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Thereafter

By Mironde

Chapter 1: Fall

The greatest lessons are born from tragedy.

He was no stranger to death, nor to the pain of such loss that numbed him to its fated nature. Family and friends were never timeless, pets were fleeting moments of joy, and he too was destined to walk that path into the unknown, alone. He had cried for relatives, schoolmates, even strangers, without once questioning the cruelty of fate. And yet, as if playing witness to his own, helpless to stop what he himself started, only now did he comprehend the value of life. Even at his lowest point, consumed by sorrow, he found the will to stand, a stronger man than before.

This, he knew, was true peace.

Free of conflict and doubt, he watched the floating, ashen petal drift at his feet, saying his final prayers for his only friend in this land of despair. How it inspired such change within him in its transient existence, to think that he could sweep the horizon in view and dream of the world's edge, not quite as far as he once believed. It was an irresponsible hope, to think the skyline was anything less than infinite, though he was no less determined to test its impossible bounds for himself. For all his turmoil, all his doubt, he saw clearly the path before him. The choice to leave this hellish place was always his to decide, had he only known the way.

All that newfound confidence fell apart beyond his first steps. He stopped cold in his tracks, neither from fear nor nerves, as he felt a shudder in his bones, a tremble in his soles, a motion in the stillness. Bellowing from the waters below, he heard the sounds of a coming storm, thunder without lightning, tempest without clouds. Their muffled echoes rose through his legs and churned his stomach like a sickening ulcer.

In his moment of panic, his eyes darted frantically in the darkness, catching sight of a familiar glow rippling in the waters. Wide, vibrant waves broke against his heels as they traveled past him. They splattered out around his feet in a brilliant matrix of circles, illuminating everything a radiant blue. But they were different now; their radiance buckled and thrummed, broke around him as if avoiding him. They were agitated and nervous; wavering; cowering.

And as a quaking rumble underneath jolted him forward, he understood why - why they were right to be afraid.

That same, rational fear dismantled his confidence. The ripples grew in size, intensely more terrified of something unseen in the black abyss. Defying his better judgment, he turned back and saw nothing - nothing but his friend, motionless on the surface, exactly where he left him. There was something profound about that, that it remained unmoved by such forces, disturbing him so deeply that his fur slowly bristled up and stood on end.

As if responding to his dare, under his watchful gaze, it answered him. A third, tremendous crash came like an explosion, and the ripples, he now saw, flowed from the ember's husk. And yet, it was completely unfazed, even as the world around it rocked and collapsed. Soon, there came a fourth knock, and a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, each successive bang louder, fiercer, faster than the last, the waves they spread blending together until the ocean was awash with light. But by the eighth, at its peak, the glow scattered into shadows, and the noise dissolved in his ears with a dissonant, hollow ring.

For the longest time, in the silence that followed...nothing.

Shrouded in the dying light, he watched, waited, wondered...when, inexplicably, the ember dipped under the ocean before his very eyes. Bubbles rose where it drifted to its watery grave. A shudder of horrible suspense ran down his spine, to see it meld with the darkness. To call this sinking feeling anxiety was an understatement; neither would fear suffice. What he witnessed was an omen, a reflection of his own fate, where all his hopes drowned with it - entombed where no light would ever reach him, where his soul would never be at peace. Those thoughts turned his breathing sharp and violent, and he felt his chest tighten, frightened of the dark places he was taking himself.

His prophetic fears were soon realized when the tremors returned in full force. This time, they didn't stop. Smaller, more frequent rings erupted from the same point the ember had left. The gentle bubbling in their midst now roiled and snapped, foamed and ruptured, grew and grew until it was impossibly huge. In the haze of blue, he scrambled backwards to spare himself, staring in abject awe while it engulfed the light.

Without warning, the tremors knocked him about, and the waters swelled high above him, revealing the source of this unbelievable feat. Hands burst forth - massive, monstrous, humanoid claws, black as the night, with fingers larger than any man. They cleaved through the ocean effortlessly, sending sprays of water and waves of blue light surging in all directions, and their nails slammed in front of him, digging deep into the expanse like it was flesh, their impact toppling him over with sheer scale. Peering up from the floor, stunned eyes wide in shock and disbelief, he saw colossal arms, long as himself a thousand times over, rising from the tides. Working their rippling muscles, they pulled themselves up at a frightening pace with their new leverage, cascading shockwaves bigger than before along the water.

He was shivering now, caught by a kind of fear he had never imagined possible, not even in his wildest nightmares.

Suddenly, to his alarm, he too was rising. One of the hands dived under the waves, under his feet, uprooting him from solid ground. Its skin, its cold flesh, was tough and rigid as stone, covered in charcoal fur. Touching it sent a chill up his spine, to see it was like him...yet something else entirely - something unnatural; inhuman. The claw carried him up to the black sky, far above the waves that had nearly crashed down on him from its emergence. And in his slow ascent, he could see the waters bubbling and churning between the outstretched limbs.

There was more. Of course there was more.

Something enormous was coming through, something that breached the boundaries of reality, heralding its arrival in the most spectacular display of force. By the size of its hands alone, whatever it was, it was truly monolithic. Without knowing its nature, he was already shivering, overcome with anticipation. The atmosphere was foreboding, the air so thick and heavy as to be palpable, even suffocating. He couldn't place the feeling, entrenched in the darkness somewhere...perhaps everywhere. He could only gasp helplessly at its gigantic, black frame rising from the other side, just as the rippling lights slowly died, plunging him once more into darkness.

It reared up like a literal titan. Where size beyond measure, beyond description, beyond _comprehension_loomed over him, he was unmistakably insignificant compared to it. Paralyzed by fear, he could only grasp its shadow through the curtain of black that concealed it. And in the moments of tense silence that followed, he finally glimpsed the raw emotion he had felt before - the very same one, enshrouded by the night, that choked his lungs.

Malice.

Quivering in the darkness, every instinct he had screamed at him in that instant, begging him to run. Yet something held him firm - something greater than courage, wiser than bravery. His limp legs refused to listen, for it was useless to run from something so massive. They were crushed under the weight of despair, petrified by insurmountable doubt. He had long given up hope before its prospect even dawned.

But as the water settled and the winds calmed, all fell deathly silent.

...Then came a low rumble.

There was movement beneath him, barely a tremble or a twitch from the creature's hand, but with such scale that it bounded through his ears with the sound of a landslide. He heard the crack of stone, the popping of bone, the pulse of coursing blood. He heard the fluttering wisp of a flame enclosing him, scents of smoke and brimstone billowing around his nose and ravaging his lungs with their acrid sting. Icy skin warmed beneath him like a bed of kindling stoked to life. The tips of each black hair shimmered, shaking tiny embers fine as dust free from themselves. His paws began to sink into the thick shroud of fur, now backlit by a subdued orange glow seeping through each tuft, as if a fire burned beneath its flesh.

