Out on the lonely promontory that jutted into a dirty gray Sea of Japan, a small girl in an ornate silken dress walked softly across the sand. Her bare feet just skimmed the surface delicately. She was like a small bundle of rags today. She’d shed her usual black lace dress for something made of a thousand pieces of shimmering silk and from a distance it was hard to see a human form in the midst of it. Her soul felt as untethered as the loose grains of sand blowing across the beach now. This wasn’t the Emily that anyone ever saw or that she dared to reveal. This was her secret, inner self that feared and lusted and hid away from the prying eyes of the world. Only when she could be sure that she was unseen would she unleash that deeply buried soul. It was a soul full of bleak emptiness and lacerations so deep that they would never heal.
Zakki. That is all that her mind spun around and whirled past. Her brother. Her true brother. Her enemy once and now one that she was driven to protect. How strange the world was, how odd its moods and vagaries. More to the point, she thought, how odd the moods and vagaries of The Void. After all without her machinations none of these strange events would have happened. What did she truly desire? Surely there was a deeper goal at play. Surely it wasn’t everything that The Void was telling them. Emily was trying to decide if the being was human, Death God or what she was? Surely she wasn’t the divinity she seemed to be. If she wasn’t that divinity, what was she? Were any of the events that touched on Zakki more than what they seemed? Questions, always more questions. If only those questions could be answered with explanations.
Explaining her wouldn’t change the nature of what she was capable of. The kind of overarching, overreaching power possessed by The Void was unlike anything Emily had ever seen. The strange little slip of a girl wasn’t without power but the enigmatic being was something else again. Her terrifying abilities made most Advents Emily knew look like pale weaklings.
Once in a dream that she’d been given, Emily had tried to read the mind of the creature. But what she had seen instead was a yawning black void that opened like a hungry maw and showed her absolute nothingness. It had torn at the inside of her soul and made her never want to do that again. That kind of existential emptiness wasn’t something the hyperactive, energetic girl liked to contemplate. Non-existence was one of her greatest fears. It was why she fought so hard to make herself relevant, to make people notice her. If Emily lost her profile, she would lose her sense of worth. If she lost her sense of worth, well, that didn’t bear consideration. Now the wind whipping the silky strands of the dress across her face snapped her back into her surroundings. No longer was she wandering in the strange reaches of her mind. She giggled to herself and shoved long, dark tresses out of her eyes. It was silly of her to act like this. She wasn’t mopey old Zakki!
In a bid to cheer herself up, she began to skip and twirl more lightly down the beach. Projecting images of flowery fields and even a little flash of a rainbow, she tried to lift the veil of heaviness that had fallen on her. Perhaps distracting herself all the time wasn’t the best way to proceed but her mind would have torn itself to pieces long ago without it. So she let the pretty, sweet clouds of illusion carry her away. She forgot the pain that drove into her mind, she forgot the horror of non-existence that had greeted her and she even forgot about Zakki. Emily began singing softly to herself. It was a lullaby for a broken soul, a song that sought to soothe and calm. Her voice was a bit thin but surprisingly tuneful. It carried out across the empty strand and across the dark waves that hid more secrets than the world ever wanted to know.
The distraction worked long enough to allow something to happen and further it. Her mobile phone rang and she lifted it to her ear. It was Zakki calling. There was an urgency in his voice that she found bothersome. He was always in a rush these days. Always had places to go, people to see. She wondered why the idiots at Cerberus had ever made him Chairman. The scrawny stick was not at all suited to the role and all the small, mad girl could hope was that he saw sense and gave it to someone else. He was saying something about needing her help and she went along with it and mumbled that she’d be right there. As a reminder to do what she promised, she pinched herself hard with black-polished nails. The slight spike of pain kept her grounded to the world and made her turn and begin to jog across the wind-polished sand.
In spite of everything, she was starting to really like the skinny little pain in the ass. She thought she’d cared about Tombo but no one could really care about someone as cold, clinical and emotional as he was. There was very little human left in him. Whatever had happened to him, once upon a time in a different Cerberus Corporation, had removed what humanity he’d ever had and replaced it with psychotic machinery. The pale, lean boy who was her real brother may have lacked Tombo’s feral aggression but he made up for it by treating everyone around him (who deserved it) with kindness and warmth. Sure Zakki was prone to making mistakes and he could look silly in his attempts to hide his true nature from those around him but it was infinitely preferable to the ravening wolf that her false brother had been. So when he called to her, she went to him. Somewhere in her strange, twisted, beautiful mind something was shifting.
