Prologue Part 2
Mommy and Daddy disappeared when the bad men had burned up the town. He barely remembered what happened but he cried afterward because he couldn´t find them. They weren´t going to come for him.
It was morning and Mommy had made breakfast. It was eggs and bacon. Daddy had gotten the meat from one the pigs the day before and Mommy had been out to the barn where the cows were to get milk. The day started like any other and they sat at the table, eating quietly, a content family. The sun was bright in cloudless blue sky outside, the grass was greener than any green he´d ever seen and there was a nice steady draft of wind coming down from the north where the mountains were. After breakfast he usually went to Jesse´s house to play, which was where he was headed right after the last bite of crunchy bacon.
One of his and Jesse´s favourite games to play together was pretending to be army men. Those guys were tuff and they carried large guns, people respected them. All the children wanted to be in the army, but the parents disapproved of the violent games this inspired. He was lucky because Mommy let him play army men as long as he didn´t cause trouble.
His mother was clearing the table and he had just been about to take his leave when one of the neighbours came knocking frantically at the door. It was Natalie – she watched him frequently when he was a baby. When Mommy and Daddy went out to town socials she´d take care of him then too. He liked her a lot.
Natalie didn´t look too well though. She had a black lump under her eye and she was crying, her blonde locks were tussled and dirty. There was a red water flowing down from her left arm, beginning at her torn dress near her shoulder, and it dripped from her finger tips to Mommy´s clean floor. Natalie held her limp arm tightly and began speaking to Mommy very fast as though she couldn´t breathe. Her chest was heaving and her eyes were watery. He looked at Mommy who had began to call for Daddy.
"Tony get bandages quick! Natalie´s hurt."
The moment Mommy spoke Natalie grabbed onto her arm with the red soaked hand, smearing the liquid on Mommy´s blue clothing. She started sobbing loudly and collapsed to the floor. He was scared, he felt tears in his eyes. What was wrong with her? Did she fall and hurt herself? He got red on him too sometimes when he fell hard and skin broke, but his parents never explained what the strange coloured water was, but it hurt more than anything. Had she fallen? Is that what happened? He went to the corner of the kitchen and curled up in the corner, shaking. Mommy probably hadn´t noticed he had been watching Natalie´s pain.
He didn´t want Natalie to be hurt, she was like a Mommy to him too.
What was that? What was all that red, that black, what did it mean?
Then there was a tremendous boom outside that shook the floor and he covered his ears. He stared down at the wood floorboards and counted to ten over and over. There was another large boom and the ground vibrated. One through ten, one through ten – he repeated again and again. At school they taught him numbers, ten was the highest he´d ever counted and he found that when he repeated these numbers he could think of nothing else but one through ten. It worked to push out Natalie for a small amount of time and the tears subsided briefly. Then there was another boom sound from outside and he ran from the kitchen in a fright. It was terrifying. He wanted Mommy to protect him from the booms so he went looking for her. He found her quickly, but Natalie had disappeared. There was a smeared red trail leading out the front door.
Mommy was screaming while Daddy was rummaging through high shelves in their shared bedroom. There was another loud boom sound and he could hear the scampering of people from the outside. He could hear yelling and horrified screaming too. He rushed to the window and looked out, trying to make sense of things for himself. There was panic in every direction yet he could see nothing familiar. The outside had changed drastically, the sky had turned dark with black clouds and the grass no longer swayed majestically, it was singed.
This was the scariest nightmare he´d ever had and he wanted to wake.
He could hear more of the screams of their neighbours and there was fire blazing outside in their homes, destroying everything, but those neighbours were no where to be seen. He didn´t understand. His heart was a drum in his chest and he fell silent, not even breathing, unable to comprehend what was befalling his small farming town.
Mommy kept yelling, her eyes wide with terror. The flame began to cackle loudly and it spread as quickly as sunshine in the early morning. He ran from the window to Mommy and held onto her blouse, sobbing.
"Tony, hurry!" Mommy screamed as someone began slamming on the front door. Daddy was tense, there was a great panic running through his bones, and he dropped things uncaringly to the floor as he reached for a small metallic box that was on the highest shelf in the closet. He grabbed the box and pulled it down. Daddy then turned toward Mommy and pulled a key from his vest pocket. His hands were covered in sweat and they shook erratically like the leaves on the trees during a windy afternoon. Daddy looked more scared than Mommy, he used words that he had never used in front of his child, bad words, and there appeared to be sweat in his eyes as well, making them red, bulging. But it couldn´t be tears because Daddy never cried. He was strong, he´d protect Mommy and his child.