Before he could stand, without warning, the entire hand jerked and quaked and threw him about carelessly as it animated. Its fingers curled inward like bars of a cage to catch him before he fell. He landed harshly against the wall of stony flesh, floundering in the darkness and squeezing the creature's fur, huddled like a scared child clinging to its parents for the world to right itself. The shifting abruptly stopped, leaving him dazed and nauseous, his vision blurred, his head pounding. Composing himself took exhausting, excruciating moments. With enough effort, he rolled on his side and hefted himself up, only to find his chest tight with a sinking feeling of dread.

Terror consumed him, an unshakable, wrenching awareness in his gut...like he was being watched. There was movement in the void, thundering and ominous, the rolling storm now overhead. Something large approached his perch, where he lay defenseless and vulnerable in its clutches. Cowardice stifled any bravery he could muster, and his whole body violently shook. The darkness was his enemy now, a foe so omnipresent, so malevolent, that he couldn't hope to fight it. He had never been more afraid of what unseen horrors existed out of sight, out of mind, outside the realm of his vastly inferior understanding.

With his timid heart steeled, uncertain of what lurked beyond, he glanced over his shoulder into the shadows. And just as he stared into the abyss, the abyss itself stared back. A fierce light pierced through the veil, growing and rising until enormous, crimson eyes took shape, with their gaze fixed solely on him.

He was so startled, caught in such surprise, that he nearly stumbled back into oblivion amidst his screams. Those eyes split the night like roaring blazes, lighting parts of the creature's face for him to see. In the chaos, it had snuck up on him; now, it was uncomfortably, unnervingly close, so close he could hear its guttural breathing, its magnitude transforming each breath into a menacing growl.

Below its eyes, he saw a smile forming on its lupine muzzle, almost familiar were it not threatening him with its rows of teeth, sharp as razors. Yet, instead of devouring him...it opened its maw to speak.

"So," it proclaimed, its deep, male voice echoing through his ears, "awake at last."

He stared, speechless and stunned. What he saw was no primal beast, nor a vengeful spirit of death - and it was no less astounding, and no less intimidating. It was a person; it was a man - a towering, statue-like colossus of a man, with fur blacker than the darkness itself, and glaring irises the color of blood. Its voice was not the harsh, gravelly texture he expected of something so otherworldly; it was deep and torrid, full of confidence, yet impossibly soft for its stature; it was powerful, calculating, the smallest inflections of dominance hanging on every word.

And in his silence, as if admiring its catch, the giant's tremendous eyes narrowed, and its grin stretched, to see that frail little creature in its palm shivering in its palm.

"...Are you afraid of me?" it mocked with a chuckle under its breath, its quiet voice no less bold and proud. Transfixed, engrossed, he could hardly find the words as he locked eyes with the creature, holding an answer in his bated breath. But as he opened his mouth, his words were silenced, and he was seized by the animus blazing in its eyes - a burning, unquenchable, unrestrained hatred for all things, their flames seething with the same evil that tainted the air.

That thing...was malice incarnate.

"You're not wrong to be..." it whispered, almost commending him in smug satisfaction. "Fear is instinct, what keeps us alive, what separates weak from strong. You should be afraid...yes. You, a coward fleeing from his own fate, should know all about fear..."

In but an instant, those words, fallen harshly upon his ears, had decimated him to his core. The color drained from his face, leaving him a pallid, ghostly white. Now, he was no longer simply afraid, but profoundly disturbed - disturbed by its implications, that it somehow knew him...that it was expecting him.

With unsettling verve, it confirmed his greatest fears. "Oh yes... I know all about you, more than you could possibly imagine..."

Like hot ash, its timbre pierced through his skin, rattled his bones to their marrow, splintered against his essence; with the mere mention of his transgressions, it violated him in a manner he couldn't ascribe to words. This instinct, this fear - unconquerable, unparalleled, just as it said. In vain denial, powerless to oppose the beast, he could do nothing but shake his head and submit, ears folded, tail curled, a wisp caught in a ravaging storm.

"W-Who... _W-What_are you?" he finally stammered out, though his trembling, trailing voice lent the impression of a whimper.

His pathetic display only pleased his host. Lowly at first, the colossal man started to laugh - earthy, drumming laughter that transformed each breath into an avalanche. Then, its mouth opened wide into a bellowing chuckle, an eruption of humors unbridled in its volume. The sound was deafening. Thrown by the blast, he flattened his ears and pounded his hands to his head, visibly straining to block out the noise. It was only once its laughter died into hushed, surreal silence that he rose from his huddle, scared and confused, left a startled wreck from the outburst.

"My, you're a curious one - so thoughtless, so brazen, seeking answers to questions far above your infantile view..." it praised. "No less, from one with the power to crush you like the insignificant babe you are. Maybe I misjudged you after all. Your disregard for the consequences of your actions...it almost makes you sound brave.Almost."

Its face drew near, where he could see its glowing, blood red irises pulsing.

"But I know better; we both know, don't we? The man you really are." It grinned, a devilish grin to match the flames of its eyes, almost lustful in delight of his anguish. "Every loathsome thought, every abhorrent deed, every lurid desire in your darkest fantasies; your dreams, your nightmares, your happiness, your misery..."

Closer still crept the flames, bearing down on him with their colossal scale, until they eclipsed him. He sat in arm's length of its lens, in awful, shuddering terror of its gaze - so daunting as to render him an insect by its presence alone. It paralyzed him, ran straight through him as if to rend his soul, such that he might never find respite from its watch.

"I know them all, the depths of your depravity, your unforgivable sins...for I am sin itself."

The inferno in the beast's eyes roared. So fierce was its burning ire that the fires reached out to swallow him, scalding strands that churned and wove and flowed around in a tempest of spectral wisps. Aghast, he clambered back against his captor's palm, singed and shaken while the raging squall washed over him. But this torment was nothing matched against the demon's words, crashing down on him even still - those which conjured within him his deepest shame and his greatest fears. As the fury calmed, he was left there huddled, in tears, a scared, sputtering mess, for he remembered anew the terror of facing his judgment.

"No... No, stay back!" he cried, shaking his head in rejection. Tears welled and throat cracked, driving him down to the harsh, raspy murmur of a frightened child. "This isn't right! This isn't happening! Y-You...can't be real...! What do you want with me?!"

