never been that small) until it happened, and the terror and the sense of itjustdidn'tfit came back full-force.

A cold, foreign feeling that I recognized as macabre in nature washed over me. I hadn't known what it was at the time (which, honestly only made it that much worse) but it was so thick; so potent that it had felt almost palpable. It was angry, pulsing, and ugly - like being inside of a beating heart - and I saw the death that I had avoided thinking about for my entire time in the darkness come back to the forefront of my mind replay over and over again (bones cracking and shattering on impact; terror and helplessness; the stench of burnt rubber and warm blood perforating the air; bystanders' chatter and [ambulance?] sirens fading into the background as the numbness left and in its place was painpainpain, dull and numb at first before it was throbbing and splitting and then... nothing) and suddenly I felt a spike of energy, and then I was out of the protective hold of the first person, and in the arms of the one generating that awfulawful feeling.

I screamed and struggled with renewed force, but it did nothing and all it did was make that person tighten his hold on me and for that awful feeling to thicken and spike.

What immediately followed happened too fast for me to even try to comprehend. All I know is that one minute I'm in the arms of the minatory person, and then I was in the arms of the familiar, safe someone who spoke softly and soothingly to me, before placing me next to someone else (the woman) who felt faintly familiar.

The woman cooed soft, nonsensical words to me, before wrapping a long arm around me. I felt a wave of concern hit. Her voice was hoarse; strained. She was in pain.

What... what is this? What's going on?

A few minutes passed before I felt something else. Something awful; something that was a thousand times more macabre and potent than the first.

'Evil' wasn't a word I like to throw around lightly. But it was overwhelming, and malicious, and as I said before, I had had no idea what it was: I couldn't categorize it; I couldn't tell myself that everything was going to be okay, or that I'd get away safely - hell, I couldn't even scream, much less move.

It didn't help that I could hear the fracas outside: the explosions, the clanging of weaponry - the raw, guttural (angry) roars. Added to that, thousands of different energy signatures and intents had mixed and combined, increasing the growing terror and apprehension in my stomach exponentially. I felt so scared; so helpless, weak, and unable.

I... I never wanted to feel that way again.

Then the man - the familiar one, with soothing energy - took us both away in a blur of motion. And then it was near me - so close; too close - but I couldn't do anything except stare helplessly, unseeing, at the place where that awful energy was located.

Harried words rang out above my head, frantic movement, an angry (indignant?) roar, and then... nothing. And then I heard her voice coming out in slow, strained rasps and I just knew with unrelenting clarity that she was dying. Slowly and in pain. And that there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Not as I was.

A quiet whimper escaped as I heard the man say something as well - in the same tone of voice.

What... what on Earth is going on? Why are they dying? There was a battle, that much I know, but the man's signature had felt so strong before and... were they protecting me? Were they dying because of me?

But I was abruptly shaken out of that thought as I felt it. The pure, unadulterated (burningburning) hate. It shifted, fluctuating, before it was inside of me.

This time I was shaken out of it of my massive freeze-up to scream in pain. There was no words to describe how it felt to have that thing... that hateful energy, inside of me - what the process of having it integrated into my system felt like. It was like being electrocuted, set on fire, and frozen all at once, over and over again.

I sobbed and choked; screaming as I clawed at my stomach (the Centre of where that vile energy now resided) with short, stubby fingernails, thrashing wildly and hoping that someone - anyone - would come and help me.

Because by then, the two flickering signatures of the people who had saved me had completely faded, and besides the thing inside of me - the one that took them in the first place - I was truly alone.

And no one came for a long time.