Word Count: 1031
Zakki. That is all that her mind spun around and whirled past. Her brother. Her true brother. Her enemy once and now one that she was driven to protect. How strange the world was, how odd its moods and vagaries. More to the point, she thought, how odd the moods and vagaries of The Void. After all without her machinations none of these strange events would have happened. What did she truly desire? Surely there was a deeper goal at play. Surely it wasn’t everything that The Void was telling them. Emily was trying to decide if the being was human, Death God or what she was? Surely she wasn’t the divinity she seemed to be. If she wasn’t that divinity, what was she? Were any of the events that touched on Zakki more than what they seemed? Questions, always more questions. If only those questions could be answered with explanations.
Explaining her wouldn’t change the nature of what she was capable of. The kind of overarching, overreaching power possessed by The Void was unlike anything Emily had ever seen. The strange little slip of a girl wasn’t without power but the enigmatic being was something else again. Her terrifying abilities made most Advents Emily knew look like pale weaklings.
Once in a dream that she’d been given, Emily had tried to read the mind of the creature. But what she had seen instead was a yawning black void that opened like a hungry maw and showed her absolute nothingness. It had torn at the inside of her soul and made her never want to do that again. That kind of existential emptiness wasn’t something the hyperactive, energetic girl liked to contemplate. Non-existence was one of her greatest fears. It was why she fought so hard to make herself relevant, to make people notice her. If Emily lost her profile, she would lose her sense of worth. If she lost her sense of worth, well, that didn’t bear consideration. Now the wind whipping the silky strands of the dress across her face snapped her back into her surroundings. No longer was she wandering in the strange reaches of her mind. She giggled to herself and shoved long, dark tresses out of her eyes. It was silly of her to act like this. She wasn’t mopey old Zakki!
In a bid to cheer herself up, she began to skip and twirl more lightly down the beach. Projecting images of flowery fields and even a little flash of a rainbow, she tried to lift the veil of heaviness that had fallen on her. Perhaps distracting herself all the time wasn’t the best way to proceed but her mind would have torn itself to pieces long ago without it. So she let the pretty, sweet clouds of illusion carry her away. She forgot the pain that drove into her mind, she forgot the horror of non-existence that had greeted her and she even forgot about Zakki. Emily began singing softly to herself. It was a lullaby for a broken soul, a song that sought to soothe and calm. Her voice was a bit thin but surprisingly tuneful. It carried out across the empty strand and across the dark waves that hid more secrets than the world ever wanted to know.
The distraction worked long enough to allow something to happen and further it. Her mobile phone rang and she lifted it to her ear. It was Zakki calling. There was an urgency in his voice that she found bothersome. He was always in a rush these days. Always had places to go, people to see. She wondered why the idiots at Cerberus had ever made him Chairman. The scrawny stick was not at all suited to the role and all the small, mad girl could hope was that he saw sense and gave it to someone else. He was saying something about needing her help and she went along with it and mumbled that she’d be right there. As a reminder to do what she promised, she pinched herself hard with black-polished nails. The slight spike of pain kept her grounded to the world and made her turn and begin to jog across the wind-polished sand.
In spite of everything, she was starting to really like the skinny little pain in the ass. She thought she’d cared about Tombo but no one could really care about someone as cold, clinical and emotional as he was. There was very little human left in him. Whatever had happened to him, once upon a time in a different Cerberus Corporation, had removed what humanity he’d ever had and replaced it with psychotic machinery. The pale, lean boy who was her real brother may have lacked Tombo’s feral aggression but he made up for it by treating everyone around him (who deserved it) with kindness and warmth. Sure Zakki was prone to making mistakes and he could look silly in his attempts to hide his true nature from those around him but it was infinitely preferable to the ravening wolf that her false brother had been. So when he called to her, she went to him. Somewhere in her strange, twisted, beautiful mind something was shifting.
Word Count: 1031