"Want..." he heard it say, a sigh sharp and fading, tainted with the faintest twinge of longing - with the familiar pang of nostalgia. Its smile vanished in the haze, dragged to a dejected glower. "Long ago, I knew desire, and its bitter sting, in ways none else shall ever know. And so, for my sins, I am to this lifeless, lightless abyss as you are - forsaken, forgotten..."

Now, something had changed in its demeanor. Once firm, the confidence brimming in its voice faltered, recoiled back into the lingering shadows of doubt. So too did the demon retreat, head aloft in the darkened sky. The glow of its visage flickered in the night like dying candles, and all fell to a brooding silence - a moment of reflection where, for the first time, he stared deep into its eyes and saw the smallest glimmer of regret dancing in the scarlet blaze. But whatever ephemeral visions haunted the creature had just as quickly fizzled out, scattered like ash in the wind.

"Ask not of what I want, mortal. What matters here...is you..."

"M-Me...?" he muttered, incredulous, terrified, when already he imagined what sinister machinations swirled in his host's simmering glare.

"Scarce do the souls here rise from their torpor. Yet where so many have fallen, here stands a coward, stronger than the pious and still frail as paper," the beast mused, that bold texture returning to its imperious chords, had it ever truly left. It eased its hand down, down below its breast, until the demon was nothing more than a monstrous shade looming overhead, the bloody, smoldering flames at its center sparking in their kilns. "Tell me, what is it you seek that drives you so? What is it you want?"

An awful chill swept down his spine, shuddering through his bones. He remembered well this dread, this tumult of fear and uncertainty galling his nerves, this siren blaring within his addled mind. Resolve wracked by guilt, his heart lurched in his chest, his legs buckled under duress, and he hung his head at last in disgrace. The world itself fell still as if it awaited his response, visions of sorrow and shame stirring in his eyes, a forlorn frown adorning his muzzle. Though he grasped for words, he simply had none to explain his childish ardor. His own selfish desires compelled him to tread this path of madness - to believe escape from the endless black possible. To that end, he was prepared to walk an eternity in this languor, when he never questioned what it was he hoped to find; he was so desperate for freedom, when he never understood what freedom meant. But what he wanted more than all else - paradise, long prayed and lived for; peace, long fought and died for - he knew he didn't deserve.

Cast from the world like refuse, what now was his purpose...?

...Then, as he stood sulking, a glimmer of flames flashed in his eyes. Smoldering cinders wisped from beneath, from the bed of ashen fur at his feet, motes of fiery vermilion that slowly swirled like a gale of leaves all around him. Head raised and eyes aglow with timid wonder, he stared enraptured, so enthralled by their familiar trail, their meandering rise and graceful drop, that he reached out to gather them in his palm. Yet as surely as they fell, they faded all the same. He watched with hopes crushed as they sizzled in his grasp, and his mind, flooded with regrets, drifted upon those sorrows as petals would on the whims of the wind.

With their serene light dancing their last on the fringes of his sight, all thoughts returned to his fated friend - the promise it too carried to its grave. It was his guiding light in this darkness, his only happiness in this misery, and his greatest failure in this tragedy. But where his guilt haunted him, its memory soothed him, calmed his nerves, quelled his doubts. Even now, the weight of its sacrifice wore heavy on his shoulders, laden with charred remnants like so many dreams left unfulfilled. This sin was his responsibility - his burden - and so long as he bore it, he would never truly be free. This was the fate he had come to accept - the penance he had sworn to endure.

One sole, solitary answer slipped from his tongue, and emerged from the storm of muddled ideas clouding his mind. And so, with a handful of ash, he clutched his paw and uttered the only truth his labors had made.

"Forgiveness..."

...The beast, in profound, almost smug disbelief, sneered.

"Forgiveness?" Rumbling laughter bellowed forth, like an explosion booming from its chest. Its reaction crashed like a low blow in the depths of his stomach, an insult to the struggles that tore his fragile heart to shreds. Humiliation flushed in his face. Ears folded back, he knew not what to say in the face of ridicule.

"That's it? _That's_your answer?" it asked him, its jeers rolling to a whisper as sharply as they began. "Naïve, such reckless faith, to believe the damned _deserve_salvation. You think this illusion, this beautiful lie, this hollow, empty promise the answer to your prayers. But justice is not so feeble to bend to your penitent pleas. I have witnessed its blind prejudice firsthand - absolute, stalwart, stubborn as the Almighty Himself."

Great disdain tarnished those last words; palpable, dripping disgust. The flames of its eyes, confined to their braziers, now pulsed with the furor of passions incensed. Once more, its paw bore upward, lifting its guest back into the spotlight.

"Judgment is not so easily fought, nor sin so easily cleansed. This façade, this cruel joke you call redemption, lies forever beyond your mortal reach..."

His shoulders sank under the weight of each claim, uncertainty lingering in his vacant eyes. Just as he had gathered his confidence, his captor had scattered it with the greatest of ease. Its words had somehow changed him, broken his baseless beliefs, swayed the parts of him willing to question his own faltering grasp of reality. And in his moment of weakness, he wanted nothing more than to believe this was all wrong - to expose these lies for what they were. But now, he found doubt in everything - his visions, his insights, his convictions; most of all, himself. He hadn't the power in his voice to object, only the frail, fleeting resolve to resist.

"Is it so wrong to try...?" he asked of the demon, sorrow dragging his timid chords down to a whimper. Yet for once, unexpectedly, it remained silent, unmoving, eyes wide and fires pulsing, as if watching -- and waiting - with morbid intrigue. Roused by curiosity, the blaze roaring in its terrible visage shriveled back into the depths, finally calmed.

"It's true," he continued, "I've done terrible things...things I still wish, after all this time, I could just...take back." At that, he held his left arm up to the crimson light, eyes fixed on his wrist as memories of blood and tears welled inside, mournful of the price paid with his life. "But there must be something I can do. You think it's pointless to struggle, but it's all that keeps me going; it's all I have left. I can't afford to lose hope when I've come so far..."

"And how long will you cling to your foolish hopes before they turn to despair?" it challenged, derisive, glints of impatience showing through the shell of its measured restraint. Under it all, however, there was anguish buried deep - bitter, resentful sadness, somber in the silence that followed. "Many before you have tried to answer for the pain they have caused - the lives broken by their destructive desires; the dreams lying shattered in the shadow of their atrocities; the scars on the world they have left behind in their wake..."

Quick as they were quelled, the forges swirled and flared with such intensity that its whole face came alight. Burning shades rose within the inferno, charring its irises until the flames seethed black with malevolent wrath, trails of darkest red gliding through the seas of white.