Then, after Daddy had opened the box, there suddenly appeared a gun in his hand.
"Xander!" Mommy pulled him from her blouse and looked him in the eyes. She was trembling and kept shaking him, her lips tight, she couldn´t form words.
"Mommy, I´m scared," he told her. She kneeled and pulled him into her bosom and held him tight.
"Don´t look baby, stay with mommy. Nothings gonna happen, you´re going to be all right."
Why was she telling him this? Why was mommy acting like something bad was going to happen? What was wrong? It was a nightmare and it would go away and Daddy would protect them because he was a strong, brave knight.
The door broke down, crashing hard, there were footsteps storming the house. He held on to Mommy tighter, not daring to look or leave her protective embrace. Then, there was more booming. It was a weaker sound than the high explosive one that was coming from all around earlier. This was more rapid, more near. He could hear Daddy yelling at someone, but unable to tell what was being said. Mommy held him tighter and she cried out Daddy´s name.
There was a thump to the floor and the footsteps came closer.
Suddenly large hands yanked him from Mommy and he screamed and clawed at the large fingers as they grasped his shoulders. The hands were stronger than him, easily able to separate him from Mommy.
"Mommy! Mommy!" he cried out as loud as he could and began kicking his legs fervently at the air. Huge arms wrapped around him firmly, his feet left the earth, and he screamed for Mommy again but she didn´t do anything. Opening his eyes he saw her being dragged away by a monstrous figure who was shrouded in black. She reached her hands out to him, him to her, both screaming, but the big beast pulled on her angrily and lifted her onto its shoulder. Then, with a howl of a demon, it carried her toward the empty space where the front door had once been, tearing mother and child apart permanently.
Day had become even more like the night. Fire consumed the outside and swooshed into the air. The beast was taking Mommy into the flame.
He could barely see her and she slowly faded. He cried for her once more and she then vanished before him. Tears were streaking his face and a light smoke caressed him as it drifted in from the outside.
"Shut up!" the monster possessing the large arms holding him said. He kicked more, a frantic struggle against the beast. The monster squeezed him around the waist so tightly that he couldn´t breathe anymore. His lungs deflated and he felt the consciousness seep from his body.
Feeling dizzy he went limp in the monsters arms. On the floor in the kitchen, not too far away, there was a body sleeping there, red pooled around it like spilled milk and it was not moving.
Its shape was similar to Daddy´s.
Alexander began to hum a familiar and beautiful tune. William was entranced by the sound – the beat – it was one he found himself humming on occasion, though he was unaware of its name or why he remembered it so well. They sat under the large cloudless sky atop a hill not far from the garden. Alexander laid against the grassy bed beneath them, his arms folded behind his head, one leg bent up, a grin on his face. William sat next to him, unable to tear his eyes away.
Who are you?
There were many questions that he wanted to ask but could not, for himself out of fear, and simply for the reason why he´d said so few words in the last hour. He was frozen, mesmerized by Alexander´s presence. It was as though he were detached from it all, looking in through a crystal sphere.
The song being hummed inspired him to ask a question, only one. He asked solely to hear the voice of the black clad man rather than to know the answer.
"That´s a beautiful melody. What´s that song?"
"Sometimes," Alexander spoke softly, " I have this tune in my head, but I have no clue its origin or name."
Alexander shrugged and went on making the gentle noise for a few seconds more.
"There´s an old woman who lives in the mountains not far from here – well, it´s a long way actually. I guess it would seem closer on a map. But there´s this infectious little tune she plays on an old homophone. I have no clue what it´s called but I like it. That´s where I learned it."
"Who is she?"
"No one important. Like my father would say – just some old bird."
The feelings that mixed inside William from earlier had caused him some aggravation and dread. He should remember Alexander, somewhere inside there was a voice telling him so, that this was important. The longer he spent with this stranger, however, the more that voice began to silence along with the anger he had at himself for having a great lapse in memory.
He needed something from this man that was more than a simple answer.