"...But they were condemned all the same by the God they so revere. So it was that they chased an impossible dream to their ruin, lifetimes wasted in pursuit of a myth - paradise, a fantasy. Theirs is hubris, to aspire to greater than they have earned; greed, to want more than they are given. Are you truly so ignorant, then, to believe yourself any better? Are you so arrogant to believe you'll succeed where they have failed?"

"Even if there's nothing I could ever say to make it all right again...I have to try..." he pleaded desperately, more powerless than before.

"A meaningless vow," accused the beast, "spoken without substance - beseeched in futility, when neither word nor deed will reach a God who is deaf to your plight. Blinded by your mindless search for redemption, the journey will consume all that you are. What you desire is not worth that sacrifice."

"I don't care what I have to give," came his response. "Anything's better than here..."

"How you delude yourself, when you have not even seen the sorrow that awaits you. As the bastion of your faith crumbles, you build it back up, brick by brick, until another wave sends it toppling. Every time, you make your excuses to justify why the powers that be see fit to betray you. Never do you grasp the terror of it all - the unknowable, illogical spite they feel for your mere existence."

Behind its closing eyes, the beacons dimmed to their softer hue. Light slipped through the cracks, shined on his landing, bathed him in bloody red as its focus fixed on him. But what seemed a look of contempt bore a sliver of pity for this wayward soul, a glancing sympathy nestled in its condescension.

"Good and bad, righteous and evil - there are no such things. Those are mortal concepts, inherently simple, created to explain the complexity of a world beyond your control. The only choice you face is your despair: accept your failures...or fail to find acceptance.

"That is what it means to be Damned."

Something deeper in its voice sent his skin crawling. He stumbled back, a cowering mess, trembling anew in horror of its intentions. This sense of foreboding dread he remembered all too well, forced in that moment to fathom his fate. Now, in the shadow of this behemoth, this titan, this host of fear beyond his reckoning, he was as helpless as the day he was sentenced.

"Why are you doing this?" he muttered, cracked and broken by his quivering nerves. "Why should I trust anything you say...?"

And the beast, its silhouette looming in the night, towering tall over its prey, rising up to thunderous clamor, whispered its answer with all the subtlety of a landslide.

"Because _reality_is never as it seems."

Such a simple statement touched him so profoundly, perplexed him to no end. His cowering ceased and breathing stilled, attention captured, thoughts hushed. Long after they graced his ears, cascading ripples through his soul, those words gripped him with a peace and dread all their own.

"Though yet you hope there is some reason in your ordeal, your innocence has deceived you..." it continued. "Here in this miserable precipice, this edge of life and death, this boundary between realms sacred and sinful, you remain. You fell to this land of darkness, lost and adrift as those before you were, because you had fallen from the light of grace. As you reconciled each terrible deed in your heart, you thought so surely you understood everything - your punishment, your penance, your purpose. Yet nothing changed. Hope lay dying at your feet, extinguished; silence rang on your steps, mournful; exile was your only road to walk, desolate."

Pulled inward, his perch approached closer than ever the simmering blaze in its eyes - pyres that burned through their lenses, wisps that coiled and singed his fur, furious specters of insanity. In its ashen pupils, he saw nothing to his reflection but emptiness and grief.

"In truth, you had no purpose here. This place is but a grave for those touched by sin - the unclean that would forever taint the hallowed sanctity of the blessed, the corrupt and the wicked abandoned here to languish for all eternity. You hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing, and, in His eyes, deserve nothing. God has turned His back to His precious children - to your oath of redemption."

"No..." he cried, retreating against his captor's claw.

"Do you understand now?" it asked him, baring its vicious fangs with rage - an anger not guided at its captive, but hatred worth the injustices the beast itself had suffered. "That_is why He did not come for you. _That is why He did not answer your cries...

"...I did."

Tears roiled on the brim of his eyes, fierce as the denial that raged in his troubled mind. Nothing was right anymore. Nothing was as it should have been. He stuttered and stammered, grasping at straws, but had nothing to deny in reason. Though he hung his head, balled his fists, clenched his eyes shut to its barbs, even he, a fool coasting on bravado, could see an unassailable truth within its words. The only deception here was his own - the grand façade he had worn to mask his brooding doubts. How easily this world of lies came crashing down, exposing him as a fraud for his baseless beliefs...

Seeing the shame painting its guest's visage, quakes rumbled from the beast's chest - a sigh, were it amenable to his cause. Once cruel, now tendered by sympathy, its mighty voice plunged to a delicate trace. "You asked before what it was that I want. Too well do I know your pain - the sting of betrayal - for its memory haunts these eyes, burning within ever still...driving me to madness. You are not to blame, dear child. Despised, abhorred by one who should love you, in all your failings. No one deserves such a horrid fate. No one deserves such scorn. And so, that is why I am here..."

Lower its tone drifted, reduced to an almost seductive murmur.

"...To love you as He cannot."

Chills slithered up his legs, wound their way through every hair on his body, until all came to rest, ominously quiet - all but the faintest of sounds droning in his ears. Gently at first, they were echoes that swarmed and swept him like a harrowing wind; then, they were scratches that trembled flesh and bone; then, chimes that shuddered in his soul with awful resonance, demanding his attention - commanding his obedience.

Out of sight, a twisted grin spanned the demon's muzzle, to see how easily its influence had spread.

As the chorus grew, it stifled his every thought in a song of deafening silence. His heart swayed to the music, charmed, bewitched, a fog veiling his gaze. He smiled, oblivious to drowning in a peace too serene to relinquish. It was soothing to abandon worry, his every care in the world - to think this promise of love so genuine, that it was all merited for a soul as sinful as him.

But soon, there showed a dissonance in its tune, as if its comforting warmth burned him with every note it played, crackling flames scorching the tranquility of his mind a terrible, barren black. There was something unnatural, manufactured, fabricated to its melody - hideous words fit for such deceptive kindness. Hearing the harmony fracture, his smile faded, the music died, the illusion dissolved. His mind snapped away from that discordant verse, such that he had resisted its rapturous call - the falsity that these wants were his own, should they have ever been real at all.

"...I don't want your love..."

In emerging from his trance, surprise demolished the demon's confident stare, wiping clean its smirk for an expression of purest chagrin. It fell back to the shadows, sharp gasps and simmering flames plagued deeply by confusion and fury alike, so astonished by such rejection from its prey.

"I hate myself - the monster I've become," he admitted hopelessly. "Perhaps, for that, I don't deserve joy, or love, or compassion - not from you or anyone else...not even myself. But all my hatred has ever done is blind me. Maybe that's how we all are when we come here, naïvely thinking we have the answers, when all along we can't see the ones in front of us..."

He paused, swallowing a somber breath, surrendering himself to his world of musing, neither timid nor sad but for his own uncertainty.

"Now, I finally understand. It takes more than ideals and regrets to set everything right - to make amends for myself, for the people I've hurt. So long as I wallow in my guilt, what I want I can never have. That will never change if I haven't the courage to face every mistake; nothing will. That's why, even if I have to stay here forever, I'll never stop striving for that; even if it dooms me, I'll accept my fate as the price I pay; even if I suffer in silence, I'll give anything for the chance to try..."

The faintest assurance in his voice, arms limp at his side, ears bent back and tail to his feet, he raised his head to confront his host, meeting its fires one last time.

"Whatever it takes, however long it takes...I'll atone."

His bold declaration - his final stand - in its sheer audacity had stunned his host speechless. Its mouth swung agape like it had been struck, igneous eyes brimming with outrage, parsing the full breadth of insult - from anger, to shock, to pain. But whatever its pride had suffered, neither rage nor disappointment could solely define this grimace, this look of resolute defeat. Eyelids setting slow on the suns burning inside, kindness rebuffed, purpose denied, it had no more to give than its final edict, and no more than malice for this miniscule creature in its palm.

"So be it..."

From within the haze of black, he caught the noise of shifting stone, saw the creature bear its colossal hand upward, raising it to the ceiling as if the feat were nothing for its monstrous height. One swift, decisive motion brought its palm swinging down. It smashed the surface of the sea below, spreading ripples of brilliant blue away from its touch. Against their will, they danced for the beast, followed in their light the paw that skimmed the water's edge, that raked the ocean and swept the tides.

Then, a familiar, awful pounding disturbed the calm. Instinctive fear bubbled within him as he stared over the side, tumultuous and violent as the bubbles beneath his loft. His ears remembered well this noise - this horrible, gut-wrenching clamor, echoing in the pit of his stomach with every slam.

Louder, fiercer, faster they knocked, each time churning the waters, each time sending wave after wave of light pulsing from their center. Amidst the ocean spray, pools of cobalt burst from the swells as geysers, shot to the sky as pillars, impaled the heavens as spears. The drops that followed were downpours, cascades of beautiful sapphire streams that stripped the water as though it were a shell, and left in their place four obsidian towers, marring the blackened skyline - mighty, obelisk monuments aglow with streaks of pulsing crimson.

There was little time to gawk, less still to wonder at their sinister purpose as his roost rattled and tossed, the claw bearing its guest through the abyss. As he lay there, cowering at their frightful sight, awaiting the imminent, something powerful unfurled around his wrists and ankles. Panic surged within him as whatever it was clasped tight around his limbs, tugged them taut and spread them apart. But there was nothing there when he looked; he felt its scalding grip, wrestled its pull, jerked against its every move, yet found nary a trace of its existence. Fettered by forces unseen, helpless to break their hold, they brought his struggles to an end when he was hoisted from his feet, pinning him firmly in place in the air. Here he waited in awful silence, in the shadow of those looming spires, a thrall of the darkness at the heart of darkness itself.

"Believe in redemption if you yet hold out hope," the beast conceded, stalking the shadows. "Believe in your penance if it brings you solace. Believe in your virtue if you would reject your sin."

The lights dimmed - all but a glow of blazing orange, shimmering below in the creature's stygian fur. Embers sparked from the tips of its fingers, specks of fire that swirled around him in a crackling vortex. He groaned and strained, eyes darting to their every move, his breathing erratic, his sweat cold, his chest throbbing. Twisting and turning upon themselves, the petals dropped into his fur, coalescing into pairs of thick, short strands down along his left side - settling below his shoulder, above his leg, and at the base of his tail.

Gaze locked to his arm, he stared long and hard, fearful, for he dared not draw his eyes away - for soon he would have every reason not to.

"But if you wish to atone...you will atone with pain."

To his horror, the lines began to move. Their dull warmth warped into an indescribable, incredible pain on his skin. They flowed like molten metal up his arm, igniting his flesh with the intensity of burning iron. His screams filled the air, face twisted in anguish, whole body convulsed. As his voice ran hoarse, he pleaded and begged for any reprieve from this torture to anyone that would listen. But no one heard his broken cries - none but his executioner, who relished each splendid, agonizing moment with a growing smile. He was alone in his fate, and there was no respite, nor any salvation, for a damned soul like him.

Vanquished, he could only watch as they carved through his arm with their red hot glow. They traced their way from his shoulder to his wrist, spiraled and snaked, crossed and curved, until they drew the shape of a double helix, searing their creed of penance eternally into his fur. He gazed in terrible awe of it, its foreboding red glow exuding the same hatred as his captor's eyes, lingering in the darkness long since the pain had ceased.

More waves of fire shot through him soon after, jolting him up into renewed, miserable howls. The lines on his waist descended now, weaving down his left leg and tail. He couldn't see past the tears, head arching back, eyes alight with terror, forced to experience every boiling sting all over again as it wrapped around his extremities at its taunting pace. Stretched from waist to ankle, tail-base to tip, the prongs coiled and abruptly stopped, simmering like forged iron when the pattern ingrained itself.

Exhausted from his ordeal, he collapsed against the pull of his restraints, face and fur dripping with an eternity of tears, limbs visibly throbbing in such unrelenting pain. There was a brief pause, an uncomfortably tense moment when he half expected, with a shred of indignant irony, that the ritual would resume. But his body had already withstood so much; he was too decimated, emotionally and physically, to endure any more. Now, as the last vestiges of defiance flickered out in his mind, he hadn't the strength to fight back against these injustices. All he knew were the remnants of his torture - the smell of burnt fur and cinders clogging his nose; the sound of his heavy, panting breaths haunting his thoughts; the touch of cool sweat soaking his wounds. And though he prayed for a merciful end, his trial had only just begun...

Savoring the torment in his labored breaths, the demon grasped his frail, spluttering husk in its claw, ripping him free from his bonds with a sound of snapping fire. It brought him closer, to impart its final words devoid of pity or emotion.

"I have shown you the mercy no other will give. But this...this is nothing to what awaits you."

They crashed upon his ears like a raging wave, and he could only listen in horror as it made its intentions known. Few things provoked such crippling terror in his heart as that. In complete and utter silence, he could hear it beating in his chest - the erratic, panicked thumps exploding behind his crushed ribs.

"Your suffering...your Hell...is only beginning."

Those words shattering like glass in his heart. Hope obliterated, it slammed him down into the cold sea below and dragged him into the abyss, where the harsh torrents closed around and claimed him.