But William did not know what that something was and he could not bear to bother Alexander with these troubles.
For the first time he was a coward.
There was a warm feeling in his chest, settling there comfortably. Why did he experience such tender emotions for someone he´d never met? Only Buffy had enabled this type of fondness in his heart. This was however far more different than his feelings her. He almost dared not question it, wanting instead to bask in the moment, but he had too ask for sanity's sake.
"Alexander?"
"Yes?"
Nothing.
William pushed his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around legs, like a child would, one who had discovered an insecurity and sought safety within themselves. Already an hour had passed and it was quickly turning into two. Yet with all this time he could not search within himself to decide exactly what he felt for this man Alexander. He was beginning to feel an anguish, a dismal, emotional pain he could not free himself from. He gazed down at Alexander and wanted to return the great smile that came his way. But sadly he could not. No amount of time would be enough to figure all this out. He still felt the warmth of Alexander, but there was a hollow hole inside him as well for being so useless that he could not even conjure a simple memory of this man.
Alexander then spoke, staring up at the sky. "I would love to stay longer and watch the stars sparkle with you. If I weren´t so busy I´d like to see the moon and watch your pale skin gleam in the late night. For many, many nights in fact. My father and I used to watch the moon together, he said it was a source of great strength, and he glowed in its light as I´m sure you glow in its light."
William reddened at Alexander´s words, spoken with great intimacy. He´d also given William a comment about his skin. Did Alexander think him beautiful? A man, William thought, he was not used to being complimented so, least of all from another man.
William´s expression remained that of apathy, but his mind was swimming and he could barely think to form thought or word. Every syllable from Alexander´s lips held him like nothing else could. This man made William as stone, something to be chiseled as he saw fit.
William spoke and his voice was low, even more quiet than it had been the last few hours. So low in fact, he could barely hear himself.
"Who are you, Alexander?"
The black clad stranger merely laughed, then gradually, like ripples in the water, he stretched out and moved into sitting position. His body seemed much larger than before, his shadow loomed over William, much like his dark smile. William could not move, the thoughts more void than ever. He could not make out neither sun nor sky, his gaze focused on Alexander´s deep and boundless brown orb of an eye. William was this man´s puppet, he knew it, and in Alexander´s presence he could be nothing but.
"You want to know what I am?"
He could not react.
Fingers dipped under William´s chin, lifting him higher to fully meet Alexander´s gaze. The hand caressed his skin as though the rarest silk, lovingly it seemed. Then Alexander´s head started to lower, so slowly descending to William. The heat in his chest began to grow hotter, into an inferno threatening to consume him. And, with a single breath his only reply, Alexander´s lips met his.
That voice which was silenced before had now returned to his mind, and it spoke with a longing that filled him with sorrow.
My boy. My little boy.
A single drop of warm liquid spilled over the corner of William´s eye. The atmosphere felt of deviance, the scene wrong, yet he yearned for it. He yearned for Alexander to show him something, to be what he needed.
But he had no knowledge of what he needed. He was empty.
He saw black as he closed himself off, shutting his eyes to savoured Alexander´s touch. Then just as fast as their lips had met they soon departed, and that voice repeated to him the same questions, and it was begging for the answers.
What has he done to me? Why am I distraught?
"What I am is yours. What else would I be?"
The stranger then walked away, his sword swaying gently with the motion of his legs.
William remained where he was, the wind blowing softly against him.
Xander.
The beasts had sought to make him a slave. Mommy and Daddy weren´t coming because the devil had taken their souls.
But along came an angel, one clad in the armor forged from the bones of his enemies. His hair was white as the heavens, his eyes blue as the sky. He was an angel of vengeance, his mighty hand – the right hand of god – had slaughtered all the demons and a purifying flame consumed the slave camp.
In the aftermath of his wrath the angel came upon a small dark haired boy in a cage. The boy was scared but sought nothing in the way of rescue, wanting instead to be with his Mommy and Daddy again.
The angel released him from imprisonment and the boy thought he´d be sent to the afterlife to meet with his beloved parents.
It seemed that he soon would.
Grabbing him by the throat the angel lifted the child in the air. The boy was no more than a light feather to the deity.
His eyes narrowed and a blue light erupted from the angel´s hand.
"I should kill you now, little boy."
There was black.
WIP