So dazed and confused by the drop, he was drowning before he even realized the danger, forcing his eyes open against the sharp pain of water in his lungs. He tried to fight it, to pull himself free from the beast's grip, but its hold was too strong, and his arms too weak. Instead, were any action were better than none at all, he began to thrash wildly about in the darkness. He dug his claws into the creature's stone flesh; he churned the waters reaching for the surface; he desperately flailed his arms and kicked his legs until he hung his head again, defeated.

At last, he understood what it meant - the inevitable.

His only salvation was to give in and swallow the tides, his only comfort the painless release. But try as he might, he couldn't muster the courage in his frail, feeble heart to act on those impulses. Filled with turmoil, he tried many times, always hesitating. It wasn't reason that held him back, but fear- a stronger, more visceral emotion than any other - and fear was the only thing that kept him incessantly clinging to life, fighting the excruciating pain of suffocation.

He was truly terrified of dying again, whatever it entailed, for each passing second could have been his last. It was the terror of the unknown, the very first startling thought he came to terms with here, that saw him off into the next life...

And once it started, the flow couldn't be stopped.

The water's icy touch stabbed through him. And yet...it soothed him somehow; cradled him. Wrapped in its embrace, it was like he was returning home to where he belonged - to where the light was. This drifting feeling...painfully familiar, like succumbing to slumber, weary eyes watching the world go by without him, wondering if it were better off that way having lost the memory of his evil. Though his sight dimmed, he still saw between the narrow gaps its haunting, blazing eyes, staring at him in the far distance. It was smiling at him - the smile of his nightmares.

That was the last thing he saw before its hand relinquished him to the depths, letting go of his lifeless corpse so that he might again find the peace - and the dread - of death.

"Now...fall."

***

Rain...

So serene, the sound - one welcomed after eternities spent in solitude. Like a quiet buzzing, or a rustling of leaves, its soft patter trickled through his ears. The splatters of raindrops broke upon his face like needles, welled in his eyes and ran down his cheek as would tears; they drenched his fur in the biting cold, pooling around his body. He lay there, soaking in the damp and dark, brooding on his failures, listening to the emptiness inside and out. And as he stirred from his stupor to a new world of misery, he felt it fitting that the heavens themselves wept for the loss of their son.

Never had he imagined he would wake again. Never did he want to...

Blurred visions of light and shadow danced through the cracks of his eyes, lucid dreams made manifest. Through those slits, he saw the faint outline of his arm, yet he felt nothing, not even the slightest twinge. He stared at it, soulless eyes vexed by the absence of touch. There was no pain, no edge to the frigid deluge, only the bristling numbness beneath his skin that dulled all sensation. His muscles were too weak to manage more than twitching spasms; his breathing, shallow and lifeless; his entire body, aching and tired.

"What's the point anymore...?" he mumbled with what meager breath he could spare, as if time had changed the answer, or given purpose to his pointless efforts. He was forever alone in his suffering, so often on the verge of death that dying had no meaning anymore; neither did living. Whether dead or alive, he no longer knew what difference it made, when in both he was denied his happiness. There was no solace in this sorrow, nor faith in this doubt; there was no paradise for the sinful, nor remorse for the undeserving; all that remained to give purpose to his life, and his death, was regret.

At last, he shut his eyes to this painful reality, his only comfort the sounds of silence drumming in his ears, this procession of splatters breaking upon his body. As he listened to their song, he simply wondered if these tears, an elegy to his worthless life, were wasted on him...

...Something grabbed his attention. He winced, pulled away from his mournful thoughts by a growing discomfort - a sharp bite in his sensitive flesh. A raindrop had struck his cheek, unremarkable but for its unpleasant chill spreading through him, too incessant to ignore. It was a torturous barb that dug into the serenity of his mind, pulling him back when all he wanted was to push away. Then, were every drop a hail of daggers, that same icy touch washed over him in an instant. It shot through his skin, surged through his spirit, choked his lungs with their own air. He was horrified, drowning anew in his sorrows without strength to breathe, when all he wanted was for this pain to stop...

...Pain.

It chimed in his ears, this strange word that slipped from his own mouth. Suddenly, a glimmer of life flickered within his empty depths, to know there was still warmth in his veins warring against the deathly cold. Though his body was battered and his pride bruised, he remembered - had he ever forgotten - this familiar sensation, once lost to his deadened nerves. This pain, so real and vivid, reminded him of what it was to live - how it was to feel. It jabbed at his ears and prickled his skin, pulling his weary eyes open to the world they had once shut out. But what he saw through the glaze of water glittering in his sight was not the gloom he had come to despise.

There was light to soothe his soul, a gentle, golden glow that burned away the fog in his eyes; there was rain to flood his view, its splendors drowning him in brilliant hues. It was a blessing unequaled, a miracle to wake with this blinding sting, this gleam in his eyes - to wake at all. So long ago had he given up faith that hope seemed a bitter comfort. Now, as this formless world took shape before him, hope was all he needed to overcome his despair.

Rolled on his side with his face half-soaked in a puddle, as he lay there cherishing this feeling of peace, the blur of his arm came at last into focus, splayed out before him with its palm curled. His fingers stood unbending, catching the rain in their basin, numb to every drop that bounced from their rigid arches. Between breaths, he tried to shift his weight, to lift his limbs, to clench his fist, to no avail. Everything was as heavy as stone, crippled no matter how he strained, no matter how fiercely he fought.

And still, had the cold had robbed him of sense, some senseless part of him never stopped. Once more, he flexed his aching muscles and creaking joints, satisfied only when his lungs collapsed, choking him with his own breath. It left him reeling, eyes watering, gasping and wheezing for minutes as the haze cleared from his throat. But again, starved of air, he tried. So desperately driven was he to succeed - to spite the whims of fate for once in his pathetic, miserable existence - that his fear of failure paled in comparison. He kept clasping, trembling, brow narrowed and searching with every attempt, searching for even the slightest sign to show that his struggle meant something.

Then, with one more push, he watched in awe as the faintest twitch throbbed in his finger...

His heart soared in that moment of triumph. With baited breath, believing it a cruel joke, he clenched a second time. Yet there it was all the same - a defiant spasm, a crooking bow, a burning in their tips. His next push bent all his fingers; another brought his whole palm folding inward. This was his chance to seize, for each time he closed his grasp, slowly those digits inched nearer to his palm, as if pressing forth to wrest the reins from destiny itself. At long last, ragged and worn, he had balled his fingers into an awkward fist, compressed his paw until his blood thawed - until, little by little, he had conquered that paralyzing malaise; until he had conquered all doubt.

What started as a flame grew to a fervor, like wildfire running through his flesh. Down came his paw with the splash of sparkling mist, the rush of freezing rain, the sound of stirring silence. Elbow bent, he shoved the floor with all his might, only for his arm to buckle and sway under his weight. The stress had taken its mighty toll, shattered his will and broken his resolve, to say nothing of the cold that even now mired his muscles in horrible aches. Though the burden proved too much to bear, still he fought, unflinching, slinging his other arm to the ground to steady his rise rather than plunge in disgrace.

In that moment of desperation, however, he found for himself just how far the spark had spread. Where once that limb was limp and useless, it had become his pillar of strength, bracing tight as he fell upon it. His legs, unwieldy as boulders only moments ago, now shifted through the pond with a sluggish, meandering shuffle - an arduous pace, were he learning to walk from scratch.

Now was the time, he knew; now, he was ready as ever. Each step, each motion was careful, for a single slip would send his efforts crashing down. The water had engulfed his ankles, and his feet slid as he gained precious ground, threatening to send him plummeting ahead. But never did he lose sight of his goal, not with his grip so firmly, confidently in place. Hunched over, he planted his feet flat and arched his back, rose up from the squalor on wobbling legs, and stood for what felt the first time in ages - finally, victorious.

...And as he stood up, tall and proud in his hard-fought conquest, he peered at once into the distance and realized this world was not as he had imagined.

There was light around him, a halo that set his white fur aglow; there was solid footing beneath him, hard pavement slick with rainwater. Yet this light was but a bastion against the shadows that lurked on its fringes, a pool of gold in a sea of ink, and he lay in its center, staring bewildered into the encroaching abyss. Beyond the concrete, past the edge of what he could see, there was simply nothing - darkness; everywhere the darkness he could never escape. Emptiness surrounded his drenched perch, an eerie, living night, a land unformed and unshaped. Where the light ended and the darkness began, that small stretch of a sidewalk was torn asunder from another realm, serving as his only respite from an eternal plunge into nothingness.

In awe of the spectacle, he watched the rain fall on and past his little circle, listened to the droplets bouncing off his ears. Unlike before, this surreal, infinite shadow engulfing his world enchanted more than frightened him; he was clueless to its mysteries, quick to forget the gloom that surrounded him.

Looking above at the deep black sky, at the streetlight shining upon him, his eyes were stabbed by its brilliance, blinded by its brightness. His paw came up reflexively to block the view, mercifully sparing his vision, unnaturally sensitive after so much time spent dwelling in the dark. But as that piercing glare fizzled from sight, he was quick to notice something amiss - something he didn't expect.

His hand...

It looked smaller.

A baffled stare froze on his face as he brought it down. He trembled, he blinked, he turned it and shuddered. In ways, it looked the same; in ways, it looked bizarre. Its proportions were shrunken, with shorter, softer fur lining those tiny paws. And then, his eyes caught a glimpse of black staining the pristine fur on his wrist. Chest pounding, anticipating the worst, his eyes traced it up along his arm, through each twisting turn it took, following the coil of a double helix and the memory of agony - both charred into his very being the color of ash.

Like he had seen a ghost, he leapt back with a splash. Were there any doubts it had happened, that this was all a horrid dream, they were silenced in that instant. An uncomfortable, racking shiver slithered up his spine, made worse when he looked lower, noticing the same pattern engraved in his leg from waist to ankle. When he looked behind him, it was there too, on his tail. Tufts of black and white fur parted when he touched them, to show it was a part of him now, melded and joined with his coat. That mark branded him; cursed him. Though he scratched and rubbed the rain into it, he couldn't remove its stain. It was a symbol of his sins - never to be forgotten, and never to be undone.

"N-No..." he stuttered out, eyes suddenly alight with panic and nervous paws springing up to his muzzle, clamping it shut. It wasn't his voice that came out. It was no longer that of confidence and age; now, it sounded miniscule. He spoke again in his deepest tone, resembling more of a squeak the way it came from his lips.

Confusion sank through him, and all thoughts, hushed, turned to his hand. He held it up in front of him, stopping to look it over again, touched it to his face to confirm for himself his own worst fears. His tiny paws and pudgy fingers grazed his vulpine ears. They combed through his plume of head-fur, now a dripping fluff of its former glory. They ran along his fuzzy coat of fur, ruffled and matted by rain and mud. They traced his shortened snout. They held his bushy tail in their grasp more easily than before.

Every part of him was smaller.

_He_was smaller.

Laying there in the frail light was not a man anymore. All that he was, all that remained of his pride, had been regressed, reduced to a mere child.

"Oh God, no..." he uttered, a broken chord of despair. Shaking and crying, he held both paws up to the light and dejectedly shook his head. "No, no...no, no, no, no, no...! Th-...th-th-this isn't real! This isn't happening!"

Nothing could explain this transformation, grounded in neither logic nor reason, naught but in the realm of his darkest fantasy. Even with his own eyes, he didn't believe it. But in his heart, brooding in that moment of clarity, was the truth - that this afterlife, so far removed from his understanding, so shrouded in mystery to mortal minds, was never meant to be understood. There were things in this world outside his control, forces beyond reckoning, and his life, his very soul, was in their hands now. Panting breaths and quivering palms, cold sweat and sputtering sobs, he was not prepared for the fear that washed over him as harshly as the rain broke and splattered against his back.

Indeed, never had the unknown terrified him so.

"How...?" he whimpered under his breath, his pathetic, childish voice faltering. As the only warmth he knew in this world of rain and silence trickled down his cheeks, he balled his hands into fists, struck them to the ground, and screamed his frustrations into the night. "How...? How?! How did this happen?!"

He slammed them again, as many times as it would take to satisfy him, gritting his teeth through the abuse he put upon himself. Yet nothing would ease the pain within, not even the pain without. Before long, his paws throbbed and bled, scraped against the pavement, when the agony of his own rage grew too much to bear. Only then did his tantrum cease. But that pointless truce with himself did nothing to calm his tortured soul, nor anything to answer his desperate prayers.

"...I never wanted this...not like this. So why? Why...?"

As he slumped over, all the water in his fur lurching to the ground, he curled up with his arms wrapped around his legs. He wanted so badly for this torment, this limbo of punishment for his horrible crimes, to end. He wanted to believe there was some grand lesson in all of this, a moral worth learning - a catharsis to cleanse him of impurity, to make this irony mean something. But all it did was show him how meaningless his defiance was - how powerless he was to change himself, to change anything. His desires had turned on him, invaded his reality, and they brought anything but the bliss he imagined.

"Is this...what I deserve...?"

Stricken by grief, he finally collapsed into bawling sobs, fitting for the baby he had become. Thereafter, he stayed, immersed in a rising tide of rain and tears, venting his sorrow into the night until his throat turned dry. Even then, his wails never stopped; they flowed ever onward in the void, carried on the winds for all to learn of his shame. He was left there, naked and afraid, to comprehend the true meaning of loss, for loss was all he had.

And then, amidst his cries...a distant sound caught itself in his ears.

Perking up, with sadness streaming down his cheeks, he fell mute. Light at first, the noise was almost nothing, hardly distinct enough to stand out against the rain pelting him. But these sounds were different, and almost certainly no figment to cause such feelings of unease. In time, it grew more pronounced - the splash of puddles from something too large to be any raindrop, and the hollow clop on concrete that followed. Slowly but surely, it was moving closer to him. To each slosh, there was a rhythm, in a deliberate, natural interval.

Footsteps.

A shape took form in the wall of darkness as the sound drew closer still. It was a vague blur his teary eyes strained to see, an intimidating shadow looming on the outskirts of his sanctuary, tall and towering to him. But the nearer it approached, the clearer its features became, until he saw the unmistakable outline of a person strolling toward him through the abyss. Skeptical of this incredible feat, his eyes followed, unblinking, even while the tears overflowed like drains in a storm. The sounds matched their every step, to show this world was not empty but, somehow, incomplete - and how they crossed its bounds, he couldn't say.

Clothed in dark, a man walked through the curtain of night drawn around the island, holding an umbrella to shield himself from the light and rain. His stride was slow and casual; his direction, aimless. Perhaps it was by chance, as he moved closer, that his wandering gaze took notice of a peculiar sight, an unusual obstacle sitting in his path. Looking straight into the child's eyes, surprised and perplexed, he stopped.

They locked eyes, bearing the same awestruck expression, the same marked disbelief. And when the man tipped his umbrella back, letting the droplets coating it run freely to the ground, showing himself in the spotlight, they shared more than a passing resemblance. His fur white as pure snow, vulpine ears and a plume between them, a bushy tail curled to his side; all groomed and well kempt for a man of appearances.

He was an arctic fox...just like him.

Neither would break the stare, admiring the striking comparison like family ties. But there was something more than that in the man's eyes, studying the kit with discerning glances, like some thought, a realization, dwindled on the tip of his tongue. They traced the lines on the boy's arm and leg up to their ends, catching a glimpse of the marking repeated on his tail. Those winding helixes were intimately familiar to him, for they were his sign that events had been set into motion, and that his call to action had been answered.

This child, bearing his sin on his sleeve, was the one he sought.

Slowly, and unexpectedly, a faint smile stretched across his face - a knowing grin that jarred the boy from his trance.

"I've been waiting for you..." he announced, letting the stillness between them carry his words, little more than a whisper on the winds. Beneath its gentle exterior, his airy voice was rich and bold, strong and firm, kind and sincere - how he once imagined his own to be, had it only glowed with such compassion. When the stranger spoke, it was as if a warm breeze billowed against the child's skin, twisting and nestling deep in his ears, drowning out the sounds of rain with calm. But as his delicate voice settled within him, as its dulcet tones embraced him in their melodies, a foreboding silence followed. It invaded his mind and hushed his thoughts, crept through his skin and up his spine like a chill breath.

As if horrified of threats unseen, every hair on his little body stood on end, and his face warped with horror. He couldn't put into words the terror it inspired, that descended upon him, for even he knew this fear was unreasonable. Everything about this man seemed tailored to capture an impossible perfection in his eyes - embodying his desires so well, as if ripped straight from his dreams. These were his fantasies, perverted and distorted. They were shaped to hurt him, to deceive him, to drive him to the depths of despair even he wouldn't tread.

Time here had taught him that nothing was what it seemed anymore. Now, all he could do, without the strength to flee or fight, was resume his slow, scared, quivering cries, ears folded back, tail curled, pleading up to the man for mercy.

"Awwww..." the older fox cooed, his persistent smile softened by a touch of empathy and concern for the crying boy, whose sad eyes welled up with caution to see him approach. Careful steps brought him closer, where he kneeled to his level, unfazed by the spread of rainwater soaking his pant leg, and leaned in with his umbrella to shelter them both.

"It's okay, little guy. Don't cry..." he consoled, with tenderness that thawed the cold air between them. His voice melted in the child's soul, robust and genuine, absent of the unsettling intent it once concealed. Instead, it revealed a side of him the kit had yet to hear - a passionate flame underneath that radiated warmth, that caressed his heart and cradled his soul.

Within his troubled mind, those words resonated endlessly, forcefully, with prominence and power indescribable. They were more than empty assurances ignorant of his woes; they offered him refuge, spoken as if all was right with the world, and overflowed with sympathy for a little waif the adult hardly knew, sopping wet and miserable in the evening downpour.

Now, the tears that were once bursting rivers slowed to trickles indistinguishable from the rain. He wiped away the water from his eyes with quiet sniffles, leaving in their place an enraptured, vacant gaze, peering straight into the man's beautiful blue eyes. He lost himself in their depths, soulful lights of azure glowing with the comfort he needed in his darkest hour. They understood him; they loved him unconditionally, were remorse for his sadness second nature. But more than anything...they claimed him. Beneath the surface, those sparkling mirrors glimmered, covetous with a desire all their own...and seeing his face reflected in them, he knew he was the object of their affection.

"There we go!" His grin blossomed with vibrant praise. "See? You're safe with me. Everything's gonna be all right..."

...Safe.

That message drifted through the child's ears, flickered in his timid eyes, so full of hope and relief. Never had that peace of mind meant so much to him, to know that someone cared for him in this cruel world when it mattered most. For such a simple promise, uttered so sweetly, it swooned his heart enough to believe any lie, so long as that voice was the one speaking them.

Fixed on his savior's every move, he watched him stand, soar above his view, and lower his hand down to him, with that beaming smile shining brighter than ever on his muzzle. "What's your name, dear?"

The child looked to the man's palm, face alight with wondrous awe, but his trembling paw wouldn't reach. Twinges of doubt ensnared him, as if he were unworthy of such kindness once denied to him - as if knowing how, without knowing why, that happiness came at a price. But the more he gaped, the more he believed, in his willful ignorance, that there was something real in that gesture. It lent its warmth in a cold world not his own, extended its strength to his fragility, pledged its love for one hated even by himself, all in exchange for trust, no matter how misplaced, to a stranger in the rain. For the first time, fate had given him a choice worth making, for a life worth living.

And as his tiny hand grabbed hold of the man's, clinging to its gentle contours, he would seize that fate for himself, for even the abandoned are not without their foolish hopes.

"...Lynn."